Treason's Spring

by Robert Wilton

  Guilbert waits.

  ‘In the cellar below us, Guilbert,’ Fouché begins, and the strain of the voice is as bad as the face, ‘is a collection of documents that will upturn Europe and possibly change the direction of the Revolution. Naturally, we want to examine these astonishing documents as rapidly as possible.’

  Guilbert waits.

  ‘Except that the minister has agreed that we shall not, Guilbert, until a commission of enquiry has been established with representatives of other relevant ministries. Another twenty-four hours at least. You know who’s behind this, don’t you Guilbert?’

  Careful. Not to respond would be dangerously rude. To respond wrongly could be disastrous. Guilbert scowls in distaste at the shared understanding.

  Fouché’s face screws up, and he shakes his head. ‘It’s all down there, Guilbert! More or less unguarded. I could walk in there in five minutes. But . . . too many eyes in this place, and I won’t jeopardize everything I’ve gained, in one moment of impetuousness.’ Another shake of the frustrated head.

  Now Guilbert speaks. Carefully. ‘You’re a man of honour, Monsieur. Of great profile now. Impossible that you could be seen in there. I’m none of those things. If there was anything in particular you wanted . . . ’

  Fouché’s smile is closer to human. ‘I don’t know what I don’t know, Guilbert. And you, for your sins, are known to be close to me.’ Again the head shakes.

  ‘A great coup nonetheless, Monsieur.’

  This smile is approaching normal.

  ‘I confounded them all, Guilbert. The Prussians, and the British, and perhaps French plotters too. Another one of their main agents dead, the locksmith secured, and his secret revealed. But the Prussians! Was I so wrong? I thought the British . . . All along it was the Prussians, it seems.’

  ‘One of the men watching may have been the great Prussian agent of the rumours, Monsieur.’

  ‘We didn’t capture him, Guilbert.’

  ‘We broke his scheme, Monsieur.’

  ‘The Prussian master behind everything. Distracting us and distracting the locksmith. The boldest deceptions and manoeuvres. And still we broke them.’

  ‘What about St-Denis, Monsieur? The dead woman Lavalier, and the British and the Americans.’

  ‘Quite the network, is it not? She sent her last note using the copyist. It had been for the American Legation. But somehow the British were reading the correspondence, and they had noted the point about Gamain the locksmith, and had set their agent Kinnaird against him.’

  ‘We can break this net, Monsieur; we can end their game in an afternoon.’

  ‘No, dear Guilbert.’ Guilbert was immediately watchful. It still wasn’t healthy to be wrong with Fouché. ‘Quite the contrary. We maintain it. Only now there will someone else scrutinizing the correspondence. I shall know what the Americans know, and what the British know.’

  ‘You don’t want to finish this, Monsieur?’

  Now the smile was genuine. ‘Finish? Guilbert, the game is only just beginning.’

  Dear Monsieur,

  the affair of the Armoire de Fer has told us all which way the wind does blow, and we see that you soar highest on it. I don’t pretend to be comfortable yet at the new climate, but there are things a man cannot change, powers greater than he, and he must set himself to conform and co-operate and keep warm as best he may.

  Since your unique coup, it seems you are become the preeminent connoisseur and repository of documents. And I think I may presume a particular interest in documents of what we may call a political and diplomatic character, especially discreet documents pertaining to relations between great persons inside this country and out.

  I am not a person of significance, but as intermediary I believe I made myself useful for a time, and my very insignificance may have appealed to certain persons whose ambitions outstepped their prudence. I find in my possession copies of certain letters that would surely be of interest to you, if you do interest yourself in where truly lies the loyalty of men who seemed to change loyalty so speedily in recent months. I expect no great reward, but I own that any generosity will help in these times, and frankly I calculate that a clear demonstration of my own loyalty would be my wisest investment at this moment.

  You will understand from all this that I am not eager to enter your ministry walls, which – documents as well as men – do seem to absorb more than they release. But if you will reply, to R. B., at the Sign of the Duck in Argenteuil, giving your authority for me to call at the ministry at 12 of the clock with a sample of the correspondence to add to your trove, I shall take you at your word and I’m sure your letter of reply shall serve me with the sentries.

  Respectfully, R.B.

  Fouché considered it. The positive reply to R.B. was quickly written and sent. A pleasing additional benefit from his triumph. As the writer implied, the momentum was with him now – power attracts power – and surely more information would come to him and men would hurry to insure themselves with him.

  Still the trove in the cellar awaited him. He hungered to be at it – an appetite he could never remember, not even as a boy – and at the same time he recognized in himself an austere restraint, a desire for just a moment more to prolong the anticipation.

  To dream of the certainties he might find. To dream of the men who would fall.

  Actually, it would not be a long moment. Roland would have his twenty-four hours, a last nod to his dignity as minister, a sign of Fouché’s respect for the protocols of the Revolution.

  In truth, Roland could not stop him – no one could stop him – plunging into the treasure at any moment. There were sentries around the ministry, but none who would stop him. Yet it was possible that Roland would find out, and something of pride told Fouché to prove his correctness even at this climax. It wouldn’t do for a procedural dispute to tarnish his triumph.

  Besides, he had seen enough as the dossiers had been stowed in the cellar, thousands of pages in their leather folders, to thrill him: names spilling out of the dossiers to shake France. The King. Of course the King, always the King and so indiscreet. His agents, Collenot and others. Lafayette, and Mirabeau and the Austrians, and others who had crossed too many borders. Affairs with Prussia. Affairs with England.

  Fouché reached for pen and ink.

  And Danton.

  Arnim had propped the letter up on the other side of the table, against a wine bottle; as if it were the partner in a conversation, or the subject of an interrogation.

  Dear Sir,

  it will I think be congenial to us both if I avoid writing your name or my own on this page. It is what one represents, and not the mask behind which one does it, that counts.

  I represent a department of the new government of this country. You represent the interests of another country. I will not comment on the present relations between our countries, partly for discretion and more because I would rather focus on how relations might temporarily be between us, than on how they have generally been.

  Into my possession has come a large body of private political correspondence. Within this are two dossiers relating particularly and exclusively to affairs between my country and yours. Allow me merely to hint at the deeper context behind the tales of Monsieur M. after his journey of the year ’86, and of discussions related to the co-ordination of political and military positions in June of this year.

  I am willing to return these documents to you, in return for the payment of 15,000 livres; knowing your repute, I am confident you may gather this money in time from banks where you have credit.

  I make no assertion about any prior secret relation you may have with any figure of the revolutionary government of France, beyond suggesting that it might offer a precedent for a shared willingness to reach a trading arrangement based upon shared interest.

  Both of us will hesitate to venture ourselves in a rendezvous. There is a place which might serve: the Étoile Royale, at the farthest limit of the estate of the deserted royal residenc
e of Versailles. There we should be far enough from our fellow men for discretion, and able each to observe adequately that the other has brought no muskets. I judge that, each of us taking his desired precautions, and coming alone, we might satisfactorily conduct our exchange without undue alarm. Tomorrow, at the hour of dawn, I shall await you there.

  Please do not trouble to reply; we have both learned that the risks of corresponding may be as great as the risks of the correspondence. I shall be at the place, and you may take advantage should you choose.

  Arnim gazed into the paper. There was no signature. But he could presume the ministry in question, and he fancied he could presume the man.

  Beyond the paper, as if out of focus across the table, he seemed to see Pieter Marinus. Could see the frown, hear the caution.

  You entertain this? Naturally.

  Of course you recognize the risk. Of course.

  It is possible it is a trap. It is probable it is a trap, dear Pieter, but that does not change its positive possibilities.

  You would run this greatest risk? Your own exposure? For the greatest prize, yes. The correspondence is out: Mirabeau, Brunswick, my King, and much else. If I do not succeed imminently, I lose immediately.

  Is the Revolution so desperate for money? Yes, other lines of information would suggest so.

  So desperate that they would sell part of their prize? So desperate that they would do business with Arnim? Perhaps they calculate a greater prize, than what perhaps is to them mere historical gossip.

  Perhaps perhaps. Arnim saw Marinus’s polite disapproval. Greater prize . . .

  What greater prize might there be?

  Then Arnim saw it, and having seen it he nodded his gratitude to the shade of Pieter Marinus, diligent and shrewd. ‘I make no assertion about any prior secret relation you may have with any figure of the revolutionary government of France . . . ’ No assertion, but a damn great speculation.

  That was the prize, for the Ministry of the Interior. Not the trivia of past conflicts, but ammunition for a conflict that was just beginning.

  The moderates, the Gironde, were weakening. There was blood in the air. The differences between the revolutionary factions were becoming battle lines, and if the author of this letter could get the slightest confirmation of his speculation about past treachery it would be a devastating weapon.

  Arnim considered this, Marinus’s patient reflection as a model before him. He would lose or weaken one productive source of information and influence. But it was a source he had been finding less congenial of late. And the benefit would be the promotion of division in the revolutionary government.

  Tactical cost; strategic gain.

  Arnim raised his glass to his silent friend.

  Fouché had pushed the surrounding papers to the sides of his desk, so that one paper lay square and alone in the exact centre.

  Dear Sir,

  we may agree, as men with a particular experience and concern for discretion, and a peculiar instinct for subtlety, that our names are irrelevant to this correspondence. I know you for the ministry you represent, and as the man of the hour within the ministry. For myself, I will own to being at the least an intermediary to a country currently counted your enemy on the field of battle. We may agree, as men of rarer and longer perception, that despite that temporary condition of affairs we may nevertheless find points of agreement or, allow me to say, certain points without mutual disbenefit.

  I go so far as to say that I do not find disagreeable the idea of a meeting between us, given the adequate mutual assurances of security. As demonstration of my own perception of the advantages that we might identify between us, allow me from my side to propose a exchange of tokens thus:

  it is a principle of my conduct of my affairs that I will never allow a servant of mine to remain in foreign hands; that, whatever befall him, he shall in the end come home. I own that the late Henry Greene, by birth English, had been before his demise in my employment for the rendering of discreet services. You would oblige me by returning his body to me, that I may pass it to his people and maintain a precedent that, however foolish some might consider it, I have found serves my principles and interests. You will please also to furnish me with the necessary authorizations to take the body beyond the borders of France;

  in return, I find myself in possession of one of the jewels previously the property of your former King. Pretty enough, but one admits that it belongs in France, and I suppose that my government continues to claim to uphold the laws of property. It will serve me well enough as token of exchange.

  If you are the man you are reputed, discourse with you would be the greater prize. I find that the tide in Paris begins to turn, and that men who previously rose may be swept back, and that having entrusted myself to one vessel, I might be better served with another of a different quality.

  You may calculate an advantage in trying to capture me, thereby ending my activities in your country. The suggestion of the Étoile Royale, with its distance from Paris and natural isolation, offers me some protection, and meeting alone. I find greater protection in the judgement that your greater advantage as well as my own will lie in the opening of communication between us, rather than the closing, and that we may leave the generals to decide their battles. Tomorrow at dawn let it be.

  Reply is indeed not necessary or desired.

  Fouché considered it for a long time.

  He had put himself in this position. This letter was a testament to his success – another profit from his great speculation.

  But though he might have expected it, there were unexpected elements.

  That the man Greene had worked for the Prussians – for this was clearly the Prussian master, the one Guilbert had glimpsed at the saltpetre factory – was an intriguing insight. He should review what he had on Greene: given this new insight, might the files tell him more about Prussian activities in Paris? And were there things he should have spotted earlier?

  A fanciful notion, to seek the return of the agent even when dead.

  Surely too fanciful.

  Surely the Prussian would hope to get more for his jewel.

  Or perhaps not: the Duke of Brunswick or the King of Prussia might prize such a thing, but they could never show it publicly except to declare that they were holding it for the French Crown. Perhaps the Prussians really did find it distasteful to seem to benefit from common theft.

  Surely there’s more.

  Fouché smiled. There was more. The elliptical optimism about their communication. Does he hope to buy me?

  Fouché didn’t really consider the possibility of accepting, but it felt pleasant to be thought such a prize. Or perhaps he was being naive: the Prussian didn’t want to buy him, but truly calculated that a channel of communication between two men at the heart of their respective societies might have advantages.

  And so it might.

  Above the clash of armies, two men might get to grips with one another: discreetly yet titanically. The battle for Europe, the games across different nations, had come to this final engagement.

  And might there truly be some mutual advantage? ‘I find that the tide in Paris begins to turn, and that men who previously rose may be swept back, and that having entrusted myself to one vessel, I might be better served . . . ’

  Fouché felt an thrill; knew it irrational, wondered anyway. Was there a hint in the letter that his suspicions were accurate? Might the Prussian confirm things that the documents, even when he had finally absorbed them all, could only hint at? The former confederates of Prussia unmasked; Fouché’s success doubled; and in some new position of brilliance in the European network of information. Mutual advantage indeed. He found his hands were fists over the letter.

  Or perhaps not.

  In which case there would be Guilbert and his blade, and Fouché would have completed his destruction of foreign espionage in France.

  When Lucie Gérard had wandered through the deserted dead house of Emma Lavalier, she had been l
ooking for two things.

  Souvenirs, both of them. She understood that she and Madame Emma had shared a rare moment of understanding, just once; and that had to count for something. Count for more than the old widow Philemon and her daughter, who would otherwise get all of it. And deserted houses still filled with the possessions of an elegant woman were not to be found in St-Denis every day.

  In two months France has been transformed. She drifted through the house, fingers brushing its surfaces; a ghost in the tomb. In two months, I have been transformed. Greene, and Greene’s death. Kinnaird, who was surely destined to die but had not, yet. Madame Lavalier, who had seemed destined to live for ever but had not. These people have changed me.

  I have only dreamed of avoiding the world. But I find I cannot.

  So: something useful – by which she understood sellable; and something to keep as a remembrance. The latter was an unfamiliar emotion; she didn’t quite understand the latter.

  The useful something was easily found: a pair of silver candlesticks, fine enough to be really useful, not too fine to have been noticed by anyone else.

  For the remembrance, she had something definite in mind. Something that Emma Lavalier would certainly have had, but Lucie had never had, something feminine and intimate. This emotion really was something unfamiliar.

  A piece of fine lingerie. Just a piece; something that could be adjusted. Perhaps a couple of pieces.

  But when Lucie had searched through all of the beautiful clothes that Madame Emma had worn so beautifully – she put her hands up sleeves, she felt inside bodices, she tried through the texture to sense the last warmth of the woman, but the clothes were just an empty shell now, a snail’s shell pecked out and left on stones – she found no fine lingerie. And this, for a woman of practical mind trying to find her way out of the tempest, and thinking of another woman essentially the same, had been the most powerful remembrance of all.