British Spies in France During the French Revolution by Regan Walker

“Are all Englishmen so stupid as to wander into revolutionary France, Mr. West? Or, are you the spy my men believe you to be?” Not giving Freddie an opportunity to reply, he said, “Oui, I think you are un espion anglais, an English spy.”

“Oh, non, bon général,” Freddie protested, “unless you consider Arthur Young’s venture into France to observe agriculture a few years ago to be spying. He did keep a journal in which he wrote of his travels, which you might like to read. I found his musings quite fascinating. My own interest is botany and the plants that grow without human assistance.” Freddie had become familiar with botany for his code work and could have expounded for hours on Brittany’s vegetation.

“Ça suffit!” Rossignol glared at him with suspicious eyes. “Lies and subterfuge!”

Freddie tried to summon an indignant look. “Non, non, je vous assure.” Retaining a placid expression and mimicking the bloody bands of sans culottes he had observed arguing in favor of the revolution, he placed his palm over his heart, “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité is my motto. I expect one day soon, England will come to see the revolution for what it truly stands for.” To Freddie’s mind that would be a thirst for blood and a disdain for everything true Frenchmen valued.

“Your ruse is entertaining, I give you that, l’Anglais. But already I grow tired of you. Normally, that would mean the guillotine here in Rennes, but it so happens I owe Robespierre a favor of some import. An English spy served up on a silver platter might be just the offering I need to demonstrate my gratitude. Oui, I think you shall go to Paris to answer to him. Should Robespierre decide it best, you can meet Madame Guillotine there before the English-hating citoyens who enjoy a good show.”

[From a conversation between  Frederick West and General Rossignol, Commander of the Army of the Coast of Brest in A Fierce Wind, copyright © 2018 Regan Walker]

Frederick West, the hero in my novel, wasn’t the only British spy in France during the French Revolution. There were many. Paris, of course, was a central target because of the centralization by the revolutionary government. The city became the French center of politics, power, intrigue, commerce and the army. The royalists and the British both established agents there. Money opened the doors to most of the ministries and government institutions, especially if one could pay in hard currency or gold as opposed to the rapidly deflating French assignats.

The most influential group of the period was the Paris Agency. Known as “La Manufacture” and “Les Amis de Paris”, it was created in 1791 by the Spanish ambassador to provide intelligence for the Spanish government. In 1793, the comte d’Antraigues used the information their letters contained to produce his own reports for his master Simon de Las Casas, the Spanish ambassador to Venice, which he also sent to the comte de Provence, who eventually returned to France as Louis XVIII.

The Paris Agency established a direct line of communication with the British government through Jean François Dutheil, the comte d’Artois’s representative in London.

Chouan fighter

Outside of Paris, agents were located in areas of France that acted as hubs for intelligence networks and channels of communication, such as Lyon and Rouen. In the northwest of France in the Vendée and Brittany, where the Vendéens and Chouans rose in rebellion, British agents acquired intelligence to aid the royalists. Messengers and agents were sent to liaise with allies, undertake fact-finding missions, carry out specific tasks and encourage rebellion.
 
In A Fierce Wind, Freddie lived on the Isle of Guernsey and worked with Captain Philippe d’Auvergne, Senior Officer of Gunboats on the Isle of Jersey. D’Auvergne's spy network was known as La Correspondance. Working for Evan Nepean, Undersecretary of the Home Office (after 1794, the Undersecretary of War), d’Auvergne landed his agents (including Freddie) on the coast of France in small boats, often at night and in places seldom visited by Republican patrols.

Routes into the interior were arranged and lined with safe houses and trusted locals. Other agents were given more stationary assignments in key places like Brest and St. Malo from which they observed the docks and the comings and goings of ships and provisions. Chouan agents sometimes used trusted local inhabitants to carry messages throughout the region, while others left packages hidden in rocks by the sea to be collected by d’Auvergne’s boats.

Messages were often written in code or in special inks to try and ensure that their contents would not be revealed should they be intercepted. Each intelligence agency had its own ciphers and ink compositions. Some used codes from music. The agents of La Correspondance sometimes used vocabulary borrowed from music, botany, clock making, cooking or tailoring.

Philippe d’Auvergne

As might be expected, the British spying effort was fragmented between various agencies that acted independently of each another. The Admiralty had its own secret intelligence operations, led by Evan Nepean. They used local spies, but also collected information from naval officers and merchant ship captains about sightings of enemy vessels and numbers laid up in port. Hence, Frederick West in A Fierce Wind keeps track of French ships from the deck of La Reine Noire. Even the Prime Minister, William Pitt, had his own private spy network.  How much these groups co-operated is difficult to tell.  What seems to be true is that influential people like Nepean managed to tap many intelligence sources, not just those under their direct authority.
I hope you enjoy my fictional account of a British spy and the French girl he loves as they confront the dangers in revolutionary France.

“A thrilling, edge of your seat page-turner crackling with romance and danger.”

– Chicks, Rogues & Scandals

France 1794

Zoé Ariane Donet was in love with love until she met the commander of the royalist army fighting the revolutionaries tearing apart France. When the dashing young general is killed, she joins the royalist cause, rescuing émigrés fleeing France.

One man watches over her: Frederick West, the brother of an English earl, who has known Zoé since she was a precocious ten-year-old child. At sixteen, she promised great beauty, the flower of French womanhood about to bloom. Now, four years later, as Robespierre’s Terror seizes France by the throat, Zoé has become a beautiful temptress Freddie vows to protect with his life.

But English spies don’t live long in revolutionary France.
 
See the book on Amazon US, UK & Canada. And see the other books in The Donet Trilogy.


Keep up with Regan on her Website, Facebook and her Facebook Readers Page!

The Port of London in the 18th Century

Pool of London, painting by John Wilson Carmichael

The Donet Trilogy features Georgian romances set in the 1780’s with ship captain heroes. (To Tame the Wind is book 1). In each of the stories, the captain must adroitly maneuver his ship (one is a schooner and one a brig-sloop) through the traffic on the Thames to moor in the Pool of London. That’s the area just downstream from London Bridge where London’s port was originally centered. And it was a very busy place because the Port of London was the busiest port in the world!

During the 18th century, both the city of London and its international trade went through a great expansion. The Thames became a huge traffic jam, or, as one of my characters in To Tame the Wind described it, “There are so many ships in port just now, the Thames is like a kettle of stew on the boil.”

 

Thousands of coastal sailing ships entered the port each year bringing coal or grain to the capital. These ships competed for space in the crowded river with vessels carrying goods like sugar and rum from the West Indies, tea and spices from the East Indies, wine from the Mediterranean, furs, timber and hemp for rope from Russia and the Baltic and tobacco from America.

As you might expect, the rate of increase in the volume of the trade fluctuated with the alternating periods of peace and war. Between 1700 and 1770 the commerce of the port nearly doubled, and from 1770 to 1795 (only 25 years) it doubled again. In 1751, the Pool of London handled 1,682 ships in overseas trade. By 1794, this had risen to 3,663 ships. By 1792, London’s share of imports and exports accounted for 65% of the total for all of England.

The heavy congestion in the Pool resulted in damage to goods and ships, theft and delays. Merchants complained loudly about the effect this had on their costs and profits, and in the 1790s the merchants of the highly profitable West Indies trade began to campaign for better port facilities, which they eventually got.

Some idea of the state of congestion that existed in the river can be gathered from the fact that in the Upper Pool, 1,775 vessels were allowed to moor simultaneously in a space adapted for about 545. A ship of 500 tons was thought of as a ship of exceptional size and this partly explains the state of congestion. The great increase in the volume of trade resulted in the addition of a large number of ships of relatively small carrying capacity. The situation was aggravated by the large number of these smaller craft, estimated at about 3,500, employed to convey cargoes from the moorings to the wharves.

Ships did their best to sail up or down the Thames, but being unloaded was another matter. Until the end of the eighteenth century, there were no docks built for unloading ships (as opposed to dockyards that repaired them). Instead, cargo that couldn’t be carried from a ship to the wharf would be ferried by smaller craft. 

 

Is it any wonder the heroines admire the captains who can handle such a challenge?

What reviewers say about To Tame the Wind:

"... a captivating tale of love and intrigue...  Walker deftly weaves historical fact into the tale, and her depiction of privateers and privateering is well done. Daring sea battles, roguish lurkers, ill-treated prisoners of war, and deceitful dandies add dashes of spice to this historical romance, making it one readers will savor long after they turn the last page."  ~ Pirates & Privateers 

  "Masked balls, handsome sea captains, and a plot that will keep you hooked. What's not to love!? To Tame the Wind is romantic historical escapism at its finest - a historical romance fan's dream of a novel! 5/5 stars."  ~ Good Friends, Good Books

The Donet Trilogy on Amazon