“But if Your Royal Highness were to intervene on behalf of the men, I might then be able to pardon them without prejudice to discipline, being in a position where I can deny Your Royal Highness nothing.”
“And why should I intervene, Sir ‘Oratio?”
Hornblower sidestepped the question for the moment.
“Your Royal Highness could take the stand that it would be unfitting that the opening days of the return of the Dynasty to France should be marred by the shedding of the blood of Englishmen, however guilty. It would then be possible for me to pardon them, with a great show of reluctance. Men tempted to mutiny in the future would not have their temptation greatly increased by the hope of a similar event saving them from the consequences of their actions — the world will never again be so fortunate as to see a return of Your Royal Highness’s family to its legitimate position.”
This last was a clumsy compliment, clumsily worded and susceptible to misunderstanding, but luckily the Duke took it in the spirit in which it was ostensibly meant. Nevertheless, he hardly seemed enthusiastic; he went back to his original point with Bourbon stubbornness.
“But why should I do this, Sir ‘Oratio?”
“In the name of common humanity, Your Royal Highness. There are twenty lives to be saved, the lives of useful men.”
“Useful men? Mutineers? Presumably Jacobins, revolutionaries, equalitarians — even Socialists!”
“They are men who lie in irons today and expect to be hanged tomorrow, Your Royal Highness.”
“As I have no doubt whatever, they deserve, Sir ‘Oratio. It would be a fine beginning to the Regency with which His Most Christian Majesty has entrusted me if my first public act should be to solicit the lives of a parcel of revolutionaries. His Most Christian Majesty has not spent the past twenty-one years combating the spirit of revolution for that. The eyes of the world are upon me.”
“I have never yet known the world offended by an act of clemency, Your Royal Highness.”
“You have strange ideas of clemency, sir. It appears to me as if this remarkable suggestion of yours has some purpose other than is apparent. Perhaps you are a Liberal yourself, one of these dangerous men who consider themselves thinkers. It would be a good stroke of policy for you to induce my family to brand itself by its first act as willing to condone revolution.”
The monstrous imputation took Hornblower completely aback.
“Sir!” he spluttered. “Your Royal Highness —”
Even if he had been speaking in English words would have failed him. In French he was utterly helpless. It was not merely the insult, but it was the revelation of the Bourbon narrow-mindedness and suspicious cunning that helped to strike him dumb.
“I do not see fit to accede to your request, sir,” said the Duke, his hand on the bellrope.
Outside the audience chamber Hornblower strode past courtiers and sentries, his cheeks burning. He was blind with fury — it was very rarely that he was as angry as this; nearly always his tendency to look at both sides of a question kept him equable and easy-going; weak, he phrased it to himself in moments of self-contempt. He stamped into his office, flung himself into his chair and sprang up from it again a second later, walked round the room and sat down again. Dobbs and Howard looked with astonishment at the thundercloud on his brow, and after their first glance bent their gaze studiously upon the papers before them. Hornblower tore open his neckcloth. He ripped open the buttons of his waistcoat, and the dangerous pressure within began to subside. His mind was in a maelstrom of activity, but over the waves of thought, like a beam of sunshine through a squall at sea, came a gleam of amusement at his own fury. With no softening of his resolution his mischievous sense of humour began to assert itself; it only took a few minutes for him to decide on his next action.
“I want those French fellows brought in here who came with the Duke,” he announced. “The equerry, and the chevalier d’honneur, and the almoner. Colonel Dobbs, I’ll trouble you to make ready to write from my dictation.”