The next Sunday and the next he went through the same ritual with his adored at the church of St. Melaine, but he was terrified that if he made any further advance he might lose the precious privilege that he had gained. At the same time, having given up the two or three evenings a week dancing to which he had become accustomed, for all his marvellous day-dreaming about Athenais, he found time begin to hang heavily on his hands.
As a remedy for this, taking out his sword one night to clean it provided him with an idea. It was over a year since he had done any fencing, and he had no intention of remaining a lawyer's clerk all his life. If he meant to become a really first-class swordsman it was high time that he got in some practice.
Inquiries soon provided him with the address of a fencing-master; one M. St. Paul, an ex-trooper of His Majesty's Musketeers. M. St. Paul's academy proved to be mainly a resort of the local aristocracy, but in this one matter of practising with weapons they seemed to have no class prejudices whatever; many old soldiers went there for an occasional bout and anyone who could handle a rapier or sabre efficiently was welcome. Roger's first visit resulted in the wiry little ex-Musketeer taking him on himself and, after expressing his satisfaction, agreeing to his coming whenever he wished on payment of a franc an evening.
In December the Emperor Joseph was reported as moving through the German States towards Holland with an army of 50,000 men, and, to the perturbation of the peaceable citizens of Rennes, all leave for the French army was cancelled as from the 1st of January. But Roger was now too taken up by thoughts of his weekly meetings with Athenais to bother his head any more about whether or no Europe was on the point of bursting into flames.
As Christmas approached he thought of sending her a New Year's gift, but could think of nothing that he could afford to buy which, in his eyes, would be worthy of her acceptance. Then, on further thought, he realised that in any case it might be extremely ill-advised to send her a present. Madame Marie-Ange no doubt regarded his offering Athenais the Holy Water each Sunday as a harmless courtesy inspired by gratitude; but if he sent a present the duenna might guess that he had a much stronger feeling for her charge and adopt Count Lucien's attitude towards him. Yet he felt that he could not allow the season of good will to pass without showing Athenais some mark of his feelings for her.
The inspiration then came to him to write a poem as, folded up into a small packet, he felt sure he could manage to slip it into her hand on the Sunday nearest New Year's day without Madame Marie-Ange seeing him do so.
Roger had a definite gift for expressing his thoughts clearly on paper and using French as a medium was no handicap to him as, after seventeen months in France without speaking a single word of English, he now habitually thought in French; but he had no flair for poetry. The result was that after several nights of cudgelling his brain he produced only a strange effusion which any serious critic would have regarded with scornful amusement. Nevertheless it did not lack for feeling and, being no critic himself, he was rather proud of it.
Without Madame Marie-Ange apparently noticing anything he managed to slip his verses into Athenais's hand, then he waited with the greatest impatience for the next Sunday in the hope that she might reward his efforts by some acknowledgement of them. In this he was disappointed, yet she gave him her usual gracious smile so he at least knew that she was not offended. In consequence, he set to work on another, longer, poem and, although the correspondence continued to be one-sided, he henceforth produced one a week for her.
This winter of 1784-85 the river did not freeze hard enough for there to be any skating, so he saw his beloved only at church and occasionally driving through the streets; but on none of these occasions was she accompanied by the young man he had seen pushing her sleigh on the ice the previous winter, so he had no cause for jealousy.
By February two French armies were being mobilised, one in Flanders and another on the Rhine, and war was now thought to be inevitable. But Roger took scant notice of such news, since he was wholly absorbed in his weekly poems for Athenais.
Spring came at last and with it, on a Sunday in mid-April, an event that created a drastic change in his whole outlook. As usual at the end of Mass he had, concealed in his hand, a poem for Athenais. Just as he was about to hand it to her she dropped her missal and stooped to recover it. He, too, bent swiftly to pick the book up for her. While they were both bent above it she stretched out both her hands, took his poem with one and, with the other, pressed into his free hand a Uttle three-cornered billet-doux; then she retrieved her missal and, with a smiling bow to him, walked on towards the door.
Trembling with delight and impatience to read this, her first love letter to him, he hurried into a side chapel and unfolded the single sheet of paper. On it were a few scrawled lines in an untidy, illiterate hand that looked more like the laborious effort of a child of nine than the writing of a girl of nearly sixteen. It read:
Dear Monsieur Breuc,
This is to tell you how much I have enjoyed your poems. I think it very clever of you to write them. I wish that it was possible for us to meet so that we could talk again. I found you very unusual. You interested me very much because you have seen a side of life that I shall never know. But social barriers forbid us the pleasure of such conversations. This letter is also to bid you farewell. To-morrow I leave for our Chateau at Bicherel where we always spend our summers. Next winter I do not return to Rennes. 'Tis the desire of my father that I should join him at Versailles where I am to be presented and live at Court. So we shall not see one another any more. Good fortune to you Monsieur Breuc and may God have you in His Holy keeping.
Athenais Hermonaie de Rochambeau.
Had the roof of the church fallen upon Roger he could hardly have been more shaken. The fact that she had written to him at last, the pleasure she had derived from his poems, and her obvious liking for him all went for nothing beside the one heartbreaking thought that he was never to see her again. In all his previous trials he had managed to restrain his tears but, although he was now seventeen, he leant against a pillar of the chapel and wept unrestrainedly.
For a fortnight or more he could take no interest in anything. Madame Leger, Manon, Julien and Brochard all saw that he was desperately miserable about something, but he would not confide in any of them and their efforts to cheer him up were of no avail.
In the spring of that year there had been exceptionally little rain and May was a month of glorious sunshine, but it brought upon France the evil of a terrible drought. Even in Brittany, normally rich in dairy produce, butter, milk and cheese rose to phenomenal prices. The dearth of cattle fodder was so great that the King took the unprecedented measure of throwing open the Royal Chases to the livestock of his suffering people. Yet, as usual, while the rich went short of nothing the poor had to go without, and discontent against the ruling caste caused sullen murmurings in all the great cities.
It was one day in May that Roger saw sixty wretched men all manacled together being marched through the streets under a strong guard of soldiers. They had barely passed him when they were halted on the Champ de Mars, outside the barracks; so out of curiosity he turned back a few paces and asked one of the Sergeants of the guard who the unfortunate creatures were.