A Place of Greater Safety (106 page)
Read A Place of Greater Safety Online
Authors: Hilary Mantel
“She talks like the Capet woman’s sister,” Jeannot remarked.
“This is an outrage, and you may be sure that within hours it will be discussed in the Convention.”
Jeannot spat at the fireplace, with a pitiful lack of accuracy. “Pack of lawyers,” he said. “Revolution? This? Not till the buggers are all dead.”
“At the present rate,” the clerk said, “it won’t be long.”
Claude was back, with two of the sansculottes on his heels. He had put on his greatcoat and was drawing on his new gloves, very carefully, very smoothly. “Imagine,” he said, “they accused me of burning papers.
Stranger still, they insisted on interposing themselves between my person and the window. There is a citizen beneath it with a pike. As if a person of my years would leap through a first-floor casement, and deprive myself of the pleasure of their company.” One of the men took his arm. Claude shook him off. “I’ll walk by myself,” he said. “Now, please allow me to say good-bye to my wife.”
Stranger still, they insisted on interposing themselves between my person and the window. There is a citizen beneath it with a pike. As if a person of my years would leap through a first-floor casement, and deprive myself of the pleasure of their company.” One of the men took his arm. Claude shook him off. “I’ll walk by myself,” he said. “Now, please allow me to say good-bye to my wife.”
He took her hand in his gloved hand and raised her fingertips to his lips. “Don’t cry,” he said. “Don’t cry, my Annette. Get a message to Camille.”
Across the street a shiny new carriage was drawn up. A pair of eyes peered out; the blind was cautiously lowered.
“How thoroughly displeasing,” said Père Duchesne the furnace maker. “We picked the wrong night, or did we pick the wrong rumor? There are many other rumors, as good or better. It would have been worth rising early to drag Camille from his comfortable, incestuous bed and see if he could be provoked to violence. I was hoping that we could arrest him for a breach of the peace. Still, this will give him a fright. I wonder who he’ll run to hide behind this time?”
A
nnette was at the rue Marat an hour later, distraught. “And they have torn the place apart,” she finished. “And Elise. Elise may be thoroughly unsatisfactory, but I will not stand by and see my menials pawed by ruffians off the streets. Lucile, give me a glass of brandy, will you? I need it.” As her daughter left the room, she whispered, “Oh Camille, Camille. Claude ran around burning papers. All your letters to me have gone up in smoke. I think. Either that, or the Section committee has got them.”
nnette was at the rue Marat an hour later, distraught. “And they have torn the place apart,” she finished. “And Elise. Elise may be thoroughly unsatisfactory, but I will not stand by and see my menials pawed by ruffians off the streets. Lucile, give me a glass of brandy, will you? I need it.” As her daughter left the room, she whispered, “Oh Camille, Camille. Claude ran around burning papers. All your letters to me have gone up in smoke. I think. Either that, or the Section committee has got them.”
“I see,” Camille said. “Well, I expect they’re quite chaste.”
“But I want them.” Tears in her eyes. “I can’t bear not having them.”
He ran a fingertip down her cheek. “I’ll write you some more.”
“I want those, those! How can I ask Claude if he burned them? If he burned them, he must have known where I kept them and what they were. Do you think he’d read them?”
“No. Claude’s honorable. He’s not like you and me.” He smiled. “I’ll ask him, Annette. As soon as we get him home.”
“You look quite cheerful, husband.” Lucile was back with the brandy.
Annette glanced up at him. So he does, she thought: surely he’s indestructible? She drank her brandy in one gulp.
C
amille’s speech to the Convention was short, audible and alarming. There were murmurs that the relatives of politicians might be suspect as
much as anyone else; but most of his audience looked as if it knew precisely what he was talking about when he described the invasion of the Duplessis household. They were lucky if it hadn’t happened to them, he said; soon, perhaps, it would.
amille’s speech to the Convention was short, audible and alarming. There were murmurs that the relatives of politicians might be suspect as
much as anyone else; but most of his audience looked as if it knew precisely what he was talking about when he described the invasion of the Duplessis household. They were lucky if it hadn’t happened to them, he said; soon, perhaps, it would.
Looking around the half-empty benches, the deputies knew he was right. There was applause when he referred to the uncontrolled depredations of a former theater box-office attendant: a mutter of agreement when he deplored a system that could let such a loathsome object flourish. As he left, Danton was on his feet, calling for an end to the arrests.
At the Tuileries, “Present my compliments to Citizen Vadier and tell him the Lanterne Attorney is here,” Camille said. Vadier was brought out of a session of the Policy Committee by his clerks. “Close down my paper and you get me in person,” Camille said, smiling kindly and giving Vadier a shove against the wall.
“Lanterne Attorney!” Vadier said. “I thought you’d repented of all that?”
“Call it nostalgia,” Camille said. “Call it habit. Call it what you like, but do realize that you won’t get rid of me until I have some answers from you.”
Vadier looked morose, and pulled his long Inquisitor’s nose. He swore by the limbs of the Supreme Being that he knew nothing of the affair. Yes, he admitted, it could be that the Section officials were out of control; it was possible, yes, that Hébert was acting out of personal malice; no, he had no knowledge of any evidence against Claude Duplessis, retired civil servant. He looked at Camille with frank detestation and considerable alarm. “Hebert is a fool,” he muttered as he hurried away, “to give Danton’s mob a chance to try their strength.”
Robespierre appeared blinking and preoccupied from the Committee of Public Safety, summoned by an urgent message. He hurried forward and took Camille’s hands, dictated a rapid stream of orders to a secretary and signified his intention of seeing Père Duchesne in hell. The onlookers noted his tone, the haste, the handclasp above all. Hastily, they memorized the signs on his face, to puzzle over and interpret later; immediately, with the lift of an eyebrow, a glance held a second too long, the questioning twitch of a nostril sniffing the political wind—immediately, imperceptibly, allegiances began to drift. By midday, the expression on Hébert’s face had become less complacent; he was, in fact, on the run, and remained so in his own mind until well after Claude Duplessis’s release: until some weeks later, when he himself heard a patrol in the early morning, and found he had no friends.
T
he new calender wasn’t working. Nivôse wasn’t snowy, and spring would be here before Germinal. It would arrive immoderately early, so that flower girls congregated on street corners and the seamstresses were busy with simple patriotic dresses for the summer of ’94.
he new calender wasn’t working. Nivôse wasn’t snowy, and spring would be here before Germinal. It would arrive immoderately early, so that flower girls congregated on street corners and the seamstresses were busy with simple patriotic dresses for the summer of ’94.
In the Luxembourg Gardens trees hung out unseasonable flags of green among the cannon foundries. Fabre d’Églantine watched the season change, from his prison room in the National Building that was once the Luxembourg Palace. The raw, bright, blustery days made the pain in his chest worse. Each morning he examined himself in the fine mirror he had sent home for, and noted that his face was thinner and his eyes suspiciously bright, with a brightness that had nothing to do with his prospects.
He heard that Danton’s initiatives didn’t prosper, that Danton didn’t see Robespierre. Danton, see Robespierre, he demanded of his prison wall: bully, beg, deceive, demand. Sometimes he lay awake listening for the sound of the Dantonist mob roistering through the city; silence answered back. Camille is friends with Robespierre again, his gaoler told him; adding that he and his wife didn’t believe that Camille was an aristocrat, and that Citizen Robespierre was a true friend of the working man, his continued good health the only guarantee of sugar in the shops and firewood at reasonable prices.
Fabre ran over in his mind all the things he had ever done for Camille; they were not many. He sent out for his complete set of the
Encyclopédie,
and for his small ivory telescope; with them for company he settled down to await either his natural or unnatural death.
Encyclopédie,
and for his small ivory telescope; with them for company he settled down to await either his natural or unnatural death.
17
Pluviôse—it wasn’t raining—Robespierre spoke to the Convention, outlining the basis of his future policy, his plans for the Republic of Virtue. As he left the hall a rustle of consternation followed him. He seemed more tired than one could reasonably be, even after his hours at the tribune; his lips were bloodless, his eyes dark and hollow with exhaustion. Some of the survivors from those days mentioned Mirabeau’s sudden collapse. But he appeared punctually for the next session of the Committee; his eyes traveled from face to face, to see who was disappointed.
Pluviôse—it wasn’t raining—Robespierre spoke to the Convention, outlining the basis of his future policy, his plans for the Republic of Virtue. As he left the hall a rustle of consternation followed him. He seemed more tired than one could reasonably be, even after his hours at the tribune; his lips were bloodless, his eyes dark and hollow with exhaustion. Some of the survivors from those days mentioned Mirabeau’s sudden collapse. But he appeared punctually for the next session of the Committee; his eyes traveled from face to face, to see who was disappointed.
22 Pluviôse, he woke in the night fighting for breath. In the intervals of panic he forced himself to his writing table. But he had forgotten what he wanted to write; a wave of nausea brought him to his hands and knees on the floor. You do not die, he said, as he fought to expel
the air trapped in his lungs, you do not, he said with each aspiration, die. You have survived this before.
the air trapped in his lungs, you do not, he said with each aspiration, die. You have survived this before.
When the attack passed he ordered himself up from the floor. I will not do it, his body said: you have finished me, killed me, I refuse to serve such a master.
His head dropped. If I stay here, he thought, I shall stretch out and go to sleep on the floor, just where I am, I will then take a chill, everything will be finished.
So, said the body, you should not have treated me as your slave, abusing me with fasting and chastity and broken sleep. What will you do now? Tell your intellect to get you off the floor, tell your mind to keep you on your feet tomorrow.
He took hold of the leg of a chair, then its back. He watched his hand creep along the wood; he was falling asleep. His hand became infinitely distant. He dreamed of his grandfather’s household. There are no barrels for this week’s brewing, someone said; all the wood has been used for scaffolding. Scaffolding or scaffolds? Anxiously he felt in his pocket for a letter from Benjamin Franklin. The letter told him, “You are an electrical machine.”
Eléonore found him at first light. She and her father stood guard over the door. Souberbielle arrived at eight o’clock. He spoke very slowly, very distinctly, as if to a deaf person: cannot answer for the consequences, he said, cannot answer for the consequences. He nodded to show that he understood. Souberbielle bent to catch his whisper. “Shall I make my will?”
“Well, I don’t think so,” the doctor said cheerfully. “Have you much to bequeath, by the way?”
He shook his head; let his eyes close, and smiled slightly.
“There is never anything the matter with them,” Souberbielle said. “I mean, in the sense that it is this disease, or that disease. In September we thought we’d lost Danton. So many years of hard work and panics can reduce even a strong man like that to a wreck—and Citizen Robespierre is not strong. No, of course he is not dying. Nobody actually dies of the things that are wrong with him, they just have their lives made harder. How long? He needs to rest, that’s the thing, to be well out of everything. I’d say a month. If he leaves that room sooner, I’ll not be responsible.”
Members of the Committee came. It took him a moment to work out their individual faces, but he knew at once it was the Committee. “Where is Saint-Just?” he whispered. By now he had got into the habit of whispering. Don’t struggle for breath, the doctor had said. The committeemen exchanged glances.
“He has forgotten,” they said. “You have forgotten,” they told him. “He went to the frontier. He will be back in ten days.”
“Couthon? Could he not be carried up the stairs?”
“He’s ill,” they said. “Couthon is also ill.”
“Is he dying?”
“No. But his paralysis has become worse.”
“Will he be back tomorrow?”
“No, not tomorrow.”
Then who will rule the country? he asked himself. Saint-Just. “Danton—” he said. Don’t struggle for breath. If you don’t struggle for it, it will come, the doctor said. He put his hand to his chest in panic. He could not take that advice. It was not his experience of life.
“Will you let Danton have my place?”
They exchanged glances again. Robert Lindet leaned over him. “Do you wish it?”
He shook his head vehemently. He hears Danton’s drawling voice: “unnatural acts among the affidavits … Do you ever ask yourself what God left out?” His eyes searched for the eyes of this solid Norman lawyer, a man without theories, without pretensions, a man unknown to the mob. “Not to have it,” he said at last. “Not to rule. No
vertu.”
vertu.”
Lindet’s face was expressionless.
“For a little while I shall not be with you,” Robespierre said. “Then, again, I will be with you.”
“Those are familiar words,” Collot said. “He can’t remember where he has heard them before. Don’t worry, we didn’t think it was time for your apotheosis yet.”
Lindet said gently, “Yes, yes, yes.”
Robespierre looked up at Collot. He is taking advantage of my weakness, he thought. “Please give me some paper,” he whispered. He wanted to make a note: that as soon as he was well, Collot must be reduced.
The members of the Committee spoke very politely to Eléonore. They did not necessarily believe Dr. Souberbielle, who said he would be better in a month; she understood that if by any chance he should die, she would be treated as the Widow Robespierre, as Simone Evrard was the Widow Marat.
The days passed. Souberbielle gave him permission to have more visitors, to read, to write—but only his personal letters. He might receive the news of the day, if it were not agitating; but all the news was agitating.
Saint-Just came back. We go on very well, in the Committee, he said. We are going to crush the factions. Does Danton still talk of negotiating a peace? he asked. Yes, Saint-Just said. But no one else does. Good republicans talk of victory.
Saint-Just was now twenty-six years old. He was very handsome, very forceful. He spoke in short sentences. Speak of the future, Robespierre said. He talked then of his Spartan republic. In order to breed a new race of men, he said, children would be taken from their parents when they reached five years old, to be trained as farmers, soldiers or lawmakers. Little girls too? Robespierre asked. Oh no, they do not matter, they will stay at home with their mothers.
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