Venetian Masque

Lallemant, curt and surly, handed Marc-Antoine a sealed letter from Barras. It confirmed to Camille Lebel the instructions to preserve friendly relations with the Serenissima, but indicated that presently it might be desirable to allow the Venetians a glimpse of the iron hand within the velvet glove. Barras was proposing to demand the expulsion from Venetian territory of the ci-devant Comte de Provence who now called himself Louis XVIII. The hospitality extended to him by the Serenissima might be construed as hostile to France, since from Verona, which he had converted into a second Coblentz, the soi-disant King Louis XVIII was actively intriguing against the French Republic. Barras waited only until his views should be shared by his colleagues, who were still hesitating to ruffle so serene a surface as Venice appeared to present.

Marc-Antoine was distressed. Loyalty to the man whom he must regard as his present sovereign made him grieve to think of this unfortunate gentleman who had been driven from one state of Europe to another—for he was welcome nowhere—being sent again upon his travels.

In silence he folded and pocketed the letter, and only then observed the surliness with which the ambassador, elbows on the table, was observing him.

'There is nothing here for you, Lallemant,' he said, as if to answer that curious glance.

'Ah!' Lallemant stirred. 'Well, it happens that I have something for you.' He seemed at once stern and ill-at-ease. 'It is reported to me that the British Ambassador has been overheard to say that Bonaparte has urged an alliance with Venice.'

The most startling thing to Marc-Antoine in this was the evidence of the thoroughness of Lallemant's organization of espionage.

'You said yourself that the man is a fool.'

'It is not a question of his wits, but of his information. What he is saying happens to be true, as you know. Can you explain how he comes by his knowledge?'

Lallemant's tone had hardened. It flung down a challenge. Marc-Antoine's smiling pause before answering betrayed nothing of his momentarily quickened heart-beats.

'Quite easily. I told him.'

Whatever reply Lallemant had been expecting, it was certainly not this. He was disarmed by the assertion of the very thing that against his will he had been suspecting. Blank astonishment showed on his broad, peasant face. 'You told him?'

'That was the object of my visit to him. Didn't I mention it?'

'You certainly did not.' Lallemant was testy. He was rallying—as his manner showed—the forces of suspicion momentarily scattered. 'Will you tell me with what purpose?'

'Isn't it plain? So that he might repeat it, and thereby lull the Venetians into a sense of false security that will keep them inactive.'

With narrowing eyes Lallemant considered him across the table. Then he delivered, as he believed, checkmate.

'Why, then, since you hold that view, did you so definitely instruct me to suppress Bonaparte's proposal? Answer me that, Lebel.' In a gust of sudden fierceness he repeated: 'Answer!'

'What's this?' Marc-Antoine's agate eyes were at their hardest. 'I suppose I had better answer and kill whatever maggot is stirring in your brain. But—name of God!—the weariness of pointing out the obvious to dullards.' He set his hand on the table, and leaned towards the ambassador. 'Are you really unable to perceive for yourself that it is one thing to make a formal offer, which might conceivably be accepted, and quite another to seek such advantage as may be derived from the circulation of an irresponsible rumour to the same effect? I see that you do perceive it now. I am relieved. I was beginning to despair of you, Lallemant.'

The ambassador's antagonism collapsed. He lowered his eyes in confusion. His voice faltered. 'Yes. I should have seen that, I suppose,' he admitted. 'I make you my excuses, Lebel.'

'For what?' It was a sharply delivered challenge to an avowal that Lallemant dared not make.

'For ... For having troubled you with unnecessary questions.'

That night Marc-Antoine wrote a long letter in cipher to Mr. Pitt, in the course of which he did not spare Sir Richard Worthington, and next morning he conveyed it in person, together with a letter for his mother, to the captain of an English ship lying off the Port of Lido.

That was by no means the only official letter that he wrote in those days. His correspondence with Barras, steadily maintained, represents one of the most arduous and skilful of all the tasks that he discharged during his sojourn in Venice. It was his practice to write his dispatches currently in his own hand, as if a secretary were employed, appending the signature and flourish of the dead Lebel, which he had rehearsed until he could perfectly reproduce them.

Days followed of observant waiting for the Grand Council which the Doge had promised to convene.

It came at last, and on the evening of that day Marc-Antoine sought, at the Casa Pizzamano, news of what had occurred.