Ramage #06 - Ramage & the Guillotine by Dudley Pope

Author:Dudley Pope [Pope, Dudley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction, Fiction, General, Great Britain, Historical, Action & Adventure, War & Military, War Stories, Ship Captains, Sea Stories, Great Britain - Officers, Napoleonic Wars; 1800-1815, Great Britain - History; Naval - 19th Century, Ramage; Nicholas (Fictitious Character)
ISBN: 9780935526813
Google: DbmcbekUDKIC
Amazon: 0935526811
Publisher: McBooks Press
Published: 2000-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

An hour later, with the sun setting behind them, they saw Amiens Cathedral high above the city, the sun's last rays turning the stone of the tall spires into pinnacles of pink marble. And then, with an almost startling suddenness as the sun dropped below the horizon, the city was in shadow; the Cathedral spires became menacing and stark grey fingers towering over narrow streets. Somewhere below them would be jail cells and police headquarters, guillotines and Trees of Liberty. Although France was at war, Ramage knew by now that the enemy the French people were still incited to fight in almost daily exhortations was not the English but almost every aspect of their lives before the Revolution: anything connected with the ancien régime, and a lot more besides.

The Church - although according to Louis there was talk of Bonaparte allowing the priests some freedom after recently signing the Concordat with the Pope - was obviously still a major enemy, and perhaps the hardest for the Revolution to fight (although by now the one from which it had least to fear), since both Church and priest had until a few years ago been so much part of people's lives. Charitable institutions were also the enemy; their almshouses and hospitals had been destroyed or taken over. Anyone faintly connected with the aristocracy had long since fled abroad or taken a tumbril to the guillotine and, Louis had told him, so had many people whose only connection with the aristocracy had been proud boasts of high-born relatives, boasts made before the Revolution and frequently imaginary, intended only to impress neighbours.

The main enemy, the one said to lurk round every corner, was the anti-Revolutionary. To be so denounced to the local Committee of Public Safety or the police put any man's life in peril, since all too many tribunals set up by the Committees - there was one in every town - listened to the charges and, like Joseph Le Bon, either refused to listen to the evidence or disregarded it, along with any defence. The general view was that the guillotine settled any doubts: the thump of a head dropping into the basket was the sound that secured the Revolution from plotters. The guillotine was also a great boon to a man heavily in debt, Louis had said bitterly. It was surprising how many creditors were strapped down on the 'Widow' after being denounced by debtors, and equally surprising how many grocers and bakers and butchers expanded their businesses after their rivals were judged to be plotting against the Revolution.

All the facts that Louis had told him last night in that tiny room at the Chapeau Rouge in Boulogne, all the horrifying examples he had cited of the tribunals at work (not least the one that sent his own wife to her death), seemed to take on a new and more immediate meaning as the horses trotted towards Amiens. In Boulogne there had been risks. He never forgot for a moment that

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