“Why are not our conscript Fathers convoked? Is the General Council of the Commune a mere phantom? Is the blood of our citizens less precious than vile pecuniary interests? Would not our secret enemies flinch before the enlightenment and the patriotism of our Notables? Ah! Citizens! Let us beware, and once more let us beware!”
At an extraordinary meeting at the Maison de Ville, the Municipality had convoked the General Council; and, in the interval they received a deputation from the troops of the citadel, assuring the inhabitants of Lille of their good intentions: “The regiments of the Colonel-General, and of the Chasseurs de Normandie” (said the envoys) “protest to the townsfolk that it has never entered into their heads to cause the least alarm to the citizens, of whom until now they have known nothing that was not admirable;” and they also announced that two delegates had been sent to Paris, on a mission to the National Assembly and to the King.
The whole night went by, and no solution had been found. Towards four o’clock the two regiments which had stayed in town were about to leave it on the persuasion of the town councillors; but the City Guard would not let them go, and thus, on the morning of April 10, the same difficulties had to be faced anew. But this situation could not continue. Messengers are despatched to Paris, and with them are sent denunciators of the “infamous” Livarot, whose conduct is considered suspicious; and for eight days he is kept under surveillance at the citadel, in defiance of the Royal authority with which he is invested.
Meanwhile, the officer delegated by the “Colonel-Generals” was making his way to Paris. Despite the importance of the mission, it was a young lieutenant who had been chosen for it; but the coolness he had shown all through the episode, and his determined and energetic attitude, had designated him at once as the man to be selected. Louis de Frotté was born at Alençon on August 5, 1766.[4] Of noble lineage (his family had been established in Normandy since the fifteenth century), he had inherited the sentiments of duty and fidelity to his King and of devotion to that King’s cause. Left motherless at the age of six,[5] educated first at Caen, then at Versailles, in the school of Gorsas,[6] he had entered as supernumerary sub-lieutenant, in 1781, the regiment of “Colonel-General,” then garrisoned at Lille. The young officer attracted every one by his generous, liberal, and affectionate character, and by his strong sense of comradeship. It was in the regiment that he contracted those solid friendships which were afterwards so beneficial to him, such, for instance, as that of the Prince de la Tremoïlle, and of a Norman gentleman named Vallière.
A short stay at Besançon had broken up the long months in garrison at Lille; then he had returned to that town, where the disturbances of which we are speaking had come to diversify the somewhat monotonous way of existence which is inseparable from garrison life.
Filled with hope for the result of his mission, Frotté rode swiftly to Paris. The prospect of seeing the King, of narrating to him, as well as to the War Minister, Le Tour du Pin, the recent occurrences at Lille, of assuring him of the fidelity of the regiment, of obtaining some tolerably satisfactory solution of the critical situation—all this was spurring on our cavalier. And the thought of soon getting back to Lille, his mission crowned with success, of reappearing before certain eyes to which he was not insensible—everything combined to make him forget the length of the journey.
His stay at Paris was a short one. The future chief of the chouans of Normandy realized one of his greatest wishes in being admitted to an audience with the King; but the position of the Royal Family in the midst of the prevailing effervescence of feeling, and the atmosphere of hostility which surrounded them, filled his heart with foreboding thoughts. Burning with devotion, powerless to make valid offers to the King, Frotté—who had suggested the bringing together at Lille of a nucleus of reliable troops, absolutely to be trusted—regained the garrison at the end of a few days, for it had been made clear to him that Louis XVI. did not wish to share in his youthful ardour and its projects. He had, however, succeeded thoroughly in the official part of his task. When confronted with a deputation from the hostile regiments of the Crown and of the Royal-Vaisseaux, who came in their turn to plead their cause, the representative of the Colonel-Generals had been able to cope with them in defence of his own interests; he came back, bringing with him an order for the alteration of the whole garrison. The Colonel-Generals were transferred to Dunkirk, the three others were sent out of the province. As to the unfortunate Marquis de Livarot, who was still a prisoner at the citadel, a mandate from the Minister summoned him to Paris, there to answer for his conduct. Needless to say, he cleared himself of every accusation, and was entirely rehabilitated.
Frotté did not spend in idleness the few days which preceded the departure of his regiment. Besides the ordinary arrangements—the giving up of his place of abode, the packing of his affairs, the paying of his debts; besides the friends to whom he had to bid farewell; in short, besides the thousand ties that are contracted during a stay of nine years in a town which is not among the smallest in the kingdom, there was, in the Rue Princesse, at a few minutes’ walk from the citadel, a one-storeyed house of unimposing exterior, whose door had often opened to receive the young officer. The prospect of not returning there for a long time filled his heart with distress and regret. For some months this house had been inhabited by a foreigner, an English lady, who had come to Lille with a reputation for grace and beauty which had proved to be not unmerited. At that time there was already in Lille quite a colony of English people, who were attracted there either by the proximity of their own country and the closeness of Paris, or by the commercial prosperity of the place and its numerous industries. In the census returns of the town at the beginning of the Revolution, and also in the taxation assessments, we have come across many names of evident British origin. But the remarkable thing about the new-comers at the Rue Princesse, was that they had not arrived from England, but from Versailles. They were very soon received by the best society of Lille, and questions began to circulate about them, every one trying to penetrate a certain mystery which hung about their past life.
Let us, in our turn, attempt to lift the veil, and to find out something about the English lady who is to be the heroine of this work.
Charlotte Walpole, who was born probably about 1758,[7] bore a name that in the United Kingdom is illustrious among the illustrious. Was she a direct descendant of Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Oxford, the celebrated statesman who administered English politics for some years under George I.? It is difficult to ascertain.