How did it happen? asked Hornblower, more to gain time than because he wanted to know.
The Count spread his delicate hands in a hopeless gesture.
Not a shot was fired, he said. The army went over to him en masse. Ney, Labédoyère, Soultthey all betrayed the King. In two weeks Bonaparte marched from the Mediterranean to Paris. That would be fast travelling in a coach and six.
But the people do not want him, protested Hornblower. We all know that.
The peoples wishes do not weigh against the armys, said the Count. The news has come with the usurpers first decrees. The classes of 1815 and 1816 are to be called out. The Household troops are disbanded, the Imperial Guard is to be reconstituted. Bonaparte is ready to fight Europe again.
Hornblower vaguely saw himself once more on the deck of a ship, weighed down with responsibility, encompassed by danger, isolated and friendless. It was a bleak prospect.
A tap on the door heralded Maries entrance, in her dressing-gown, with her magnificent hair over her shoulders.
You have heard the news, my dear? asked the Count. He made no comment either on her presence or on her appearance.
Yes, said Marie. We are in danger.
We are indeed, said the Count. All of us.
So appalling had been the news that Hornblower had not yet had leisure to contemplate its immediate personal implications. As an officer of the British Navy, he would be seized and imprisoned immediately. Not only that, but Bonaparte had intended years ago to try him and shoot him on charges of piracy. He would carry that intention into effecttyrants have long memories. And the Count, and Marie?
Bonaparte knows now that you helped me escape, said Hornblower. He will never forgive that.
He will shoot me if he can catch me, said the Count; he made no reference to Marie, but he glanced towards her. Bonaparte would shoot her too.
We must get away, said Hornblower. The country cannot be settled under Bonaparte yet. With fast horses we can reach the coast
He took his bedclothes in his hand to cast them off, restraining himself in the nick of time out of deference to Maries presence.
I shall be dressed in ten minutes, said Marie.
As the door closed behind her and the Count, Hornblower hurled himself out of bed shouting for Brown. The transition from the sybarite to the man of action took a few moments, but only a few. As he tore off his nightshirt he conjured up before his minds eye the map of France, visualising the roads and ports. They could reach La Rochelle over the mountains in two days of hard riding. He hauled up his trousers. The Count had a great nameno one would venture to arrest him or his party without direct orders from Paris; with bluff and self-confidence they could get through. There were two hundred golden napoleons in the secret compartment of his portmanteaumaybe
said Marie. Hornblower recognised the uniforms. He had seen those troops in attendance on the King both at the Tuileries and at Versailles.
Grey Musketeers cannot hurt us, said the Count.
The sergeant of the picket looked at them keenly as they approached, and stepped into the road to ask them their names.
Louis-Antoine-Hector-Savinien de Ladon, Comte de Graçay, and his suite, said the Count.
You may pass, M. le Comte, said the sergeant. Her Royal Highness is at the Prefecture.
Which Royal Highness? marvelled the Count.
In the Grand Square a score of troopers of the Grey Musketeers sat their horses. A few white banners flew here and there, and as they entered the square a man emerged from the Prefecture and began to stick up a printed poster. They rode up to look at itthe first word was easily readFrenchmen! it said.
Her Royal Highness is the Duchess of Angoulême, said the Count.
The proclamation called on all Frenchmen to fight against the usurping tyrant, to be loyal to the ancient House of Bourbon. According to the poster, the King was still in arms around Lille, the south had risen under the Duke dAngoulême, and all Europe was marching armies to enchain the man-eating ogre and restore the Father of his People to the throne of his ancestors.
In the Prefecture the Duchess received them eagerly. Her beautiful face was drawn with fatigue, and she still wore a mud-splashed riding habitshe had ridden through the night with her squadron of musketeers, entering Nevers by another road on the heels of Bonapartes proclamation.
They changed sides quickly enough again, said the Duchess.
Nevers was not a garrison town and contained no troops; her hundred disciplined musketeers made her mistress of the little place without a blow struck.
I was about to send for you, M. le Comte, went on the Duchess. I was not aware of our extraordinary good fortune in Lord Ornblowers being present here, I want to appoint you Lieutenant-General of the King in the Niveroais.
You think a rising can succeed, Your Royal Highness? asked Hornblower.
A rising? said the Duchess, with the faintest of interrogative inflections.
To Hornblower that was the note of doom. The Duchess was the most intelligent and spirited of all the Bourbons, but not even she could think of the movement she was trying to head as a rising. Bonaparte was the rebel; she was engaged in suppressing rebellion, even if Bonaparte reigned in the Tuileries and the army obeyed him. But this was war; this was life or death, and he was in no mood to quibble with amateurs.