The Rising Storm

stories of his past as he chose to tell, and in himself, amounted to much the same thing. Again, with a critic's eye, he took in her features and decided that she was by no means beautiful. Her soft, dark eyes were as large as, but lacked the sparkle of, Georgina's; her hair was no more lustrous, and in all other points she was by a long way inferior. The malicious might have described her complexion as sallow; her mouth, though full, was not a very good shape, her teeth were slightly uneven and the heavy brows were a mixed blessing, for though they gave her face great character they were some­what overawing when seen close to.

'I had not flattered myself that your interest was in any way per­sonal,' Roger declared, to spare her further embarrassment, 'but I am entirely at your disposal, Senorita.' Then, offering his arm, he added: 'While we converse shall we promenade for a little?'

She laid her fingers lightly on it and allowed him to lead her away from the group of other young women— who, since their meeting, had covertly been taking more interest in them than in the carp—and round the corner of the Palace theatre into the parterre designed for Louis XIV by his famous gardener, Le Notre.

After a short silence she said: 'The principal reason that the story of your running away from home intrigued me so much, Monsieur, is because it would be quite impossible for such a thing to occur in Spain. I mean, of course, for a boy of good family to do such a thing. There children are made much more of by their parents than they are in France, but all the same they are brought up very strictly, and kept under constant supervision until the young men are of an age to go out into the world, and the girls to marry. I think things must be very different in England, but I know little of your customs there. Pray tell me of them.'

It was a subject that presented no pitfalls, so Roger willingly launched out on an account of the Public School system and the type of life led by boys of the upper classes when they were living at their homes during the holidays.

The Senorita showed the most intelligent interest in all he had to say and led him on to speak of his own home and his family; then, when she learned that he had an allowance of only ?300 a year from his father, she enquired why he had not entered the service of his King to carve out a career for himself.

Not wishing to give the impression that he was altogether an idle good-for-nothing or, worse, an adventurer, he said that he had a passion for seeing new places and new faces, so travelled for the love of it as far as his means permitted; but that to eke them out and at the same time indulge his taste he had, on occasion, acted for his Government as a special courier, carrying despatches to the Baltic countries and Russia.

At that her interest quickened still further and she asked if his coming to France had arisen from some commission of that kind.

He told her that it had not, and that but for his arrest he would have remained entirely his own master for some time; adding the easy lie that, an aunt having left him a nice legacy, he had decided to spend some months making a leisurely tour of the great cities of France with the object of inspecting the historic monuments they contained.

They had, by this time, walked right round the eastern end of the great Palace and entered the Garden of Diana to its north. Roger knew that the Queen's apartments looked out on it and the little town that lay immediately beyond its wall. He had wondered at her choice until he had been told that all the apartments facing south and west had at one time or another been lived in by the mistresses of past Kings, and that she was so proud that she preferred the comparatively sunless aspect to making use of rooms in which immoral women had received their royal lovers. Now, Roger glanced up at the first-floor windows and added bitterly:

'However, it seems that Her Majesty has other plans for me.'

His companion slightly increased the light pressure of her fingers on his arm. 'Be not too despondent, Monsieur. Did I believe that you had committed the heinous crime of which you were at first accused, you may be sure that I would not be talking to you now; and I can vouch for it that, although Madame Marie Antoinette allows her impulses to make her appear harsh at times, she is in reality one of the tenderest-hearted women alive. When she has had time for reflection I cannot think she will prove over-severe towards you.'

'I pray you may be right,' Roger said somewhat doubtfully. 'Yet I understand that several of her gentlemen approached her on my behalf this morning, and she refused to listen to them.'

' 'Tis true, and I was the witness of it. But at the time she was much occupied with other matters; for tomorrow the Court leaves Fontaine­bleau to return to Versailles. On that account, too, I fear I must leave you now, as I still have many matters to attend to.'

Roger accompanied her to the staircase leading to the Queen's apartments, thanked her for having distracted him from his anxieties for a while, received her good wishes for a better turn in his fortunes, and then made his way back to de Vaudreuil's rooms.

This unsought interview had put him in a slightly more cheerful frame of mind. He felt that he had gained another friend near the Queen, who would do what she could on his behalf; but he now feared that the imminent departure of the Court might prejudice the issue against him. In the bustle preparatory to the move the Queen would have little time for quiet consideration of his case, and her impulsive nature might easily lead her to not even discuss it with the King, but simply scribble a line to the Lieutenant of Police, instructing him to fill in a blank lettre de cachet to the effect that M. de Breuc was to be imprisoned during His Majesty's pleasure.

Such a procedure was often adopted instead of ordering imprison­ment for a definite period, and it was one of the bitterest complaints of the bourgeoisie that such sentences sometimes led to people who had been incarcerated for quite minor misdemeanours, and had no influence at Court, being forgotten and left for years to rot in a dungeon.

The later afternoon was rendered no more pleasant for Roger from the fact that de Vaudreuil's garrulous servant was dismantling the sitting-room and packing up his master's things; then, after dinner, instead of enjoying again the gay society that had borne him company the evening before, he found himself left alone with his worries, owing to it being the night of the Queen's weekly card-party.

The jeu de la Reine had long been an institution at the Court of France, and the Queens were provided with a special allowance to support it. In addition to play the occasion was used by them to show special favour to distinguished visitors, one or more of the Ambassadors, or others that they wished to honour, by inviting them to sit near them. Maria Leczinska, the Queen of Louis XV, had always insisted on keeping the games down to modest stakes in order to protect the players from heavy losses; but a few years after Louis XVI ascended the throne Marie Antoinette had developed a taste for gambling, partly perhaps to distract her mind from her unhappiness at being unable to produce an heir for France.

Once bitten with the fever she had played nightly and for increasingly high stakes, so that at the end of 1777 she had lost ?21,000 in excess of her income, and had been obliged to ask her husband to pay her debts. The sum was insignificant compared with those that the royal mis­tresses had thrown away at the tables in the past; but her gambling losses had been made much of by her enemies. It was this which, when the French Treasury had become near bankrupt, had caused the people to accuse her of having emptied it and christen her with the opprobrious name of 'Madame Deficit'.

Since the birth of her children her character had changed. She had longed for them for so many years in vain that when at last they came they absorbed her interest to the exclusion of all other pleasures. She had given up frequenting the gay entertainments given by the younger set at her Court, reduced her lavish expenditure on clothes, and both her stakes at the gambling tables and the frequency with which she played.

But she still enjoyed a game and naturally continued to hold her official card-parties as a part of the Court ceremonial; so that on this evening Roger, finding himself deserted and knowing that her reception was unlikely to be over before ten o'clock, decided to go early to bed.

He hoped that sleep would soon banish his anxieties, but in that he was disappointed, and he found his wakeful mind playing round the Spanish girl with whom he had talked that afternoon. Although she was not strictly beautiful he admitted to himself that she possessed a certain subtle attraction, and after some thought he decided that it lay largely in her voice. It was peculiarly soft and melodious, and her slightly broken French with its Spanish accent added to its fascination. Perhaps too her nationality played a part, for Spain, shut away as it was from the rest of Europe by the barrier of the Pyrenees, was still almost unknown territory, which endowed it with a glamour all its own. Very few foreigners ever visited it, but travellers' tales described it as a land of dazzling sunshine where great sterile deserts were interspersed with areas of vines, olives and orange blossom, and in which the most degrading poverty existed cheek by jowl with fabulous riches. He hoped that one day his travels would take him there, so that he would be able to witness the fiestas and bullfights for which the country was renowned.