One can divine all the advice, all the prudent counsels which were impressed upon our young lieutenant on his departure for Paris. Everything combined to make him eager to offer his services to the King and his belongings. We have seen that his efforts were unsuccessful; but the journey had not been entirely fruitless, since it had enabled him to bring back to his friend some news of the woman she so loved.
At the end of April the good folk of Lille were to bid farewell to the regiments which had caused them so much anxiety. While the Colonel-Generals were leaving the town by the Dunkirk Gate, the townspeople were watching the long columns of the Normandy chasseurs, the grenadiers of the Crown, and the Royal-Vaisseaux disappearing in different directions. What had been a partial failure in Lille was to break out again three months later, in another part of the kingdom, for the affray there was but the prelude to the revolt of the troops of Chateauvieux, at Nancy, and to many other risings. The army, in fact, was every day becoming more and more infected by the spirit of revolution, which crept in somehow, despite all discipline and all respect for the commanding officers. And the army was no untilled field; it was well prepared for the seed of the Revolution, which lost no time in taking root there.
This explains the discouragement which nearly all the officers felt. They were gentlemen of unflinching Royalist sympathies, but they perceived the fruitlessness of their efforts to re-establish discipline and to preserve their authority. Frotté was especially a prey to this feeling. We shall see that during his time at Dunkirk he found it impossible to conquer the hopeless lassitude that was growing on him. And yet Dunkirk is not far from Lille, and he knows that he has left behind him there a friend who will console and guide him. But his restless, questioning turn of mind makes it difficult for him to reconcile himself to accomplished facts. He can feel no sympathy for this Revolution, which now strides over France as with seven-leagued boots; he has, indeed, an instinctive repulsion for it. Frotté is an indefatigable scribbler, and in the long idle hours of his soldier-life he confides to paper all his fears and discouragements, while keeping up, at the same time, a regular correspondence, especially with his friends Vallière and Lamberville. It is a curious fact, already commented on by his biographer, M. de la Sicotière, that this intrepid and active officer, this flower of partisans, who spent three-fourths of his time in warfare, was yet the most prolific of writers and editors.
At Dunkirk he encountered among the officers of the regiment Viennois, which shared with his own the garrison of the place, a very favourable disposition towards his plans. His Royalist zeal, fostered by his friendships, was to find an outlet. Already the National Assembly, eager to secure the army on its side, had issued a decree obliging the officers to take the oath not only to the King, but to the nation, and to whatever Constitution might be given to France. Nothing would induce our young gentleman to take such an oath as that. He never hesitated for a moment, and he succeeded in influencing several of his brother officers to think as he did. It was thus that he announced his decision to his father:—
“You already know, my dear father, that an oath is now exacted from us officers which disgusts every honourable and decent feeling that I have. I could not take it. I know you too well, father, not to be certain that you would have advised me to do just what I have done. And of course I did not depend only on my own poor judgment; I consulted most of my brother officers, and amongst those whom I esteem and love, I have not found one who thinks differently from myself. Our dear chief, too, M. de Théon, has been just the good fellow we always thought him.”[17]
His friend Vallière, on hearing of his conduct and his intentions, wrote to him in enthusiastic admiration.
“I am truly delighted to hear” (he wrote some days before his arrival at Dunkirk) “that the regiment Viennois is almost of the same way of thinking as our own, so that we are sure to get on well with them. Then there are still some decent Frenchmen, and some subjects who are faithful to their one and lawful master! Alas! there are not many of them, and one can only groan when one thinks how many old and hitherto courageous legions ... have stained irretrievably their ancient glory by this betrayal of their sovereign. Well, my dear fellow, we must hope that you will have some peace now to make up for all that you have been going through. Unfortunately, the immediate future does not seem likely to make us forget the past, or to promise us much happiness. If the scoundrels who are persecuting us, and ruining all the best things in Europe, take it into their heads to disband the Army (as one hears that they may), be sure to come here for refuge. Everything is still quiet here.... If their fury still pursues us, we will leave a country that has become hateful to us, and go to some foreign shore, where there will perhaps be found some kind folk to pity us and give us a home in their midst.”[18]
The first hint at emigration! Frotté was already thinking of it; often he had envisaged the idea, but, before giving up all hope, he wanted to make one last effort.
The proximity of Lille enabled him to keep up unbroken relations, during the summer and winter of 1790, with the officers of the garrison he had just left. A plot had even been roughly sketched out with Lady Atkyns’ assistance; but a thousand obstacles retarded from day to day any attempt at carrying it out, and once more our poor young soldier was totally discouraged. Despairing of success, disgusted with everything, he began to meditate escape from an existence which yielded him nothing but vexations, and, little by little, he ceased to brood seriously over the thought of suicide. He spoke of it openly and at length to his friend Lamberville, in a strange composition which he called My profession of faith, and which has been almost miraculously preserved for us.[19] This confession is dated February 20, 1791. We should have given it in its entirety if it were not so long.[20] After a quasi-philosophical preamble—Frotté was addicted to that kind of thing—he described to his friend the miserable state of mind that he was in, with all his troubles and his griefs. In his opinion, a man who had fallen to such depths of ill-fortune could do but one thing, and that was, to give back to God the life which he had received from Him.
“My ideas about suicide are not” (he added) “the outcome of reading nor of example; they are the result of much reflection. I have long since familiarized myself with the idea of death; it no longer seems to me a sad thing, but rather a certain refuge from the troubles of life.... When I consider my own situation, and that of my country; when I think of what I have been, what I am, and what I may become, I can find no reason for valuing my own life. Moreover, I live in an age of crime, and it is my native land that is most subjected to its sway.”