Minuet

by Joan Smith

  Henry was gone, but some of those fellows would be able to help him. He was recognized by one or two, and soon discovered what they knew, which was not as much as he hoped, but helpful. No one knew for sure that Henry was gone, though certainly he had been making arrangements for it. The man who had planned to accompany him was sure he had not left yet, but of course Degan knew better.

  “What would I need to do to get there?” he asked.

  “To arrive, that is easy, melor. It is upon arrival that it becomes difficult,” a man who was being called duVal told him.

  “Let me worry about that. How can I get there?”

  “By a smuggling vessel, leaving from Folkestone. A fellow named Jasper Fargé runs it. Give him my name—or Mérigot’s. Mind you his hand must be well filled, you understand?”

  Degan got more precise details regarding the lugger, then asked about the civil cards and clothing, the horse for the other side he had heard Henry mention. This last could not be arranged in a day.

  For a price, always a rather high price, he was issued a carte civile in the name of Michel Menard, a wine grower from the Midi, as well as other necessary items. For the outfit, it was necessary to go to Rasselin’s rooms, a rather pitiful apartment inconveniently removed from La Forge.

  “I was used to live better,” the man said with a rueful smile. “But when my cousin the due d’0rléans sneezed in the basket, I decided my life meant more to me than ten thousand acres of choice vineyards, and a castle. C’est la vie.” He shrugged.

  The nobleman then produced from under his bed a wicker basket containing several black jackets with brass buttons, suspenders, breeches, red toques and cotton shirts. The hand that tried jackets up to Lord Degan was delicate, a gentleman’s hand, with the fingers ink-smudged from his mean employment of copying letters to make a little ready cash.

  “I am not so fortunate as some of my countrymen. I did not manage to bring jewelry with me, and have neither close friends nor rich relatives among the English nobility. We stayed much at home, we de Rasselins.”

  Degan passed a large wad of bills into his hands. “I do not hint for the pourboire, Lord Degan,” the man said, offended. He scrupulously counted out the proper sum, and returned the rest. “You will require your money for what is ahead of you.”

  “Ah—assignats! I’ll need some of that revolutionary money.”

  “Do yourself a favor. Take gold. We have learned the assignat drops in value every day. It is virtually worthless.”

  “Won’t it cause suspicion?”

  “More joy than suspicion. The assignat is so low in value you would require a bushel of them to buy a turnip. I had once the equivalent of ten thousand pounds in them. It is worth a tenth of that now. It is all forged, however, so it is no loss but for the paper and ink. Bonne chance, melor.”

  “Merci,” Degan replied.

  “A pity I could not sell you an accent.” The man laughed. “I suggest you say little abroad, and spend much.”

  Like Mérigot, Degan took his own fastest team and open carriage to the coast. He also took his groom, to look after the carriage upon arrival, and to drive for part of the way while he perused the papers. The news was very bad. Some new laws had been passed, the 22 Prairial they called it—a date from the new calendar, meaning June 9. The usual ten or fifteen guillotine victims a day had been quadrupled. In effect, the laws gave Robespierre absolute authority to execute anyone. Four courts were instituted instead of one, four times as many victims. The sentence was either innocence or death, at the discretion of the jurors, and never mind the evidence. He could hardly credit the terms of the courts. No written testimony required, no preliminary investigation, just a public hearing to please the mob. No lawyer for the defense, every citizen urged to denounce conspirators, and probably rewarded handsomely for doing so, though it was not printed. The guillotine, he read, had been moved from the Place de la Révolution to the edge of town, at the Barrière du Trône, at the edge of the Faubourg St.-Antoine. These were only names to Degan. He read of other strange goings-on that led him to believe France had lost all sense of reason.

  A religious fanatic of a woman claiming Robespierre was the Messiah was sent to trial for her efforts. Meat was rationed, but it was a formality, as there appeared to be no meat in Paris. Religion reinstated—done to please the mob? Or to raise Robespierre to a deity after all? He seemed to feature prominently in the Festival of the Supreme Being. It was like reading notes from a giant national Bedlam. The Conspiracy of the Red Shirts—fifty-four meals in one day for Sainte Guillotine, dressed up in red to make a spectacular show, the crime apparently being that one of the group was caught with a portrait of the late king and queen.

  Where would it end? How many people would they put to the blade before the population revolted against the Revolution? The crowds were diminishing at the daily circus, but instead of reading this as satiation on the part of the audience, the show was made bigger, brighter, bloodier.

  And Sally, knowing all this, had returned to the infamous place. A new respect for Mérigot began to flourish as well. He too would be under suspicion because of his connection with old Armand Augé, and his blue blood. He could not quite rid himself of the idea that Mérigot had a secondary, or even a primary, reason in going apart from his connection with Marie. Sally would be compromised beyond redemption if it became known she had traveled with him alone. A very good marriage for Mérigot, worth even the risk of his neck.

  With an early start and the very briefest of stops for a change of horses, Degan reached Folkestone, a little fishing village just south of Dover, shortly before midnight. Night seemed to him a good time for making the crossing, and he set about finding Mr. Fargé at once. The shack was easy enough to locate, but it contained only one small boy, and there was no boat anchored.

  Questioning revealed that the boy’s father had left early that afternoon with two young gentlemen. Yes, one had red hair like a fox, the other black like a crow—a big, tall man. Henry and Sal, of course, already got to France before him. The boy had no idea when his father would be back. Who else had a boat?

  “Mr. Hubbard, a half a mile away, has such a boat as Papa. They are good friends. You like I get him?”

  “Take me to him,” Degan said, flipping a coin to the boy.

  Half a mile turned out to be a mile and a half, but Mr. Hubbard was home. He was not open to any trip to France, however. “I don’t go no more,” he said cautiously, smelling a revenueman in this well-spoken stranger.

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” Degan said, pulling out a roll of bills. He began stripping them off and tossing them on the table. “I’m in a hurry. I want to leave an hour ago.” Hubbard counted, his eyes narrowing suspiciously, while ten, twenty, thirty, forty—eighty, ninety, a hundred pounds fell into a pile, and still they kept coming. At length, Degan realized he had paid more than enough and stopped. “Well?”

  A grubby hand shot out and scooped up the bills. “Mebbe I could chance it,” Hubbard said, stuffing the money into a deep pocket. “Tomorrow morning at—”

  “Now.”

  “I’d have to get the lads rounded up.”

  “Do it.”

  “It’ll take time.”

  “If you can’t leave within the hour, I’ll have my money back.”

  “Guy, go fetch the lads,” Hubbard said, and the boy flew out the door.

  In forty-five minutes the anchor was being raised. During the interval, Lord Degan had been transformed from an English gentleman into a person who resembled nothing so much as a clown. The carmagnole, designed to hang loose, clutched him under the arms and stopped two inches above the cuffs of his dingy gray shirt. The bonnet rouge sat clumsily on his black head, not cocked at an angle in the French style, but pulled on straight across the forehead. He wore thick gray stockings, and had forgotten, in his haste, boots. Mr. Hubbard had the added perquisite of a fine pair of leather boots exchanged for his own coarse footwear, a size smaller than was comforta
ble for Degan, giving to his walk a peculiar hobbling gait. As a final touch to his disguise, he smeared dirt on his face and hands, then he went and stood hurrying the seamen on.

  Chapter Ten

  After an uneventful crossing during which they slept, Sally and Mérigot landed in France in the dark of night at an inlet at Cap Gris-Nez, just south of Calais. They decided to begin walking the ten miles to Boulogne and hire a cart or mounts in the larger city, where they would be unnoticed. Sally had her boy’s disguise perfected; they both spoke French fluently and could simulate a provincial accent without difficulty. The signs, the persons they met on the road—all had an air of familiarity for them. It was coming home—by an unaccustomed route and in an unusual manner, and most of all to a home in terrible turmoil, but still it was home. This far from Paris, the Terror was only a latent terror. It seemed almost peaceful in the countryside. The heat of that very hot July was cooled to a pleasant breeze in the darkness. They enjoyed their long walk with so much to discuss. They stopped to rest just as a crimson sun was rising, and had the good fortune to hitch a ride on a farm cart, taking market produce to the Boulogne market. Resting their weary legs atop a load of vegetables, they felt exhilarated, and they sang.

  At Boulogne, tired and thinking the night travel the best way, they had breakfast in a small inn and rented a room. “It would look extravagant to hire two rooms,” Mérigot pointed out.

  “It would be extravagant,” Sally told him. “We haven’t much money. I’m dead. I suppose you mean to make me take the bed, like a gentleman.”

  “I’m sure you mean to take the better accommodation, like a lady,” he replied with a smile. “Be kind. Throw your dog a blanket and a pillow, will you?”

  He arranged these on the floor in a corner and curled up, rather like a dog. Sally felt selfish, with the whole bed to herself. She could hear by the many movements that Henri was not having an easy time sleeping on the floor. “Henri, come, get into bed. This is foolish,” she said.

  “Nine-tenths of the conventions prevailing between the sexes are foolish, but still they prevail. Sleep, brat.”

  Worn to the socket, she rolled over and slept.

  It was midafternoon when she awoke, to find Henri already up, standing at the window looking into the square.

  “There is a wagon going by, loaded with prisoners I think. Poor devils. They must have killed all the Parisians and have sent off into the provinces for fodder for Madame La Guillotine. Look at that one—an old man of seventy at least. What crime could he have committed?”

  “He must be a priest,” Sally said, running to the window to look out at a dark-suited old man, his head hanging in dejection.

  “Possibly, though religion is allowed again,” Henri answered.

  “Maybe he adores the wrong God—not Robespierre, in other words. The other man beside him is much younger.”

  The carriage had drawn to a stop in front of a wooden building currently being used as a prison.

  “His crime is his jacket,” Henri said. “See how it pulls between his wide shoulders. And his bonnet rouge worn at the wrong angle. There, someone is removing it for him.”

  “He looks familiar,” Sally said, straining her neck out the window. The hatless man turned his head to see who had taken his cap. “Henri!” she shouted, grabbing his arm. “It’s Degan! He’s come after me. Oh, the fool!”

  Mérigot gave a start, then directed his full attention on the man. “My God, you’re right. What is he doing here?”

  “It is! It’s him. Oh, what are we to do?”

  “Save him, I suppose,” Henri replied with resignation. “He looks quite lost.” He did not like Degan; in fact, he disliked him quite strongly, but he was Sally’s friend and cousin. Also, he likely had a plump pocket, but what a nuisance to have to drag that dull anglais all the way to Paris and back!

  “Certainly we must save him, and quickly, before they discover he is lined with gold. It was gallant of him to come. I expected more caution from him,” she said with a speculative smile, not totally displeased with his gallantry.

  “You robbed him of sense some days ago, minx. What shall we do?”

  “We must discover what story he has told them. Lord, I hope he hasn’t tried to pass himself off for a Frenchman. How shall we discover?”

  “I deduce from that ill-fitting jacket he has been to de Rasselin. Therefore he has possessed himself of a carte civile. He would be—either Michel Menard, a vintner from the midi, or Albert Angiers, a jeweler from Rouens. We must make inquiries for these two gentlemen. He is either one or the other. The rest of the cards were for farmers and laborers. Rasselin would have made him a decent bourgeois.”

  “How do we explain his horrible accent? Better, how has he explained it?” she asked, worried.

  “I doubt he has made himself much understood by the rabble. His schoolboy’s classical French would be incomprehensible to these dolts. He has been abroad, perhaps? Or he could be deaf. Pity he hasn’t posed as a mute too.”

  “No, he will have been jawing at them. Who goes first, you or me? And which man does the first one inquire after?”

  “I shall make inquiries regarding my cousin, Albert Angiers. A fistful of these useless assignats should do the trick.” Without wasting another moment, Mérigot was out the door and heading to the local detention center, where the guard stood at the door, looking up and down the street, after having locked up his guests. He was told there was no Albert Angiers among them, and went straight back to Sally.

  “He’s not being Angiers. Will it not look odd, your going to ask questions so soon after me? Still, we must risk it. That lot are on their way to Paris, accused of counter-revolutionary activities. That is what is being said in the street. What mischief can he have got into so soon?”

  “Chewing out some official for impudence, very likely. We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t land us all in the Conciergerie before we get home.”

  “Too bad you’re posing as a boy this trip. Agnès Maillard would have easy work with that guard—a young fellow. Well, you have no skirt, Minou, and we have no time to waste. Better be off. Don’t grovel. A high hand works better with these petty officials. Be careful—very careful. I don’t want to have to rescue you too.”

  “Order wine to celebrate. In fifteen minutes we shall be back,” she promised airily, blew him a kiss and went out the door, pulling her bonnet rouge over her left eye at a rakish angle.

  Finding himself in France just as dawn arose, Degan looked about the little village of Cap Gris and decided Sally might have taken a room overnight at the inn there. There was only one, and sitting in it, having an early breakfast, was the local garde. The moment Degan opened his mouth to inquire in badly mispronounced French whether there were two fellows, a redhead and a black-haired one, putting up, the garde perked up his ears.

  Degan was told that no such people were there, and he pulled out a bag of sovereigns. Rasselin had warned him to spend heavily, and he assumed this applied to information as well as tangible goods. It was enough. A wealthy foreigner was obviously either an Austrian or English spy. He was arrested on the spot by the garde, before he had been a quarter of an hour on foreign soil.

  Terror was of course his predominant emotion, but he was also angered, sorry and embarrassed at his incompetence. Guillotines, the dreaded Conciergerie, Sally and Mérigot rolled around in his mind in various combinations. During the trip in the wagon, chained like a common criminal, these were his thoughts. He would be imprisoned, possibly tortured, killed, taken for a jackass at home in England when it was discovered (not the least of his worries), and he would be of no help at all to Sally.

  Would her fate be any better? If these wily gardes had caught himself in fifteen minutes, how long would Sally last? An hour, a day—never the week Mérigot had spoken of as being the required time. He was almost beyond rational thought when they herded him into a cell at Boulogne, to await the arrival of other prisoners to fill the larger wagon on its way to Paris
.

  He sat with his head in his hands, desolate, wondering whether it was worth his while to reveal his true identity, and thinking not. The only words heard about England were that Pitt had been at the bottom of some attempt to assassinate Robespierre. How Pitt, in England, had hired a certain Cecile Renault to seek out the tyrant was of course not explained, but it gave an idea of the French attitude to Englishmen.

  Suddenly there was a commotion in the outer room. A voice Degan recognized well spoke up, trumpeting boldly. “Hein, citoyen, j’ai besoin de vos services.” He stared at the closed door, unbelieving, with hope and already an incipient fear for what she was doing. This would never work. She’d end up in the cell with him.

  The conversation was all in French, and a French even more than usually incomprehensible to Degan, rough and idiomatic, but he followed the main thread of it.

  “What do you want?” the man demanded, curt, rude.

  “Service with a smile, citoyen. The heat makes you irritable. It is the new calendar that makes it so damned hot. Thermidor is ten degrees hotter than our old July. They’re making us all ready for hell, eh?”

  “I’m a busy man. What is your business here?”

  “Busy doing nothing. You functionaries have the softest jobs in France. I am looking for my cousin, Michel Menard. Don’t bother letting on you never heard of him. I saw him come in on the wagon. You must know who I mean. A big, tall fellow, deaf in one ear and don’t hear too good out of the other. He talks funny, but very influential of course.”

  The garde looked up sharply at this speech. “Very influential” people were turning up in the unlikeliest places, forever causing him trouble. It was this fashion for denouncing to gain favor with the government that led to it. A word from one of these newly “influential” people with an uncle or brother on some commission could be a man’s undoing with the four new courts. “Who is he?” he asked warily.