In view of her extraordinary charm, integrity and kindness, it seemed difficult to understand how it was that she had become so hated by her people. On her arrival in France, in 1770, as a young girl of fourteen to marry the Dauphin, who was some fifteen months older than herself, the populace had gone wild with excitement and admiration of her beauty. Cities and towns had rivalled each other in sending her rich gifts, and at every public appearance she made she received the most enthusiastic ovations. Yet gradually her popularity had waned until she had now become the most hated woman in all Europe.
Such youthful follies and extravagances as those of which she had been guilty had not cost the country one hundredth part of the sums Louis XV had squandered on his mistresses; and it was not until quite
recently, when the dilatoriness and indecision of her husband had threatened to bring ruin to the State, that she had played any part in politics. Nevertheless, all classes, with the exception of her little circle of friends, held her responsible for the evil condition into which France had fallen.
Roger could put it down only to deliberate misrepresentation of her character and acts by those secret enemies of whom she had spoken, and he knew that they were no figment of her imagination. During his stay in Paris he had traced numerous vile calumnies against her back to the Due d'Orleans, and he felt certain that this cousin of the King would stop at nothing to bring about her ruin.
It occurred to him then that the Duke probably knew that the Queen had written the highly confidential letter he was carrying to her brother. She had said that the Marquis de St. Huruge had recommended de Roubec to her as a messenger, and it seemed unlikely that he would have set about finding one for her without first ascertaining where she wished the man to go. So the odds were that de St. Huruge had known de Roubec's destination to be Florence, and that would be quite enough for him to make a shrewd guess at the general contents of the despatch. It was just possible that he had not been aware of de Roubec's true character, but Roger doubted that; and, if the Marquis had known, it proved him to be a traitor. Knowledge of what the Queen had written to her brother could be of no value to an ordinary nobleman, but in the hands of His Highness of Orleans it might prove a trump card for her undoing.; so if de St. Huruge had planned to secure the despatch it could only be because he intended to pass it on to someone else, and, in the circumstances, everything pointed to that person being His Highness.
Assuming that there had been a plot to get hold of the letter, Roger argued, as it had miscarried, by this time de Roubec would have reported his discomfiture to de St. Huruge, and the Marquis would have told the Duke; but there was no reason to suppose that they would be prepared to accept their failure as final, any more than that the Queen should have abandoned her intention of sending her despatch. She had said that she was surrounded by spies, so although she might no longer trust de St. Huruge, others about her person who were secretly in the pay of d'Orleans might have been primed to do all in their power to find out whom she would next select as her courier to Tuscany. Evidently she feared something of the kind or she would not have taken such elaborate precautions to conceal her choice of a new messenger, and his departure.
Roger felt that in that she had shown considerable skill; for after having seen him marched away between guards it was highly unlikely that any member of her Court would suspect her of having entrusted him with anything. Nevertheless, to give him the letter she had had to slip out of the Palace late at night; and, if there was an Orleanist spy among her women, it was quite possible that she had been followed. If so he might have been seen leaving or entering the carriage when it was drawn up near the little pavilion, and recognized; in which case her stratagem had by now been rendered entirely worthless, as news of the matter would soon reach the Duke.
Even if such were the case, and the Queen's enemies knew the direction he had taken, it seemed unlikely that they would have time to arrange to lay an ambush for him before he reached Paris, but he felt that from then on he ought to regard himself as in constant danger from attack, and take every precaution against being caught by surprise.
Had he been entirely his own master, he would not have returned to Paris at all, but there were several matters in connection with his work for Mr. Pitt that required his attention in the capital before he could take the road to Italy with a clear conscience. All the same, he decided that he would lie very low while in Paris, both to prevent as far as possible such people as believed him to be in the Bastille becoming disabused about that, and in case the Orleanists were on his track.
It was with this in mind that, soon after four in the morning, when the carriage reached the village of Villejuif, just outside Paris, Roger told the coachman not to drive right into the city but to take him to some quiet, respectable inn in its south-western suburbs.
Although dawn had not yet come, and only a faint greyness in the eastern sky heralded its approach, the barrier was already open to let through a string of carts and waggons carrying produce to the markets. The coachman was evidently familiar with the quarter, as, having passed the gate, he drove without hesitation through several streets into the Faubourg St. Marcel and there set Roger down at a hostelry opposite the royal factory where the Gobelins tapestries were made. Having thanked the man Roger knocked up the innkeeper, had himself shown to a room and went straight to bed.
When he awoke it was nearly midday. His first act was to take the packet entrusted to him by the Queen from beneath his pillow and stare at it. Already, the night before, he had been considerably worried on the score of a fine point of ethics in which the possession of it involved him, but he had put off taking any decision until he had slept upon the matter. Now, sleep on it he had, and he knew that he must delay no longer in facing up to this very unpleasant dilemma.
As an agent of the British Government who had been specially charged, among other matters, to endeavour to ascertain the Queen's views on the course that events might take and the personalities most likely to influence that course, it was clearly his duty to open the despatch and make himself acquainted with, its contents. In fact, had he prayed for a miracle to aid him in that respect, and his prayer had been granted,
Heaven could hardly have done more than cast the packet down with a bump at his feet.
On the other hand he felt the strongest possible repugnance to opening the packet, in view of the fact that the Queen herself had given it into his hands, believing him to be entirely worthy of her trust.
For over a quarter-of-an-hour he turned the packet this way and that, agonizingly torn between two loyalties; then, at length, his ideas began to clarify. His paramount loyalty was to his own country, and had this beautiful foreign Queen asked him to do anything to the prejudice of Britain he knew that he would have refused her. More, in undertaking to act as her messenger he had been influenced, at least to some extent, by the thought that by doing so he would win her confidence. But why did he wish to win her confidence? Solely that he might report how her mind was working to Mr. Pitt. And here, in the letter he held, he had, not just stray thoughts that she might later have confided to him, but her carefully considered opinion, under his hand already. Surely it was to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, to deliver the letter unopened then return to Versailles with the deliberate intention of spying on her afterwards.