'The world is but a stage and men play many parts upon it. I am glad you find my uniform becoming. And, if I may say so, it suits me better than yours did when you were a Bishop.'
Talleyrand raised an eyebrow. ' Indeed! I had no idea you were a church-goer, and so ever saw me in it. May I suggest, though, that your presence here dressed as a French officer requires some explanation? '
' It is quite simple,' Roger shrugged. ' As you must be aware, I have spent a great part of my manhood in France, and have become so enamoured of this country that I now regard myself as a Frenchman. I have been wounded more than once in the service of France and my title to this uniform is beyond dispute. When I was in Italy no less a person than the General Bonaparte did me the honour to make me one of his aides-de-camp.'
' How prodigious interesting.' Talleyracd gave a slight bow. 'Allow me to congratulate you, my dear fellow, on this signal distinction. I cannot, alas, linger to converse longer with you now, as the General is expecting me. But we must foregather to discuss old times: over breakfast, perhaps, when our enjoyment of one another's company will not be diverted by the presence of others. Let me see. Friday, I think, is the first day I have free. May I have the pleasure of receiving you at nine o'clock? '
' You are most kind,' Roger smiled. ' There is nothing I should enjoy more.'
Exchanging another bow, they parted and Roger went on his way. The brief conversation had gone as well as he could have expected. To all appearances Talleyrand had accepted his explanation, but all the same it was a most delicate situation and he knew that, on the coming Friday, he would have all his work cut out to convince the astute statesman that he had really abandoned for good all his ties with England.
Yet it was the line he had already decided to take when they did meet, as it was inevitable that they would, and the only line possible.
It was nearly twelve years since, when he had been assistant secretary to the Marquis de Rochambeau, he had first met Talleyrand. An occasion had arisen when the Marquis had an urgent need to have a long, confidential document copied overnight, and the work was to be done at Talleyrand's house out at Passy. Talleyrand, Roger and the Marquis's senior secretary, the Abb6 d'Heury, had set off together in a coach for Passy, but when near-ing their destination the coach had been held up by footpads. Talleyrand had defied the brigands and an affray had ensued. D'Heury had been shot dead—which had led to Roger's promotion—and a second ball had wounded Roger in the head, rendering him unconscious. When he came to, in bed in Talleyrand's house, he learned that during his delirium he had been raving in English. Since at that time he had been passing himself off as a
Frenchman only as a matter of convenience, he had freely admitted his real nationality and had given Talleyrand full particulars of himself. Roger felt certain that he would not have forgotten them, so it would have been futile for him to deny now that he was the son of Admiral Sir Christopher Brook.
However, a strong bond of friendship had long since developed between them. It was Roger who had tricked Danton into giving him the passport which Jiad enabled Talleyrand to escape from Paris when to remain would have cost him his life; so Roger had no fear whatever that his old friend would regard him as an enemy, let alone have him arrested.
After a few minutes his mind turned to the volte-face in plans that Bonaparte had sprung upon him that morning. The news that there was to be no invasion of England that year, but that instead the conqueror of Italy was pressing the Directory to let him follow in the path of Alexander the Great, must be sent without delay to Mr. Pitt.
Returning to La Belle Iitoile, he wrote a long despatch and put it into a double envelope. He then had his midday meal and afterwards went out to send off his letter. He was always reluctant to use secret post-offices because, although they were usually in back streets unlikely to be frequented by the sort of people he knew, some risk that he might be recognized or followed from the post-office by the man who ran it, should he have turned double traitor, was unavoidable. In the past he had had to use them rarely, as during the Revolution he had been able to send his despatches by members of Sir Percy Blakeney's League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, and on the last two occasions he had been in Paris he had been employed on special missions which did not call for him to send back regular reports. But in the present circumstances he had no option.
In a mental index he carried three addresses. One was an old one that he had used before, and two were new ones that he had been given when last in London. But it proved his unlucky day, for the afternoon brought him only frustration. Calling first at the old address, he learned that the forwarding agent there had died shortly before Christmas. At the next address he was told that the man he wanted had left that morning to visit relatives in the country and was not expected back until the end of the week. At the third address a slatternly woman told him that her husband had been carried off by the police a fortnight before.
Had his news been of great urgency and importance, he would seriously have considered sending a message to Bonaparte by Maitre Blanchard saying that he had met with an accident which would keep him in bed for a few days. He would then have used the time to ride all-out to Dieppe and back, with the certainty that he would be able to get his despatch off by a smuggler there. But a few days' delay could make no material difference to the value of his news; so he resigned himself to awaiting the return of the man who had gone to the country.
Friday was three days away and, although he reported to Bonaparte each morning, the General-in-Chief still had no use for him. He filled in the time much as he had done during the previous week: riding in the mornings, putting in an hour or two in a fencing school or a pistol gallery in the afternoons and attending the salons in the evenings.
The denizens of the latter were now largely young ' lncroy-ables', with sickle-moon hats, enormous cravats on either side of which their hair dangled in ' dog-ears' and trousers so tight that they could not sit down without risk of splitting them. Their female opposite numbers had their hair piled high and banded, a la Grecque, or cut short a la Romaine and, having given up both corsets and underclothes, wore skin-tight dresses so revealing as to be near indecent.
Among these bizarre creatures, with their affected voices and languid manner, Roger sought out the older, more serious people. From them he built up the store of knowledge he was acquiring about trends in Government policy and learned the latest rumours. Among those current was one to the effect that the Swiss had risen en masse against a body of French troops under General Menard, whom Republicans in Lausanne had asked should be sent to protect them from oppression. Another rumour was that a French Army had entered Rome.
This last news filled everyone with delight, as the French had a score to settle with the Papacy. Bonaparte had overrun a great part of the Papal States and incorporated them in his Cisalpine Republic, but he had refrained from sending his troops into the Eternal City. His orders from the atheist Directory had been to dethrone the Pope and abolish the Papacy. However, he was well aware that the greater part of the French people were still Christian at heart and had been far too shrewd to make himself responsible for a sacrilege which they would have held against him for as long as he lived. Instead he had menaced the Pope into paying a huge indemnity, blackmailed him into handing over the finest art treasures in the Vatican and had his own eldest brother, Joseph, appointed Ambassador to the Holy See.