Dennis Wheatley - The Rising Storm

"I have only this morning been let out of the Bastille," lied Roger glibly.

"Ho! Ho!" exclaimed the prelate. "And in what way did you incur His Majesty's displeasure to the point of his affording you such un­welcome hospitality?"

" 'Twas that old affair of de Caylus. I thought the charges against me long-since withdrawn and the whole matter forgotten; but I proved mistaken. On going for a change of air to Fontainebleau I was recognized by some members of the Court and found myself clapped into prison."

"Were you there long?"

"Nay; though I experienced all the distress of mind occasioned by believing that I might be. Evidently it was felt that after such a lapse of time a single night's imprisonment would be sufficient to impress upon me how unpleasant a much longer stay would be should I err again. When I had breakfasted the Governor came to tell me that simultan­eously with receiving the order for my incarceration he had had in­structions to let me out in the morning."

"You were lucky to get off so lightly; and most ill-advised to return to France without first making certain that the order for your arrest had been cancelled. Monsieur de Crosne's people have a long memory for cases such as yours."

Roger made a wry grimace. "I did not find it in the least light to spend a night in a cell imagining that I was to be kept there, perhaps for years. And 'twas not the Lieutenant of Police sent me there. The people I saw at Fontainebleau, with one exception, proved most sympathetic; so I would, I think, have escaped this extremely unpleasant experience had it not been for the malice of the Queen."

"Ah!" murmured de Perigord with a sudden frown. "So you fell foul of that interfering woman, eh?"

Roger was well aware of the strong animosity that his host, not altogether without cause, bore the Queen, and he had deliberately played upon it. Only three days before, too, he had had ample confirma­tion that the dislike was mutual from the Queen stigmatizing his friend as "that unworthy priest". With a cynical little smile he remarked:

"I well remember you telling me how Her Majesty intervened to prevent your receiving the Cardinal's Hat that His Holiness had promised you on the recommendation of King Gustavus of Sweden; but I had thought your animus against her might have softened somewhat since they have given you a Bishopric."

"Given!" echoed de Perigord, with a sneer. "Save the mark! And what a miserable Bishopric at that! I wot not if Their Majesties resented most having to appoint me to it or myself receiving such a mess of pottage. They did so only because my father when on his death-bed eighteen months ago made it a last request, so it was one which they could scarce refuse. As for myself, I am now thirty-four, and have had better claims than most to a mitre for these ten years past. On the King belatedly agreeing to my preferment he might at least have given me the Archbishopric of Bourges, which was vacant at the time. But no, he fobs me off with Autun, a see that brings me in only a beggarly twenty-two thousand livres a year."

At that moment the man-servant entered carrying a tray with a bottle in an ice-bucket and two tall glasses.

"You will join me in a glass of wine, will you not?" said the Bishop. "At this hour one's palate is still fresh enough to appreciate une tete de cuvee, and I believe you will find this quite passable."

It was in fact a Grand Montrachet of the year '72, and in its golden depths lay all the garnered sunshine of a long-past summer. Having sipped it, Roger thanked his host for the joy of sharing such a bottle. Then, when the servant had withdrawn, he reverted to their previous conversation by remarking with a smile:

" 'Tis indeed sad that Their Majesties' narrow-mindedness should have deprived Your Grace of enjoying the best of both worlds." It was as tactful a reference as could be made to the fact that de Perigord had only himself to blame for being passed over, since, even in this age of profligacy, his immoralities had scandalized all Paris, whereas the King and Queen were notoriously devout. But the Bishop took him seriously, and protested.

"Mon ami, to mix up one world with the other is to ignore reality. Like hundreds of other ordained priests—yes, and many of them high dignatories like myself—I was not consulted when put into the Church, and felt no calling whatever for it. Women, scripture tells us, were created for the joy of man, and to deny us our right to the enjoyment of them is, therefore, clearly against the will of God, let alone Nature. Since we are forbidden to marry we resort to other measures, and where is the harm in that? From time immemorial the Kings of France have known and condoned it. And I count it most unfair that the fact that I have been more fortunate than many in securing those enjoyments should be held against me.

"On the other hand, in my role of Agent General to the Clergy of the Province of Tours I was zealous in my duties and proved myself a capable administrator. So much so that when the subject of my nomi­nation to a see came before the King I had the full support of the leading Churchmen in France, who made strong representations to His Majesty in my favour, and urged that my love affairs should be overlooked as no more than youthful peccadilloes."

"Am I to take it, then, that you have now become a model of recti­tude?" Roger grinned.

De Perigord grinned back. "Far from it, I fear. And I have no more liking for playing the Churchman than I had of old. But you may have noticed the suit I am wearing. I found the violet robes of a Bishop most becoming to me, so as a graceful concession to the Church I had some lay garments made of the same colour."

"How did your flock take that?" asked Roger. "For I sought you out when I first arrived in Paris, some three weeks back, only to learn that you were absent on a visit to your see."

"Ah," sighed the Bishop. "That was a serious business, and I could afford to take no chances of giving offence by my preference for lay attire. Believe it or not, for a whole month I played the dignified Churchman. But unfortunately I was so out of practice that at one High Mass I forgot the ritual." He laughed, and went on: "I had never visited my see before, feeling that it was quite sufficient to send them from time to time a pastoral letter that positively stank of piety; and I pray God that I may never have to go there again. But this visit was essential, as I wished to get myself elected to represent the clergy of the diocese at the forthcoming meeting of the States General."

"From the news-sheets I gather that you succeeded, and I offer Your Grace my felicitations."

"A thousand thanks." De Perigord gracefully inclined his head. "The result, though, was a foregone conclusion. I gave the poor wretches of clergy dinners the like of which they had never seen, and flattered every woman of influence into the belief that I wanted to sleep with her. But once elected I cared not a fig for what any of them thought of me. In fact, so little did I care that, being near desperate to get back to the civilized air of Paris, I shook the dust of Autun off my feet and drove off in my coach at nine o'clock on the morning of Easter Sunday."

The conversation having got round to the States General, Roger had no intention of letting it wander away again, so he said:

"There have been so many postponements of the meeting of the States, that one begins to doubt if it will ever assemble."

"You need have no fear on that score," De P6rigord assured him quickly, "and the postponements were quite unavoidable. As an Englishman you can have little idea of what this meeting means to France, and the innumerable questions which have had to be decided before it could be brought about at all. Not only have the States not been convened for seven generations, but when last called together they were by no means representative of the nation; and in the present crisis to summon any assembly that was not would have been completely futile. In consequence nearly all ancient precedent was found to be worse than useless. It is in fact die first general election that France has ever had, so we had to work out the principles upon which it was to be held from the very beginning. I spent several months last year assisting Monsieur Necker to do so, and the problem positively bristled with difficulties."