"At least people who have made themselves unpopular with the mobs are no longer liable to be set upon and strung up to a lamppost" Roger remarked, but Mere Blanchard quickly put in:
"Monsieur is mistaken about that; only it is a different type of people who are now the victims of a different kind of mob. The young bourgeois have invented a new form of sport. By night packs of them hunt out and kill one or more of the many thousands of so-called 'patriots' who held posts as jailers, police spies and minor officials of all sorts during the Terror. Few people would now object to them throwing the busts of Marat in the sewers, or booing when the 'Marseillaise' is played in the theatres, and some whom they knife or strangle may deserve their fate, but others do not; and it is wrong that any man should be done to death without a trial."
Blanchard nodded. "On account of these jeunes gens, Monsieur will be wise to keep a sharp look-out should he go into the streets at night They call themselves by such names as the Companions of the
Sun, and the Companions of Jesus, but many of them are little better than bands of licensed robbers."
"Licensed?" Roger picked him up. "Do you mean that they are actually protected by the Government?"
"Not officially; but the authorities make no attempt to put them
down."
"It surprises me greatly that while there are so many declared atheists still in the Chamber it should tolerate any body calling itself the Companions of Jesus."
With a shrug, Blanchard replied: "In matters of religion, as in all else, everything is at sixes and sevens. Not long since, Boissy d'Anglas denounced it in the most violent terms as pandering to childish and absurd superstition; but he went on in the same speech to say that there must be no further religious persecution. His views, I think, express the opinion of even the Moderates in the Chamber. They are hoping that if held up long enough to contempt and ridicule it will die out; but, of course, it will not. Now that they no longer need fear arrest, hundreds of priests have secretly returned to France; and all over the country people are attending Masses with all the greater fervour from the right to do so openly having been so long denied them."
"You should add, though," remarked his wife, "that side by side with this evidence of piety, never before has there been so much open sinning."
"That is true," he agreed. "In the main hunger is responsible, for from the age of twelve upwards there is now hardly a female among the working population who will not readily sell the use of her body for the price of a meal. But vice of every kind is also rampant among the better off. For that Barras, and others of his kidney, are much to blame, as they set the fashion by publicly flaunting a new mistress every week. Yet it is not entirely that When you were last here many thousands of men and women were in prison. Believing themselves to have no chance of escaping the guillotine, to keep up their courage they adopted a philosophy of ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die'. On their release they emerged imbued with this cynicism, and with life once more in their grasp the younger ones gave themselves up to the wildest profligacy. Last winter the jeunesse doree, as they are called, organized 'Victim Balls’ in which no one was allowed to participate who had not lost a near relative by the guillotine. For these, both the men and women dressed their hair high leaving the neck bare, as it had been the custom to arrange it immediately before execution; and at the beginning of each dance they cried in chorus 'Come, let us dance on the tombs!' It is said, too, that the costumes worn at these parties are becoming ever more shameless, and that many young girls of good birth now openly rival the demi-mondaines, by according their favours to any man willing to give them a jewel or provide them with elegant clothes."
For some three hours longer Roger absorbed the atmosphere of this post-Robespierrean Paris through the reasonably unprejudiced accounts of his honest host and hostess; then, as he was about to leave them for the night he asked Maitre Blanchard:
"Do you know what has become of Joseph Fouché, the Deputy for the Lower Loire?"
The Norman shook his head. "No; that one keeps very quiet these days. Last autumn, by denouncing others whose deeds were no less black than his own, he managed to coat himself in a layer of whitewash. But he must realize that it is no more than skin deep, and that a false step might yet bring about his ruin. I imagine, though, that being a Deputy he is still living in Paris."
"Could you find out for me tomorrow; and, if he is, his present address?"
"Certainly, Monsieur. The officials of the Chamber must know his whereabouts, so there should be no difficulty about that"
Next day, in accordance with his principle of never taking any unnecessary risk, Roger went out only to call on Harris, the banker in the Rue du Bac upon whom his orders for British secret service funds had been made, and draw a considerable sum in gold. But from the Blanchards and the inn servants he learned of the rising tide of unrest that was now agitating the city. The decrees of Fructidor— as were termed those concerning the packing of two-thirds of the seats in the new Chambers with members of the old Convention, and others similarly unpopular passed in that month of the revolutionary calendar —had been rejected by all but one of the Primary Assemblies in the forty Sections of Paris, and deputations by the score carrying petitions demanding that they should be rescinded were besieging the Convention.
In the afternoon Blanchard told Roger that Fouché had left his old apartment in Rue Saint Honore and was said to be living in a small house in the Passage Pappilote, on the Left Bank near the old Club of the Cordeliers. From a big trunk that for several years had been stored for him up in the attic of La Belle Etoile, Roger collected a sword cane, and a small double-barrelled pistol which would go into the pocket of his greatcoat Then, after he had supped, he started out with the intention of getting to grips with his enemy.
Having crossed the Seine by the Pont New he made his way to the Cafe Coraeza, which had been virtually an annex of the Cordeliers, and there enquired for the Passage Pappilote. It proved to be little more than a short cul-de-sac, as at its far end it narrowed to a dark archway through which nothing wider than a barrow could have passed. Lit only by a single bracket lamp affixed to a corner building that abutted on the main street, the greater part of it was in deep shadow; but Roger succeeded in identifying Fouché's house, noted that there were lights behind the drawn blinds of its two upper windows, and rapped sharply on the front door.
There were sounds of someone coming downstairs, then the door was opened by a red-headed young woman carrying a candle. She was an ugly anaemic-looking creature, and Roger recognized her at once as the middle-class heiress who had brought Fouché a modest fortune on his marriage to her three years before.
When asked if her husband was in she replied that he was not, and might not be back for some time; so without stating his business, Roger thanked her and said that he would call again in the morning.
As she closed the door his retreating footsteps rang loudly on the cobbles. But he did not go far. After waiting in the main street for five minutes, he tiptoed back and took up a position within a few feet of Fouché's front door, but bidden in the deep shadow cast by a nearby projecting wall.
Madame Fouché had not recognized him, and he now felt confident that none of the people he had known in Paris was likely to do so. That would be a big advantage if a warrant was issued for his arrest, and he had to leave the city in a hurry. But if he were compelled to do that it would mean the failure of his mission.