The Rising Storm

Fersen turned and looked at Roger. 'Think you he would agree to such a proposal? Are you shooting in the dark, or do you know him personally?'

'I dined with him three nights ago. Like many others who took a hand in stirring up this hornets' nest, he is much perturbed by the way events are trending. He came out most strongly in favour of an absolute veto for the King and deplores the weakness of the present Ministry. One remark he made struck me particularly; he said: 'The Queen is the only man the King has about him.' '

De Mercy-Argenteau was now leaning forward, listening to Roger with the greatest interest. 'If de Mirabeau said that,' he murmured, 'it is certainly a good indication that he would be willing to serve Her Majesty. But please go on, Mr. Brook.'

'I would only add, Your Excellency, that I believe it would be a mistake to ask too much of him. I think that he would willingly co­operate with Their Majesties in an effort to give the country a sound Liberal Constitution, and enforce the restoration of order in it. But I feel certain that, dubious as his private life may have been, where the welfare of his country is concerned he has a conscience; and neither promises nor bribes would induce him to assist the Court in an attempt to re-establish an autocratic Government.'

De la Marck nodded vigorously. 'That is exactly my opinion; and I have taken some pains to get to know de Mirabeau well. He is of course, always in need of money, and under the guise of literary patronage I have allowed him a small monthly pension ever since I came to appreciate his worth. But no amount one could offer him would tempt him to betray his political ideals. If he accepts a salary from the King it will be only on his own conditions, and then because he would feel that he was just as much entitled to it as any other Minister.'

'If the King made him a Minister he would lose his seat in the Assembly,' objected the Conde Fernanunez. 'Then more than half his value would be lost to us. His power to influence the decisions of the Chamber is his main asset.'

'I fear I did not make myself plain, Excellency. I meant the salary he would receive if he were a Minister; not that he should be made one. The suggestion is that he should be asked to formulate a secret policy for Their Majesties and be paid a retainer for advising them on every stage of it; but himself continue as a deputy, and do all he can to forward the programme in the Chamber.'

After some further discussion it was agreed that in a secret alliance such as de la Marck suggested lay the best hope of preventing the extremists from becoming absolute masters of the State, and it was decided that he should sound de Mirabeau upon it. De Mercy-Argenteau then thanked everyone present for the advice they had offered, and asked them to keep in touch with him.

Christmas fell two days later, but as it was not kept up in France with the gaiety and good cheer traditional in England Roger hardly noticed its passing. As he enjoyed full liberty to come and go as he pleased, he had thought of taking ten days' leave to go home for it, but had decided against doing so for a variety of reasons. It was highly probable that Amanda would be at Walhampton and meeting her again at all the local parties would be awkward after their affaire in the summer. During his last visit to Lymington he had been driven half crazy by his longings for Isabella; and, although he was well on the way to freeing his mind of thoughts of her, he feared that such an early return to the scene of his misery might bring them flooding back. But the decisive factor was that he felt he was now really getting to grips with his mission, and that the reports he was sending to Mr. Pitt must be too valuable for him to be justified in losing touch with his contacts even for a matter of ten days.

On the 30th of December he made his first appearance at the Jacobin Club. It had been started while the National Assembly was still at Versailles by a few Breton deputies who wished to discuss overnight the measures that were to be brought before the Chamber on the following day. Since the removal to Paris it had enormously

increased both its membership and its influence. Men of all shades of opinion, other than declared reactionaries, went there, but it was tending more and more to become an unofficial headquarters of the Left. As a club-house the ex-Convent of the Jacobins, off the Rue St. Honore within a hundred yards of the Place Vendome, had been taken over, and thus gave the Club the name by which it had now become generally known.

Roger kept de Mirabeau to his promise to take him there and the Count said that there would be no difficulty about his becoming a member of the Club if he wished to do so. Anyone could join provided they were introduced by an existing member and had either published some work expressing Liberal sentiments or were prepared to make a short speech which met with the approval of the members present at the time. Colour, religion and race were no bar to election, as the spirit of the Club was 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity' for all; and British subjects always received a particularly warm welcome on account of their having been the first people in the world to throw off the 'tyranny of Kings'. The Count added that only a few days before Christmas an English gentleman-farmer of Suffolk, named Arthur Young, who was staying in Paris with the Due de Liancourt, had been elected a member with much enthusiasm.

The great hall of the Convent was already famous in French his­tory, as it was here that the Catholic League had been formed in the reign of Henri III, to resist the armies of the insurgent Huguenots. When de Mirabeau led Roger into it a further chapter of French history was being written, but by a very different type of man from the great nobles who had once stuck white crosses in their feathered caps and sworn an oath there with drawn swords. It was crowded with democrats of all classes and over a hundred deputies were present, debating the policy they should pursue in the Assembly the following day. After listening to diem for a while it was soon clear to Roger that Barnave, the Lameths, Petion and other enrages, as the most violent revolutionaries were called, were much the most popular speakers.

In due course a halt was called to the debate to elect new members, and de Mirabeau introduced Roger as an English journalist of sound Whig convictions. Roger then spoke briefly, saying several things in which he fully believed, with regard to the liberty of the subject, and ending with a peroration in which he did not, concerning the imperish­able glory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He was elected with acclamation and afterwards signed the book as a member.

On January 1st he celebrated the opening of the year 1790 by buying himself one of the new hats. Three- cornered hats were now rapidly going out of fashion and being replaced by two new types of headgear. The first, now being worn by more sober men of substance,

was a round beaver or felt with an insloping crown, like a steeple that had been cut off short The second, affected by the fashionable youth of the new era, was a sickle moon-shaped cocked hat of moire silk, worn on the back of the head with its points sticking out level with the ears; which could be folded flat for holding under the arm more conveniently than the old three-cornered type. Roger chose one of the latter and had just completed his purchase when he ran into de la Marck.

Somewhat to his surprise the young Austrian told him that he had been seeking to use the Comte de Provence as a medium for negotia­tions between de Mirabeau and the King. Louis XVI had not con­sidered it necessary to send his younger brother abroad, as, unlike d'Artois, he had not. incurred the hatred of the mob. On the contrary, he had pandered to it and, on the removal from Versailles, come to live at the Palais du Luxembourg, on the south side of the river, where he now enjoyed a faint replica of the popularity that the Due d'Orleans had had while living at the Palais Royal.

De la Marck explained that he had been influenced in the course he had taken by knowing that although the Queen had never met de Mirabeau, all she had heard of him had led her to dislike and distrust him intensely; so he had feared that a direct approach to her might result in the project being killed at birth, and had decided to attempt to interest the King in it through his brother.

However, he felt now that he had been something of a simpleton to count on family loyalty, and had probably underestimated de Provence's jealousy of the King and hatred for the Queen, as the pompous Prince had merely temporized, and was proving of very little help.

Roger strongly advised a direct approach to the Queen, and some days later he was gratified to hear from de la Marck that the move had proved successful. At first Madame Marie Antoinette had proved extremely difficult to convince that de Mirabeau would observe any pact loyally; but in the end she had been won round, and an agreement had been reached by which the King was to pay de Mirabeau's debts and allow him 6,000 livres a month; and the great demagogue was now busy compiling in secret a long paper on innumerable questions, for the future guidance of Their Majesties.

The rest of January and the first half of February passed for Roger in a round of intense activity. There were