A Place of Greater Safety (113 page)

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Authors: Hilary Mantel

BOOK: A Place of Greater Safety
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“I said subpoena him, I didn’t say arrest him. Do everything your bloody self!”
“He doesn’t know what he’s done,” Philippeaux says. “He doesn’t know. But he’ll soon think of something.”
“Camille,” Hérault says, “I do believe your cousin’s incompetent. He’s a disgrace to the criminal Bar.”
“Fouquier,” his cousin asks him, “how did you get this job in the first place?”
The Public Prosecutor rummages among his papers. “What the hell,” he mutters. He approaches the judge’s table. “A fuck-up,” he tells Hermann. “But don’t let them know. They’ll make us a laughing-stock.”
Hermann sighs. “We are all under a great deal of pressure. I wish you would employ more seemly language. Leave him there, and on the last day I’ll direct the jury that there’s insufficient evidence and they must acquit.”
Vice President Dumas reeks of spirits. The crowd at the back moves, restive and dangerous, bored by the delays. Another prisoner is brought in. “God in Heaven,” Lacroix says, “Westermann.”
General Westermann, victor of the Vendee, places his belligerent bulk before the accused. “Who the hell are all these people?” He jerks his thumb at Chabot and his friends.
“Divers criminal elements,” Hérault tells him. “You conspired with them.”
“Did I?” Westermann raises his voice. “What do you think, Fouquier, that I’m just some military blockhead, some oaf? I was a lawyer at Strasbourg before the Revolution, I know how things should be done. I have not been allotted counsel. I have not been put through a preliminary investigation. I have not been charged.”
Hermann looks up. “That is a formality.”
“We are all here,” Danton says drily, “by way of a formality.”
There is an outburst of rueful laughter from the accused. The remark is relayed to the back of the court. The public applaud, and a line of
sansculotte patriots take off their red caps, wave them, sing the “Ça Ira” and (confusingly) yell
à la Lanterne.
“I must call you to order,” Hermann shouts at Danton.
“Call me to order?” Danton explodes to his feet. “It seems to me that I must recall you to decency. I have a right to speak. We all have a right to a hearing. Damn you, man, I set up this Tribunal. I ought to know how it works.”
“Can you not hear this bell?”
“A man on trial for his life takes no notice of bells.”
From the galleries the singing becomes louder. Fouquier’s mouth is moving, but nothing can be heard. Hermann closes his eyes, and all the signatures of the Committee of Public Safety dance before his lids. It is fifteen minutes before order is restored.
 
 
T
he affair of the East India Company again. The prosecutors know they have a case here, so they are sticking to the subject. Fabre lifts his chin, which had fallen onto his chest. After a few minutes he lets it return there. “He should have a doctor,” Philippeaux whispers.
“His physician is otherwise engaged. On the jury.”
“Fabre, you’re not going to die on us, are you?”
Fabre makes a sick effort at a smile. Danton can feel the fear which holds Camille rigid between himself and Lacroix. Camille spent the whole of last night writing, because he believes that in the end they are bound to let him speak. So far the judges have put him down ferociously whenever he has opened his mouth.
Cambon, the government’s financial expert, takes the stand to give evidence about profits and share certificates, banking procedure and foreign currency regulations. He will be the only witness called in the course of the trial. Danton interrupts him:
“Cambon, listen: do you think I’m a royalist?”
Cambon looks across at him and smiles.
“See, he laughed. Citizen Clerk of the Court, see that it goes down in the record that he laughed.”
 
HERMANN: Danton, the Convention accuses you of showing undue favor to Dumouriez, of failing to reveal his true nature and intentions and of aiding and abetting his schemes to destroy freedom, such as that of marching on Paris with an armed force to crush republican government and restore the monarchy.
DANTON: May I answer this now?
HERMANN: No. Citizen Paris, read out the report of Citizen Saint-Just—I mean, the report that the citizen delivered to the Convention and the Jacobin Club.
 
 
T
wo hours. The accused have now separated into two camps, the six politicians and the general trying to put a distance between themselves and the thieves: but this is difficult. Philippeaux listens attentively, and takes notes. Hérault appears sunk in his own thoughts; one cannot be sure he is listening to the court at all. From time to time the general makes an impatient noise and hisses in Lacroix’s ear for some point to be elucidated; Lacroix is seldom able to help him.
For the first part of the reading the crowds are restless. But as the implications of the report become clear, a profound silence takes possession of the court, stealing through the darkening room like an animal coming home to its lair. The chiming of the clocks marks off the first hour of the report, Hermann clears his throat, and behind his table, back to the accused, Fouquier stretches his legs. Suddenly Desmoulins’s nerve snaps. He puts a hand to his face, wonders what it is doing there, and anxiously flicks back his hair. He looks quickly at the faces to the left and right of him. He holds one fist in the other palm, his mouth pressed against the knuckles; taking his hands from his face, he holds the bench at each side of himself until the nails grow white with pressure. Dictum of Citizen Robespierre, useful in criminal cases: whoever shows fear is guilty. Danton and Lacroix take his hands and hold them surreptitiously by his sides.
Paris has finished, voice cracking over the final phrases. He drops the document on the table and its leaves fan out. He is exhausted, and if there had been any more he would have broken down and wept.
“Danton,” Hermann says, “you may speak now.”
As he rises to his feet, he wonders what Philippeaux has recorded in his notes. Because there is not one allegation he can drag screaming into disrepute; not one charge that he can hold up and knock down again and trample on. If only there were a specific accusation … that you, Georges-Jacques Danton, did on the 10th day of August 1792 traitorously conspire … But it is a whole career he has to justify: a whole life, a life in the Revolution, to oppose to this tissue of lies and innuendo, this abortion of the truth. Saint-Just must have made a close study of Camille’s writings against Brissot; that was where the technique was perfected. And he thinks fleetingly of the neat, malicious job Camille would have done on his career.
After fifteen minutes he finds the pleasure and the power of rolling out his voice into the hall. The long silence is over. The crowd begins to applaud again. Sometimes he has to stop and let the noise defeat him; then he draws breath, comes back stronger. Fabre taught him, he taught him well. He begins to imagine his voice as a physical instrument of attack, a power like battalions; as lava from the mouth of some inexhaustible volcano, burning them, boiling them, burying them alive.
Burying them alive.
A juryman interrupts: “Can you enlighten us as to why, at Valmy, our troops did not follow up the Prussian retreat?”
“I regret that I cannot enlighten you. I am a lawyer. Military matters are a closed book to me.”
Fabre’s hand unclenches from the arm of his chair.
Sometimes Hermann tries to interrupt him at crucial points; Danton overbears him, contemptuously. At each of the court’s defeats, the crowds cheer and whistle and shout derisive comments. The theaters are empty; it is the only show in town. And that is what it is—a show, and he knows it. They are behind him now—but if Robespierre were to walk in, wouldn’t they cheer him to the echo? Père Duchesne was their hero, but they laughed and catcalled when his creator begged for mercy in the tumbrel.
After the first hour his voice is as strong as ever. At this stage the physical effort is nothing. Like an athlete’s, his lungs do what he has trained them to do. But now he is not clinching an argument or forcing a debating point, he is talking to save his life. This is what he has planned and waited and hoped for, the final confrontation; but as the day wears on he finds himself talking over an inner voice that says, they are allowing this confrontation because the issue is decided already: you are a dead man. A question from Fouquier brings him to a pitch of boiling rage: “Bring me my accusers,” he shouts. “Bring me a proof, part proof, the flimsiest shadow of a proof. I challenge my accusers to come before me, to meet me face to face. Produce these men, and I will thrust them back into the obscurity from which they should never have emerged. Come out, you filthy imposters, and I will rip the masks from your faces, and deliver you up to the vengeance of the people.”
And another hour. He wants a glass of water, but he dares not stop to ask for one. Hermann sits hunched over his law books, watching him, his mouth slightly ajar. Danton feels as if all the dust of his province has got into his throat, all the choking yellow country beyond Arcis.
Hermann passes a note to Fouquier. “IN HALF AN HOUR I SHALL SUSPEND DANTON’S DEFENSE.”
Finally, denying it while he can, he knows his voice is losing its power. And there is still tomorrow’s fight; he cannot afford to become hoarse. He takes out a handkerchief and wipes his forehead. Hermann springs.
“The witness is exhausted. We will adjourn until tomorrow.”
Danton swallows, raises his voice for a last effort. “And then I resume my defense.”
Hermann nods sympathetically.
“And then tomorrow, we have our witnesses.”
“Tomorrow.”
“You have the lists of the people we wish to call.”
“We have your lists.”
The applause of the crowd is solid. He looks back at them. He sees Fabre’s lips move, and bends to catch the words. “Go on speaking, Georges. If you stop now they will never let you speak again. Go on, now—it’s our only chance.”
“I can’t. My voice must recover.” He sits down, staring straight ahead of him. He wrenches off his cravat. “The day is over.”
 
 
14
Germinal, evening, the Tuileries: “You’ll probably agree with me,” Robespierre said, “that you’ve not got very far.”
“The riot has to be heard to be believed.” Fouquier paced the room. “We are afraid the crowd will tear them out of our hands.”
“I think you can put your mind at rest on that score. It has never happened yet. And the people have no particular affection for Danton.”
“With respect, Citizen Robespierre—”
“I know that, because they have no particular affection for anyone, these days. I have the experience, I know how to judge these things. They like the spectacle. That’s all.”
“It remains impossible to make progress. During his defense Danton constantly appeals to the crowd.”
“It was a mistake. It was a cross-examination that was needed. Hermann should not have allowed this speech.”
“Make sure he doesn’t continue it,” Collot said.
Fouquier inclined his head. He remembered a phrase of Danton’s: ‘the three or four criminals’ who are ruining Robespierre.” “Yes, yes, naturally,” he said to them.
“If things go no better tomorrow,” Robespiere said, “send a note to us. We’ll see what we can do to help.”
“Well—what could you do?”
“After Brissot’s trial we brought in the three-day rule. But it was too
late to be helpful. There is no reason why you shouldn’t have new procedures when you need them, Fouquier. We don’t want this to take much longer.”
Ruined, corrupted, Fouquier thought, a savior bled dry: they have broken his heart. “Yes, Citizen Robespierre,” he said. “Thank you, Citizen Robespierre.”
“The Desmoulins woman has been making a lot of trouble,” Saint-Just said suddenly.
Fouquier looked up. “What kind of trouble could little Lucile make?”
“She has money. She knows a lot of people. She’s been about town since the arrests. She seems to be desperate.”
“Start at eight tomorrow,” Robespierre said. “You might foil the crowds.”
 
 
C
amille Desmoulins to Lucile Desmoulins:
I have walked for five years along the precipices of the Revolution without falling, and I am still living. I dreamt of a republic which the world would have adored; I could never have believed that men could be so ferocious and so unjust.
“O
n a day like this, one year ago, I founded the Revolutionary Tribunal. I ask pardon of God and man.”
Day Three.
“We will proceed,” Fouquier says, “to the examination of Emmanuel Frei.”
“Where are my witnesses?”
Fouquier affects surprise. “The matter of witnesses is with the Committee, Danton.”

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