A Shot Rolling Ship by David Donachie

Author:David Donachie [David Donachie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allison and Busby
Published: 2012-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was easy, trudging across fields on the flat and barren landscape between Calais and Ardres, with what houses existed visible for a mile or more, to forget the upheavals that had gripped France in the last four years, turmoil that would eventually affect even the most isolated farmhouse. No doubt there would be those this far north and west that were unaware of what had happened in Paris; having been exposed to deep rural stupidity all over his homeland, John Pearce had no doubt the same depth of ignorance existed here. Not that the tenor of their lives would be upset by knowledge if they had any; they would likely worry more about the seasons than any Legislative or National Assembly, think more of the health of their livestock before that of a beheaded King or an arraigned aristocrat.

Though cold because of the wind, it was not unpleasant due to the clear blue skies and the sharp sunlight, and given time to ruminate, John Pearce surmised that the two nations were probably not so very different, much as the opposite was trumpeted. The French were Catholic and held to be deeply superstitious, while they were also at the mercy of rapacious abbots, bishops, and feudal lords; was it so very different in Britain? He had witnessed as much foolish belief in demons and evil spirits in shire counties as would exist in any Papist country; most vicars lived very much like French country priests prior to the Revolution, hand to mouth, needing several livings to make ends meet, unlike the princes of the French church who had amassed wealth beyond the dreams of avarice; indeed it was the sequestration of that and the land the church held which had sustained the public purse following the Revolution.

While not as rapacious, neither John Pearce nor his father Adam had ever met an abbot or a bishop in England who was not sleek and well fed, while around their monasteries and palaces people lived on the verge of starvation, and having attended both High Anglican and Catholic liturgies he was at a loss to see much of a difference. He and his father had, on the odd occasion been admitted to the great country estates of Britain’s elite, Adam Pearce the radical orator having a certain cachet as a house guest for the outrageously wealthy. The British aristocracy, to his mind, needed no lessons in acquisitiveness from their French counterparts. At some point he stopped his mental condemnation and, with hunger rumbling his belly, he reminded himself that he was being a hypocrite; he liked good food, wine and clothing, interesting conversation, the company of intelligent and beautiful women and right now he would sell the soul he doubted he possessed for a carriage to carry him to Paris.

He had had disputes with his father’s friends in the spring and summer of the previous year, about the course events had taken, no longer the dutiful son who agreed with everything Adam Pearce stood for, but a person growing to manhood with his own opinions.

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