Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey) (41 page)

The council at the Place Royale next morning, Saturday, had graver news. Fighting in Paris had continued a second day, and the authorities had used cannon; but this time the ‘whiff of grapeshot’ that had made Bonaparte’s name, putting down the royalist counterrevolution, had had no effect. Indeed, many of the troops in the line battalions had deserted, said Baron van der Fosse. But Mynheer Kuyff reported that his informers had detected no signs of increased disaffection in the city, or the province in general, and so with the encouragement of the military officers, the baron said he was not minded to take any additional measures. Bylandt alone said that he was considering doubling all sentries. And the meeting adjourned until the morrow.

By Sunday, however, the news was truly alarming. Paris, by all accounts, was in the hands of the
révoltés
, Baron van der Fosse told them – barricades throughout the city, and the king ‘cowering at Saint-Cloud’. The
tricolore
flew everywhere. ‘The Tuileries have been sacked,’ he said despairingly, as if final affirmation of the overthrow of all that stood for order. And then, shaking his head as though he could scarce believe what he read, ‘A man wearing a ball dress belonging to the duchesse de Berry, with feathers and flowers in his hair, was observed at a palace window crying: “
Je reçois! Je reçois!
”’

Hervey suppressed a smile, for besides the absurdity of the image he couldn’t fathom why the baron thought that any words of a man dressed in the duchesse de Berry’s ball dress could be in the slightest degree edifying, least of all that he was ‘at home’.

But the baron’s report was not over: ‘And, gentlemen, the Hôtel de Ville is in the hands of the mob.’

Hervey swallowed. The silence at the table was profound.

And then General Bylandt said quietly, ‘
C’est fini
.’

It was. Next day the king – and the dauphin, in whose favour Charles had tried to abdicate – renounced their rights to the throne and fled for England. But instead of Charles’s grandson, the duc de Bordeaux, taking the throne, the provisional government invited the duc d’Orléans – Louis Philippe – to rule as a constitutional monarch, ‘King of the French’, just as Fairbrother had foretold.

Word reached Brussels on the fourth. That evening the newspapers were full of speculation, if little fact, and for several days it seemed a matter of mere curiosity in the coffee shops. One king had been replaced by another –
et alors
? Except that, as Hervey pointed out to General Bylandt at the council still meeting daily, a Dutch ‘king’ had replaced the crowned head of England a century and a half before, and the last rising in support of the deposed line had been over fifty years later. Would the supporters of ‘Henri Cinque’ a dozen years from now, when the infant was come of age, try to reclaim the throne by force? But Bylandt countered that a good constitution would not be overthrown: ‘For why would anyone shed blood merely to replace one king with another? The world has been enlightened since the days of the Stuarts.’

Hervey acknowledged that the
ancien régime
– Bourbon or Stuart – was gone, ‘But with all due respect, I believe your king should be on his guard, or at least his ministers, for I understand that Polignac as well as Charles has had to flee. And all in so short a time – “three glorious days”, as the papers have it.’

But the good general said something about trusting to the innate wisdom of the Dutch, and the need to thwart the opponents of enlightenment in the southern provinces – the ‘Catholic party of reaction’ – and, in any case, he declared, the characteristic peace-ableness of the people of the south stood in contrast with the propensity to violence of the French. ‘The cockpit of Europe, Colonel, as well you know we are called, was the place of combat only of
foreign
fighting birds.’

It was true; but, suggested Hervey: ‘Caesar said the Belgae were the bravest of the three tribes of Gaul.’

Bylandt had read Caesar too. ‘And do you recall to what he ascribed that quality?’

Hervey did – and very perfectly, for in the classical remove at Shrewsbury his attention had been fixed firmly on the Legions. ‘
Minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea quae ad effeminandos animos
…’

‘Exactly so, Colonel Hervey – “being furthest from the civilized parts, the merchants least frequently resorted to them, and the Belgae did not therefore import those things which tended to effeminate the soul”. Two thousand years of history has not been without its effect, however. Look about you now: the Belgae are a veritable nation of merchants!’

‘Did not Bonaparte say something of the same of England?’

Bylandt shook his head. ‘My dear Colonel, I believe I may assure you: today’s Belgae will not trouble King William as once they troubled Caesar.’

As his carriage drew up at Princess Augusta’s villa, Hervey was still pondering on the letter from The Hague. It was dated 15 August, and acknowledged his report of 30 July, but without reference to the delay in replying, saying simply that the ambassador had no greater knowledge of the state of affairs in Paris than would he in Brussels, but that the Dutch government – in particular the minister of justice – had no declared concerns. ‘I spoke with Mynheer van Maanen this morning – the minister of justice at The Hague – and he is of the opinion that if there be any implication at all it will be to the benefit of the unified Kingdom, for the Catholic party in the southern provinces will be suspicious of the new King of the French, and will therefore tend to moderation. His Majesty intends proceeding to Brussels next week, in accordance with the plans laid some months ago.’

Sir Charles Bagot was a diplomat of wide experience, not long returned from St Petersburg. Hervey had met him in Canada, a dozen years before, when as minister plenipotentiary he had been sent to settle a number of vexations that remained in the wake of the War of 1812. Lady Mary Bagot, the Duke of Wellington’s niece, had accompanied him. Indeed, she had stood proxy for Lady Camilla Cavendish at the baptism of Georgiana. He had had no connection with them since, but the ‘sad circumstances’ of Canada (as his family were wont to call the death of Henrietta) must, he presumed, have made his name known to the ambassador, and he supposed therefore that the absence of any instruction to stand aloof from affairs in Brussels was an implicit expression of confidence. Fairbrother had cautioned him against such an assumption, on account of an affair he recalled in Jamaica, when the judgment in the high court had gone ill against the magistrates in Ocho Rios: ‘
Delegata potestas non potest delegari
’ – even if the ambassador were minded to delegate his powers, he had no authority in law to do so. But Hervey had countered that he did not seek powers, merely the freedom to act. If His Britannic Majesty’s government sent him and his regiment to Brussels to be their representative, he must surely have the authority to represent them in the way they would wish to be represented? The regiment was to form part of the Dutch king’s procession, as a gesture of enduring friendship; they would therefore be unable to escape the consequences of any violent demonstration, and must take due precautions. And the situation in Brussels (and indeed the surrounding country, according to the troop captains) was still, to his mind, uneasy – even if the mood of Baron van der Fosse’s daily councils had grown steadily more sanguine. Until that morning’s.

Hervey had called on the princess regularly in the past month. He felt it his duty to apprise her, as colonel-in-chief, of all that he knew for as long as she remained in the city and her guidon therefore – both figuratively and in fact – uncased. Besides, her company was both easy and stimulating: she received him with little formality and he could speak with her in German (enjoying, indeed, her occasional corrections), although as a rule she spoke in English.

This morning he was admitted as usual by her butler, an elderly and rather stiff old family servant, but a faithful one who had once worn the green of a Saxon jaeger before being discharged, wounded, after Jena – and so had escaped the awkward shift of Saxony’s allegiance to Bonaparte. Though Hervey was always able to extract a few words from him, he could never manage more than a look of resigned approval. However, Serjeant Acton reported that he was always most hospitably attended to in the servants’ hall, and that he thought Herr Amsel (he was always punctilious about honouring him with ‘Herr’) had once made an appreciative remark about the Duke of Wellington – though he couldn’t of course be sure. This morning, as he showed him to the drawing room, Herr Amsel simply muttered ‘
Frankreich
,’ and shook his head.

Hervey bowed as he entered, and took his usual seat. ‘Amsel seems discomposed today, ma’am.’

‘He has been reading the
Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung
– the only German newspaper that seems readily to be had in Brussels.’

‘Forgive me, ma’am: does that newspaper have pronounced opinions?’

‘The Bavarians, Colonel, owe much to the French – or rather, to Bonaparte.’

Hervey thought he understood, but trying to fathom the mind of ‘Alte Amsel’, who had evidently formed a strong distaste for the French – or, strictly, France – in the last twenty-four hours, was perhaps too ambitious. ‘I suppose if the events in Paris may have consequences here, they may elsewhere too – in Germany maybe. That is his reasoning?’

‘It is. And it is also mine.’

Pleased though he was to have solved the riddle, it seemed the princess was not minded to discuss it. ‘What is the news from London?’ she asked abruptly.

Hervey had no news. But while what happened in Paris might have echoes beyond the Rhine, the Channel was another matter. ‘I know of no ill effects, ma’am. Nor would I expect any.’

The princess shook her head. ‘I do not make myself clear. I refer to the elections of parliament.’

‘Of course—’

A footman appeared with coffee, which interrupted his thoughts for the moment. On the death of the King, parliament had been dissolved – on 24 July – and a new parliament summoned to meet on 14 September. The first contest at the polls had been held on 29 July, and the last was due on 1 September. Such reports as he had – by way of
The Times
, the
London Gazette
and letters from Wiltshire – were not auspicious.

He measured his words carefully. ‘I think that the duke may not be making the gains he supposed. The reports of unrest in the country districts, too, are troubling. As here, the harvest has been poor. Yet I would have imagined such disturbances to favour the duke’s cause rather than that of the radicals. I cannot believe he will be unseated. The country has too high a regard for him.’

And having given his opinion so decidedly, and the princess replying that she could only hope he was right, ‘for otherwise it will be to remove the wisest of counsels from the Concert of Europe’, he passed to a summary of what he’d learned at that morning’s council. ‘There have been inscriptions on the walls in the lesser streets for some weeks – “Down with Van Maanen … Death to the Dutch” – but these have now begun to appear in streets closer to the Place Royale, and leaflets were found last night.’

He handed her one:
Le 23 Août, Feu d’Artifice; le 24 Août, Anniversaire du Roi; le 25 Août, Révolution!

The princess seemed unmoved. ‘And what do the authorities make of this?’

‘There was some dismay this morning, and I think for the first time. Kuyff, the policeman, was particularly concerned, and thought it best to cancel the fireworks and the illumination for the king’s birthday. Baron van der Fosse agreed, but the decision will be taken only on the twenty-second, after the king has arrived, and on account of unfavourable weather.’

The princess raised her eyebrows. ‘And do we take it that it is not because of the superior divinings of weather available to the authorities that they are able to say it shall be wet four days hence? This present rain has the nature of a passing shower.’

‘I should have said
ostensibly
on account of the weather.’

‘
Ostensibly?
’

‘
Angeblich
.’

‘
Ach, so.
’

‘It does seem a risky venture, ma’am. In three days’ time it may very well be dry, in which case …’

‘Quite. But the king is still to come.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Well, if he is to see the exhibition, which he must, the authorities will not wish to close that, and nor the theatres. I hope not, for I have taken a box at the Opera on the twenty-fifth.’

‘Nothing was said about closing the theatres, ma’am.’

‘Good. And you are invited, Colonel, and four of your officers, for I have taken an adjacent box, and afterwards shall give a supper party.’

The opera
: Hervey tried hard to sound appreciative (he’d been to too many to be diverted by the prospect). ‘I thank you, ma’am. Might I enquire which is the opera?’

She bowed, suggesting his enquiry was very proper. ‘
Masaniello
.’