The Launching of Roger Brook rb-1

by Dennis Wheatley

  Another night of solitude and reflection had reduced him to a definite state of remorse, for what he now thought of as his churlish brutality, so he determined to seek out Athenais and, at the first suitable opportunity, humbly beg her pardon.

  His surprise and dismay can, therefore, be imagined when he learnt that she and Madame Marie-Ange had taken coach for Paris on the previous day. According to their plans, as he had understood them, they had not been due to leave Becherel for the capital for another fortnight; so it seemed that Athenais, unable to bear the thought of being reminded of the shame he had put upon her, by seeing him about the place, had devised some way of manoeuvring Madame Marie-Ange into advancing the date of their departure.

  Only too clearly he recalled the contents of the note that Athenais had pressed into his hand the previous April. It had said that she would not be seeing him again, as next winter, instead of returning to Rennes she was to be presented at Court. And, as he now realised, once she was established there, the chances of her returning to Becherel for the following summer were extremely slender. Not only had he lost her but she had left before he had had a chance to beg her pardon for his outrageous conduct, and must have carried away with her a bitter, angry memory of him in her heart.

  After a few days of acute depression he flung himself into his work again with renewed energy, in an attempt to make up for lost time and keep himself from brooding over her; and soon the mass of old docu­ments were occupying most of his thoughts. As he delved deeper into them the problem of the rightful ownership of the Domains de St. Hilaire began to take on a deep fascination for him. In a few weeks he became a positive mine of information on the genealogical trees of half the great families in western France. Each time he unearthed a new link in the chain he felt a thrill of excitement, and each time he came upon a settlement or will that blocked the claim he was endeavouring to establish he felt as though he had lost a battle.

  Now and again the tall, black-bearded Chenou came upstairs to invade his workroom and insist that it was high time he got some exercise. Sometimes they rode together, at others, when the weather was inclement, as the ex-Dragoon was a fine swordsman, they practised their skill with rapier and sabre in the tennis court adjacent to the stables. Monsieur St. Paul had taught Roger some useful thrusts in his academy at Rennes, the previous winter, but Chenou taught him more; and now that the strength of a well set-up young man was added to his agility he was rapidly becoming a really dangerous antagonist.

  Occasionally on their rides they halted to take a glass of wine with Monsieur Lautrade, the Marquis's bailiff who lived in a little house in a clearing of the woods some distance from the chateau. Lautrade was a fat, elderly, bespectacled man, kind by disposition but firm by habit, as he had to be in order to extract his master's rents at the dates they were due from the ever-complaining farmers.

  On one such visit Roger asked him if the case of the peasants was really so hard as it appeared, and he replied:

  "Monsieur Breuc, it varies greatly in different parts of the kingdom. Here in Brittany, in Languedoc and in the German provinces, things are not too bad, because the nobility have managed to retain something of their independence. That makes for good conditions on some estates and bad ones on others; but at least it is better than the rule that maintains in the greater part of France. There, the Intendants wield almost absolute power, and the thousands of petty government servants who work under them is each a little tyrant, producing nothing and living like a parasite on the labour of people who are hard put to it to support themselves.

  "Again different systems of tenure have grown up in various areas. In Picardy, Flanders and other provinces of the north, the nobles and clergy are accustomed to let their land in large farms. That is a good thing; such farms are the best cultivated, the farmers become men of substance and their hired labourers are paid a wage which often enables them to save enough to buy a small plot of land of their own. The peasant is always hungry for land, of course. But I am not of the opinion that its possession profits him.'

  "Why do you say that, Monsieur?" asked Roger. "I should have thought it a good thing for a man to have a piece of land of his own."

  "Experience does not go to show that as far as smallholders are concerned. 'Tis estimated that two-fifths of the kingdom consists of little plots owned by the peasants and 'tis they, not the hired labourer, whose condition is most wretched. Apart from the north all France is honeycombed with these smallholdings which have been acquired piecemeal from the nobles, either on outright payments or on the mitayer system."

  "What is that, Monsieur?"

  "A mitayer is one who acquires the right to cultivate a piece of land in return for a share of its produce. The system is always unsatisfactory, as the cultivator is naturally tempted to conceal the true bulk of his crops and the landlord, rightly or wrongly, always believes that he is being cheated."

  "Even so," remarked Roger, "if the peasants have succeeded in buying nearly half the land in France it does not seem that their condition can be so deplorable."

  Monsieur Lautrade nodded. "They would be no worse situated than the peasantry of other countries were they left to go about their work as they wished, and allowed to dispose of their produce as they thought fit. 'Tis the corvie and the droits de seigneur which deprive them of any hope of prosperity and fill them with discontent. By the corvie they may at any time, perhaps at such important seasons as the sowing or the harvest, be taken from their land for enforced labour on the roads, bridges and other government construction. And in many places the droits de seigneur are extremely oppressive.

  "Do they vary then? I thought the droit de seigneur was the right of a noble to send for any girl living in one of the villages on his estate, on the night of her marriage, and have her sleep with him whether she was willing or no."

  " 'Tis one of the droits," agreed the bailiff, with a smile. "And 'twas exercised, no doubt, in the middle ages. But can you see a fastidious gentleman like Monseigneur taking one of our uncultured village wenches into his bed?"

  "I know one or two that I would not mind taking into mine," Chenou grinned.

  "You do so, anyhow, you handsome rogue," laughed Lautrade. " 'Tis said that not one of them is safe from you, and that they fall willing enough victims to your fine black moustacbios."

  "Aye! I have my share of fun," the chief huntsman acknowledged. But you're right about Monseigneur, and his kind. They have no stomach for such strong, garlic-flavoured dishes and have long since ceased to exercise their privileges."

  "I was referring to numerous other droits," Lautrade went on. "There are many and they vary with each manor, but some are common to all. There is the droit de colombier, by which the seigneur may keep as many pigeons as he chooses, which find their food as much in the peasants' fields as in his own; the droit de chasse, which reserves all game exclusively for the seigneur's amusement. Then there are the banalitis which oblige the peasant to send his com to the seigneur's mills, his grapes to the seigneur's wine-press, and his flour to the seigneur's oven. For each such operation a fee is exacted and on badly run estates the work is often ill-done or subject to irritating delays against which there is no redress. In addition there are the plages, or tolls that the peasant is called on to pay whenever he takes a cart­load of produce more than a mile or so from his home. To use every road or cross any river he must pay something either to the Crown, the Church, or to some noble. But you must know this yourself, and that one must also pay to cross each line of customs barriers that separate the provinces from one another. 'Tis this infinity of little outgoings that rob the peasant of his substance."

  "It sounds a most burdensome catalogue," Roger agreed. "But surely the noblesse could well afford to give some relief from this local taxation?"

  Lautrade shrugged. "The rich ones who live at Versailles know little of the peasants' lot and care less. The rest, and they form the great majority, are mostly too poor themselves to make such a sacrifice. For hundreds of y
ears such families have sent their menfolk to France's wars, and to-equip themselves for each campaign they have been compelled to part with a little more of their land to the thrifty peasants. Now, thousands of them have naught left but a chateau and a few acres of grazing ground. Tis that which makes them so insistent on the retention of their privileges. I know of noble families who eke out a miserable existence on as little as twenty-five louis a year; and if they gave up their droits they would be faced with starvation."

  "To my mind, 'tis the restrictions on selling produce that hit the peasant hardest," cut in Chenou. "In a bad season he garners scarce enough to feed himself, so 'tis but fair that when he has a good one he should be allowed to make a bit for putting by. Yet the corn laws forbid him to sell his surplus to the highest bidder, and he is compelled to turn it in at the Government depot for whatever skinflint price the grain ring have agreed to give for it. But come, I must be getting back to take a look at a mare that should be foaling some time to-night."

  As he stood up Roger rose with him, and said angrily: "Such measures are iniquitous, and I no longer wonder that so many people curse the government. I doubt if people in any other country would suffer its continuance."

  "Nay, take not an exaggerated view," demurred Lautrade, as he escorted them to the door. "Serfdom is now almost abolished in France, and the whole country is far richer than it was half a century ago. The peasants live a hard life but their condition here is better than in any other part of Europe, except perhaps in England and the United Provinces. If you would see real poverty, you should go to Spain as I did, not many years ago, to bring back a fresh supply of trees for Monseigneur's orangery."

  Still thinking of these things Roger rode back to the chateau, to find that a letter had arrived from his mother. In it she told him that, after two years at Portsmouth, his father had now been reposted as Rear-Admiral, Channel Squadron; so, as long as no war broke out, his ships would spend a great part of the year in harbour and, to her joy, he could continue to be much at home.

  Roger took the news quite casually. Occasionally he still longed to be back in England, but the time had passed when he would have given almost anything to return and have the chance of starting his career again. He now had not only good food and comfortable quarters, but servants to wait on him, horses to ride and a splendid library at his disposal. His task was a fascinating one and he was not tied to it by any regulated hours. His pay of forty louis a year was the equivalent of the salary that, on his last night at Sherborne, old Toby had told him he might hope to receive after getting his B.A. as a tutor to a nobleman's son. It was no fortune, but it was clear gain as he could not spend a single sou of it as long as he remained at Becherel. In the meantime he was, for all practical purposes, his own master and, enjoying as he did the droit de chasse, led a life not far removed from that of the petit noblesse, yet without any of its cares and responsibilities.

  By the approach of Christmas he found himself a little jaded from his long hours of poring over the old parchments, and while Chenou was the best of companions with whom to hunt or fence, Roger began to feel an oppressive sense of loneliness during the long dark evenings; so he decided to take a holiday and spend Christmas with the Legers.

  He could have ridden in to Rennes but he wanted to take a good supply of Christmas fare to his friends, so Chenou made no difficulty about placing a coach at his disposal; and when he left on the morning of Christmas Eve the coach carried more than his own weight in venison, hares and partridges.

  The Legers, Brochard, Manon and Julien Quatrevaux were all delighted to see him and, to his great pleasure, he learned that the latter two had decided to regularise their liaison by getting married in the spring; so Julien, as Manon's fiance, now made one of the family party.

  They gave him news of the other friends he had made in Rennes, related to him the latest gossip, and brought him up to date on the affairs of the wider world from which, in recent months, he had been almost completely isolated.

  The principal topic of interest was still a flood of rumours in con­nection with the affaire du Collier, as the scandal centring round the stolen diamond necklace had come to be called. It appeared that the necklace had been offered to the Queen, but she had publicly refused to buy it; saying that for a million and a half livres the King could get him a battleship, and that his need of another ship-of-the-line was greater than her need for more diamonds. But, so rumour ran, she had determined to buy this unique collection of gems privately and, as her agent, had used an ambitious and designing woman called the Countess de Valois de la Motte; then, having entered into the bargain, she had found herself short of funds and resorted to borrowing from the fabulously wealthy Cardinal, who was anxious to gain her favour. There seemed no doubt that the Cardinal had received the necklace from the jewellers and sent it to the Queen, imagining that he was acting on her wishes, by the hand of Madame de la Motte; but the Queen flatly denied having received the necklace and ever having entered into any correspondence with the Cardinal.

  Madame de la Motte, an adventurer styling himself Count Cagliostro and a courtesan named Mademoiselle Gay d'Oliva, had been sent to join the Cardinal de Rohan in the Bastille; and he, although as a Prince of the Church not normally subject to the jurisdiction of a secular court, was so determined to prove his innocence that he had agreed to submit to a public trial by the Parliament of Paris. All France was agog for the disclosures which it was expected would be made at the trial, as the honour of not only the Cardinal but also the Queen was now at stake.

  One evening towards the end of Roger's stay, Brochard took him down to their old haunt for a chat, and asked him how he spent his evenings at the chateau.

  "Sometimes I work," replied Roger, "but as the Marquis has given me the run of his fine library, I more often make myself comfortable in there with a book."

  For a time they talked literature and on Brochard learning that Roger had been entertaining himself with the plays of Comeille, Racine and Moliere, the serious-minded Bordelais reprimanded him; saying that if he wished to become a lawyer he should use this opportunity to ground himself in sociology, and read such authors as Montesquieu, Dupont of Nemours, de Quesnay, Rousseau, Voltaire, Mirabeau and Mably.

  To become a good lawyer was by no means Roger's final ambition in life, but he said that he would be glad to have a list to take back with him as he had no doubt that many of those authors were on the Marquis's shelves. Brochard then asked him if he still took an interest in international affairs.

  "As far as I am able to do so," Roger told him, "but since the departure of the family the news sheets no longer reach us. I heard, though, a few weeks ago, from Monseigneur's bailiff that the Dutch affair had at last been settled."

  Brochard nodded. "Yes, by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, signed on November the eighth. By it the Dutch have agreed to demolish their forts on either bank of the Scheldt and open the river to the Austrian traffic. The Emperor, in return, has given up his claim to the sovereignty of Maastricht for a payment of ten million florins. The Dutch would go only to five and a half million, so to clinch matters the balance is to be paid out of the French exchequer. 'Tis a great triumph for our Foreign Minister, the Comte de Vergennes, and the peace party."

  "I don't quite see why we should have to pay up for the Dutch," said Roger thoughtfully.

  "Nor do many other people. There has been a prodigious outcry on that account. Yet had we landed ourselves with a war instead 'twould have cost us a hundred times that sum. 'Twas cheap at the price to my mind. The only trouble is that the Dutch may yet drag us into a conflict if we give full support to their Republican party, who are endeavouring to unseat the Stadtholder, and England comes to his assistance."

  "You still feel that another war would spell ruin to France?"

  "More so than ever. Since Monsieur de Calonne became Comptroller-General he has launched loan after loan, each offering a higher rate of interest than the last and each less successful than its predecessor.
But the country no longer has any faith in the stability of the Government. On the first of this month, as a last desperate measure, he resorted to an attempt to debase our currency. He is offering twenty-five livres for every gold louis having a face value of twenty-four, which is sent in to the mint; and the gold is to be reminted in new louis having a tenth less weight than the old ones. 'Tis the expedient of a bankrupt and it needs but a national calamity of some kind to produce financial chaos."

  "Why are the French finances in such a parlous state?" asked Roger. "Cannot the King possibly do something about it?"

  Brochard shrugged his broad shoulders. "He could, and has the wish but not the will. He is hopelessly weak and lacks the courage to support those who counsel wise reforms, against the intrigues of the Queen and the nobles."

  "Perhaps he fears that if he sponsored measures of too liberal a nature the nobles would rebel against him?"

  "They no longer have the power to do so, and the game is in his hands if only he had the strength of mind to play it. When he came to the throne in '74 at the age of twenty, he was full of good intentions. He is of simple tastes and had kept himself unbesmirched by the mire of his grandfather's court. He threw out Louis XV's ministers with the Du Barry and the rest of that licentious rabble. He then had a golden opportunity, but, instead of taking some able economist for his principal minister, he appointed old de Maurepas, a man of over eighty; who had been a minister under Louis XIV, if you please, and had been ousted two generations before by Madame de Pompadour."

  Roger nodded as Brochard went on, angrily:

  "Then, with the appointment of Turgot as Comptroller-General, he had another chance. Turgot had been Intendant of the Limousin. He was by far the most enlightened of these provincial viceroys, and later was Minister for the Navy. Turgot was, perhaps, the greatest man that France has produced in the present century. He comprehended all the fundamental ills from which the country was suffering and propounded suitable remedies. He was brilliant, broadminded, honest, and the King believed in him; yet he allowed him to be hounded from office. After a period of retrogression, Necker arrived on the scene. He was an incomparably lesser man than Turgot; a slave to his own vanity, and a devotee of compromise who believed in doing things little by little. Yet he was a competent financier and saw the necessity of reform. Again the King had his chance to follow sound advice but, after a few years, he abandoned the Swiss as he had done Turgot. Since then he has allowed himself to be led by a succession of incompetents and, for the past two years, rather than face unpleasant facts he has followed a policy of drift on the advice of Calonne, who is nothing but an unscrupulous speculator."