The wanton princess is Napoleon's favourite sister, Pauline, acknowledged to be the most beautiful, and said to be one of the most licentious, women in the Paris of her day.
Roger Brook, Prime Minister Pitt's secret agent, is also in Paris, where he rapidly becomes involved in a series of thrilling adventures, and here again Mr. Wheatley gives us the most exciting fiction blended with true history.
The other 'Roger Brook' stories are: The Launching of Roger Brook, The Shadow of Tyburn Tree, The Rising Storm, The Man Who Killed the King, The Dark Secret of Josephine, The Rape of Venice, and The Sultan's Daughter.
Dennis Wheatley
The Wanton Princess
For the Sales Representatives of the Hutchinson Group in appreciation of their having sold 20,000,000 copies of my books, and particularly for their Chief, GEOFFREY HOWARD, a treasured friend of many years' standing
1
The Failure of a Mission
It was the first day of the new century. Seven hours earlier the bells of Ripley Church had rung out ushering in the year 1800. Not far from the village, at Stillwaters, the splendid mansion that was the home of Georgina, Countess of St. Ermins, the many servants were already bustling about, but Roger Brook had only just woken.
Normally, when staying at Stillwaters he would have awakened in Georgina's bed for, although circumstances had led to their being separated, at times for years at a stretch, they had been lovers since their teens and, although both of them had had many other loves, they still looked on one another as the dearest person in the world. But Georgina was ill. Only a few days ago her life had been despaired of; so Roger had slept in the room on the far side of her boudoir, to which in happier times he had retired for appearances' sake when her maid, Jenny, called them in the mornings.
As he woke his first thought was of her, and relief at the knowledge that she had turned the corner. His next was a bitter one for, on the previous day, he had learned of the failure of his latest mission. On December 26th he had arrived in England as the Envoye Extraordinaire of General Bonaparte who, on November 10th, as the result of the coup d'état of 18th Brumaire, had become First Consul of the French Republic. No more extraordinary envoy could have been selected for such a mission, as for a dozen years Roger had been Prime Minister 'Billy' Pitt's most resourceful and daring secret agent.
At the age of fifteen he had run away to France rather than be forced by his father. Admiral Sir Christopher Brook, to accept the hard life of a midshipman and make the sea his career. Four years in France had made him bilingual and had given him a second identity. Then chance had put him in possession of a diplomatic secret of the first importance. Realizing that knowledge of it might prevent France from going to war with England he had returned home post haste and seen the Prime Minister. Appreciating how well suited he was to such work, Mr. Pitt had sent him on a secret mission to the northern capitals. Other missions had followed. He had again lived in France during the greater part of the Revolution and the Terror. At the siege of Toulon he had first met Bonaparte, then an unknown Captain of Artillery, had been with him in Paris when he had become a figure of importance through suppressing the riots that preceded the formation of the Directory, met him again after his victorious campaign in Italy, saved him from being kidnapped, been made an A.D.C. and, with the rank of Colonel, accompanied him to Egypt So the dynamic little Corsican artilleryman who had now become the most powerful man in France looked on Roger as an old and trusted friend while, owing to his audacious exploits, he had become known in the Army as Le brave Breuc.
Only two men in France knew him in fact to be an Englishman: Joseph Fouche, the crafty ex-terrorist who was Bonaparte's Minister of Police, and Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, the subtle and brilliant ex-Bishop who held the Portfolio for Foreign Affairs. The former had long been Roger's most deadly enemy but Recently, common interests had led to their burying the hatchet; the latter had, from their first meeting, been his good friend. As in those days it was not at all unusual for a man born in one country to carve out a career for himself in another, as Roger had done in France, both of them now regarded him as a naturalized Frenchman and completely loyal to the country of his adoption.
Bonaparte and everyone, other than these two, who knew him in France, believed him to be a native of Strasbourg whose mother, an English woman, had died when he was quite young and that he had been sent to England to be brought up by her sister; then, when in his late teens, attracted by the epoch-making Revolution decided to return to the country of his birth. In consequence, on the rare, awkward occasions when he ran into anyone from one country who knew him in the other he was able to pass himself off as bearing a striking resemblance to either his French or English cousin of the same age, for whom they had mistaken him.
He even had a third identity which he used on occasion when in neutral countries and was liable to meet both Englishmen and Frenchmen who knew him either as Roger Brook or the ci-devant Chevalier de Breuc. For this he grew a short, curly brown beard, used his mother's maiden name, calling himself Robert McElfic, and posed as her.nephew who had recently succeeded her brother as Earl of Kildonan. The McElfics had raised their clan in '45 to fight for Bonnie Prince Charlie, and after his defeat, like many other pro-Stuart nobles, followed their 'King' into exile in Rome; so very few people in either France or England had ever met this cousin of Roger's and he had never been challenged when using this name.
By the skilful use of these aliases over a long period he had secured himself from detection in the real part he played and now, apart from some entirely unforeseen catastrophe, had little to worry about on that score, but he was intensely worried at what he considered to be the criminal stupidity of the British Government and the report he would have to make on his return to France.
For seven long years, ever since 1793 when the French had guillotined their King, Britain and France had been at war.
To begin with, the Monarchist armies of the First Coalition had invaded France; but with fervid patriotism the ill-trained rabble of the Republic had driven them back, overrun Belgium and Holland and secured France's old frontier on the left bank of the Rhine. They had then invaded Savoy and Piedmont. Young General Bonaparte's amazing campaign in '96 had made them masters of the whole of Italy, and Switzerland too had been dominated by them. But these victories had cost them many thousands of lives and, despite the vast treasure in indemnities and loot they had taken from the countries they had conquered, France was bankrupt. Exhausted both by the civil wars of the Revolution and these foreign wars to protect their newly won liberties the people longed for Peace, and Bonaparte had decided that the time had come to give it to them.
Internally, as a result of the Revolution, France was in a chaotic state. Civil war still simmered in La Vendee. Administration, other than in the Army, had entirely broken down. Taxes could no longer be collected, the paper money issued by the Government was almost worthless and the old laws protecting property were ignored. Roads and bridges had fallen into disrepair and the Post service had deteriorated to a point where it took three days to get from Dieppe to Paris instead of one. Industrialists were at the mercy of their workmen; a great part of the agricultural land confiscated from the nobility and the Church now lay fallow, with the result that food had reached famine prices; and bands of marauders, in some cases hundreds strong, roamed the countryside unchecked, robbing and murdering scores of people every week.