“A great moment, sir,” said the Mayor.
“A great moment indeed, Monsieur le Baron.”
The Mayor waved his hand towards the flagstaff that stood outside the Maine.
“The ceremony is about to take place,” he said.
Lebrun was at his side with a paper, and Momas took it and mounted the steps at the foot of the flagstaff. He inflated his lungs and began to read at the top of his voice. It was curious how the French love of legal forms and appearances showed itself even here, at this moment of treason; the proclamation was studded with archaisms and seemed interminable in its prolixity. It mentioned the misdeeds of the usurper, Napoleon Bonaparte, it denounced all his pretensions to sovereignty, it disclaimed all allegiance to him. Instead it declared that all Frenchmen voluntarily recognised the unbroken reign of His Most Christian Majesty, Louis XVIII, King of France and Navarre. At those resounding words the men at the foot of the flagstaff hauled busily at the halliards, and the white standard of the Bourbons soared up the mast. It was time for a gesture on the part of the British. Hornblower turned to his men.
“Three cheers for the King!” he yelled.
He waved his cocked hat over his head.
“Hip — hip — hip —” he called.
“Hooray!” yelled the marines.
The cheer rang hollowly round the square; probably not one marine in ten had any idea as to which king he was cheering, but that did not matter.
“Hip — hip — hip —”
“Hooray!”
“Hip — hip — hip —”
“Hooray!”
Hornblower replaced his hat and stiffly saluted the white flag Now it was time, and high time, to start organising the defence of the town against Bonaparte’s wrath.
CHAPTER XI
“Your Excellency,” said Lebrun, sidling into the room where Hornblower sat at his desk, “a fishermen’s deputation has asked for an audience.”
“Yes?” said Hornblower. With Lebrun he was careful not to commit himself prematurely.
“I have endeavoured to discover what it is they seek, Your Excellency.”
Anyone could be quite sure that Lebrun would try to find things out. And so far Hornblower had carefully left Lebrun under the not unnatural illusion that he liked being addressed as ‘Your Excellency’ in every other sentence, and would be more malleable in consequence.
“Yes?”
“It is a question of one of their vessels being taken as a prize.”
“Yes?”
“It carried one of your certificates to the effect that the vessel was sailing from the free port of Le Havre, and yet an English ship of war took possession of her.”
“Indeed?”
What Lebrun did not know was that lying on the desk before him Hornblower had the report of the captain of the English brig which had made the capture. The captain was convinced that the vessel, before he took her, had just slipped out from Honfleur, across the estuary, having sold her catch there. Honfleur, being still under Bonaparte’s rule, and under blockade in consequence, would pay three times as much for fish as could be obtained in liberated Le Havre. It was a question of trading with the enemy, and the Prize Court could be relied upon to adjudicate on the matter.
“We wish to retain the goodwill of the people, Your Excellency, especially of the maritime population. Could you not assure the deputation that the boat will be returned to its owners?”
Hornblower wondered how much the fishing-boat owners of the city had paid Lebrun to exert his influence on their behalf. Lebrun must be making the fortune he craved as much as he craved power.
“Bring the deputation in,” said Hornblower; he had a few seconds in which to compose his speech to them — that was always as well, because his French was deficient enough to make circumlocutions necessary when a word or a grammatical construction evaded him.
The deputation, three grey-haired Norman fishermen with an intense air of respectability and in their Sunday best, came in as near smiles as was possible to their solemn natures; Lebrun must have assured them in the anteroom of the certainty of their request being granted. They were quite taken aback when Hornblower addressed them on the subjects of trading with the enemy and its consequences. Hornblower pointed out that Le Havre was at war with Bonaparte, war to the death. Heads would fall in hundreds if Bonaparte should emerge victorious from this war and recapture Le Havre. The scenes of horror that had been witnessed when Toulon fell twenty years before would be reproduced a thousandfold in Le Havre. A united effort was still necessary to pull the tyrant down. Let them attend to that, and make no further attempt to increase their personal fortunes. Hornblower wound up by announcing not merely his intention of allowing the fishing-boat to come under the adjudication of the British Prize Court, but also his fixed determination, in the case of any repetition of the offence, to send officers and crew before a court martial whose sentence undoubtedly would be death.