To Roger the wish seemed a miserably mean one, seeing that only as a result of Pichegru's staking his own life and honour could the thousands of people who had fled from France hope to return home, and have some prospect of regaining at least a part of their former possessions. Ignoring the remark, he asked:
"Has your Royal Highness sent these promises to the General in writing?"
"Mort dieu, no!" The Bourbon's pale blue eyes popped. "The word of a Condé is enough."
"Permit me to observe, Monseigneur, that in this instance you are not dealing with a gentleman."
"Oh! Ah! Well! Yes! I see your point, Chevalier. If you wish, then, I will give you written particulars of the proffered bribe."
"I thank your Royal Highness. And now," went on Roger—for this most delicate of questions sliding behind the shadow of Mr. Pitt—"as a matter of form my master charged me to enquire if you, Monseigneur, had authority from His Royal Highness the Comte de Provence to offer these terms?"
"You refer to His Most Christian Majesty King Louis XVIII," the Prince replied with sudden sharpness.
For a moment Roger was taken aback. He knew that young King Louis XVII was dead, and he had told Amanda how the boy had died; but he had the most excellent reasons for supposing that they were the only people in the world who possessed that knowledge. De Condé's sharp rebuke must mean that, although Mr. Pitt had omitted to tell him of it, the child in the Temple, whom only Barras. Fouché, and perhaps now a few others, knew to have been substituted for the little King, had also died. Recovering himself, he said hastily:
"Your pardon, Monseigneur. In England we have been used for so long to refer to His Majesty by his former tide."
The Prince shrugged. "No matter. Your slip was understandable and you may set your master's mind at rest about my powers. For reasons of health His Majesty is now at Mitau, on the Baltic, and 'Monsieur’ his brother at present has only a small force under him in the island of Yen, off the coast of Brittany. Therefore, as Commander-in-Chief of the Royal and Catholic Army, I have been invested by His Majesty with full authority to act in his name, and use any and every means seeming good to me which may assist in restoring his dominions to him."
Roger bowed. "Then it remains, Monseigneur, only for me to ask when the Comte de Montgalliard had his last interview with General Pichegru, and the outcome of it?"
De Condé guffawed and the Abbé gave a wheezy titter. Then the former said: "The Count was far too wily a bird to go poking his own head into such a hornet's nest as a Republican headquarters. He employed a Swiss named Fauche-Borel to do his dirty work for him. You know the Count's cat's-paw better than I, Abbé. Tell the Chevalier about him."
His great paunch wobbling with laughter, the Abbé proceeded. "Fauche-Borel is a common little man who has made a modest fortune as a bookseller in Neuchatel. He is the veriest snob that ever was born, and his one ambition is to hob-nob with the aristocracy. The Revolution gave him his opportunity. Many persons of quality took refuge over the Swiss border, and by trading on their urgent need of money Fauche-Borel ingratiated himself with a number of them. How de Montgalliard came across him I do not know; but the Count brought him here and, after making His Royal Highness privy to the use to which he was to be put, asked that he should be received. On being permitted to kiss the hand of a Prince of the Blood, he nearly fainted with emotion; but it made him our willing slave, and it is he who on several occasions has gone through the enemy lines to discuss matters personally with General Pichegru."
Roger would have given a lot to have said: 'You dirty cowards; how dare you, on account of his simplicity, despise this brave little man', but disciplined tact of years restrained him; and, keeping the cold contempt from his voice with an effort, he asked: "Where is this person now?"
"As far as I know, he is in Paris," replied the Abbé. "I gathered that General Pichegru asked him to go there and endeavour to find out what support might be expected for a counter revolutionary movement by the Army."
That was bad news for Roger, as it confirmed the reason Mr. Pitt had given for Pichegru's hesitation in declaring his adherence to the Royalist cause, and meant that he, Roger, would probably have to follow Fauche-Borel to the capital on a similar mission, as the only means of bringing about the conditions which would induce the General to act. Still thinking about the Swiss bookseller, he muttered:
"As well send a sheep into a den of lions." Then he added more briskly: "However, that is none of my business. If your Royal Highness will be good enough to append your own signature to a document stating the terms of the offer to Pichegru, I will set out this evening on an attempt to carry it to him."
The Prince yawned, belched mildly, stood up and said: "Draw up the document now, Abbé, append my seal to it and bring it up
to my bedroom. I am weary after the chase and must have my rest, but will sign it before I sleep." Turning his protuberant blue eyes on Roger, he went on: "I regret that you should have to leave us so soon, Chevalier; but it is in a good cause, and I trust your absence will be only temporary. I shall pray for your safety and success; and can assure you that we shall all be a-dither with anxiety until we can make you doubly welcome on your return."
Roger let the glib lies flow over him, and again kissed the beringed hand that the Prince extended. Whatever his luck with Pichegru, he had no intention of returning to anyone except, God willing, Mr. Pitt and, in due course, Amanda. Two hours later he drove away from the Schloss in his coach, soberly aware that the really dangerous part of his mission had now begun.
chapter XIX
THE TREACHERY OF GENERAL PICHEGRU
Although Roger had given the Abbé Chenier the impression that he meant to penetrate the enemy lines that night, he did not mean to do so. For one thing he was badly in need of .a good night's sleep, and felt that, urgent as coming to an understanding with General Pichegru might be, the delay of a few hours would be more than compensated for by renewed freshness when he entered Mannheim and would need all his wits about him.
Had the atmosphere at de Condé's headquarters been more congenial to him he would have slept there; but the sight of the servile nobles and unctuous priests had so sickened him that solitude at a wayside inn seemed definitely preferable.
He had also to rid himself of his coach and the two coachmen. Although most Belgians had now become antagonistic towards the French owing to the extortions inflicted on them by the Republican Commissioners, when first the so-called 'Army of Liberation' had invaded the country, the masses in the towns had received them with open arms; and Roger had no means of knowing for certain whether his two men were ardent revolutionaries or reactionaries. True, they had not betrayed him when he had pretended to be a doctor in order to get through the French outposts, but if left either at the Schloss or m Mannheim they might have endangered his future operations by gossiping, in the one case about his use of fluent French while posmg as Citizen Breuc on the journey from Brussels, and in the other by letting out that he had been at the headquarters of the emigris; so the best means of insuring against both these eventualities was to pay them off at some lonely place on the road, where he could also sleep.
The Abbé" had provided him with a laissez-passer; so he had no difficulty with the occasional patrols of Austrians in the back areas who challenged the poach, and four hours of good driving brought them to the little town of Sinsheim. As it was by then ten o'clock, he began to look out for a likely place in which to spend the night, and a few miles beyond the town, on the crest of a long slope up which the horses had had to be walked, they came to a fair-sized inn.