The Rising Storm

and if these men are still our prisoners I will have them released and repatriated. And for yourself, Monsieur ?'

Roger bowed. ' 'Tis only, Madame, your permission to remain unobtrusively about the Court, in the hope that I may be of some further service to Your Majesty.'

She smiled rather wanly. 'I grant that readily; although I warn you, Mr. Brook, that in these days the Court of Versailles is but a poor place in which to seek advancement. We are having all we can do to maintain ourselves.'

As Roger was about to reply the door was flung open and the King came lumbering in. Ignoring Roger and Madame Campan, he cried:

'What do you think, Madame D'Esprenenil has just been to see me.'

The Queen sighed. 'To offer more advice, I suppose; and no doubt contrary to the innumerable opinions we have heard so far.'

Pulling a large handkerchief from his pocket the King began to mop his red, perspiring face. 'But what do you think he said, Madame; what do you think he said? He wants me to summon the Parliament of Paris, of whose loyalty he now assures me; march on the city with my troops, surround the Palais Royal, seize my cousin of Orleans and his confederates, try them summarily and hang them to the nearest lamp­posts. He says that if I will do that the people will be too stunned to rise against us. That I could then dissolve the National Assembly as unfaithful to its mandates; and that if I will grant by royal edict all reasonable reforms the Parliament will register them, the country be pacified, and the monarchy established on a firm foundation.'

'Worse advice has been offered to other Monarchs who found themselves in similar difficulties,' said the Queen quietly.

'But Madame 1' the harassed man exclaimed in alarm. 'Because I dislike and distrust my cousin, that would be no excuse for hanging him. Besides, such a tyrannical act could not possibly be carried through without innocent persons becoming embroiled in it. We might even have to fire on the crowds and kill a number of the people. The people love me and in no circumstances will I allow their blood to be shed. They are not disloyal, but simply misguided. No! No! If blood is to be shed I would rather that it were my own. You at least agree with me about that, do you not, Madame?'

The Queen inclined her head. 'Sire, you know well that you have my full understanding and approval of any measures that you think fit to take. What reply did you make to Monsieur d' Espremenil ?'

'I—I thanked him for his advice,' faltered the unhappy King, 'and told him that we were opposed to extreme measures; but would think about it. You see, Madame, I did not wish to offend him, as I am sure that he meant well. I am much relieved that you feel as I do. I pray you excuse me now, for I am due to listen to a lecture from that depressing Monsieur Necker.'

The King made an awkward bow to his wife, and hurried like a naughty schoolboy from the room. There was silence for a moment, then the Queen said to Roger:

'Had you been the King, Mr. Brook, what would you have thought of Monsieur d'Espremenil's advice?'

'I would have taken it, Madame, and acted upon it this very night,' replied Roger without hesitation. 'But may it please Your Majesty to understand me. I have little sympathy for your nobles, and still Jess for the majority of your clergy. Both Orders have become parasites, and I believe that the only sound future for France lies in utilizing the brains and initiative of the Third Estate. But it should not be allowed to usurp the royal prerogative. Since things have gone so far, I think His Majesty would be justified in taking any measures— however violent—to silence His Highness of Orleans and restore the authority of the monarchy.'

The Queen nodded noncommittally. 'You are not alone in your opinion, Mr. Brook; but His Majesty's feelings are also mine. You may leave me now; and in future I shall see you with pleasure among the gentlemen of our Court.'

As Roger rode back to Paris he felt sad for the French nobles; for, although he found little to admire in them as a body, he would have hated to be one of them and have to rely for support on such a sorry King. His pessimistic view of their chances was confirmed the very next day.

Barentin had won the round over the speech at the Royal Session, but Necker got the upper hand in the one that followed. At his insistence the King wrote to the Presidents of the Two senior Orders, the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld and the Due de Luxembourg, asking them to invite their members to join the Third. Both demurred, so he sent for and pleaded with them. Still they held out, preferring his displeasure, and the howls of execration of the mob wherever they appeared, to a surrender that they considered to be against the true interests of the nation.

The King then panicked and resorted to a stratagem which came near to baseness. He ordered his brother, the Comte d'Artois, whom the nobles regarded as the leader of their resistance, to write a letter stating that if they persisted further in their refusal His Majesty's life would be in danger from the fury of the populace. The letter was read in the chamber of the nobles on the morning of the 27th. The gallant Marquis de St. Simon instantly sprang to his feet and cried: 'If that be the case, let us go to him and form a rampart round him with our bodies.' But the majority were against provoking an armed conflict; so, although with the greatest reluctance, out of personal loyalty to their Sovereign, the remaining members of the two senior Orders were tricked into joining the National Assembly.

That it was a shameful manoeuvre Roger had no doubt, as he was in Versailles at the time with every opportunity to assess the facts; and he knew that there was as yet little real strength behind the noisy rabble, whereas the Court still had ample power to suppress any serious disturbance.

For a week past bands of hooligans had been parading the streets creating disorder, and threatening anyone they saw whom they believed to be opposed to their idol, Monsieur Necker. In the neighbourhood of the park the peasants now defied the gamekeepers; three poachers had been brutally butchered, one of them only a few days previously, and the villagers round about were openly shooting the game in the royal forests. The whole country was in a state of extreme agitation, and during the past four months over 300 outbreaks of violence had occurred in different parts of it.

Even the French Royal Guard were no longer to be relied upon, as the agents of the Due d'Orleans were employing women as well as men to stir up sedition, and great numbers of the prostitutes of Paris were being used to suborn the troops. Both in the capital and at Versailles it was now a common sight to see groups of guardsmen arm-in-arm with girls, drunk in the middle of the day, and shouting obscenities, picked up in the gardens of the Palais Royal, against the Queen. Moreover it was known that a secret society had been formed in the regiment, the members of which had sworn to obey no orders except those emanating from the National Assembly.

But, despite all this, not a voice, much less a finger, had as yet been raised against the King. Every time he gave way he won a new, if temporary, popularity, and even when he stood firm there was no decrease in the respect shown to him. He had 40,000 troops within a few hours' march of the capital. The discipline of his Royal Swiss Guard was superb, and he had several other regiments of Swiss and German troops who had long been embodied in the French Army in the immediate vicinity. As they did not speak French they understood little of what was going on, could not be tampered with, and were entirely reliable. He therefore had nothing whatever to fear and must have known it from the fact that whenever he appeared even the rabble still greeted him with shouts of 'Vive le Roi!'

So he had betrayed his nobility, and deprived them of all further opportunity to exercise a restraining influence on the extremists of the Third Estate, solely for the sake of escaping a little further badgering from a Minister whom he disliked and distrusted, yet had not the courage to dismiss.

Of his abysmal weakness further evidence was soon forthcoming. The Due de Chatelet, Colonel of the French Guard, much perturbed by the open disaffection of his regiment, arrested fifteen of the ring­leaders and confined them in the prison of l’Abbaye. One of them managed to get a letter smuggled out to the Palais Royal. On its contents becoming public a tumult ensued, the mob marched upon the prison, forced its doors, released the offenders and carried them back in triumph.

Since the elections the revolutionary Clubs in Paris had gained enormously in strength, and they used as their mouthpiece a body of the Electors who had made their headquarters at the Hotel de Ville. Instead of dispersing after having elected their deputies to the Third Estate these Electors continued to sit, forming an unofficial but most powerful committee, who, every day, deluged their representatives in the National Assembly with a constant spate of requests and orders. The Electors now demanded that the Assembly should use its weight with the King to secure the pardon of the mutinous guardsmen. This the Assembly, now itself