As long as the fierce frosts held the land in their grip he got what fun he could skating every Sunday. Twice more in February and March he saw Athenais in her little white and gold swan sleigh, but each time she was accompanied by several people so he did not dare to approach her.
The bitter cold continued right up to April so that people almost began to despair of the winter ever ending, and in many parts of the country starvation was widespread. Paris had for two months been without wood for fires and the situation there was said to be desperate. The King had given lavishly from his private purse to succour the thousands who were starving and ordered a great acreage of the royal forests to be cut down for fuel. He had also forbidden the use of private horse-drawn vehicles in the streets of the capital, since the recklessly-driven cabriolets of the younger nobility had knocked down and killed hundreds of poor people who were unable to get out of the way in time owing to the slipperiness of the icy roads. But these measures did little to alleviate the general distress or lessen the ever-growing hostility of the masses towards the warmly-clothed and well-fed upper classes.
Brochard declared that the worst evil lay in the infamous Pacts de famine by which a group of unscrupulous financiers and nobles controlled the grain supply of the whole country, and released it only in comparatively small quantities in times of shortage, such as the present, in order to make enormous profits. He said that the old King, Louis XV, had himself taken the lead in this iniquitous traffic, to which had been due the three years' famine of '67-'68, and that although Louis XVI had done his best to suppress it the monopolists had proved too powerful for him, and continued to make vast fortunes from the sufferings and death of the people. Roger was horrified, and agreed that the mere depriving of their privileges of these highly-placed criminals was far too lenient a punishment for such inhumanity.
With May there came several changes in the Leger household. A new apprentice at last arrived to relieve Colas of his drudgery; and Hutot left, regretted by none, to take up a position with a lawyer at Dinan. The following week Maitre Leger took on a junior Latin copyist and to Roger's great satisfaction he was promoted to the drafting of documents under Brochard with an increase of salary to eighteen louis per annum.
Now that he had a chance to set his wits to work, Roger found a new interest in the law, but his love affair could hardly have been in a worse state. He had not even had a distant glimpse of Athenais during the past two months and, as he had learned in casual conversation from Maitre Leger that the de Rochambeau family always spent the summer on their country estate, he had little hope of doing so for another five.
He had already tired of Tonton Yeury's empty, facetious laughter, and for some time past had been striving to console himself with a tall, serious-minded blonde named Louise Ferlet. When the weather was fine on Sundays they went for picnics and read poetry together; but as he lay on the grass beside Louise he could never for long escape a secret craving that, instead of her golden head, it was Athenais's that rested on his shoulder.
In August their picnics came to an end on account of bad weather, accompanied by exceptionally high winds. A few days after the most devastating of several bad storms there was some excitement in Rennes, on account of the Marquis de Castries spending a night in the town on his way through to Cherbourg. De Castries was a Marshal of France and the Minister for the Navy, and he was going in person to inspect the damage that the storms had caused to some new works that were under construction at the Breton port.
From various conversations Roger learned that this fine natural harbour was in process of conversion into a huge new naval base. A mole was to be formed of eighty immense cases of conical form filled with stones, sunk close to one another, each costing twelve thousand louis. When completed, as it was hoped that it would be in eight years, the anchorage would be capable of sheltering no less than one hundred ships of the line; and it was further proposed to build a great watch-tower on the high ground behind the port, from which, through a glass, the coast of England would be visible, and, in clear weather, British squadrons entering or leaving Portsmouth roads could be kept under constant observation. Quite clearly this vast labour and expenditure could have been undertaken with only one object—the determination of the French to dominate the Channel.
As Roger continued to spend two evenings a week studying with Brochard, he took an early opportunity of asking him why, in view of the recent treaty of peace and France's deplorable financial situation, she should undertake such a stupendous outlay in preparation for another war.
The Bordelais shrugged his broad shoulders. " 'Tis said that the King wishes for peace, yet he never ceases to build ships of war with every few francs that he can scrape together. The truth is that he is weak as water and swayed in his opinion from one side to the other by every person that he talks to. One day he supports M. de Vergennes, his Foreign Minister, who desires a better understanding with England, the next M. de Castries and M. de Segur, the Minister of War, who naturally desire to set their dangerous toys in motion. The Peace of Versailles stipulated that within a year France and England should enter into a Commercial Treaty. Twould greatly benefit both countries by a reduction of the present crushing duties that they level on one another's merchandise. If 'tis concluded the peace party should triumph. But the nobles, in the main, look to war as a pleasurable excitement from which they may win personal glory and the bulk of the spoil from any victorious campaign, so they are ever eager for it.
Others, like our client, the Marquis de Rochambeau, consider that France should by right dominate the world, and spend their lives intriguing to embroil us with one country or another in the hope of bringing a new slice of territory under the banner of the Fleur-de-Lys. But, make no mistake, if they force us into another conflict within the next ten years France will become bankrupt on account of it."
The idea of spying on behalf of his country had never entered Roger's head, and to send home a chance come-by military secret of a people who were affording him hospitality seemed a mean thing to do; yet, having thought the matter over, he decided that the Cherbourg project was so flagrantly a pistol levelled at the very heart of England that he could not possibly rest easy while his own country remained in ignorance of it; so he wrote to his mother giving her as full particulars as he could gather, and asked her to pass them on to his rather for submission to their lordships at the Admiralty.
Although he was totally unaware of it he had pulled off a coup that any professional spy would not have stuck at murder to achieve. His mother acknowledged the letter and a week later, greatly to his surprise, he received a terse note from his father, which ran:
I cannot find it in me to forgive the unpardonable affront you put upon me personally and the deliberate wrecking of all my cherished hopes in you. Yet I am pleased that you have not so far forgotten yourself as to fail in your duty as an Englishman. Their Lordships were mightily pleased with what you sent and have commanded me to convey their thanks to you, hence this letter. I may add that any more of the same or similar that you may be able to send will be received with appreciation; but, since I may be from home on a round of inspections, 'twould be better that you write direct to one Gilbert Maxwell, Esq., of No. 1 Queen Anne's Gate, Westminster, to whom your name has now been given.
On re-reading the note it was clear to Roger that his father would never have written to him at all had he not been commanded to do so by their Lordships, and, as there was no other information worth reporting, that appeared to end the matter.