The Price of Glory (20 page)

“The captain's discretion is legendary,” murmured his lordship, with a return to his customary humour.

“Rose, if I may call her that, is practically a pauper, though you would never know it from her style of living, while Thérésa is the daughter of Count François Cabarrus, financial adviser to the King of Spain and a man of considerable wealth. But both women are ever in need of the means to finance the daily grind, as it were. And both are known to take bribes from those who think it may buy them an advantage with the current government of France.” The small pause that followed might have been for effect or from a natural revulsion to such alien practices, as might be expected of a director of the Bank of England. “And more to the point, both have invested heavily in the speculations of one Gilbert Imlay. A gentleman with whom, I understand, you are well acquainted.”

So, here it comes, Nathan thought: another of Imlay's intrigues. And the way the conversation was going, he was destined to become as involved in this one as he had been in the last, though it had come close to killing him on occasion. That, too, he recalled, had begun with a conversation at the Admiralty.

“You knew him in Paris, I believe, and then in the Caribbean?” The banker did not wait for Nathan's reply. “And he may have told you of his investments in the western territories of the United States.”

Now he did wait, his head inclined to an angle and his eyes sharp, like a blackbird, Nathan thought, following the underground burrowing of a worm.

“He once told me he had purchased 18,000 acres of virgin land in Kentucky and wished to become a farmer,” Nathan confirmed. “I was inclined to be sceptical.”

“Well, that is certainly a portion of his holdings, though I believe he has yet to pay for the land in question and I do not expect he will ‘turn a clod himself,' as they say in Ireland. But he has laid claim to a great deal more than 18,000 acres. Several hundred thousand would be more accurate, registered in the names of certain surrogates. Th is does not surprise you, Captain?”

“Not especially,” Nathan confessed, who would have been surprised only if Imlay had paid for it out of his own pocket.

“Well, and we now approach the crux of the matter: if the United States should expand westward, that land will be worth a great deal more than it is now. However, the entire territories west of the Mississippi and north to the Canada border are presently part of the Spanish Empire. And Spain is stubbornly opposed to settlement, fearing to jeopardise its hold on the region. Their agents in Natchez and New Orleans, indeed, all along the Mississippi, have been encouraging the Indians to attack the few settlements that have been established there, which are mainly American of course. And of course, their hold on New Orleans blocks any access to the sea by means of the rivers. But you will know all this from your own experience of the region.”

Nathan's mind was racing. True, all this
was
known to him. The mystery was, where it was heading.

“However, we have now learned that certain factions in Madrid are anxious for an accommodation with the Revolutionists in Paris,” the banker resumed, “and that in return for peace in Europe they would be prepared to cede the entire region to France. That is, the vast territory west of the Mississippi, from New Orleans to the Canada border and westward to the Pacific Ocean.”

He gave Nathan a moment to take this in.

“We need to know if the French and the Spanish have come to an arrangement along these lines,” explained Earl Spencer in case he was having difficulty. “That is why we want you to go to Paris.”

In the sudden silence Nathan could hear the pigeons coo-carooing on his lordship's windowledge. It sounded to him remarkably like a dry chuckle, the kind the Devil might make, or Gilbert Imlay. He spread his palms in a gesture of helpless confusion. “But how am I to even begin to … to …”

“You will carry a letter from Imlay introducing you to Madame Tallien as his agent,” continued the banker briskly, “in which capacity you will invite her to confide in you concerning the intentions of the French government in North America. Has there been a secret agreement with Spain along the lines I have outlined? What has France agreed in return? And is the United States involved in the deal?”

You could not fault him for clarity, Nathan thought, and as easy as pounds, shillings and pence.

“But why—even if she knows—would she pass on such information to me?” he enquired reasonably. “Even if she thinks I am a friend of Imlay's?”

“Because it could make her the richest woman in Europe.”

Another short silence. Even the pigeons appeared attentive.

“If the territory is ceded to France,” his lordship expounded, “and the French come to some arrangement with the United States over settlement in the region, then the land Imlay has registered in their names will increase substantially in value. If Madame Tallien knows of this, then she will almost certainly be anxious to purchase more land from the same source. And that will tell us a great deal.”

Nathan considered the prospect gloomily. So he was to become a land agent for Gilbert Imlay, while the fellow continued to strut around London, wining and dining in Covent Garden and entertaining his concubine in Charlotte Street.

“Come now,” said Spencer, seeing his downcast expression, “from what I have heard, you will find Madame Tallien a charming confidante. She may even invite you to one of her notorious salons. I am told they would shame the courtesans of Venice for indecency and cause even the Hottentots of the Limpopo to consider themselves o'erdressed.”

“I cannot wait,” murmured Nathan, with something of his lordship's humour.

“Excellent, for there is a vessel waiting for you at Deal, which will transport you across the Channel this very night.”

“Tonight?” Nathan was startled.

“I am sorry if that inconveniences you. If you have any more duels outstanding, I am afraid they will have to wait upon your return.”

“But what of the
Unicorn,
my lord?”

“Never fear, we will not give her to someone else. I should not think you would be long detained. Indeed, the sooner you bring us news of what the French are plotting with their friends in Madrid, the sooner we will be able to make our own dispositions to counter it.”

“Then I had better make my own dispositions, my lord, if I am to leave for Deal before dark.” This would not take long. He had one bag to pack and two women to bid farewell—three if you counted Izzy.

“Before you do, there is one more thing.” Nathan braced himself. “As Imlay's representative, you will find yourself at the heart of the seraglio that presently governs France and in an excellent position to judge its strengths and weaknesses. It is to be hoped that you will learn a great deal more that will be of use to us. In particular, why the opposition in Paris failed to act during the landings at Quiberon.”

“Is that something Madame Tallien might be expected to know, my lord?”

“It is. For her husband has the responsibility for repressing internal dissent—in the Vendée and elsewhere. It is important for us to have more knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition in Paris.”

Nathan's gloom increased proportionately.

“From what Imlay has told us, Madame Tallien and her friend Rose are not only the greatest trollops in Paris, but also its most notorious gossips. I am persuaded they will be only too happy to babble out their secrets to you and that you will soon become the most intimate of friends. Indeed, I cannot but envy you the opportunity.”

“I was only wondering, my lord, why, if he is so trusted, you do not send Imlay himself?”

“Ah. Well, now.” His lordship shot a look at the banker. “That is to stray into areas that do not properly concern you. I will only say that while Mr. Imlay has made himself extremely useful to His Majesty's Government from time to time, his paramount loyalties are, we believe, to the United States of America. And of course, to himself. If any conflict of interest were to arise, I do not believe we could rely upon him to put Britain first, whereas in your case, of course, we can.”

“And can we be sure that Imlay's recommendation is still to be trusted by his friends in Paris?” Nathan persisted. “For he has been away a long time.”

“Oh, I think so. His friends still appear to have every confidence in him. And after all, they have a great deal to gain by it. They have ambitions to buy America. And you, sir, will sell it to them, at a most advantageous rate.”

I
T
WAS OVER A
YEAR
since Nathan was last in Paris. In the month of Thermidor: the time of the heat. He had stood pretty much where he was standing now when he had first seen the death carts trundling down the Rue Honoré with their daily quota of flesh and blood for the machine on the Place de la Révolution.

They had been led by a little drummer boy with a face like an angel, beating the step; then came the foot soldiers with fixed bayonets; then a troop of horse; and then the carts. Farm carts with tall sides that the English called tumbrels and the French
charrettes
that were handy for carrying hay and other loose produce of the fields. But on that occasion they had been carrying women. Women from many walks of life and of many different ages, though most were in their twenties or younger. Their hair had been roughly cropped, so roughly as to lacerate the scalp in parts. Their hands had been tied and their chemises torn to expose the nape of the neck and, in some cases, the breasts. Some were praying. Others weeping. A bystander told Nathan they were nuns. Nuns and whores. He did not appear to make a distinction.

The procession had put Nathan in mind of a similar event, in Salem, Massachusetts, where they had once hanged seventeen women for the practice of witchcraft. It had happened long before his birth but it was part of his family history and it had been described to him many times when he was growing up, for one of the condemned had been his great-grandmother, Sarah Good. And many times since had he seen her, in his nightmares, flying across the moon on her broomstick, as witches do in childish dreams, or twisting slowly at the gallows with her face black and her tongue protruding and her eyes staring and the rope creaking. In certain conditions aboard ship, in a gentle swell when there was little else to trouble him, he would hear the creaking of a rope and it would haunt him still, that slowly twisting corpse.

Now he watched a very different procession advancing down the Rue Honoré, or the Rue
Saint
-Honoré, as it was now called, its former sanctity having been restored to it in these more tolerant times. It was led by a number of young men dressed all in black, as if for a funeral, but with long plaits hanging down over their shoulders, like thin coils of rope, or snakes, and their hands thrust insolently into their pockets. They were known as
Muscadins,
Nathan had learned, and their garb distinguished them as men who had been condemned to death in the time of the Terror or who had suffered the loss of at least one close relative to the guillotine. They sauntered, rather than marched, down the centre of the street, those at the rear forced into an indignant scuttle from time to time by the disrespectful horses that followed: six prancing greys pulling a violet-painted carriage with matching curtains. And behind the carriage came a troupe of young women attired in muslin, so thin and so closely aligned to the curves of the female form that its value in preserving the modesty of the wearer was negligible. Indeed, the material appeared to have been soaked in water, or oil, to make it more revealing. These were the
Merveilleuses,
he had heard, an exclusively female order united by their striking physical beauty and a passionate resolve to outrage the rest of society by any means imaginable. Nathan had seen many things in Paris that were not seen in other cities and had thought himself inured to shock, but he did blink a little at this, for he doubted if even Babylon in all its glory could have surpassed so blatant a display of harlotry. And yet there was a kind of almost pastoral innocence about it, a splendid indifference to convention, the creatures dancing with such obvious delight in their own bodies, as if to express their sublime joy of life and expunge the horrors of the past when death had ruled here.

Behind them came four young men of exceptional beauty and muscularity, wearing nothing but a pair of goatskin breeches and playing pan pipes. And behind
them
came a long line of open carriages and cabs carrying the
Jeunesse Dorées
—the Gilded Youth of Paris—in oversized coats with enormous collars and exaggerated cravats that covered not only the neck and breast but most of the chin; flesh-coloured nankeen breeches so tightly moulded to the limbs that they appeared to be wearing nothing below the waist save their gleaming boots: the new
sans culottes
of Paris, following the route to the guillotine.

Nathan had taken much the same route from his hotel: past the studio of the artist Jean-Baptiste Regnault where Sara had studied—and occasionally posed nude if Imlay could be believed; past the old disused priory where the Jacobins had met to debate the cause of Revolution and chart its uncertain course; past the boarded-up doorway of the Duplays' workshop where Robespierre had lodged when he was the greatest man in France and which the mob had anointed with ox-blood for his own final journey to the guillotine. He walked with a head full of memories, ignoring the shop windows with their latest fashions, the leaflets proclaiming the delights of some new dance hall or theatre, the prostitutes who openly accosted him at every step. More than twenty thousand, according to one report, were now operating on the streets of Paris. Where had they been at the time of the Terror when they were not bundled into the death carts; how had they made a living? On into the Place de la Révolution where the guillotine had once stood: an open meadow where sheep and cows now grazed and couples walked arm in arm. Impossible not to think of the blood that had been spilled here and the heads that had rolled. Of Marie Antoinette, the golden Queen of France, sketched in the tumbrel by the artist David as a toothless, grey-haired crone; and the dignified, if puzzled gentleman who had been its King and was brought here in a closed carriage lest his bearing incite the crowds. Of Charlotte Corday who had stabbed Marat in his bath and Madame Roland who had done nothing very much but speak out of turn and serve sugared water at her salons instead of champagne which was quite enough, according to Danton, to make an end to her. Of Danton himself, who had been the voice of Revolution, and Desmoulins, its stammering scribe. Of the thousands of others, some famous, most not, who had trod these same bloody boards, thinking what to say, or simply struck dumb, wondering how they came to be here and very much wishing they had a smaller part in the drama. But not a sign, not a stain, no statue or memorial stone remained to mark their passing, nothing to remind the strolling couples what had happened here at the time of the Terror: just the grazing cows and the sheep and the wild flowers growing in profusion amongst the sun-bleached grass.