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    The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware
    The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware
    The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware
    Ebook487 pages8 hours

    The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware

    By Dennis Wheatley

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    Sep 1809 - 1 Jan 1813

    In 1809 Roger Brook went to Lisbon and became involved in the Peninsular War. While there he first met Lady Mary Ware, with unexpected results for both of them.

    Later, events carried him to Copenhagen, St. Petersburg and Moscow, which had just been occupied by Napoleon.

    In Russia he again met Lady Mary and disguised her as his soldier servant. The description of their participation in Napoleon's terrible Retreat from Moscow in 1812 has rarely, if ever, been equalled.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJul 28, 2014
    ISBN9781448212972
    The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware
    Author

    Dennis Wheatley

    Dennis Yates Wheatley (1897–1977) was an English author whose prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling writers from the 1930s through the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series was one of the main inspirations for Ian Fleming's James Bond stories. Born in South London, he was the eldest of three children of an upper-middle-class family, the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He admitted to little aptitude for schooling, and was expelled from Dulwich College. Soon after his expulsion Wheatley became a British Merchant Navy officer cadet on the training ship HMS Worcester. During the Second World War, Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section, which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans. His literary talents gained him employment with planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for the War Office, including suggestions for dealing with a German invasion of Britain. During his life, he wrote more than 70 books which sold over 50 million copies.

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      The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware - Dennis Wheatley

      1

      Wanted for Murder

      On a lovely morning in late September 1809, a man and a woman were sitting at a table on the vine-covered terrace of the inn at the little village of Winningen, on the Moselle.

      The man was forty-one and the woman just a year older. Their clothes were of the finest quality, but slightly rumpled from hasty travel—which was not to be wondered at, since forty-eight hours earlier they had been fleeing for their lives, and had with them only the garments they were wearing. But now they were lazily partaking of a bottle of good wine, their faces as serene as the river which flowed swiftly past to join the Rhine, eight miles downstream at Coblenz.

      Apart from them the terrace was deserted, and there were few passers-by in the street, for the vintage was in progress and every hand needed to get in the grapes before the coming of the first frosts. Yet anyone catching sight of them could not have failed to be struck by the strong, resolute face of the man and the voluptuous beauty of the woman.

      He was Roger Brook, the son of the late Admiral Sir Christopher Brook; but he was wearing a French uniform and had spent more than half his life on the Continent. Circumstances had led to his assuming a second identity as le Chevalier de Breuc, a native of Strasbourg. For many years Billy Pitt had looked on him as his most resourceful secret agent. He had served the Prime Minister well all through the French Revolution and later, as an A.D.C. to General Bonaparte, he had risen to become Colonel le Baron de Breuc, a Commander of the Legion of Honour and one of the most trusted members of the Emperor’s personal staff.

      His companion’s name was Georgina, and she was now the very recent widow of Baron von Haugwitz. But she too was English by birth, the only daughter of a Colonel of Engineers who had made a fortune from inventions, and a gipsy mother. It was to the former that she owed an exceptional education and a fine intelligence; from the latter she inherited her superb dark beauty, her abundant vitality and, at times the gift of foretelling the future.

      Roger took from his pocket a news sheet that had been printed in Coblenz the previous day and given to him by a waiter when they had been breakfasting in the coffee room earlier that morning. For the dozenth time he read the leading article, which ran:

      MOST MYSTERIOUS TRAGEDY OF THE CENTURY

      It is reported that the Herr Baron Ulrich von Haugwitz and a French lady, the Baronne de Breuc, were found dead yesterday in the most extraordinary circumstances. The questioning of the servants at the Herr Baron’s Schloss Langenstein leads to the belief that the two were lovers. For some utterly inexplicable reason, they elected to consummate their passion for one another in a wine press. Presumably they fell asleep there, and failed to wake when, in the late afternoon, vintagers tipped hods of grapes into the press upon them. Or it may be that they were swiftly suffocated.

      Their presence at the bottom of the vat remained undiscovered until the must running from the press took on an unusual pinkish colour. The Kellermeister ordered the press to be emptied. Only then, when a ton of grapes had been removed, there was revealed, to the amazement and horror of those present, the naked, flattened corpses of the Herr Baron and the French Baronne.

      The dead woman had been Roger’s third wife, Lisala: the beautiful but incredibly evil daughter of a Portuguese diplomat, the Marquis de Pombal. Roger had met her in Tehran when a member of a mission that Napoleon had ent to Persia, and her father had been Ambassador to he Shah. They had entered on a hectic love affair. Many months later they had sailed together to Brazil, when the Portuguese Royal Family had gone into exile to escape from the French, who were about to enter Lisbon.

      In Brazil, Lisala had told Roger that she was pregnant by him. They had planned to elope, but had been betrayed by a Negro slave. In the mêlée that followed, she had driven a stiletto through her father’s back and killed him. Roger had got her away to a British frigate lying in Rio harbour. He already knew her to be a nymphomaniac and utterly unscrupulous in gaining her own ends; but, as he believed her to be Carrying his child, he had felt bound to marry her.

      In Europe, matters had gone from bad to worse. Once more in the service of Napoleon, Roger had accompanied him to the Conference of Erfurt. There Lisala had given birth to a black baby. The child’s father had been the Negro slave who had betrayed them. Horrified, Roger would have rid himself of her, but she knew the double life he was leading and threatened to reveal that he was an English spy.

      At Erfurt, Roger had again met Georgina: the first and only truly great love of his life. He and Lisala had gone to stay at Schloss Langenstein with Georgina and her husband. Her marriage had turned out most unhappily. Von Haugwitz was a homosexual, but his fondness for boys did not prevent him from becoming Lisala’s lover. In lust and depravity, they proved to be a pair. By then Roger found it impossible to restrain her. For her amusement, financed by the Baron, she secretly opened a brothel.

      Sent on a mission from Vienna to Paris by the Emperor, Roger had returned unexpectedly and overheard the Baron and Lisala plotting to murder him and Georgina. Lisala was boundlessly extravagant. She had a great fortune in Portugal but, owing to the war, could get no money out of that country. Von Haugwitz was also at his wits’ end for money. Georgina, too, was very wealthy, but her money was in England. Her death would enable von Haugwitz to claim her fortune as soon as the war was over. With Roger also dead, Lisala and the Baron would be able to marry and share this great wealth.

      To save Georgina, Roger had again gone to Langenstein. But to get her away from the Schloss had presented a most difficult problem, as the Baron’s retainers were under orders to keep a watch on her and prevent her from leaving. Roger had decided that the best chance of doing so was to suggest that they should all go on an expedition to Frankfurt, about which the servants would be told the previous night; then, during the night, to drug the Baron and Lisala. In the morning Georgina would say that her husband and Roger’s wife were not going on the expedition after all. Instead, they had gone out early to see the vintagers at work. She and Roger would not then be prevented from driving off in the coach that had been ordered.

      But they dared not leave their would-be murderers lying drugged in their beds, for it was certain they would be found there before the escapers could get away. So the question remained of where to hide them. As no-one went into the weinstube until late in the afternoon, they had decided to conceal the unconscious Baron and Lisala in one of the big presses.

      The plan had worked, except that when Roger had forced the coachman to turn the coach about and drive in the direction of Coblenz instead of Frankfurt, a footman had jumped off the back of the vehicle and run up to the Schloss to tell the Baron’s steward what had occurred. The Baron’s men had pursued them, but they had managed to get away. Had they remained on the Prussian side of the Rhine, the Baron could have had Roger arrested for carrying off Georgina; but, by crossing the river at Coblenz, they had entered French territory, so could consider themselves safe from his fury when he had sufficiently recovered to realise how he had been fooled.

      Roger had had no means of assessing the power of the drug which he and Georgina had forced von Haugwitz and Lisala to swallow at pistol point; but he had quite reasonably assumed that its effect would wear off in twelve hours, so they should have come to soon after midday or, in any case, well before the vintagers came to the weinstube for the evening pressing. But evidently it had proved more potent than he had expected. That it had resulted in their deaths did not distress him. Even had he deliberately killed them, it would not have weighed heavily on his conscience, for both were given over to every form of evil and would, in due course, have brought pain and grief to many other people. So it was well that they were dead. Moreover, their deaths had altered immensely for the better the prospects of Georgina and himself.

      Not only was he now free from Lisala for good and all. Had she continued to live, it was certain that, within a week or so, she would be back in Vienna, and revenged herself by denouncing him as an English secret agent. So securely had he established himself over many years as a distinguished French officer that, at first, few people would have believed her. But, on returning from Brazil, she had spent some time with him in London. In consequence she knew so much about his English connections that it needed only for her statements to be checked by a French agent for them to become proven facts. That would have put an end for good to his activities as Colonel le Baron de Breuc; and, when the Emperor realised for how long he had been fooled, his fury would have known no bounds. Roger would have become a hunted fugitive in a Europe swarming with Napoleon’s secret police.

      Georgina, too, was no longer the wife of a husband whom she detested, and from whom she might have had great difficulty in freeing herself. Being English-born, she could expect no sympathy from the French, and her late husband’s brother was Chief Minister of Prussia. His influence was great enough to have had her hunted throughout the French-dominated Continent and, if caught, sent back to her husband.

      After the desperate anxieties of the past week, they had spent the previous day at the inn, quietly recovering. During that time they had discussed the future as it then appeared to them. In view of Lisala’s almost certain denunciation of him, it was essential that Roger should not be recognised by one of the many hundred French officers with whom he was acquainted, and his whereabouts become known. As a first precaution, before arriving at the inn he had removed his rank badges, decorations and A.D.C.’s sash, and given their names as Captain and Madame Bonthon. As soon as he could, he intended to procure civilian clothes and get rid of his uniform; then make his way with Georgina by little-used roads from the Rhineland to Pressburg in Austria.

      Ultimately, they were both anxious to get back to England—Roger to escape Napoleon’s police, and Georgina to rejoin young Charles, her dearly-loved son by her second husband, the Earl of St. Ermins. But, although Roger had had himself smuggled many times across the Channel and the North Sea, he doubted his ability to do so with a woman companion, and was greatly averse to exposing her to such a risk.

      An alternative occurred to him, owing to the fact that no great while since Georgina had had a brief but passionate affair with the Archduke John, youngest brother of the Emperor Francis of Austria. Hostilities in the war of the Third Coalition had temporarily ceased in July by France and Austria agreeing an armistice, which still continued. Meanwhile, Austria maintained diplomatic relations with her ally, Britain. Therefore, the Archduke was in a position to secure Georgina’s safe passage to England, escorted by a diplomatic courier. So it had been decided that Roger should take her to the Austrian headquarters at Pressburg and, having handed her over to the Archduke, make his own way home.

      They were now re-discussing the matter. Having laid aside the news sheet that gave them the welcome tidings that their marriages were at an end, Roger said:

      ‘For me this means that I no longer have to go into hiding from the French; but for you, my sweet, it makes only the difference that I can escort you openly to Pressburg, so be certain of getting you there safely and more swiftly. The good offices of your dear friend John remain the best method of conveying you back to England.’

      Georgina nodded, her dark curls stirring slightly on either side of her rosy cheeks. ‘I think you right; though I regret that our parting should now be the sooner. I had looked forward to our making a long, circuitous journey together, with a spice of danger and many joyous nights spent at wayside inns. But what of yourself? Now that you no longer have anything to fear, do you intend to rejoin the Emperor?’

      ‘That depends on yourself,’ he replied, his bright blue eyes holding hers intently. ‘Do you at long last agree to marry me, wild horses will not stop me from joining you in England with all speed imaginable.’

      ‘Oh, Roger!’ she protested. ‘We have talked of this so often through the years, and always reached the same conclusion. Our joy in sleeping together has never lessened since we first became lovers as boy and girl. But solely because fate decreed that we could share a bed only for brief periods, at long intervals. You have ever been the dearest person in my life, and so will ever remain; but had we married, our mutual passion would long since have waned, and we’d be no more than a humdrum couple approaching middle age.’

      ‘Ah, but that is just the point! I grant you that with our virile natures and lust for life, had we married when young we might, after a few years, have become satiated with each other and sought pastures new, or thwarted our instincts and settled into a dreary, joyless domesticity. But we are older now. Both of us have sown our wild oats, and far more abundantly than most. To my daughter, Susan, you have for many years played the part of a sweet and devoted mother. But your boy, Charles, needs a father to bring him up, and who better than myself? ’Tis time that we put casual lechery behind us and entered on the quieter joys of life.’

      For a long time Georgina was silent, then she said, ‘You are right that Charles needs a father. How wrong I was to imagine that brute, Ulrich, would fill the role. And no-one could make a proper man of Charles more surely than yourself. I agree, too, that I have had my fill of lovers. How lucky I’ve been in that: a score or more of men, all handsome and distinguished. But now I feel the time has come when I could be a faithful wife. I make no promise, Roger dear; but before we part at Pressburg I’ll think seriously on it.’

      ‘Bless you for that, my love,’ he smiled, as he refilled her glass with the golden wine.

      When she had drunk, she asked, ‘Should I decide against letting you make an honest woman of me—what then?’

      He shrugged. ‘I hardly know. I’ve been monstrous fortunate in that, during seventeen years of war, I have had many narrow escapes from death. But, on the law of averages, such luck cannot last indefinitely, and I’m much averse to throwing my life away on yet another of the Emperor’s battlefields. On the other hand, I am much tempted to stay on with him, so that I may witness the final act of the drama he has brought upon the world.’

      ‘Meseems then that, should you survive, by the time you come tottering home the grey hair above your ears that now gives you such a dashing look will have spread to cover your whole head. England will never make peace with Bonaparte, and he is now more powerful than ever before.’

      ‘Most people suppose so. And with some reason, as his word is now law from southern Italy to the Baltic Sea and, except for severely wounded Austria, from the Atlantic coast to the borders of Turkey. Russia alone on the Continent of Europe retains her independence; but she is his ally. So, on the face of things, it does now appear that his position is impregnable. Yet it is well said that all is not gold that glitters.

      ‘No man is more greatly hated. There is not one of that horde of subject Kings and Princes who fawn upon him wherever he holds his Court who would not, given half a chance, knife him in the back. For the moment they are tied to his chariot wheels and forced to send their troops to fight and die in his campaigns, because all the fortresses in their countries are garrisoned by French troops. Moreover, his demands on them for contributions to his war chest are insatiable. He is sucking their countries dry. A time must come when their people will revolt against this terrible drain upon their manhood and the intolerable burden of taxation.

      ‘That has already happened in Spain, and it will in other countries. Enormous as his army is, he’ll not have enough troops to hold them all down. This vast Empire he has created is a house built on sand. Does he make one false move, and it will collapse about his ears.

      ‘He is, too, not only faced with this danger from without, but also a swiftly-growing canker in the very heart of his Empire. His personal magnetism is immense, so that whenever he appears, his own people are still hypnotised into giving him a great ovation. But no sooner has he turned his back than they now curse him below their breath. There is not a family in France that has not lost a father, a husband or a son in his wars. In every city, town and village, one cannot walk a hundred yards without seeing an ex-soldier who has lost an arm, a leg, or is blind. He has bled the manhood of France white, and is now scraping the bottom of the barrel by calling to the colours boys of sixteen.

      ‘Time was when, as the Paladin of the Revolution and new Freedom, he was defending France from invasion. Then the people gloried in his victories; but, in recent years, they have come to realise that all the terrible sacrifices they are making can bring no benefit to France, and that the wars he wages are solely for his own aggrandisement. Even his own troops are losing faith in him. Europe now swarms with French deserters. They can be numbered by tens of thousands.’

      Roger paused for a moment to finish his wine, then went on, ‘And that is not all. Realising the desperate straits to which he has reduced their nation, many of his most trusted lieutenants have secretly turned against him. All but a few of his Marshals are utterly sickened by his endless wars. They long for peace, so that they may return to France, live on the great estates he has given them and enjoy the vast fortunes they have acquired by looting the wealth of a dozen countries. Given a lead, they would betray him.

      ‘And that lead will come. The two most powerful men in France are Talleyrand and Fouché. As you well know, the former has been my close friend since my first years in France, while the latter, who at one time was my most bitter enemy, agreed with me to let bygones be bygones at the time of Brumaire. Up till that time they, too, were enemies; but it was I who brought them together and, between them, it was they who made possible the success of the coup d’état that raised Bonaparte to First Consul and Dictator. Now, as they have both told me, they are again leagued together, and have vowed to bring Napoleon down.’

      Roger had been so engrossed in what he was saying and Georgina in listening to him, that neither of them had consciously heeded the clatter on the pavé of a number of rapidly approaching horses. A moment later a small cavalcade came into view. It consisted of a large travelling coach escorted by a troop of French Hussars.

      The coach came to a halt in front of the low terrace of the inn, immediately opposite the place where Roger and Georgina were sitting. The door swung open, and a tall, lean officer jumped out. He was clad in the resplendent uniform of a Marshal of the Empire. Above the gleaming black, gold-tasselled Hessian boots and white doeskin breeches, the blue tail coat was heavily embellished with gold braid. His chest was a blaze of diamond-studded decorations. Above his hawk-like face his cocked hat carried waving ostrich feathers a foot high. As he glanced up, Roger instantly recognised him as Pierre Augereau, Duc de Castiglione.

      Recognition was mutual. Staring at Roger in amazement, the Marshal exclaimed:

      ‘Blood of my guts! What in the devil’s name are you doing here, Breuc, taking your ease with your woman? Why are you not making the ground fly beneath a horse’s hooves? Do you not realise that the authorities are after you for murder?’

      2

      The Gamin Marshal

      Roger had come to his feet. Staring down at the tall Marshal, he exclaimed, ‘Murder! I have committed no murder.’

      ‘Should you be brought to trial by the Prussian authorities, you’ll be hard put to it to prove you have not,’ Augereau retorted.

      Picking up the news sheet from the table, Roger said, ‘I take it you refer to this—the deaths of the Baron von Haugwitz and my wife?’

      ‘What else? All Coblenz is agog with it. Last night in the Mess at headquarters, they did naught but make wagers on whether or not you would get away.’

      ‘They were not murdered,’ Roger insisted firmly. ‘They met their deaths by accident.’

      ‘You say so; but what other interpretation can be put upon the facts? The servants declare that you were having an affaire with the Baron’s wife.’ Belatedly, Augereau lifted his plumed hat to Georgina, as he added, ‘and as tempting a piece as a man could wish to see. For that who could blame you? But ’tis another matter when you make off with her and, within a few hours, her husband and your own wife are found to be corpses. It stares one in the face that, fearing the Baron would put the police on your track and have them bring his wife back, before leaving you to decide to make certain of keeping her by taking his life. How otherwise could it have come about that his body and that of your wife were found hidden at the bottom of a wine press? There is evidence enough that they, too, were having an affaire; but both, it emerges had their own rooms, so could have bounced each other in the bed of either. Who could conceivably believe that instead they elected to have a romp in a wine press, and both walked downstairs stark naked for the purpose?’

      ‘For that, Marshal, I can offer no explanation,’ Roger declared. ‘I can only assert that when the Frau Baronin and I read this news sheet a few hours ago, we were utterly amazed by its contents. Upon that I give you my oath. Naturally, we had expected that, as soon as von Haugwitz learned of our flight he would take such steps as he could to get back his wife; and had we been caught on the far side of the Rhine, I would have been compelled to give her up. That is why, as soon as we possibly could, we crossed into French territory, where the Prussian authorities have no jurisdiction.’

      ‘You are right that they have none in civil matters. And, had things been as you say you supposed them to be, von Haugwitz would have been powerless to prevent your getting away with his Baroness. But you are wanted on the criminal charge that you murdered him and your wife. By now the Prussians will have applied to the French authorities for your apprehension and extradition. It was believing you must realise that which caused me such amazement to come upon you placidly sitting there enjoying the autumn sunshine.’

      Roger’s face had become grim and he said, ‘I’ll admit that the marriages of both the Baroness and myself were most unhappy. In the circumstances this morning’s news that we were free of them came as a relief. Since receiving it we have thought of little else, so the possible consequences to us of this tragedy had not entered my mind. But I see now that our situation may soon become a desperate one.’

      While they had been talking, the escort had dismounted and were helping an ostler, who had run out of the stable yard, to change the horses drawing the coach. From its far side, an A.D.C. had emerged, run up the steps to the terrace and was shouting to the waiter to bring a bottle of the best wine.

      Augereau now followed him and, his great, gold hilted sabre clanking on the stones, came striding toward Roger’s table. Roger presented the Marshal to Georgina and, as he bowed over her hand, said quickly, ‘In view of what you tell me, Marshal, you’ll excuse us if we leave at once. Fortunately, the few things we have with us are already packed, as we had intended to set off after an early midday meal.’

      Augereau waved him back to his seat. ‘You have no need to bust your guts now. D’you think I’d stand by and let your handsome head be lopped off because you’ve given the congé to some pissing German Baron? The Emperor would never forgive me, let alone the Army that speaks of you as "le brave Breuc". Nay, I’ll take you both with me, and under my protection you can spit in the eye of any official who attempts to detain you. All Europe knows well enough that anyone who interferes with Pierre Augereau courts death.’

      In that he made no idle boast. Augereau was the most redoubtable swordsman in the whole of the Grand Army. Even Roger, who was also renowned for his swordplay, would not have dared challenge him to a duel. He had killed scores of men and, given the least provocation, never thought twice before drawing his sword and driving it through a man’s body.

      With a sigh of relief, Roger exclaimed, ‘Indeed, Marshal, for this generous act the Baroness and I will forever be your debtors!’

      Georgina, who spoke French fluently, had followed the whole conversation. Smiling up at Augereau, she said, ‘Fortune has truly smiled on us in sending you here at this moment, Monseigneur le Duc. I would not take the Emperor himself in exchange for you as our protector.’

      Returning her smile, he casually chucked her under the chin, and replied, ‘De Breuc asserts that he did not kill your husband; but I would have for the chance of playing his part with such a peach as you, Madame.’

      The A.D.C. had joined them and Augereau introduced him as Colonel Laborde. At that moment the waiter hurried up with two bottles of wine, and glasses. Instead of waiting for the wine to be poured, the Marshal took one of the bottles, put the neck to his mouth, tilted it and swallowed half the contents without drawing breath. Setting the bottle down, he gave a gasp, licked his lips and said:

      ‘Ah! That’s better, it’s laid some of the dust from these infernal roads. Now, I have no time to lose. I halted only to change horses and give my men a chance to quench their thirsts. In five minutes we must be on our way. Go now, collect your baggage and pay your score as swiftly as you can.’

      As Roger and Georgina had left Schloss Langenstein on the pretext that they were driving into Frankfurt only for the day, he had had to leave all his things behind; while she had with her only two medium-sized valises. The Baron’s steward had believed that they contained silver articles her husband had asked her to take into Frankfurt to be valued by a goldsmith. Actually, she had packed in them her jewels, toilet things and a few underclothes. The waiter fetched them down, Roger paid his bill and, with Augereau and Laborde, they got into the big coach. At a sharp order from a sergeant, the escort mounted; and, with a clatter and a jingle, they were off.

      Augereau had told them that he was on his way to Paris, so their route lay through Trier, Luxembourg, Longwy, Rheims and Château Thierry. As the crow flies the distance was only some two hundred and fifty miles, but the roads were far from being direct highways from city to city, and this applied particularly to the road that ran alongside the Moselle. Between Coblenz and Trier, it not only followed over two dozen great bends but, in places, actually ran back for several miles in the direction from which it had come; so, with other divergences they would have to travel close on five hundred miles before they reached Paris.

      The events of the morning had forced Roger to abandon his intention of taking Georgina to Pressburg; and, when they got to Paris, having her with him there would raise new and difficult problems. But, in the meantime, Augereau’s having given them his protection was a piece of miraculous good fortune.

      The road they were travelling could not have been more picturesque. Alternately, as the smooth-flowing river curved for mile after mile through the corkscrew valley, on one bank there were lush water meadows where cattle grazed in the autumn sunshine, on the other steep hills covered with tall vines, among which the colourfully-clad peasants were gathering the grapes.

      Moreover, Augereau proved a most entertaining companion. As a child he had been a gamin playing in the Paris gutters. He was still a gamin: shrewd, resourceful, contemptuous of the laws of both God and man, full of the lust of life, foul-tongued and bawdy-minded. Within a quarter of an hour he was telling stories that would have turned the cheeks of most women scarlet and, as he did so, he watched Georgina with cynical amusement. But she listened unabashed, then after a while bested him by remarking quietly:

      ‘Monseigneur le Duc, I would find your stories even more amusing if, when telling them, you made your point without using words that are offensive to well-bred people.’

      Unused to being rebuked, he stared at her with a frown, then he gave a great guffaw of laughter and cried:

      ‘God’s boots! You are a woman in a thousand. Madame, for baiting you as I did I freely apologise and for the future, while in your presence, will endeavour to remember to call a spade a garden implement.’

      That night they slept at Berncastle, dined and wined off the best and went up to bed tired but cheerful. Before they fell asleep, Roger told Georgina something of their rumbustious protector’s extraordinary history.

      At a very early age he had got himself a job as junior footman to a Marquis, but had been dismissed for seducing the Marquise’s personal maid. His next job had been as a waiter in a gaming house, but he had lost that through seducing a waitress. He had then enlisted in the cavalry, but had been discharged for insubordination. However, a Colonel of Carabinières had been attracted by his splendid physique and taken him into his regiment. He proved an excellent trooper, a good companion and, before long, had acquired a reputation as the finest swordsman in King Louis XVI’s Household Brigade. As, by mature, he was intensely quarrelsome, that had led to his fighting a dozen duels. He had never been worsted and most of these encounters had ended in the death of his opponent.

      His days in the old Army had ended abruptly. A young officer had struck him with his cane while on parade. Augereau flicked the cane away. The foolish youth drew his sword. Augereau’s blade came out like a streak of lightning and, a second later, six inches of it were sticking out behind the officer’s back. Before Augereau could be seized, he was galloping off to Switzerland on a stolen horse.

      From Switzerland he made his way to Constantinople as a pedlar of watches. Turkey then being at war with Russia, he decided to enlist in the Russian Army, and served under Catherine the Great’s famous General, Suvarov. But he found his Russian comrades uncongenial, so he deserted and made his way north through Poland to Prussia. There he was accepted into Frederick the Great’s crack regiment, the Prussian Guards. Soon afterwards, to his indignation, in a fit of pique Frederick decreed that no Frenchman in his service should receive reward or promotion; so Augereau again decided to desert.

      But to do so from the Prussian Army was a far more risky proceeding than from the Russian. So, for his own protection, he secretly persuaded no fewer than sixty of his comrades to desert with him. Leading this band of desperados, he had fought his way out of Prussia into Saxony.

      Having had his fill for a while of military life he then became a dancing master and, in due course, wandered down to Athens. From there he travelled to Lisbon where he was imprisoned for enthusiastically acclaiming the Revolution that was about to sweep the Monarchy away in France. A sea captain secured his release and, at long last, he returned to his own country. There he joined a battalion of Revolutionary Volunteers in the Vendée. He proved such an excellent leader that he was enthusiastically elected chef de bataillon.

      That was in ’92, and from then on his promotion was rapid. The following year he was commanding a division in the Pyrenees, and in ’96 he was one of the three divisional commanders of the Army of Italy when Napoleon arrived from Paris to take it over.

      In that amazing campaign he did more than cover himself with glory. During this time there occurred one of the very few occasions on which Napoleon lost his head. The ragged Army of the Republic was greatly outnumbered by Austrians and Sardinians and partially surrounded. Retreat could have proved disastrous, yet to attack the Austrians up on the heights of Castiglione appeared equally dangerous. Napoleon could not make up his mind which to do; so Augereau took charge, stormed the heights and won a great victory.

      He was no strategist but a brilliant tactician, and always had his divisions in the right place at the right time. He was utterly fearless and, like Ney, Lannes and Murat, was a front-line commander who always personally led his men into battle. Although he was a strict disciplinarian, he never tired of looking after their welfare, so they adored him.

      In spite of the fact that he was now a Duke, with great estates and a huge fortune piled up by wholesale looting in a dozen countries, he was at heart still a revolutionary and atheist; and he lost no opportunity of treading on the toes of the returned émigrés whom in recent years Napoleon had been welcoming to his Court, or showing his contempt for everything connected with religion.

      Such was the strange, forceful, unscrupulous, gay, greedy man in whose company Roger and Georgina spent the next five days. On October 1st they arrived in Paris and, with heartfelt thanks for his most timely protection, took leave of the Marshal Duke after drinking a last bottle with him in his great Paris mansion.

      From there Roger took Georgina to his old haunt, La Belle Etoile, not far from the Louvre. Long ago, in the days before the Revolution, as a youth and the secretary of a wealthy Marquis, Roger had lived at the hostelry. The patron, Monsieur Blanchard, and his wife were an honest Norman couple. They had sheltered Roger during the Terror and seen him rise in Napoleon’s service to fame and honour.

      Although for many years past Roger could have afforded better accommodation, whenever he was in Paris he always stayed at their inn. Up in the attic they kept for him a big trunk containing a considerable variety of civilian clothes, and a reserve of money.

      It had become a custom that, whenever Roger arrived in Paris, on his first night there he should dine with the Blanchards in their parlour. Now, having been presented to Georgina, they realised at once that she was a great lady and hesitated to invite her to share a meal. But Roger swept away their diffidence by saying that he had told her with such gusto about duck cooked in the Norman fashion that, all the way to Paris, she had been looking forward to this speciality of Madame Blanchard’s.

      A few hours later, rested and refreshed, Roger and Georgina were happily despatching a pair of fine ducks with their host and hostess; and washing them down with a good vintage Burgundy. Innkeepers have their fingers more firmly than other men on the pulse of public opinion and Roger never failed to get a sound assessment of feeling in Paris from Maître Blanchard. When asked about it now, he replied:

      ‘Monsieur le Colonel Baron, I cannot complain. There is plenty of money about and no lack of food to be had at reasonable prices. But the people are not happy. In the bad old days, when the churches had been turned into gaming-hells and brothels, the populace were half-starving and the city one great slum, but at least the citizens did not lack joie de vivre. As the ragged bands of volunteers marched to defend France from the armies of the Kings who would have crushed the Revolution, they laughed and sang. Later, as you will know, when the news used to come in of victory after victory gained by the Little Corporal, we had good reason to cheer and, whenever he came to Paris, the people went wild with excitement. But that is so no longer.

      ‘Apart from that short break in 1803, we’ve been at war for seventeen years. And what good has it done us? Saving your presence, it is no doubt a wonderful experience for the Emperor, his Marshals and high officers like yourself to ride in triumph into Milan, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid and all those other cities. But, for all but a few, these great campaigns mean death, to be crippled for life or, at best, years at a stretch marching with heavy equipment, along endless roads, living in great discomfort, often existing only on vegetables stolen from some wretched peasant’s garden and, above all, separated from those they love.

      ‘Time was when my wife and I used to think that Le Bon Dieu had treated us harshly by denying us sons. Today we thank Him that He did not. By now they would be dead, handicapped by some awful injury or far away with but only half a chance of our ever seeing them again.

      ‘For two years past a great part of the drafts to the colours have been made up of youngsters who should still be finishing their schooling, instead of being sent to fight and kill their fellow men. And even the supply of these is drying up.

      ‘Yet, on the Emperor’s return to Paris, he insisted that the gaps in his armies must be filled. For the purpose he ordered Marshal Moncey to take special measures. As you must know, deserters have become legion. No-one reproaches them any more. On the contrary, everyone helps them to get back to their homes, or hides them and gives them work to do at night. Now they are being flushed out by the thousand. In every city, town and village throughout France, Monceys gendarmes are carrying out house-to-house searches, and thrusting their bayonets into the hay in the barns. Every man between the age of sixteen and sixty has to give a satisfactory account of himself. If he can’t, he gets a brutal beating and is dragged off to the nearest barracks. Can you wonder that people no longer cheer the Emperor, and that many wish him dead?’

      The duck was followed by a flaming omelette au rhum, and they rounded the meal off with pre-Revolution Calvados. When they went up to bed, Georgina having every confidence in Roger’s ability to take care of her, was tired but happy. He, on the other hand, although their cheerful evening with the Blanchards had caused him for the moment to put aside thoughts of the future, was far from being so.

      The mysterious deaths of von Haugwitz and Lisala ware so sensational that the story might already have reached Paris. In any case, it was certain that when the voluble Augereau paid his respects to the Emperor he would give him an account of the affair. What view he would take of it was quite unpredictable. Napoleon justifiably prided himself upon being a great law giver and, provided it did not conflict with his own interests, was a great stickler for the law being carried out.

      When Roger reported for duty, as he must the following day, he felt sure that the Emperor would question him about his doings at Schloss Langenstein. If he insisted on his innocence, Napoleon might well decree that he must be sent

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