After a good sleep he set off while it was still dark to cover the last two hundred and fifty miles as fast as he possibly could. Breaking his journey only to sleep at Verdun, late on the evening of the second day he rode into Paris. By determination and endurance, and maintaining throughout an average of slightly under five miles an hour, he had performed the amazing feat of covering the immense distance between the Russian and French capitals in fourteen and a half days.
His last tour de force on horseback had left him saddle-sore, aching in every limb and terribly exhausted, but he did not mean to lose an hour of the time he had won. At La Belle Etoile, while a hot bath was being prepared, he revived himself with a pint of champagne, and after his bath he got Maitre Blanchard to massage him vigorously. Then, dressed in his smartest uniform, he had himself carried in a sedan chair to Talleyrand's; for, as Duroc had been sent on a diplomatic mission, it was to the Foreign Minister that he would write any suspicions that he might have about 'Le Colonel Breuc'.
When the chairmen set him down outside the mansion in the Rue du Bac, he was on the point of falling asleep. With an effort he pulled himself together, dreading this last hurdle he had to face; for if Talleyrand was disengaged it was possible that he would talk to him for a considerable time, and he feared that in his state of utter weariness he might well refer to some recent happening in Northern Europe that the shrewd statesman would at once realize he could not possibly have learned while rusticating in the south of France. But the luck that had carried him so many hundreds of miles without a serious accident or hold-up still held. It chanced that Talleyrand was holding a reception that evening, so Roger had only to mingle with the crowd until the Foreign Minister noticed and came limping gracefully over to him.
'Cher ami, how very pleasant to see you back in Paris,' he said as Roger bowed to him. Then, raising his quizzing glass and studying Roger's worn face through it he added after a moment, 'But "ventre de St. Gris," as the Great Henry used to say, you look as if that wound you received at Marengo has reduced you to a sorry state.'
Roger gave him a pale smile, ‘I thank Your Excellency for your concern for me, but 'tis over a year since Marengo and my lung is perfectly recovered. I confess, though, that my powers of endurance are not quite up to what they used to be. As a test of them I've ridden nearly thirty leagues since dawn and have somewhat overdone it. On reaching Paris I should have gone straight to bed: but hearing that Your Excellency was holding a reception this evening I could not forgo the temptation to pay my respecis to you.'
In fact Roger had ridden nearly fifty leagues, but he had been given a good chance to establish a limit to his capabilities. Talleyrand shook his powdered head, 'I marvel that any man should so fatigue himself as to ride so far in a day unless he feared for his life. But no matter. Do me the pleasure of breakfasting with me. Let me see—yes, on Friday next. And now get you to bed.'
Unutterably relieved to have come so happily through this last ordeal. Roger bowed his thanks, had himself conveyed back to La Belle Etoile and tumbling into bed in his smallclothes, slept the clock round.
Next day he went to the Tuileries to report his return to Paris, but learned that Bonaparte was somewhere on the Channel coast inspecting garrisons, and was not expected back until the week-end; so he filled in his time by renewing old acquaintances and learning what had been happening in Paris during his absence.
It was no stale news, but on Christmas Eve, only a few days after Roger had left for England, Bonaparte had narrowly escaped assassination. Accompanied by Lannes, Berthier and Lauriston, and followed by another carriage containing Josephine, her daughter Hortcnse, Caroline Murat and Bessieres, he had been on his way to the Opera to hear the first performance of Haydn's magnificent oratorio of the 'Creation'. While they were passing through the Rue Nicaise a barrel of gunpowder, concealed in a covered wagon at the side of the street, had exploded with a terrific detonation half way between the two carriages. Nearly twenty passers-by had been killed, a great many injured, and the walls of nearby houses had been blown down; but no one in either carriage had been harmed, except that Hortense had received a slight cut on the hand from flying glass as the windows of the carriage she was in were shattered.
Bonaparte had gone on to the Opera and displayed an unrulllcd calm throughout, but Bessieres told Roger that on the First Consul's return to the Tuileries his rage had known no bounds. Without a shadow of evidence he declared that it was the Jacobins who had attempted to blow him up, and that he meant to settle with those old extremists once and for all.
Fouche, who for once had been caught napping, asserted his conviction that it had been a royalist plot. But Bonaparte had shouted him down. Scores of ex-Robespierrists had been arrested and, on January 4th, against considerable opposition, Bonaparte had forced a decree through the Senate that one hundred and thirty of them should be deported. Later, Fouche's investigations proved him right. Two royalists named St. Regent and Carbon had set off the explosion, and were duly executed for their crime. Nevertheless, the innocent Jacobins sent into exile were not reprieved.
Roger was very amused. Knowing Bonaparte so well, he felt certain that the cunning Corsican had seized upon this opportunity to rid himself of the men he had come to consider his worst enemies—the old die-hards of the Revolution who opposed him most violently in his determination to deprive the people of their liberties. For his victims Roger had no sympathy whatever, for they were men such as Rossignol, who had been guilty of some of the most atrocious crimes committed during the Terror.
The bomb plot had led to Bonaparte's most devoted partisans putting about the suggestion that he should be made King of France. They argued that should he be assassinated the Jacobins and Moderates would at once be at one another's throats and their struggle for power lead to another period of bloody strife, whereas if the First Consulship had been converted into a hereditary monarchy his successor would be in a position to continue the regime of law and order that he had established.
In support of this contention a pamphlet entitled, 'Parallel between Caesar, Cromwell and Bonaparte,' had appeared and many people believed that it had been inspired by the First Consul himself. But he hotly repudiated the suggestion and. reading between the lines, Roger thought it probable that he had put it up as a ballon d'essai: then, when public reaction proved unfavourable, decided that his position was not yet strong enough to attempt such aggrandisement.
The Treaty of Luneville, forced on Austria in February, had enormously strengthened his position. By it he secured recognition of France's overlordship of all the territory up to the left bank of the Rhine, Belgium, Luxembourg. Holland, Piedmont, the Cisalpine Republic and Liguria; and a month later Naples had been forced to make peace and accept a French garrison.
Meanwhile Tuscany had been turned into the Kingdom of Etruria and given to the young Duke of Parma. In March the newly-made King and his Queen, the Infanta Maria Louisa, had paid a state visit to Paris. Everyone who had met him declared him to be the next thing to an idiot and completely under Bonaparte's thumb.
One piece of news that affected Roger more than all the rest was that, after eighteen years as Prime Minister. Pitt had resigned. In March a new government had been formed by Henry Addington, formerly the Speaker of the House. Roger had met him several times and knew him to be an affable man with long experience of political life, but did not regard him as a strong character. Worn out by his long struggle as Pitt might be, Roger hoped that his retirement would not be permanent, but only for a period of rest, as he felt that no one could replace him as a leader.