The Launching of Roger Brook

property owners, irrespective of class, would be subject.

The next day, the better to deliberate on these matters, the Assembly was divided into seven committees, each of twenty-two members and each having a Prince of the Blood for its chairman. So urgent were the passage of these reforms now considered that all the committees sat every day, except Sundays; but it soon became apparent that opposition to the Royal will was rising in every quarter.

Both the clergy and nobles showed extreme resentment at the proposal to tax their lands, and the Archbishop of Narbonne led a heated attack upon the measure. The representatives of the ancient provincial Parliaments fiercely opposed the proposals for establishing provincial Assemblies, as they feared that these would usurp their own functions. The trade guilds and entire commercial community of the country raised an outcry about the proposed tax on paper, saying that it would bring ruin to their business. In fact, every class represented in the Assembly had some reason to obstruct the new programme and all united in demanding that a full account should be given of how the national revenues were expended before further taxation was imposed.

M. de Calonne was compelled to admit that the deficit for the current year amounted to one hundred and thirteen millions, but he would give no details. The Princes of the Blood were forced to represent the rebellious attitude of their committees to the King, and one of them, the Prince de Conti, was so impressed by their arguments that he refused to continue his work until forced to do so by a direct order from the Monarch. Another of them, M. de Due de Orleans, the most bitter enemy of the Court, skilfully slid out of his chairmanship on the plea that he could not be expected to give an impartial judgment on the reduction of the Gabelle as it would reduce his income by ?30,000 a year. The King's brothers, M. le Comte de Provence and M. le Comte d'Artois, despite their normal preoccupations, the one with learning, and the other with women, worked hard with their committees. Both offered to reduce the cost of their stables by half a million francs a year, but this belated gesture was almost overlooked in the general alarm at the appalling state into which the finances had fallen.

In mid-March the Comte de Mirabeau published a broadside openly attacking the administration and, on the 20th a Lettre de Cachet was issued for his arrest; but he was warned of it and succeeded in escaping to England. By early April the popular fury against M. de Calonne had risen to such a height that the King could no longer support him and, on the 9th, he was dismissed from office. On the 19th, M. Necker, the ex- Finance Minister, issued a pamphlet, stigmatising M. de Calonne for his three years of mismanagement, and the King ordered the Swiss banker into exile. On the 25th of May the King at last dissolved the Assembly of Notables, which, instead of supporting the Royal Authority, had gone against it on every measure and given vent to the discontent of the whole nation. He was said to have sworn that during his lifetime he would never call another, and he now placed his affairs in the hands of his new Minister, Lomenie de Brienne, the Archbishop of Toulouse.

In the meantime, M. de Rochambeau continued to occupy himself with affairs in the United Provinces. The Stadtholder's situation was an extremely difficult one, as the Dutch possessed a very liberal Constitution which rendered him little more than hereditary Chief Magistrate. On the advice of the British Minister, Sir James Harris, he had now formed a bodyguard for his own protection, but he controlled so few troops that it was quite impossible for him to enforce his authority. On the other hand, the States-General were busy secretly recruiting a free-corps throughout the whole country for the maintenance of their independence.

The three Ambassadors, Gortz, Harris and de Rayneval continued their mediation and appeared to be holding the two parties back from an open clash; but all through the spring and early summer the United Provinces remained a powder barrel which, if it went off, was liable to ignite half Europe.

Roger followed every move with the keenest interest but, puzzle his wits as he would, he could still not make out what deep game M. de Rochambeau was playing. It seemed to him beyond belief that the Marquis could be seeking to bring about a war while the finances of France were in such a desperate situation, yet he knew that from the beginning of the year many warlike preparations had been undertaken.

The British Control Commission having evacuated Dunkirk, on the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, the French had at once begun to refortify the port, and they were now committed to a programme of works there almost as formidable as that for Cherbourg. It had also been decided that a camp of eighty thousand troops should be assembled in the summer for 'manoeuvres' at Givet, in Flanders. The Navy too, was gradually being got into a state of readiness and the Marshal de Castries had mentioned to the Marquis in Roger's hearing that he had sixty- four ships-of-the-line which could now be made ready for action at short notice.

Having become the repository of such secrets, Roger felt it his duty to pass them on to Mr. Gilbert Maxwell and from early in 1787 a regular correspondence ensued. The information that he sent would actually have been of considerably greater value if he had given with it the attitude and opinions on foreign policy of the many important people with whom he now came in contact; but, not being aware of that, he confined his reports to bare statements of fact which he considered had military significance.

Mr. Maxwell's replies were little more than appreciative acknow­ledgements, although he occasionally asked in guarded terms if Roger could give him other specific pieces of information. Once he suggested that if Roger could, without endangering his position, get in touch with Mr. Daniel Hailes, the Charge d'Affaires at the British Embassy in Paris, this might prove useful; and added that Mr. Hailes had been instructed to supply him with funds if he should be in need of them.

Roger still had qualms enough about betraying his employer and, while he was prepared to do so for his country's sake, the idea of selling information for money was highly repulsive to him. So he replied briefly that he was not in need of funds and that he thought it would be most ill-advised for him to have any dealings with the British Embassy.

From Athenais's first appearance at Versailles, she became unavoid­ably involved in the series of endless entertainments that still occupied most of the energies of the feckless Court, but she managed to get back to Paris for a night once every ten days or so. Now and then, to Roger's fury, his work prevented him from taking advantage of her presence to keep their tryst, but the very difficulties that beset their coming together, while still preserving their secret, made them all the more eager for these stolen meetings.

Most of the hours they spent in the old playroom were devoted to kisses, sighs, embraces and mutual vows of devotion, but occasionally they found time to talk for a little of her doings at Versailles. In mid-May she told him that she had now become quite intimate with the Royal circle as she had recently seen them with less formality.

With the coming of summer the Queen had reopened her Swiss Chalet dairy farm beside the lake near the Petit Trianon. Once or twice a week the Royal family went out there for a picnic meat, with a favoured few of whom Athenais was now one. They all wore simple clothes, played at milking the cows, made butter, and cooked then- own supper.

Marie-Antoinette loved to throw off the dignity of Queen for a few hours and she was gay and charming with everybody. Athenais said that it was a joy to see her acting the farmer's wife and romping with her children, the young Dauphin and the Uttle Princess Royale. Even the heavy-featured, tongue-tied King came out of his sheU a Uttle and joined in a game of blind man's buff, when he was not too tired from hunting and fell asleep in his chair.

Athenais declared that he was very far from being the fool that many people thought him. He was, she said, a clever geographer, an expert locksmith, and spoke German and English well. It was his misfortune that he would much rather have been a bourgeois family-man than a King, and had it not been for his very simple tastes, gentleness and diffidence, he would have made an excellent Sovereign.

Roger could not question such a first-hand portrait but all the same he accepted it with reservation. He had heard M. de Rochambeau say more than once that the King was so bored by affairs of State that during the meetings of the Royal Council he often drew pictures of locks on his blotting-pad, instead of listening to what his ministers were saying to him; and that on other occasions he returned so exhausted from his favourite pastime of the chase that he slept soundly, snoring his way through discussions of the utmost importance.

Every time Roger saw Athenais he asked her if any decision had yet been taken about her marriage, dreading to hear that something definite had been decided which would soon put a period to their meetings; but each time she said that her father seemed in no hurry to dispose of her and, as summer approached, she sought to comfort Roger by saying that, even when her engagement was announced, a further two or three months must elapse while she got her trousseau together, so it was most unlikely that they would have to face separation until the autumn.

M. de la Tour d'Auvergne continued to show the greatest devotion to her, and she freely confessed that, of