The Launching of Roger Brook

by Dennis Wheatley

  That spring another drought caused a great shortage of meat. Beef had risen from eleven to sixteen sous a pound and the butchers in the poorer quarters had been forced to close their shops. There was great grumbling about this and Roger could not wonder when he actually saw something of the unbridled extravagance in which the Court lived.

  In order to maintain the standard of splendour first set by Louis XIV hundreds of nobles, thousands of servants, whole regiments of guards and a legion of hangers-on from all classes, fed each day at the King’s expense. The dining and mess rooms of the vast palace were never empty, and the food served in each differed only in the degree of culinary art devoted to its preparation; from the highest to the lowest meat, fish, butter, eggs and wine were to be had in unlimited profusion.

  As a spectacle the Court never ceased to intrigue him. He had not the entrée to the great apartments where the richly-clad host of lords and ladies dined, danced, gambled and flirted each night, but he could watch them arriving and departing at all hours in a never-ending stream of coaches, gaze his fill at them as they made their way up the great marble staircases, and look out upon them from the windows as, more colourful than the flowers, they strolled in little groups about the mile-long formal garden that Le Nôtre had laid out at the back of the palace.

  On the 11th of May the King was to inspect the French and Swiss guards, so Roger asked for the day off, and d’Heury gave it to him quite willingly. It was the first time that he had seen Louis XVI and as he had expected, the King did not cut an impressive figure. He was a fat, ungainly man with a large pasty face and, perhaps owing to his bulk, he looked much older than his thirty-two years. The Queen, on the other hand, Roger thought both regal and beautiful. As she drove by in her carriage he was near enough to see that she had blue eyes and an aquiline nose, and he thought that when Athénaïs reached the age of thirty she would be very like her.

  Roger was now getting to know most of the Marquis’s principal friends by sight, as he shared a workroom with d’Heury which served as an ante-chamber to the Marquis’s sanctum, and all visitors had to pass through it.

  M. Joseph de Rayneval, the premier commis of the Foreign Ministry, was a very frequent caller, and it did not take long for Roger to discover that this high official was working hand-in-glove with the Marquis against the interests of his own master, the Comte de Vergennes. There also came to the house fairly often the Duc de Polignac whose beautiful wife was the avowed favourite of the Queen; the energetic Maréchal de Castries, Minister for the Navy; M. Bérard, head of the French East India Company; the Baron de Breteuil, Minister for Paris; the Duc de Coigny, another close friend of the Queen, and her most trusted adviser, the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, Austrian Ambassador to France.

  There were two others who called with some frequency, to one of whom Roger took an instinctive dislike and to the other an instinctive liking.

  The first was the Comte de Caylus. He came of an ancient family and possessed estates both in Brittany and in the French West Indies. His revenues from his slave plantations in Martinique and Saint Domingue were said to be immense, but with them he had also inherited a dash of black blood from a mulatto mother. He was in his late forties; a vigorous and powerfully built man with thick lips, a sallow skin and a flattened nose. He treated his inferiors with all the arrogance habitual to the great French nobles and, in addition, had a coarseness of manner quite unusual among them. However, M. de Rochambeau always received him with great cordiality, as they had many interests in common; both came from the same province and both were fervid imperialists, it being de Caylus’s most cherished ambition to bring the whole of the West Indian archipelago under French domination.

  The second was the Abbé de Périgord or, as he was often called, L’Abbé du Cour. He was of middle height, a little over thirty years of age and had a curiously attractive face. His eyes were blue-grey, his nose slightly tip-tilted, his hair fair and expression piquant. He never dressed as a churchman but in the height of fashion, and whenever he moved he leaned gracefully upon a cane, as he was a permanent cripple, his right leg being shorter than his left.

  D’Heury did not care for him, and said that, even in this age, when it was regarded as normal for a rich prelate to keep a mistress, de Périgord’s life was a flagrant scandal, since he not only lived openly with the young and beautiful Countess de Flahaut, by whom he had had a son, but he was one of the most dissolute roués in all Paris. Moreover, he was an intriguer of the first water who was clever enough to keep in with the Queen’s party on the one hand while being on the best of terms with the Duc d’Orleans, the most deadly enemy of the Court, on the other.

  Roger, however, took a great liking to the lame Abbé as he thought him, outwardly at least, all that an aristocrat should be. Not only did he, with his delicate hands and gentle smile, look the part, but his manners were a model of easy courtesy and he always had a kind word for everyone. It was not until some time later that Roger learned that de Périgord’s first names were Charles Maurice de Talleyrand.

  Finding Roger willing and intelligent d’Heury began to entrust him with a certain amount of the Marquis’s correspondence. Roger was given the gist of what was required to be said, wrote the letters and took them in to M. de Rochambeau for signature. It was this which led to his being initiated into one of the secrets of the household.

  Beyond the ante-room in which the secretaries worked there was a smaller room which contained a number of presses and had no exit. Roger had often seen d’Heury disappear into for ten minutes or more and had thought that he was busy filing papers there; but, on Roger’s promotion to handling correspondence, the round-shouldered Abbé revealed to him a short cut to getting the documents signed. One of the presses had a false back, the wall behind it was very thick and had been hollowed out to form a small closet; the panel at the far side of the closet was another secret door, which opened into the Marquis’s sanctum at its far end, just opposite his desk.

  As d’Heury explained, this secret entrance enabled the secretary to communicate with the Marquis, if he wished, about any visitor who might be in the ante-room without the visitor being aware that he had done so; and could always be used unless the Marquis had someone with him. In that case it was M. de Rochambeau’s custom to push over a switch beneath his desk, which had the effect of locking both the panel in his room and the door of the press, so that no one could get into the closet and overhear what might be passing between his visitor and himself.

  On the 1st of June the decisions of Parliament regarding the prisoners on trial for complicity in the affair of the Diamond Necklace were at last made public. The Cardinal de Rohan, Count Cagliostro and Mademoiselle Gay d’Oliva were declared innocent and set at liberty; but Madame de la Motte was condemned to be whipped, branded upon both shoulders and imprisoned for life.

  The populace of Paris received the verdicts with the wildest enthusiasm, and gave the Cardinal as great an ovation on his release from the Bastille as though he were a victorious General returning from the wars. They were inspired to this, not from any especial love for the Cardinal, but because they took the verdict to imply that since he was innocent the Queen must be guilty, and the unfortunate Marie Antoinette had already become the most hated woman in France.

  That the Queen was, in fact, blameless there could be little doubt; as the letter purporting to come from her authorising the Cardinal to buy the jewels on her behalf was signed Marie Antoinette de France, and, as even the dull-witted King had pointed out, being by birth an Archduchess of Austria, she always signed herself Marie Antoinette d’Autriche. Nevertheless, the most slanderous rumours were rife, alleging that the Queen had been the Cardinal’s mistress, that he had given her the necklace as the price of her virtue and that, when the transaction had come to light, he had nobly allowed himself to be brought to trial and kept his mouth shut in order to save her honour.

  The truth, as known to the Queen’s intimates, was that she had taken a strong dislike to de Ro
han when she was a girl and he the French Ambassador at Vienna. Little thinking that she would later become Queen of France he had made some witty but disparaging remarks about her, and she had sworn never to forgive him. She had, indeed, never done so, but he had tried to buy her favour back by purchasing and sending her the necklace. It had, however, been stolen by his emissary, Madame de la Motte, in transit, and so the Queen had never even known of his intention.

  D’Heury, having had the inside story from the Marquis, told it to Roger and they agreed, like everyone else who knew the truth, that the one thing which stood out in the unfortunate affair was the incredible stupidity of the King in ever allowing the matter to form the subject of a public trial, as anyone but a half-wit could have foreseen that, since the Queen could not also, be tried and vindicated, it must inevitably lead to her being pilloried.

  On the 20th of June, the King set out with his Ministers of War and Marine, the Marshals de Ségur and de Castries, to make a personal inspection of the new harbour-works at Cherbourg, and Roger had good cause to remember the date, as it was on that evening that the most unforeseen events occurred to play havoc with the new routine into which he had now settled.

  When the Marquis was in residence and working late it was customary for his two secretaries to take it in turn to go down to supper, so that one or the other should always be available to attend upon him. On this particular evening Roger had already supped and, a little before nine, d’Heury had gone downstairs; but, before handing over, he had neglected to tell his junior that some ten minutes earlier he had shown a visitor in to the Marquis. Having some letters for signature Roger was about to take them in as usual through the secret entrance. It was only when he had stepped into the closet and heard voices on the far side of the panel that he realised that M. de Rochambeau was not alone.

  It flashed upon him that he would not have been able to get into the closet had not the Marquis overlooked turning the switch which automatically locked it on both sides, and he knew that he ought to withdraw; but just as he was about to do so, the visitor who was with the Marquis said:

  ‘I do not agree that the conquest of England is an essential to France achieving undisputed first place in the world’s affairs.’

  The voice came so clearly that Roger recognised it at once as that of the Abbé de Perigord; and the subject of the conversation immediately caused his curiosity to overcome his scruples about eavesdropping, so he remained where he was.

  The Marquis replied: ‘My dear Abbé, whichever way we turn we find the English barring our path. What alternative have we but to build up our strength until in another war we can finally overcome them and make their rich dominions our own? ’Tis that or resigning ourselves to watching France become moribund and bankrupt.’

  ‘Nay,’ said the Abbé, ‘there are other courses which might yet save us from our present distress. To wage another war with the English would at best be a desperate gamble. Their population is barely the half of ours, yet time and again they have proved terrible antagonists. They have an unreasoning and tenacious courage for which their national bulldog is an admirable symbol. I’d not tempt fate, but seek, as M. de Vergennes is at present doing, a new and better understanding with them.’

  ‘But where can that lead us?’ the Marquis asked. ‘Their field of supply is now infinitely more widespread than ours; their industry rests upon a sounder basis; the goods they turn out are of better quality. How can we possibly compete with them? The contemplated treaty for commercial reciprocity which should have been signed over a year ago, would mean virtual free trade between the two nations. For eighteen months I have fought, and succeeded in postponing, this measure, from a most positive conviction that it would prove the final death-blow to French commerce.’

  ‘It would not be so,’ the Abbé remarked quietly, ‘if it were entered into with a secret understanding that Britain should supply us with all the goods we needed, while leaving us a free hand to market both their wares and ours throughout the rest of Europe.’

  ‘You talk in riddles, Abbé,’ M. de Rochambeau laughed. ‘’Twould be our salvation, indeed, were we the emporium of Europe; but what possible inducement could we offer Britain to give us a monopoly of her continental trade?’

  ‘She would have no option if the major portion of the Continent were brought under our control.’

  ‘What! Would you have us go to war with half a dozen nations rather than with one?’

  ‘Yes; since the one is strong and united, while the others are weak and divided against themselves. Britain is a sea-power, so I would leave her to develop overseas and made her our friend by becoming her biggest customer. France is a land-power, and she should seek new wealth through the expansion of her frontiers.’

  ‘Even with England as our ally, ’twould mean a long series of most costly campaigns,’ demurred the Marquis.

  ‘Not necessarily. Europe is suffering from fin de siècle and every country in it now seethes with political unrest, which we could turn to our own ends if we played our cards skilfully. The Catholics of the Austrian Netherlands intensely resent the reforms forced upon them by the Emperor Joseph, and the country is ripe to break away from him. The States-General of Holland is already in open revolt against the Stadtholder and contemplates an attempt to replace his régime with a republic. The King of Prussia is, as we know, on his death-bed. The Great Frederick will wage no more victorious campaigns and there is a strong party that regards his heir-apparent with considerable aversion. The Princelings who rule the German States can always be played off against one another. The Italian States and the two Sicilies are rotten to the core. Hungary is in a state of acute unrest owing to the Emperor’s passion for uniformity and his attempt to force German administration and the German language upon it. Russia alone presents no weakness and, like England, should be left to develop outwardly; in her case towards Asia and the dominions of the Grand Turk, whose measure she seems already to have taken.’

  ‘And what do you deduce from all this?’ the Marquis inquired.

  ‘Why, that France should use the discontented elements in all these countries as her stalking-horses. We should fan the flames of revolt in each until civil war breaks out; then on the pretext that we intend to “protect” their inhabitants from oppression we should send troops to their assistance. Once in they would not find it easy to turn us out and we could ensure in them the establishment of new governments favourable to our own designs. They would keep their independence, nominally, but, henceforth, they would actually be protectorates, with rulers dependent on the good will of France. By this means, in a dozen years, we could gain control of the greater part of Europe. It would be necessary to support the discontented minorities financially and to supply them in secret with arms; but we should regard each of them as though they were French armies already established in the heart of the countries we mean to dominate. They would, in fact, be the secret columns of France.’

  There was a moment’s silence, then the Marquis said: ‘What a subtle brain you have, my dear Abbé. You should have been a diplomat instead of a churchman and I wonder that you do not seek office with a view to becoming a minister of the Crown.’

  The Abbé de Talleyrand-Périgord’s voice came again and it was bitter. ‘I thank you, M. le Marquis, but I have no wish to serve a Court that has already treated me so scurvily.’

  ‘To what do you refer?’

  ‘Surely you must have heard of the manner in which I was deprived of my promised Cardinal’s Hat. Madame de Brionne obtained the interest of the King of Sweden on my behalf. Gustave III used his influence with the Pope and His Holiness agreed that the vacant Hat should be bestowed upon me. Then the Queen learned of the affair. She instructed the Comte de Mercy to press her brother that he should insist ’twas Austria’s turn to receive the dignity; and Pius VI, weakling that he is, gave way to the Emperor. Queens who behave so to their subjects cannot expect their loyal service.’

  ‘You must remember,’ said th
e Marquis coldly, ‘that her Majesty is a model wife and mother; and that to maintain a high moral tone at her Court is a thing very near her heart. Your private life, Abbé, is no recommendation to a Cardinal’s Hat, and no doubt the Queen quashed it on that account.’

  ‘Nay; my life is no worse than that of many another whom family considerations forced into the Church against their will. ’Twas the Queen’s vindictiveness, and this accursed affair of the Diamond Necklace. She is not content to have banished de Rohan to an Abbey in Auvergue, although he was declared innocent by his judges; she pursues all who stood by him with her hate. Madame de Brionne is a Rohan by birth, so even I, as her protégé, must suffer for the folly of the King in ever making the matter public. I repeat, I have no further mind to serve a halfwitted man and a capricious woman.’

  When the Marquis next spoke the listening Roger could tell that he was very angry but striving hard to control his temper, as he said:

  ‘A Cardinal’s Hat is no small thing to lose, and I sympathise with your disappointment. But, Monsieur l’Abbé, I wish that you would reconsider your decision. We live in most troubled times and ’tis of great importance that, whatever our personal feelings may be about the Sovereigns, we noblemen should give them our fullest support. Otherwise the whole régime may be brought into jeopardy.’

  ‘And what if it is?’ The Abbé’s voice was tinged with a mocking cynicism. ‘You, Monsieur le Marquis, are now, I fear, too old to adjust yourself to new conditions. But that does not apply to me. Whatever changes may occur I shall find my level at a place for which my abilities fit me; and it may well be that under new masters I shall find the scope to serve France far more effectively.’