“It’s all so—Roman, Cadoudal. You should take your nose out of Plutarch once in a while and read a newspaper.”
“Please remember to address me as Couturier, General. The Republican vermin have raised eavesdropping to an art.”
Charles Pichegru waved off the admonition. “Had you consulted me, I’d have advised against using a name belonging to a designer of dresses. No woman would ever commission a frock from anyone so ugly.”
Cadoudal smiled over his Cognac; an indifferent label, but he no longer had Rexborough’s cellars at his command. His host here in Paris—whose name he’d misplaced—lived meanly, drinking inferior vintages in cheap surroundings. Like the English earl before, the fellow had been barred from this meeting; but he’d taken no offense. He’d harbor a conspirator, but shun the details of the conspiracy. The simpleton thought ignorance would spare him the rack.
“You’re trying to bait me,” Cadoudal said. “I’m not so easily angered. You scarcely qualify as handsome yourself; we are neither of us a gay dog. I selected the name at random from the Paris directory. Like most occupation names, it filled a column. It’s almost as anonymous as Pierre Robért, but not so obviously an alias.”
The other steepled his hands, elbows planted on the arms of a homely chair. He managed to appear martial in civilian dress; but at forty-two he’d spent half his life in the army, and half of that plotting to restore the King.
“You’ve been too long in the company of the English,” he said. “They never use one word when ten will do.”
Pichegru’s features, hacked from an oaken stump, were burned brown from three years’ hiding in French Guiana. He owed his repatriation to Cadoudal, who had helped haul him up the cliffs of Normandy as he himself had been hoisted by his predecessors. But the man was ungrateful.
“You’re no doubt right,” said Cadoudal. “It’s hard to remain idle and not acquire bad habits. For instance, you’re more irritable than I remembered. I assume Guiana isn’t as accommodating a place of exile as England.”
“It’s a shithole. Call yourself Marie Antoinette if you like. You speak of bribing Bonaparte’s Hussars to fall upon him with daggers when he comes to inspect them. It’s romantic shit. It was shit in Shakespeare’s time, and before that it was shit in Livy’s. Bonaparte is a student of classical literature. He’d spot a Brutus at a thousand meters. And what if they won’t be bought? Or take the money and report the plot anyway? It’s suicide!”
“It’s a contingency plan, in case our one-man army comes a-cropper. It can use refinement. That’s one of the reasons for this meeting, my fellow general. I’m a man of strategy, le grand dessein. Tactics are your strong suit.”
“Stick your flattery up your arse.”
An unpleasant man.
“Consider it stuck.” Cadoudal drank.
“So you’ve abandoned your Viper, at a cost of two and a half million francs. I never knew you for a spendthrift.”
“He’s a bargain, if he comes through. Remember, we have France to gain. I haven’t given up on him; but I’d be a poor commander if I put all my ammunition in one wagon.”
“What of Moreau?”
“I expect him tonight.”
“I don’t like sleeping with the enemy.”
“He’s our friend—for the moment. We haven’t so many we can afford to quibble. He can be dealt with when the time comes. Meanwhile he’s as fiercely anti-Bonapartist as—”
“The Comte d’Artois?”
“I think we’re agreed the count is a nincompoop.”
“D’Enghien, then.”
It was the first time the name had been mentioned aloud among those dedicated to the Restoration. Pichegru was nothing if not direct.
Le Duc d’Enghien, son of Le Comte d’Artois; soon, with God’s grace, King Louis XVIII.
“Just so. His gouty father is hardly in a position to prevent our going round him.”
“The young duke is hors de combat. He’d rather shoot partridges in Germany than reign in France.”
Cadoudal smiled again. He fished out the splendid ring and held it up.
Pichegru stared. “Is it genuine?”
“The man who brought it said I could have it appraised, but he wouldn’t recommend it. Fouché is omnipotent.”
“Who brought it?”
“Our mercenary friend.” He put it away. “So far as I know, our benefactor, the duke, is the only one who knows the Viper’s true identity.”
“So the royal partridge-killer is ambitious after all.”
“So it would appear. I consider the token an open license on Bonaparte.”
“You brought me all the way from that floating turd in the Atlantic to show me a bauble?”
“To find out if you’re still in our camp.”
“Hardly necessary. The dogs who piss on France aren’t fit to live. You know, of course, I taught Bonaparte his military history at Brienne. Had I known what he’d do with it, I’d have caned him to death on the spot.”
“Bon. I wanted to assure myself you were resolute.”
A tap came to the door.
Cadoudal slid a pistol from that day’s edition of the Gazette and rose to ask who was calling.
“Another visitor, General.” It was the voice of his host, Monsieur what’s-his-name.
“Did he identify himself?”
“I’m not such a fool as that, you Brittany buccaneer.”
A new voice, this, deep with authority. The tone of yet another general, albeit one from the other side.
“You needn’t show the man in. He’s shown himself.”
In civilian dress, Jean-Victor Moreau more closely resembled the lawyer he’d once aspired to become than a former Revolutionary officer. Tall, ovoid, with the huge plum-colored eyes of a figure in a Renaissance painting, he kept his lips tight as if to prevent bile from spilling out.
Cadoudal put away the pistol and offered Cognac.
“I don’t drink with cream puffs.”
“Let’s not start out calling names like boys in a schoolyard,” Cadoudal said. “We’re allies, we three. Adversaries sharing a tent.”
Moreau kept his coat on. He swept aside the tails and sat down. “I don’t make friends with them either.”
“That’s the last thing you have to worry about, filth,” Pichegru said.
“Silence!”
When Cadoudal roared in his top-sergeant’s bellow, the walls rang. The others started, then kept still.
He resumed his normal tone. “How those creatures in Paris would rejoice to hear their enemies squabble. We share a common goal; or I assume we do. You haven’t changed your mind, Moreau?”
The Jacobin’s lips pressed tighter. “As well change the shape of the earth. Every day the Corsican chips away at the Republic. He’s banned the Marseilles; the very anthem of the Revolution, and is conspiring even now with the pope to restore the Church in France. He’d have Our Lady of Victory spread her legs in return for a foreign alliance. I should have run him through when we fought together in the field.”
“Excellent! We’re not such polar opposites after all.”
“I didn’t say that. We couldn’t be farther apart. I want to replace Bonaparte with a defender of the Rights of Man. You want to plop a tyrant back on the throne. It would be as if the last twelve years never happened.”
“Not precisely,” Cadoudal said. “To try to put it all back the way it was would only lead to another revolution. If those years did nothing else, they taught us to avoid the same mistakes. Pichegru?”
“We seek a constitutional monarchy,” said the other Royalist; although it was clear from the expression on his coarse face he hated speaking civilly to a rebel. “A parliamentary government, like the English.”
“A Cromwell manipulating a puppet? Decidedly not.”
The Royalist generals exchanged glances.
Cadoudal leaned forward in his chair. “I was told you were ready to discuss an accord.”
Moreau showed his teeth then.
“I heard the same, from Madame Hulot, my wife’s mother. She hates the upstart so fiercely she’d be willing to replace him with Caligula. She’s a venomous hag, and she talks too much to all the wrong people. If you arranged this conference on her word, it’s useless.”
“But surely your personal animosity—” Cadoudal began.
“Carries no weight. I lost to the Russians and Austrians at Cassano because the reinforcements I needed were stranded in Egypt with Bonaparte, with the French fleet at the bottom of the ocean. That Oriental adventure cost the lives of hundreds of good men. That’s when we broke ranks. But I’m not one of you.”
“Then why did you come?”
“I was curious. I wanted to see if you’d given up your mad dream in the light of recent events, and were prepared to recognize the rightful Republican government in return for an alliance against the Consulate. Now I see a cream puff is a cream puff through and through.” He rose.
“Where do you think you’re going?” said Pichegru.
“Not here. There’s a stench.”
Cadoudal rested his hand on the Gazette, beneath which rested his pistol.
“Before you leave, I need your word as an officer you’ll say nothing of this meeting to anyone, or of our presence in France.”
“Unnecessary. If it gets out I’m in Paris, I shall stand in front of a firing squad. I’m off to the country.”
“Your word, I said.”
“At gunpoint?”
Cadoudal withdrew his hand. Moreau jerked his chin in a nod.
“You have it—and much good may it do you. If Fouché doesn’t know you’re on French soil, he’s not the same man I knew in Lyons.”
“Godspeed, General.”
After Moreau left, Pichegru sprang to his feet and refilled his glass. “Was that wise?”
“I’m not the monster he thinks me. In any event I can’t shoot him in my host’s home. All shelter would be closed to me. Rest easy, Jean-Charles. He knows nothing specific.” He took out his watch. “However, it’s time we relocated. If we’re to be targets, it’s best we keep moving.”
“Can we proceed without Moreau?”
“That was a rude shock; I was confident in my sources. But we still have two strings to our bow.”
“An invisible viper,” Pichegru said, “and a gang of untried troops wearing the uniform of the enemy. When the overture begins, I want a seat near the exit.”