8
Resurgent Germany
Back in his cell, Roger endeavored to accept calmly the evil fate that had befallen him. Rack his brains as he would, he could think of no way by which he might attempt to save himself. The factor which rendered him so helpless was his complete isolation. Had he been in a similar situation in Paris or London there would have been a score of influential friends on whom he could have called for aid. By belatedly admitting the truth that he had drugged his wife and the Baron, but had expected them to regain consciousness within a few hours he might have secured a revision of sentence to a term of imprisonment for culpable homicide. But here, in Berlin, he had not a single friend he could call upon to have his case reviewed by a high legal authority. On the contrary, as a Frenchman, every hand was against him.
Yet a lifetime in which he had many times feared his death to be imminent had conditioned Roger never to leave any step untaken that, however slender the chance, might place him in a more favourable situation. So that evening, he asked for paper, ink, a pen, and sand and wrote letters to both de Brinevillers and Davout.
In both letters he confessed that he had been responsible for the deaths of which he had been accused, but maintained that the thought of murder had never even entered his head. He then swallowed his pride, wrote of his many years' service to the Emperor, which His Imperial Majesty had recognised by making him a Colonel, one of his A.D.Cs, a Count and a Commander of the Legion of Honour, and pleaded that, as fellow Frenchmen, they should exert themselves at least to save his life.
But, having secured a promise from one of the senior warders that the letters would reach their destinations, he had little hope that his desperate appeal would move either the haughty, ci-devant Marquis, who had already displayed his indifference, or the hard hearted Marshal, who had long resented having failed to have Roger brought to book as a deserter.
He could assume that his letters would reach de Brinevillers within a few hours and Davout in Hamburg in two days' time. So an acknowledgment of that to the Ambassador might reach him the next day, and that to the Marshal well before the end of the week. But the terrible days dragged slowly by without his receiving a reply from either.
On June 21st, his week would be up. On the morning of the 20th he was taken from the cell he had occupied for three weeks to the condemned cell. At midday, the prison chaplain, a Lutheran pastor, came to see him, and asked if he could assist him to make his peace with God. Roger politely declined the offer, upon which the German, assuming Roger to be a Roman Catholic, said that he would endeavour to get for him the services of a priest. That offer Roger also declined, so, after expressing his sympathy for the prisoner and urging him to face death with fortitude, the chaplain withdrew.
In the afternoon Roger again asked for writing materials and wrote a letter to Georgina, in which he declared their lifelong love to be the greatest blessing ever granted to him. He went on to say how distressed he was that, now she had at long last promised to marry him that could not come to pass. But that since, from their youth onward, such a close bond had been established between their spirits and as they had always agreed when talking of reincarnation, in which they both believed, he had no shadow of doubt that, in future lives, they would again become devoted lovers.
Before ending his letter with blessings upon her, her son Charles and his daughter Susan, whom he knew she would continue to mother as though she were her own child, he inserted a paragraph which ran:
/ pray you do not again ever have doubts about the occult powers with which you have been endowed. You will recall that in Paris, when you gazed into your
‘Crystal, we decided that the vision you saw was a step back in time, and that you were seeing me during the; months I was a prisoner at Guildford. But that was not so. You saw me here in this cell for the condemned, talking with the Lutheran pastor, who came to see me at midday.
When he had finished his letter to Georgina, he wrote another to his oldest friend, Lord Edward Fitz-Deverel, who was known to his friends as 'Droopy Ned'. Having recounted to Droopy how he had at last come to the end of his tether, he asked that, should anything befall Georgina, he would take care of Susan, and gave him a power of attorney to administer the estate she would inherit.
He addressed the two letters, then enclosed them in an outer envelope that contained a note to Bourrienne, Feeling sure that his old friend must know a great deal about the smuggling activities that took place in Hamburg, he asked that his letters to Georgina and Droopy should be sent to England by a safe hand; and he had no doubt that his request would be granted.
When the warder came with Roger's evening meal, he took the letters and, now showing some compassion for a man who was about to die, readily agreed to pass them on to the Governor of the prison for dispatch.
To occupy his mind during this last evening of his life, Roger, lying in his narrow bed, set about recalling many of the perils he had survived and the enjoyment he had derived from the love of a number of beautiful women of most diverse character.
At length his thoughts diverted from the grim fact that at dawn he was to be led out and shot, he dozed off. But soon after midnight he was roused by the opening of his cell door and the light from a lantern carried by his warder.
Behind the warder was the prison Governor. Smiling at Roger he said, 'Monsieur le Comte, it is my pleasant duty to inform you that you have been reprieved. Here is a letter that, I understand, will inform you of the reason for your good fortune.'
Thunderstruck, and hardly able to believe that he was not dreaming, Roger stammered his thanks, took the letter and, when the Governor had withdrawn, opened and read it. It was from Davout; a hasty note scrawled without prefix, and ran:
On my return from an inspection, 1 received your letter, and was greatly surprised to learn that His Imperial Majesty had not responded to your appeal which, I understood, de Brinevillers was sending to him. As a Frenchman dedicated to the service of our great Emperor, and knowing that you once, when in Venice, saved his life, I could not find it in me to allow matters to take their course. I therefore took it upon myself to exert great pressure upon King Frederick William. In consequence, His Majesty has agreed to commute your sentence to ten years' imprisonment.
Ten years! From sudden wild elation, Roger's spirits swiftly sank. Such a sentence was appalling to contemplate. He would be over fifty before he was released and by then such zest for life as remained to him would be for ever gone. The thought of the discomfort and poor prison fare were bad enough, but the prospect of month after month dragging by, without change of scene or activity, was even worse.
From his boyhood on he had led a fuller life than any of his contemporaries he could think of. He had travelled in nearly every country in Europe, visited Egypt, Persia, the West Indies, Zanzibar, India and Brazil; crossed the Channel clandestinely a score of times, ridden many thousands of miles, been present at the battles of the Nile, Marengo, Eylau, Austerlitz and numerous other conflicts, and had personally transacted affairs of state with Kings and Ministers. Moreover, while he was too fastidious to be promiscuous, several of the most beautiful women he had ever set eyes on had become his mistresses.