The Elusive Pimpernel Baroness Orczy (read more books txt) 📖

consisting of agents and spies of the Revolutionary Government⁠—she would gladly have ignored. They had at first made a constant demand on her purse, her talents and her time: then she grew tired of them, and felt more and more chary of being identified with a set which was in such ill-odour with that very same jeunesse dorée whom Candeille had desired to please.

In her own country she was and always had been a good republican: Marat had given her her first start in life by his violent praises of her talent in his widely-circulated paper; she had been associated in Paris with the whole coterie of artists and actors: every one of them republican to a man. But in London, although one might be snubbed by the émigrés and aristocrats, it did not do to be mixed up with the sansculotte journalists and pamphleteers who haunted the Socialistic clubs of the English capital, and who were the prime organizers of all those seditious gatherings and treasonable unions that caused Mr. Pitt and his colleagues so much trouble and anxiety.

One by one, Désirée Candeille’s comrades, male and female, who had accompanied her to England, returned to their own country. When war was declared, some of them were actually sent back under the provisions of the Aliens Bill.

But Désirée had stayed on.

Her old friends in Paris had managed to advise her that she would not be very welcome there just now. The sansculotte journalists of England, the agents and spies of the Revolutionary Government, had taken their revenge of the frequent snubs inflicted upon them by the young actress, and in those days the fact of being unwelcome in France was apt to have a more lurid and more dangerous significance.

Candeille did not dare return: at any rate not for the present.

She trusted to her own powers of intrigue, and her well-known fascinations, to reconquer the friendship of the Jacobin clique, and she once more turned her attention to the affiliated Socialistic clubs of England. But between the proverbial two stools, Demoiselle Candeille soon came to the ground. Her machinations became known in official quarters, her connection with all the seditious clubs of London was soon bruited abroad, and one evening Désirée found herself confronted with a document addressed to her: “From the Office of His Majesty’s Privy Seal,” wherein it was set forth that, pursuant to the statute 33 George III cap. 5, she, Désirée Candeille, a French subject now resident in England, was required to leave this kingdom by order of His Majesty within seven days, and that in the event of the said Désirée Candeille refusing to comply with this order, she would be liable to commitment, brought to trial and sentenced to imprisonment for a month, and afterwards to removal within a limited time under pain of transportation for life.

This meant that Demoiselle Candeille had exactly seven days in which to make complete her reconciliation with her former friends who now ruled Paris and France with a relentless and perpetually bloodstained hand. No wonder that during the night which followed the receipt of this momentous document, Demoiselle Candeille suffered gravely from insomnia.

She dared not go back to France, she was ordered out of England! What was to become of her?

This was just three days before the eventful afternoon of the Richmond Gala, and twenty-four hours after ex-Ambassador Chauvelin had landed in England. Candeille and Chauvelin had since then met at the “Cercle des Jacobins Francais” in Soho Street, and now fair Désirée found herself in lodgings in Richmond, the evening of the day following the Gala, feeling that her luck had not altogether deserted her.

One conversation with Citizen Chauvelin had brought the fickle jade back to Demoiselle Candeilles’ service. Nay, more, the young actress saw before her visions of intrigue, of dramatic situations, of pleasant little bits of revenge;⁠—all of which was meat and drink and air to breathe for Mademoiselle Désirée.

She was to sing in one of the most fashionable salons in England: that was very pleasant. The Prince of Wales would hear and see her! that opened out a vista of delightful possibilities! And all she had to do was to act a part dictated to her by Citizen Chauvelin, to behave as he directed, to move in the way he wished! Well! that was easy enough, since the part which she would have to play was one peculiarly suited to her talents.

She looked at herself critically in the glass. Her maid Fanchon⁠—a little French waif picked up in the slums of Soho⁠—helped to readjust a stray curl which had rebelled against the comb.

“Now for the necklace, Mademoiselle,” said Fanchon with suppressed excitement.

It had just arrived by messenger: a large morocco case, which now lay open on the dressing table, displaying its dazzling contents.

Candeille scarcely dared to touch it, and yet it was for her. Citizen Chauvelin had sent a note with it.

“Citizeness Candeille will please accept this gift from the government of France in acknowledgment of useful services past and to come.”

The note was signed with Robespierre’s own name, followed by that of Citizen Chauvelin. The morocco case contained a necklace of diamonds worth the ransom of a king.

“For useful services past and to come!” and there were promises of still further rewards, a complete pardon for all defalcations, a place within the charmed circle of the Comédie Française, a grand pageant and apotheosis with Citizeness Candeille impersonating the Goddess of Reason, in the midst of a grand national fête, and the acclamations of excited Paris: and all in exchange for the enactment of a part⁠—simple and easy⁠—outlined for her by Chauvelin!⁠ ⁠…

How strange! how inexplicable! Candeille took the necklace up in her trembling fingers and gazed musingly at the priceless gems. She had seen the jewels before, long, long ago! round the neck of the Duchesse de Marny, in whose service her own mother had been. She⁠—as a child⁠—had often gazed at and admired the great lady, who seemed like a wonderful fairy from