“I want to help you,” he said.

“I always had a great regard for you.” He smiled rather onesidedly.

“Why, at one time I thought of offering myself. But I knew how things were. I want you to know that I would be ready to do a great deal for you. I shall run great risks if I do this, but then this is a time of risks. Those who are alive one day are dead the next.”

“I want nothing to do with you,” I said.

“I know you for what you are.

I saw you throw the stone through the window on the night of the ball, but I could not believe my eyes and thought I had imagined it. I know now how wrong I was . for you were there when they took him. You were at their head. You led them to him. I saw the cruelty and hatred in your eyes and there was no mistaking you then. “

“But you were mistaken. I see I must convince you of my loyalty to the Comte.”

“You will never do that if you talk all night.” I turned to Joel.

“Send him away. He is a traitor.”

“There is little time left to us,” said Leon.

“Will you give me a few moments to explain, because if you are going to save the Comte you need my help, and anything I can do will be of no use unless you are ready.”

Joel was looking at me.

“I saw him,” I said.

“There can be no doubt.”

“You did not see me,” said Leon.

“You saw my twin brother.”

I laughed.

“It won’t do. We know he died. He was killed by the Comte’s horses and this is the reason why you were brought to the chateau.”

“My brother was injured … badly. It was thought he would never recover. They all thought he was dying. The Comte took me as recompense. But my brother did not die.”

“I don’t believe it,” I said.

“Nevertheless it’s true.”

“But where was he all those years?”

“When they knew he was going to recover my parents believed that if he did all the benefits which came from the chateau would cease. I should be sent from the chateau and one of the great joys of my parents’ life was to have an educated son … a ” chateau boy”, they called me. The thought of losing that was intolerable to them. They loved their children. Oh, they were good parents. That was the main reason why they did what they did. They arranged for my brother to ” die” … to appear to be dead, you see. They had a coffin made for him and he lay in it and when the time for burial came my uncle was the coffin-maker which simplified matters-it was nailed down and my brother smuggled out of the village to another, fifty miles away, where he was brought up with my cousins.”

“It’s an incredible story,” I said suspiciously.

“Nevertheless it’s true. We were identical twins. It is possible to tell the difference between us if you see us side by side … but we could easily be mistaken one for the other. My brother was less able to forgive the Comte than the rest of the family were. He bears the scars of his accident to this day. He walks with a limp. The present situation has given him the chance he has waited for all his life. In his early teens he was fomenting discontent among the peasants. He is clever, though without education. He is shrewd, daring, capable of anything that will bring revenge on a class which he hates, and there is one he hates above all others.”

He was so earnest, he told his story so plausibly, that I was beginning to be won over. I glanced at Joel who was watching Leon intently.

“Let us hear your plan,” he said.

“My brother is recognized as one of the leaders of the people. He was responsible for the capture of the Comte and bringing him to Paris.

The Comte is well known throughout the country as an aristocrat of aristocrats. It will be a great triumph for them when they can show him in the streets in his tumbril. There will be crowds in the Cour du Main on that day.

I said quickly: “What plan is this?”

“I would try to bring him out of the Conciergerie.”

“Impossible,” cried Joel.

“Almost,” replied Leon.

“But perhaps with a great deal of care, cunning and daring … it could be done, but you know to attempt it we should all be risking our lives.”

“We are all risking our lives here,” I said impatiently.

This would be a rather greater risk. You may not wish to undertake it.

To be caught would not mean only death . but horrible death. The people’s rage could send them into a frenzy against you. “

“I would do anything to save him,” I said. Then I looked at Joel.

“Joel,” I added, ‘you must not take part in this. “

“I’m afraid,” Leon pointed out, “I was counting on your help.”

“If you are in it, Minella, of course I shall be with you,” said Joel firmly.

“Let us hear what is expected of us.”

“As I said,” went on Leon, ‘my brother is one of the leaders of the revolution. He is known and respected by the people throughout France.

Some are afraid of him for his ruthlessness, and he would spare none who worked against the revolution. You did not know the difference between us when you saw him in the mob. You thought you saw me on the night of the ball when he was the one you saw. If my brother went to the Conciergerie and demanded co se-ie’ll ‘on i. he walked out with him to take him to another prison, he could do so,” I began to see what he was leading to.

“Are you saying you would go to the Conciergerie and impersonate your brother?”

“I could attempt it. I know his mannerisms, his walk, his voice. I can mutate them. Whether I should succeed is another matter.

If we are caught I warn you we should be taken by the mob and torn to pieces. It would not be a pleasant ending to our adventure. “

“Why are you proposing to do this?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. Today, one lives dangerously. You see me . between two worlds. I am of the people but by the nature of my upbringing I am on the other side. I am trusted by neither . as you have shown me. I have to come down on one side or the other and I have always had a weakness for lost causes. I am a man of some feeling. The Comte was as a father to me . oh, a remote sort of father . far far above me, rarely deigning to notice me. But I was proud to be his protege. I looked up to him. I used to promise myself that I would be like him. He is the sort of man I should most like to be. I cannot bear to think of such talents being destroyed. My motives are mixed.

All my life I have been told: “Do this, do that. It is the wish of the Comte.” Now I shall have the opportunity of going to the Comte and saying: “Do this. I, Leon, your peasant protege have it in my power to save your life.” Think of the satisfaction. There is another point-I have a fondness for him . and for you. Mademoiselle Minelle. I suspected Etienne and I cursed myself for not being there to save you.

But here is my opportunity. “

“Are you quite sure you want to take it?”

“I am completely sure. Listen. I shall go into the prison. I shall wear a cloak such as my brother wears. I shall sport the red cap. I shall talk in his voice, mutate his limp, which I can do so that none will know the difference between us. I shall say that the day for the execution of the Comte is fixed and it is to be a day of great rejoicing. We shall make it symbolic of the revolution. For this reason the Comte is not to leave from the Conciergerie as so many have done. He will go to another prison as yet to be secret and it will be the task of Jean Pierre Bourron-my brother-to take him to that secret place. I shall have my cabriolet waiting outside.” He turned to Joel.

“You will be my driver. As soon as we are in it you will drive with all speed. You, Minelle, will be waiting at the Quai de la Megisserie where we shall pick you up and then ride on with you as quickly as we can. On the edge of the city I shall have arranged for a fiacre with fresh horses.

Then. you will ride on t Grasseville where you can continue your journey to the coast. “

“It sounds as though it might work,” said Joel.

“It will need very careful planning.”

“You may rest assured that I have given my deepest thought to this.

Are you prepared to join me? “

I looked at Joel. What were we asking of him? He had come to France to take me home, to offer me marriage, and now we were suggesting that he should risk his life and perhaps face a terrible death-in order that I might find a future with another man.

But he was Joel and he did not hesitate as I knew he would not. I could almost hear my mother: “You see how right I was. He would be such a good husband to you.”

“Of course we must save the Comte,” said Joel. And I loved him for his calm reconciliation to whatever fate had to offer him. He was admirable, I knew, as the Comte could never be. But how perverse are our emotions!

Then,” said Leon, ‘let us get down to the details. If this is to work everything must go right all the way through. Not until you are on English soil will you be safe.”

All that night we were together . the three of us. Every detail was discussed over and over again. Leon reminded us once more of the risks we were running and impressed on us that only if we were prepared to consider the terrible cost of failure should we undertake this task.

Could it succeed?

I had watched them leave in the cabriolet, Joel disguised as the driver, Leon wrapped in the kind of clothes his brother favoured, the red cap on his head.

When they had left I went to take up my place at the Quai de la Megisserie.

There were many people in the streets as night came but we dared not attempt our rescue by day. I had tried to look like an old woman. My hair was completely hidden by my hood and I bent my back as I shuffled along the streets. They were terrifying, those streets by night. One could ever be sure when one would be confronted by some horrible sight. The shops were barricaded. Many of them had been looted.

Fires would spring up anywhere at any time. One would meet gangs of children singing (yd Ira.

Paris was the last place one should be in if one did not belong to it.

Perhaps this would be my last night here. It must be. I refused to contemplate failure.

How long the waiting seemed! I must be ready. I had been told to be there to step immediately into the cabriolet as it came along beside me. If it did not come in an hour, I was to make my way to our lodging in the Rue Saint-Jacques and wait there. If I heard nothing by the morning I was to leave Paris and make my way to Grasseville, where Margot and Robert would be waiting tor me to leave for England.

Never, never can I forget those fearful moments when I stood there in the heart of revolutionary Paris. I could smell the blood in the streets and the bodies in the river. I heard a clock strike nine and I knew that if they had succeeded, they must be on their way.

How cruel is the imagination! I was tormented by my own speculations.

I visualized a thousand horrors and it seemed to me as I stood there that our plan could not succeed. It was certain to be discovered. It was too wild. It was too dangerous.

I waited and waited. If they did not come soon I must make my way back to the Rue Saint-Jacques.

A leering man accosted me. I hurried away, but feared to go far. A crowd of students came marching down the road. If the cabriolet came now they might try to impede its progress.

“Oh God,” I prayed.

“Let this succeed. I would give anything I have to see his face again.”

The sound of wheels. It was the cabriolet, driving furiously towards me.

Leon stepped out and helped me in.

I looked at my love. His hands were manacled. His face was pale and there was a streak of blood on his left cheek. But he was smiling at me. That was enough. I felt I had never been so happy in my life-nor ever could be more so than I was at that moment on the Quai de la Megisserie.

AND AFTER

We made our escape. Leon left us once we were out of the city. He drove the cabriolet back into Paris.

Joel, the Comte and I went on to Grasseville where Robert and Margot were waiting for us. We were in England within a few days, where I became the Comtesse Fontaine Delibes. My husband was very ill and it was some weeks before I nursed him back to health. The Derringhams were very good friends to us.

Charles Auguste-it seemed odd at first to use that name and I never really became accustomed to calling him anything but The Comte in my thoughts-was no longer a rich and powerful man, but he was not penniless. He had money in various parts of the world and we could live comfortably enough, which we did on a small estate not far from the Derringhams. My husband was born to be a squire and it was not long before the estate began to prosper. By the time our first child was born-a son-we had added considerably to our land.