It took only a matter of minutes to settle the details; Hornblower had learned from Hau much about arranging the public appearances of royalty. Then he took his leave, and drove back again to the quay through the silent crowds, to where the boat lay with Brown growing anxious about him. They had hardly pushed off into the stream when Brown cocked his ear. A church carillon had begun its chimes, and within a minute another had joined in. On the deck of the
And when they landed on the quay there was the assembly of notables, as promised; there were the carriages and the horses; there were the white banners in the streets. And there were the apathetic crowds, numbed with disaster. But it meant that Rouen was quiet during their stay there, the reception could at least have an appearance of gaiety, so that Barbara and Hornblower went to bed each night worn out.
Hornblower turned his head on the pillow as the thumping on the door penetrated at last into his consciousness.
“Come in!” he roared; Barbara beside him moved fretfully as he reached out, still half asleep, and pulled open the curtains.
It was Dobbs, slippered and in his shirtsleeves, his braces hanging by his thighs, his hair in a mop. He held a candle in one hand and a despatch in the other.
“It’s over!” he said. “Boney’s abdicated! Blucher’s in Paris!”
So there it was. Victory; the end of twenty years of war. Hornblower sat up and blinked at the candle.
“The Duke must be told,” he said. He was gathering his thoughts. “Is the King still in England? What docs that despatch say?”
He got himself out of bed in his nightshirt, while Barbara sat up with her hair in disorder.
“All right, Dobbs,” said Hornblower. “I’ll be with you in five minutes. Send to wake the Duke and warn him that I am about to come to him.”
He reached for his trousers as Dobbs left him, and, balancing on one leg, he met Barbara’s sleepy gaze.
“It’s peace,” he said. “No more war.”
Even when roused out in this fashion Hornblower dressed, as he did all that came his way, extraordinarily quickly. He was tucking his nightshirt into his trousers — the long skirts of the warm and bulky garment packed the latter uncomfortably full — before Barbara replied.
“We knew it would come,” she said, a little fretfully. During recent events Barbara had had small time to sleep.
“The Duke must be told immediately, all the same,” said Hornblower, thrusting his feet into his shoes. “I expect he’ll start for Paris at dawn.”
“At dawn? What time is it now?”
“Six bells, I should fancy — three o’clock.”
“Oh!” said Barbara, sinking back on her pillow.
Hornblower pulled on his coat and stopped to kiss her, but she kissed him back only perfunctorily.
The Duke kept him waiting fifteen minutes in the drawing-room of the residence of the departed Prefect where he had been installed. He heard the news with his council round him, and with royal stoicism showed no sign of emotion.
“What about the usurper?” was his first question after hearing what Hornblower had to say.
“His future is partially decided, Your Royal Highness. He has been promised a minor sovereignty,” said Hornblower. It sounded absurd to him as he said it.
“And His Majesty, my uncle?”
“The despatch does not say, Your Royal Highness. Doubtless His Majesty will leave England now. Perhaps he is already on his way.”
“We must be at the Tuileries to receive him.”
CHAPTER XVI
Hornblower sat in his sitting-room in the Hotel Meurice in Paris rereading the crackling parchment document that had arrived for him the previous day. The wording of it might be called as gratifying as the purport of it, to one who cared for such things.
As the grandeur and stability of the British Empire depend chiefly upon knowledge and experience in maritime affairs, We esteem those worthy of the highest honours who, acting under Our influence, exert themselves in maintaining Our dominion over the sea. It is for this reason that We have determined to advance to the degree of Peerage Our trusty and well beloved Sir Horatio Hornblower, Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, who, being descended from an ancient family in Kent, and educated from his youth in the sea service, hath through several posts arrived to high station and command in Our navy, by the strength of his own abilities, and a merit distinguished by Us, in the many important services, which he has performed with remarkable fidelity, courage and success. In the late vigorous wars, which raged so many years in Europe; wars fruitful of naval combats and expeditions; there was scarce any action of consequence wherein he did not bear a principal part, nor were any dangers or difficulties too great, but he surmounted them by his exquisite conduct, and a good fortune that never failed him.”
It is just, therefore, that We should distinguish with higher titles a subject who has so eminently served Us and his country, both as monuments of his own merit, and to influence others into a love and pursuit of virtue.
So now he was a Peer of the Realm, a Baron of the United Kingdom, Lord Hornblower of Smallbridge, County of Kent. There were only two or three other examples in history of a naval officer being raised to the peerage before attaining flag rank. Lord Hornblower of Smallbridge; of course he had decided to retain his own name in his title. There might be something grotesque about the name of Hornblower, and yet he was fond of it, and he had no desire to lose it in the almost anonymity of Lord Smallbridge or Lord Something-else. Pellew, he had heard, had elected to become Lord Exmouth. That might suit Pellew, but it would not suit him. His brother-in-law, when he
