A Place of Greater Safety (102 page)
Read A Place of Greater Safety Online
Authors: Hilary Mantel
Robespierre would not look at him; but without doing so, he reached out for his arm. “Everything you say is true,” he whispered, “but I don’t know how to proceed.” A pause. “Come, let’s go home.”
“You said we couldn’t talk inside.”
“There’s no need to talk, is there? You’ve said it all.”
H
ébert, Le Père Duchesne:
ébert, Le Père Duchesne:
Here, my brave sansculottes, here is a brave man you’ve forgotten. It is really ungrateful of you, for he declares that without him there would never have been a Revolution. Formerly he was known as My Lord Prosecutor to the Lanteme. You think I am speaking of that famous cutthroat who put the aristocrats to flight—but no, the man we’re speaking of claims to be the most pacific of persons. To believe him, he has no more gall than a pigeon; he is so sensitive, that he never hears the word “guillotine” without shivering to his very bones. It is a great pity that he is no orator, or he would prove to the Committee of Public Safety that it has no idea how to manage things; but if he cannot speak, M. Camille can make up for it by writing, to the great satisfaction of the moderates, aristocrats and royalists.
P
roceedings of the Jacobin Club:
roceedings of the Jacobin Club:
CITIZEN NICOLAS [
intervening
]: Camille, you are very close to the guillotine!
intervening
]: Camille, you are very close to the guillotine!
CITIZEN DESMOULINS: Nicolas, you are very close to making a fortune!
A year ago you dined on a baked apple, and now you’re the government printer.
[
Laughter.
]
Laughter.
]
H
érault de Séchelles came back from Alsace in the middle of December. The job was done. The Austrians were in retreat and the frontier was secure; Saint-Just would be following in a week or two, trailing glory.
érault de Séchelles came back from Alsace in the middle of December. The job was done. The Austrians were in retreat and the frontier was secure; Saint-Just would be following in a week or two, trailing glory.
He called on Danton, and Danton was not at home. He left him a message, arranging a meeting, and Danton did not come. He went to Robespierre’s house, and was turned away by the Duplays.
He stood at a window of the Tuileries, to watch the death carts on their route, and sometimes he followed them to the end of the journey and mingled with the crowds. He heard of wives who denounced their husbands to the Tribunal, and husbands wives; mothers who offered their sons to National Justice and children who betrayed their parents. He saw women hustled from their lying-in, suckling their babies till the tumbrel arrived. He saw men and women slip and fall facedown in the spilt blood of their friends, and the executioners haul them up by their pinioned arms. He saw dripping heads held up for the crowds to bay at. “Why do you force yourself to watch these things?” someone asked him.
“I am learning how to die.”
29
Frimaire, Toulon fell to the Republican armies. The hero of the hour was a young artillery officer called Buonaparte. “If things go on as they are with the officers,” Fabre said, “I give Buonaparte three months before he gets his head cut off.”
Frimaire, Toulon fell to the Republican armies. The hero of the hour was a young artillery officer called Buonaparte. “If things go on as they are with the officers,” Fabre said, “I give Buonaparte three months before he gets his head cut off.”
Three days later, 2 Nivôse, government forces smashed the remains of the rebel army of the Vendee. Peasants taken under arms were outlaws to be shot out of hand; nothing remained except the bloody manhunt through fields and woods and marshes.
In the green room with the silver mirrors, the disparate and factious members of the Committee of Public Safety were settling their differences. They were winning the war, and keeping the precarious peace on the Paris streets. “Under this Committee,” said the people, “the Revolution is on the march.”
I
t had grown dark. Eléonore thought that the room was empty. When Robespierre turned his head, the movement startled her. His face was white in the shadows. “Are you not going to the Committee?” she said softly. He turned his head away, so that he was looking at the wall again.
“Shall I light the lamp?” she said. “Please speak to me. Nothing can be so bad.”
t had grown dark. Eléonore thought that the room was empty. When Robespierre turned his head, the movement startled her. His face was white in the shadows. “Are you not going to the Committee?” she said softly. He turned his head away, so that he was looking at the wall again.
“Shall I light the lamp?” she said. “Please speak to me. Nothing can be so bad.”
She stood behind his chair and slipped a hand onto his shoulder. She felt him stiffen. “Don’t touch me.”
She removed her hand. “What have I done wrong?” She waited for an answer. “You’re being childish. You can’t sit here in the cold and dark.”
No reply. She walked rapidly from the room, leaving the door ajar. She was back in a moment with a taper, which she touched to the wood and kindling laid ready in the grate. She knelt down by the hearth, tending the infant flames, her dark hair sliding over her shoulder.
“I will not have lights,” he said.
She leaned forward, placing another splinter of wood, fanning the blaze. “I know you’ll let it go right out if I don’t watch it,” she said. “You always do. I have only just got in from my class. Citizen David commended my work today. Would you like to see? I can run downstairs and get my folio.” She looked up at him, still kneeling, her hands spread out on her thighs.
“Get up from there,” he said. “You are not a servant.”
“No?” Her voice was cool. “What am I? It would be against your principles to speak to a servant as you speak to me.”
“Five days ago,” he said, “I proposed to the Convention that we should set up a Committee of Justice to examine the verdicts of the Tribunal and to look into the cases of those imprisoned on suspicion. I thought this was what was needed; apparently not, though. I have just seen the fourth issue of the ‘Old Cordelier.’ Here.” He pushed the pamphlet across the desk. “Read it.”
“I can’t, in this light.” She lit the candles, lifting one high to look into his face. “Your eyes are red. You have been crying. I didn’t think you cried when you were criticized in the press. I thought you were beyond that.”
“It’s not criticism,” he said. “It’s not criticism that’s the problem, it’s quite other, it’s the claims, it’s the claims made on me. I am addressed by name. Look.” He pointed to the place on the page. “Eléonore, who has been more merciful than I have? Seventy-five of Brissot’s supporters are in prison. I have fought the committees and the Convention for these men’s lives. But this is not enough for Camille—it’s not nearly enough. He wants to force me into some—some kind of bullring. Read it.”
She took the pamphlet, brought a chair up to his desk to get the light. “Robespierre, you are my old school comrade, and you remember the
lesson history and philosophy taught us: that love is stronger and more enduring than fear.”
Love is stronger and more enduring than fear;
she glanced up at him, then down at the printed page. “You have come very close to this idea in the measure passed at your instance during the session of 30 Frimaire. What has been proposed is a Committee of
Justice.
Yet why should
mercy
be looked upon as a crime under the Republic?”
lesson history and philosophy taught us: that love is stronger and more enduring than fear.”
Love is stronger and more enduring than fear;
she glanced up at him, then down at the printed page. “You have come very close to this idea in the measure passed at your instance during the session of 30 Frimaire. What has been proposed is a Committee of
Justice.
Yet why should
mercy
be looked upon as a crime under the Republic?”
Eléonore looked up. “The prose,” Robespierre said. “It’s so clean, no conceits, no show, no wit. He means every word. Formerly, you see, he meant every other word. That was his style.”
“Release from prison the 200,000 citizens you call ‘Suspects.’ In the Declaration of the Rights of Man there is no provision for imprisonment on suspicion.
“You seem determined to wipe out opposition by using the guillotine—but it is a senseless undertaking. When you destroy one opponent on the scaffold, you make ten more enemies among his family and friends. Look at the sort of people you have put behind bars—women, old men, bile-ridden egotists, the flotsam of the Revolution. Do you really believe they constitute a danger? The only enemies left in your midst are those who are too sick and too cowardly to fight; all the brave and able ones have fled abroad, or died at Lyon or in the Vendee. Those who are left do not merit your attention. Believe me—freedom would be more firmly established, and Europe brought to her knees, if you established a Committee of Mercy.”
“Have you read enough?” he asked her.
“Yes. They’re trying to force your hand.” She looked up. “Danton’s behind it, I suppose?”
Robespierre didn’t speak, not at first. When he did it was in a whisper, and not to the point. “When we were children, you know, I said to him, Camille, you’re all right now, I am going to look after you. You should have seen us, Eléonore—you would have been quite sorry for us, I think. I don’t know what would have become of Camille, if it weren’t for me.” He buried his face in his hands. “Or of me, if it weren’t for him.”
“But you’re not children now,” she said softly. “And this affection you speak of no longer exists. He’s gone over to Danton.”
He looked up. His face is transparent, she thought; he would like the world transparent too. “Danton’s not my enemy,” he said. “He’s a patriot, and I’ve staked my reputation on it. But what’s he done, these last four weeks? A few speeches. Grand-sounding rhetoric that keeps him in the public eye and means nothing at all. He fancies himself as the elder statesman. He’s risked nothing. He has thrown my poor Camille into
the furnace while he and his friends stand by warming their hands.”
the furnace while he and his friends stand by warming their hands.”
“Don’t be upset, it doesn’t help.” She averted her face. She was studying the pamphlet again. “He implies that the Committee has abused its powers. It seems clear that Danton and his friends see themselves as an alternative government.”
“Yes.” He looked up, half-smiled. “Danton offered me a job once before. No doubt he’d do it again. They expect me to go along with them, you see.”
“Go along with them? With that gang of swindlers? You’d go along with them as you’d go along with brigands who were holding you to ransom. All they want is to use your name, use your credit as an honest man.”
“Do you know what I wish?” he said. “I wish Marat were alive. What a pass I’ve come to, when I wish that! But Camille would have listened to him.”
“This is heresy,” Eléonore said. She bent her head over the page. She read, it seemed to him, with a tortured slowness; she seemed to weigh every word. “The Jacobins will expel him.”
“I will prevent it.”
“What?”
“I said, I will prevent it.”
She shook the paper at him. “They’ll blame you for this. Do you think you can protect him?”
“Protect him? Oh Christ—I think at any time, at any time before now, I’d have died for him. But I feel, now—perhaps I have a duty to remain alive?”
“A duty to whom?”
“To the people. In case worse befalls them.”
“I agree. You do have a duty to remain alive. Alive and in power.”
He averted his head. “How easily the phrases fall from your lips. As if you had grown up with them, Eléonore. Collot is back from Lyon, did you know? He had finished his
work,
as he describes it. His path of righteousness is very clear and straight and broad. It’s so easy to be a good Jacobin. Collot hasn’t a doubt or scruple in his head—indeed, I doubt if he has much in it at all. Stop the Terror? He thinks we haven’t even begun.”
work,
as he describes it. His path of righteousness is very clear and straight and broad. It’s so easy to be a good Jacobin. Collot hasn’t a doubt or scruple in his head—indeed, I doubt if he has much in it at all. Stop the Terror? He thinks we haven’t even begun.”
“Saint-Just will be here next week. He won’t want to know about your school days, Max. He won’t accept excuses.”
Robespierre lifted his chin, blindly and vicariously proud. “He’ll not be offered excuses. I know Camille. He’s stronger than you think, oh, not visibly, not evidently—but I do know him, you see. It’s a kind of
iron-clad vanity he has—and why not, really? It all comes from July 12, from those days before the Bastille. He knows exactly what he did, exactly what risk he took. Would I have taken it? Of course not. It would have been meaningless—no one would even have looked at me. Would Danton have taken it? Of course not. He was a respectable fellow, a lawyer, a family man. You see, here we are, Eléonore, four years on—still in awe of what was done in a split second.”
iron-clad vanity he has—and why not, really? It all comes from July 12, from those days before the Bastille. He knows exactly what he did, exactly what risk he took. Would I have taken it? Of course not. It would have been meaningless—no one would even have looked at me. Would Danton have taken it? Of course not. He was a respectable fellow, a lawyer, a family man. You see, here we are, Eléonore, four years on—still in awe of what was done in a split second.”
“Stupid,” she said.
“Not really. Everything that’s important is decided in a split second, isn’t it? He stood up before those thousands of people, and his life turned on a hair. Everything after that, of course, has been an anticlimax.”
Eléonore got up, moved away from him. “Will you go to see him?”
“Now? No. Danton will be there. They will probably be having a party.”
“Well, why not?” Eléonore said. “I know the reign of superstition is over, but it is Christmas day.”
“I
t is incredible,” Danton said. He tipped his head back and tossed another glass down his throat. He did not look like an elder statesman. “There are demonstrators outside the Convention calling for a Committee of Mercy. They are standing six deep outside Desenne’s bookshop demanding another edition. The cover price was two sous and now they’re changing hands for twenty francs. Camille, you’re a one-man inflationary disaster.”
t is incredible,” Danton said. He tipped his head back and tossed another glass down his throat. He did not look like an elder statesman. “There are demonstrators outside the Convention calling for a Committee of Mercy. They are standing six deep outside Desenne’s bookshop demanding another edition. The cover price was two sous and now they’re changing hands for twenty francs. Camille, you’re a one-man inflationary disaster.”
“But I wish now I had warned Robespierre. About the content, I mean.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Danton was vast and brash and hearty, the popular leader of a new political force. “Somebody go and get Robespierre. Somebody go and drag him out. It’s time we got him drunk.” He reached across and dropped his hand on Camille’s shoulder. “It’s time this Revolution relaxed a little. The people are sick of the killings, and the reaction to your writings proves it.”
“But we should have got the Committee changed this month. You should be on it now.”
Around them, the buzz of conversation resumed. It was understood to have been one of Danton’s heartening pronouncements. “Let’s not push things,” Danton said. “Next month will do. We’re creating the mood for change. We don’t want to force the issue, we want people to come to our way of thinking of their own accord.” Camille glanced at Fabre. “Now why are you not happy?” Danton demanded. “You have
just achieved the greatest success of your career. I order you in the name of the Republic to be happy.”
just achieved the greatest success of your career. I order you in the name of the Republic to be happy.”
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