The Whites and the Blues (24 page)

"Let us play above-board."

"I ask nothing better."

4 'Your name is not Fenouillot, you are not related to

the lawyer at Besangon, you were not the Prince de Condi's prisoner, you are his agent."

"That is true, general."

"And you remained by his order to make me some pro posals from the royalists at the risk of being shot."

4 'That is also true."

"But you said to yourself, 'General Pichegru is brave and he will understand that it requires a certain degree of courage to do what I am doing; perhaps he will not shoot me, though he may refuse; and then he will send me back to the prince with his refusal.' '

'' That is also true; but I hope that after having heard me—"

"After having heard you there is just one case in which I shall have you shot; of that I warn you."

4 'What is that?"

"If you should put a price on my treason."

"Or your devotion."

"We will not discuss the words, but the thing. Are you disposed to answer all my questions ?''

"I am, general."

"I am going to cross-examine you, I warn you 0 "

"Goon."

Pichegru drew his pistols from his belt and laid one on either side of his plate.

"General," said the pretended clerk, laughing, "I hope those are not your cards that you are laying on the table."

"Have the goodness to put my pistols on the mantel shelf, since you are nearer to it than I am,'' replied Piche gru, "they are not comfortable in my belt." And he pushed his pistols within the other's reach, who carried them to the mantel-shelf and returned to his seat.

Pichegru bowed slightly and the other did the same.

"Now," said Pichegru, "let us begin."

"I am waiting."

"What is your name?"

"Fauche-Borel."

"Where do you come from ?"

" Neuchatel. Only my name might have been Fenouil-lot, and I might have come from Besangon, since I belong to a Franche-Comte' family which did not leave until after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes."

"In that case I should have recognized you for a fellow-countryman by the accent.''

"Excuse me, general, but how did you know that 1 was not a commercial traveller for champagne.''

"By the way you opened the bottles. Citizen, another time choose another character.''

"What one, for instance?"

"A bookseller."

"You know me, then?"

"I have heard of you."

"In what way?"

"As an uncompromising enemy of the Eepublic, and the author of royalist pamphlets. Excuse me if I continue to question you.''

"Continue, general; I am at your service."

"How did you become an agent for the Prince de Conde."

"My name first attracted the attention of the Eegent 1 in a royalist pamphlet of M. d'Antragues, entitled 'Memoirs of the Eegency of Louis Stanislas Xavier, son of France, uncle of the King, and Kegent of France.' He noticed it a second time when I induced the inhabitants of Neuchatel to sign the Act of Union.''

"And I know that from that time your house became the resort of the emigrants and the hotbed of the anti-revolutionists. ''

"The Prince de Condd knew it also and sent a certain Montgaillard to know if I would join him."

"Do you know that Montgaillard is an intriguer?" asked Pichegru.

"I fear so," replied Fauche-Borel.

1 A title which Louis XVIII. bore while Louis XVII. lived.

"He serves the king under two names—Roques and Pinard."

"You are well informed, general; but M. de Montgail-lard and I have nothing in common except that we both serve the same prince."

u Let us return to him then. You were just saying that he sent M. de Montgaillard to know if you would join him."

"Yes; he told me that the prince had his headquarters at Dawendorff, and would receive me with pleasure. I started at once. I went first to "Weissembourg, to throw your spies off the scent by making them think that I was going to Bavaria. I then went down toward Haguenau, and from there I reached Dawendorff."

"How many days have you been here?"

"Two."

*' And how did the prince broach the subject to you ?''

"In the simplest manner possible, the Chevalier de Con-tyre presented me to him. 'M. de Fauche-Borel,' he said. The prince rose and came toward me.—You wish me to repeat his exact words, do you not, general ?''

"Yes."

" 'My dear Monsieur Fauche,' he said to me, 'I know you through all my companions in arms, who have told me over and over of your hospitality to them. I have therefore wished for some time to see you, and to offer you a mission that would be as advantageous as it is honorable. I have recognized for a long time that I cannot depend on foreign ers. The reinstatement of our family upon the throne is not an end but a pretext; foreigners are foreigners, and will do everything for their own interests and nothing for the in terests of France. No, it is from within that we must bring about the restoration; and,' he continued, laying his hand upon my arm, 'I have chosen you to carry the king's mes sage to General Pichegru. The Convention, in ordering the union of the armies of the Rhine and the Moselle, have placed him under Hoche. He will be furious at this. Profit by this moment to persuade him to serve the cause

of the monarchy, by making him understand that the Ee-public is nothing but a chimera.' "

Pichegru listened to all this with the greatest calmness, and when it was finished, he smiled. Fauche-Borel had ex pected some kind of answer, and had purposely introduced this mention of Hoche at the end; but as we have seen, Pichegru only replied to this part of the speech by his most benevolent smile.

"Goon," he said.

Fauche^Borel continued:

"It was in vain that I told the prince how unworthy I felt myself of this honor; and that I had no other ambition than to serve him as an active and zealous man. He only shook his head and said: ( M. Fauche, you or no one.' And putting his hand upon my heart, he added: 'You have there what will make the best sort of diplomat for this misson.' If I had not been a royalist I would have resisted, and would in all probability have found excellent reasons for my refusal. But being a royalist, I was desirous of serving the royal cause in any way whatsoever, and so I yielded. I have told you how I went to Weissembourg, from there to Haguenau, and from there to Dawendorff; I had only to go from there to Auenheim, your headquarters; but this morn ing your advance-guard was signalled. 'Pichegru spares us the trouble of going to him, 1 said the prince. f It is a good omen.' Then it was agreed that if you were defeated I was to go to you, and you know the destiny which the Conven tion reserves for its defeated generals. If you were victori ous, I was to wait for you, and with the help of the little scheme of which you already know, I was to gain access to you. You have conquered, and have discovered the ruse; I am at your mercy, general, and shall only offer one ex cuse for my conduct—my profound conviction that I acted for the best interests of France, and my intense desire to spare the shedding of blood. I await with confidence the decision of your justice."

Fauche-Borel rose, bowed, and seated himself again, as

calm, at least to all appearances, as if he had just proposed a toast at a patriotic banquet.

M

CHAPTER XXYII

ONSIEUK," said Pichegru, using the old form of address, which had been abolished in France for a year, "if you were a spy I would have you shot; if you were an ordinary recruiting officer who staked his life for gain, I would send you to the revolutionary tribunal, and you would be guillotined. You are a man in whom confidence has been reposed, and I believe that you have acted more from sympathy than principle. I will reply to you seriously, and I will send you back to the prince with my answer.

"I belong to the people, but my birth in no wise influ ences my political opinions, they are due entirely to my historical studies.

"Nations are great organized bodies, subject to human disease. Sometimes it is emaciation, and then tonics are necessary; sometimes it is plethora, and then bleeding is prescribed. You tell me that the Republic is a chimera. I agree with you that it is now. And that is where your error comes in. We are not yet a Republic; we are in the midst of a revolution. For a hundred and fifty years kings have ruined us; for three hundred years nobles have op pressed us; for nine centuries priests have held us in slav ery. The time has come when the burden has grown too heavy for the backs which bear it, and '89 has proclaimed the Rights of Man, reduced the clergy to the rank of other subjects of the kingdom, and abolished every kind of privilege.

"There remained the king, whose rights had not been touched. He was asked : ' Will you accept France as we shall

remodel it, with its three orders—the people, clergy, and nobility—each depending on the other; will you accept the constitution with the privileges which it accords you, the revenues it grants you, the duties it imposes on you ? Ke-flect carefully. If you refuse, say No, and abdicate; if you accept, say Yes, and take the oath.'

"The king said Yes, and took the oath.

"The next day he left Paris; and so confident was he

that all due precautions had been taken and that he could

^ reach the frontier in safety, that he sent this message to the

representatives of the nation, who had received his oath on

'the previous evening:

" 'I have been compelled to take the oath; it was made with the lips and not the heart; I hold my duties in abey ance, and resume my rights and privileges; and I will return with the enemy to punish you for your revolt.' "

"You forget, general," said Fauche-Borel, "that those whom you call the enemy were his own family."

"Well," said Pichegru, "that is just the trouble. The king's family were the enemies of France. But how could it be otherwise ? Half of the blood that flowed in the veins of Louis XYI., son of Louis XY. and a princess of Saxony, was not even French blood; he married an archduchess, and we have for the royal armorial bearings, the first and third quarters of Lorraine, the second of Austria, and the fourth only of France. The result is as you have said. When Louis XYI. quarrels with his people he appeals to his fam ily ; but as the family is the enemy of France, he appeals to the enemy, and as the enemy enters France at the summons of the king, he commits the crime of high treason against the nation—a crime as great as high treason against the king, if, indeed, it is not greater.

"Then a terrible state of affairs results. While the king prays for the success of the arms of his family—which means the disgrace of France —and while the queen, seeing the Prussians at Yerdun, counts the days that it will take them to reach Paris, France, beside herself with hate and

patriotism, rises as one man and recognizes that she has enemies on the frontier—Austrians and Prussians; enemies in her very capital—the king and the queen; secret ene mies—nobles and aristocrats. She defeats the Prussians at Valmy, the Austrians at Jemmapes; she stabs her aristo crats in Paris, and beheads both king and queen on the Place de la Revolution. By means of this terrible con vulsion she believes that she is saved, and breathes freely.

4 'But she is mistaken; for the family that made war under the pretext of replacing Louis XVI. on the throne, continues to make war under pretext of crowning Louis XVII., but in reality that France may be invaded and dis membered. Spain wishes to regain Roussillon; Austria wants Alsace and the Franche-Comte; Prussia the Mar-graviates of Anspach and Beyreuth. The nobles form three divisions; one attacks us on the Rhine, another on the Loire, and a third conspires. War within, war with out! Foreign war and civil war! On the frontier thou sands of men lying on the battlefields; in France itself thousands of men massacred in prison, thousands of men dragged to the guillotine. Why ? Because the king, after taking the oath, did not keep it, and instead of trusting to his people, to France, threw himself into the arms of his family, the enemy."

"But then you approve of the massacres of September?'*

*'I deplore them. But what can you do against a people ?' '