The Sultan's Daughter (64 page)

Breaking off for a moment, Talleyrand remarked, ‘It was I who urged that policy upon him. Because the Directory countermanded it France has since paid the penalty. Had we not oppressed the Italians they might have sided with us against Suvóroff's Russians. But no matter. “On his return he was sent as Ambassador to the Batavian Republic. Its Government, owing to French oppression, was toying with
the idea of coming to terms with the Orange Party, which was under the influence of England. By skilful diplomacy he prevented that. This resulted in the Dutch Army under General Daendles siding with France when the Anglo Russian force landed in Holland a month later. In July he was recalled and made Minister of Police. On August 13th, he closed the Jacobin Club.” ‘

‘What!' exclaimed Roger. ‘Is it possible? Next you'll be telling me that he has gone to Mass in Notre Dame.'

‘Oh he will, sooner or later,' Talleyrand smiled. ‘It is no longer the fashion to feed donkeys on the Host and tie Bibles to their tails, as he did when representing the Committee of Public Safety in Lyons. It is simply that, now he has become a Minister, he wants to remain one. He is, therefore, prepared to use repressive measures against either side, if it looks like making trouble. He has courage, you know, as well as brains.'

They talked for a while longer and finished the champagne. Then, as Talleyrand accompanied Roger out into the hall, he said:

‘You and I have always held the same views about what is best for Europe and events in the next few weeks may decide the future of Europe for many years to come. You are both Bonaparte's friend and mine. Since we both trust you, I had hoped that you would act as a contact between us at times when it would be wiser for neither of us to call upon the other. That apart, such an evil chance having beset you distresses me greatly. I would give much to be able to protect you from Fouché. As that is beyond my power, I can only wish you well and promise that, should your worst fears be realised, I will do my utmost to have you brought to trial and see that you get a fair hearing.'

This was cold comfort, for Roger knew that should he be brought to trial he would, for ever afterwards, remain suspect, even if he were acquited, so he would be finished as a secret agent. But at least Talleyrand would provide a life-line which would prevent his being spirited away and dealt with summarily before his friends had had time to start wondering what had become of him.

He found his two chairmen curled up asleep beside a
brazier under the
porte-cochere
. As he roused them, Talleyrand came down the steps from the house and said, ‘I see that, not realising that your return would be at such a late hour, you brought no link-man. I will send my night-watchman to light you on your way. He can lock the courtyard gate behind him.'

‘I thank you for the thought,' Roger replied, ‘but this is a public chair. I'm sure the bearers must know Paris well and will have no difficulty in finding their way back to my inn.'

‘It is not a question of finding the way. You must have light, to shine upon your sword or a pistol held so that it can be seen through the window of the chair; otherwise you will be attacked.'

‘Attacked! By whom? Why should I be?'

Talleyrand gave a cynical laugh. ‘My friend, you are a stranger in Paris. Otherwise you would know that our Government is much too occupied with other matters to prevent a thousand footpads roaming the streets every night. Why, the banker who finances the gaming rooms at the Palais Royal has to hire a troop of cavalry to escort his cashier's barouche to the bank with each day's takings. Did he not, he would soon find it hard to get cashiers, for, night after night, their throats would be cut'

Roger made no further protest about accepting the services of the watchman. He reached home without incident, a little after two o'clock in the morning. In spite of his anxiety, he dropped off to sleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.

By half past nine next morning he was at the Ministry of Police. On his producing Fouché's letter a bearded official, wearing a seedy overcoat, wrote his name in a book then took him to a bare, chilly waiting room. His nerves taut with apprehension about the coming interview, he paced to and fro between the window and the door. Ten minutes passed, fifteen, but nobody came for him; so he sat down on a wooden bench. The only printed matter in the room was police notices on the walls. Inevitably, his mind drifted to Joseph Fouché and what he knew of that strange, devious-minded man.

Fouché had been born in Nantes, of middle-class parents. The family were merchants and shipowners and owned a
plantation in the West Indies, but Joseph was put into the Church. He never actually took Orders, but for ten years wore the tonsure as a lay brother of the Oratorian Fathers and taught in their seminaries. From his teens, he had taken an interest in police work and one of his hobbies was playing the amateur detective. The other was science, with special interest in balloon ascents such as those of the Montgolfier brothers, which were then arousing great interest.

In '89, still as an Oratorian schoolteacher, he was living in Arras. There he became friendly with Robespierre and his family. So close was the friendship that he had contemplated marrying Robespierre's sister Charlotte and, when Robespierre had been elected as a Deputy to the Third Estate, it was Fouché who had lent the impecunious lawyer the money to go to Paris.

Imbued with the revolutionary ideas of the Arras circle of which Carnot, then stationed there as an Officer of Engineers, had also been a member, he had returned to Nantes, left the Oratorians and become a professional agitator. In September, '92, he had been elected as a Deputy for Loire-Inféreure. In the same month he had married a Mademoiselle Coignaud, the daughter of a local official. She had red hair and eyebrows, a pale, pimply face and was terribly ugly. Yet Fouché adored her. His love for her and the children he had by her was the one constant and decent emotion he displayed in his whole life.

In Paris, as a member of the Convention, he had soon made his mark. In '93, the Committee of Public Safety had sent him as
Représentant en Mission
to Nevers. With unlimited powers, he had given free rein to a fanatical atheism, sacked all the churches, sent all their sacred vessels to Paris to be melted down and made the Archbishop wear the Red Cap of Liberty. Transferred to Moulins, he had carried out similar desecrations there. But it was in Lyons that he had made his name for ever infamous.

In the autumn of '93 a Liberal reaction had taken place in Lyons, which resulted in a noted revolutionary named Chalier being executed. Robespierre had sent Collot d'Herbois and Fouché to purge the city. With merciless frenzy they had attacked the bourgeoisie, throwing hundreds
of them into prison, looting their homes from garret to cellar and even stripping them of their clothes. Their final enormity had been to enjoy, from a dais they had erected in a field, a spectacle of mass murder. Scores of prisoners lashed together in couples had been lined up in front of two trenches, then mown down by grape-shot fired from cannon at close quarters. Those who survived the blasts were then hacked to pieces by the troops, on the orders of Collot and Fouché.

But in the summer of '94, Robespierre's egomania began to be dreaded by even his closest collaborators. The slightest deviation from his principles by one of his followers could lead to that rash individual's head landing in the basket of the guillotine within twenty-four hours. As the only hope of saving themselves, Fouché, Tallien, Freron and other terrorists had conspired with some of the Moderate leaders and it was Robespierre who had gone to the guillotine. By timely turning of his coat Fouché had saved his life, but had bought it at the price of his career. Having made use of him, the Thermidorians had thrown him aside and for four years he had been compelled to eat in poverty the bitter bread of frustrated ambition.

Such was the man upon whose pleasure Roger waited.

And wait he did. Half an hour went by, an hour, two hours, yet still no one came for him. At half past eleven he went out to the bearded official and sent a message up that M. de Talleyrand was expecting him at twelve; so he could not remain there much longer. A reply came down that the Minister regretted the delay. Would he be good enough to return at six o'clock?

Having said that he would, he left the building. His interminable wait had frayed his nerves almost to breaking-point and now he had another six hours to get through somehow before he would know Fouché's intentions towards him. Hailing a hackney-coach, he had himself driven to the Rue Taitbout. Talleyrand received him with his usual affability, listened sympathetically to his angry account of the way in which he had been treated, then said:

‘To keep you on tenterhooks like this is typical of Fouché's methods. He hopes to undermine your confidence in yourself. You must not let him. It is obvious that this wretched business
has already had a serious effect on you. If you brood on it all the afternoon that may prove disastrous. I shall prescribe for you. First, a good gallop. I will order a horse to be saddled. Ride him out to Vincennes and ride hard. If you kill the animal, no matter. On your return, go to a fencing school. Spend two hours there and fight at least six bouts. Then dinner. Eat fish; not meat, for that is heavy and would dull your brain. With dinner a pint of champagne, but no other alcohol either before or after. Tonight I am holding a reception. I shall hope that you will be free to attend it. But, should you not, Bonaparte will be here and I will tell him of my fears for you.'

With a thin smile, Roger thanked him for his counsel and promised to follow it. The fresh air and violent exercise did him a world of good. Soon after five o'clock he sat down at La Belle Etoile to a large Sole Colbert, and took with it his ‘medicine as directed'. At six o'clock he was back at the Ministry of Police, still extremely anxious but now able to make himself look as though he had nothing to worry about.

This time he was taken straight upstairs to the Minister's room, a large apartment the walls of which were entirely hidden by row upon row of filing cabinets. Fouché was sitting at a big desk with his back to a tall window, but it was now dark and lamps had been lit which shed their light only on his desk and on any visitor seated opposite him.

He was now forty and, in appearance, quite exceptionally unattractive. Although strong, his tall body was so lean and angular that it gave the impression that he was suffering from some wasting disease. His face was thin and bony, with the complexion of a corpse. From the point of his large, sharp nose there frequently hung a drop, as all his life he suffered from a perpetual cold. His red hair was sparse and brushed over his scalp in rats' tails. His lips were thin and his heavily lidded eyes greenish. They had a fish-like appearance, but few people had ever looked right into them because, when talking to anyone, he always kept his glance averted. Nobody who did not know him would have thought it possible that he was capable of working twenty hours a day, as he often did for long periods; for he seemed to be so drained of all vitality that within the week he would be measured for his coffin.

Without looking at Roger he stood up, made a slight bow, waved his bony hand towards the chair opposite his desk and said, ‘So we old acquaintances meet again.'

‘A classic phrase,' smiled Roger, sitting down. ‘And I am happy to think that we are both better situated than when last we met.'

‘I must congratulate you on having become a Colonel in the French Army.'

‘And I you in having become Minister of Police.'

Fouché studied the fingernails of his right hand. ‘You may also do so on another count. You will recall that when last we parted I was penniless and about to go into banishment. I have since succeeded in making for myself a … well, let us call it a modest fortune.'

‘I am glad to hear it.'

‘You will also recall that, on the occasion to which I refer, you gave me a hundred louis.'

‘That is so,' Roger murmured, greatly surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. He thought it hardly possible that Fouché could have raised the matter with the intention of showing gratitude, but added:

‘Instead of exile in penury, you had been counting on Barras giving you some minor appointment which would have supported you. You were, I remember, greatly distressed by the thought of the hardship your wife would have to endure. That was my reason for giving you a sum to go on with.'

‘I know it. At the time I believed that you had thrown it to me as a sop because you had cheated me. But later I learned that, although you had got the better of me by your wits, it was through no fault of yours that Barras treated me so abominably. I am now able to repay your generous gesture.'

As he spoke, Fouché produced from a drawer in his desk a little sack. It clinked as he pushed it across to Roger, and he added, ‘There are a hundred louis. The hundred you lent me proved the basis of my fortune.'

Scarcely able to believe his eyes and ears, Roger leaned forward, took up the sack and said with a smile, ‘Many thanks,
Monsieur le Ministre
. You enable me to hope that, in future, relations between us may be more cordial.'

Fouché gave a loud sniff then, with a swift, covert glance from beneath his heavy eyelids, replied, ‘I have only one regret. It is that I could not put guineas into the bag instead of louis. The coin of your own country might have proved more useful to you, Mr. Brook; er … that is, if my police had allowed you to get out of Paris with it.'

Roger's smile froze on his lips. In spite of his amazement at finding Fouché's attitude to him so different from the hostility he had expected, he had for a few moments allowed himself to be deceived into thinking that his old enemy had sent for him only to repay a debt. But nothing of the kind. He had simply been playing the sort of cat-and-mouse game in which he delighted. Again there arose in Roger's mind those awful visions of years spent forgotten in a dark dungeon in some remote fortress, or dying of yellow fever at Cayenne. With a supreme effort he succeeded in preventing his face from showing any marked reaction, and asked quietly: