Roger Brook (12): Desperate Measures by Wheatley Dennis

Author:Wheatley, Dennis [Wheatley, Dennis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Espionage, Fiction, Historical, Novel
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1974-09-15T03:00:00+00:00

14

Of Hedging Bets

De Jaucourt was a dyed-in-the wool Royalist, so Roger’s account of Napoleon’s good prospects and intentions had not been given with the least thought of changing his outlook; but the news that the Congress of Vienna was still in session came to him as a great surprise. On the road from the coast he had, on several occasions, heard the Emperor tell officers and functionaries who had come over to him that the English had connived at his escape from Elba and that he had been secretly in communication with his father-in-law, the Emperor of Austria, who favoured his return.

Having long known Napoleon to be the most unscrupulous of liars whenever his own interests were concerned, Roger had had grave doubts about both assertions; but he had taken it for granted that the Emperor had reliable agents in Vienna, so it had not even occurred to him to question the statement that the Congress had broken up, and he had personal knowledge that the four Great Powers had split into two bitterly hostile camps.

With a puzzled frown, he said, ‘When I left Vienna, Metternich and the Czar were hardly even on speaking terms, although some progress had been made on the Polish and Saxon questions. That they should have buried the hatchet overnight and are about to enter into a new alliance positively amazes me.’

The Marquis smiled. ‘Yet it is so; and, of course, ’tis due to the brilliant handling of this new situation by our Prince. To have allowed Bonaparte again to occupy the throne of France would have brought to naught all he has laboured for so consistently these many years.’

Roger needed no telling what Talleyrand’s attitude would have been nor of his extraordinary powers of persuasion. Thoughtfully, he said, ‘If the Alliance holds, it must lead to Bonaparte’s inevitable defeat. But there is no guarantee that it will. The Czar has become a dual personality. He will agree to a thing one day, and violently repudiate it the next. Bonaparte’s intentions are now pacific, and all the other nations are heartily sickened of war, so once he is back on the throne, he may well succeed in splitting the alliance and preventing a renewal of hostilities. And I’ll wager any money that, within the week, he will be issuing his orders from the Tuileries. Tell me, now, how are things going there?’

‘At first they were entirely complacent and felt sure they had nothing to fear. Then, as news came in that Bonaparte was meeting with no opposition and that Lyons had opened its gates to him, they did become quite concerned. But, as you know, the King is incurably lazy and quite incapable of personal leadership. He leaves everything to his favourites: that fool de Blacas, who does his utmost to prevent anyone speaking to the King unless he is present, the reactionary de Vitrolles, who acts as the highly persuasive mouthpiece of the Comte d’Artois, and the Abbé Montesquiou, who is not content with his job of Minister of the Interior and would really like to be the leader of a Liberal Government.

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