A Place of Greater Safety (30 page)
Read A Place of Greater Safety Online
Authors: Hilary Mantel
The drunken grenadier dug him in the ribs. “That your wife, then?”
He stepped back and looked at the man in amazement. At that point something seemed to snap very loudly inside his head, and they had to prop him against a wall and pour brandy into him, so that soon after that nothing made much sense at all.
Another night on the streets: at five o’clock, the tocsin and the alarm cannon. “Now it begins in earnest,” Anne Théroigne said. She pulled the ribbons from her hair, and looped them into the buttonhole of his coat. Red and blue. “Red for blood,” she said. “Blue for heaven.” The colors of Paris: blood-heaven.
At six, they were at the Invalides barracks, negotiating for arms. Someone turned him around gently and pointed out to him where the rays of the early sun blazed on fixed bayonets on the Champs-de-Mars. “They’ll not come,” he said, and they didn’t. He heard his own voice saying calming, sensible things, as he looked upwards into the mouths of the cannon, where soldiers stood with lighted tapers in their hands. He was not frightened. Then the negotiation was over, and there was running and shouting. This is called storming the Invalides. For the first time he was frightened. When it was finished he leaned against the wall, and the brown-haired girl put a bayonet into his hands. He put his palm against the blade, and asked in simple curiosity, “Is it hard to do?”
“Easy,” the drunken grenadier said. “I’ve remembered you, you know. It was a matter of a little riot outside the Law Courts, couple of years back. Good day out. Sort of dropped you on the ground and kicked you in the ribs. Sorry about that. Just doing the job. Not done you any harm, by the look of it.”
Camille looked up at him steadily. The soldier was covered in blood, dripping with it, his clothes sodden, his hair matted, grinning through a film of gore. As he watched him he spun on his heels and executed a little dance, holding up his scarlet forearms.
“The Bastille, eh?” he sang. “Now for the Bastille, eh, the Bastille, the Bastille.”
D
e Launay, the governor of the Bastille, was a civilian, and he made his surrender wearing a gray frock coat. Shortly afterwards he tried to stab himself with his sword-stick, but was prevented.
e Launay, the governor of the Bastille, was a civilian, and he made his surrender wearing a gray frock coat. Shortly afterwards he tried to stab himself with his sword-stick, but was prevented.
The crowd who pressed around de Launay shouted, “Kill him.” Members of the French Guard attempted to protect him, shielding him with their bodies. But by the Church of Saint-Louis, some of the crowd tore him away from them, spat at him and clubbed and kicked him to the ground. When the Guards rescued him, his face was streaming blood, his hair had been torn out in handfuls and he was barely able to walk.
As they approached City Hall their path was blocked. There was an argument between those who wanted to put the man on trial before hanging him and those who wanted to finish him right away. Crushed and panic-striken, de Launay flung out his arms wide; they were grasped at both sides, so that he no longer had a free hand to wipe away the blood that ran from his scalp wounds into his eyes. Tormented, he struggled and lashed out with his foot. It made contact with the groin of a man named Desnot. Desnot—who was an unemployed cook—screamed in shock and agony. He fell to his knees, clutching himself.
An unknown man stepped from behind him and eyed the prisoner. After one second’s hesitation, he took a pace forward and pushed his bayonet into de Launay’s stomach. As it was withdrawn, de Launay stumbled forward onto the points of six more weapons. Someone hammered repeatedly at the back of his head with a big piece of wood. His protectors stepped back as he was dragged into the gutter, where he died. Several shots were fired into his smashed and twitching body. Desnot hobbled forward and pushed his way to the front. Somebody said, “Yours.” He fished in his pocket, his face still twisted in pain, and knelt down by the body. Threading his fingers into the remaining strands of de Launay’s hair, he flicked open a small knife, and straining back the corpse’s head began to hack away at the throat. Someone offered him a sword, but he was not confident of his ability to manage it; his face betrayed little more than his own discomfort, and he continued digging with his pocketknife until de Launay’s head was quite severed.
C
amille slept. His dreams were green, rural, full of clear water. Only at the end the waters ran dark and sticky, the open sewers and the gashed throats. “Oh, Christ,” a woman’s voice said. Choked with tears. His
head was held against a not very maternal bosom. “I am in the grip of strong emotions,” Louise Robert said.
amille slept. His dreams were green, rural, full of clear water. Only at the end the waters ran dark and sticky, the open sewers and the gashed throats. “Oh, Christ,” a woman’s voice said. Choked with tears. His
head was held against a not very maternal bosom. “I am in the grip of strong emotions,” Louise Robert said.
“You’ve been crying,” he said. He stated the obvious. How long had he slept? An hour, or half a day? He could not understand how he came to be lying on the Roberts’ bed. He did not remember how he had got there. “What time is it?” he asked her.
“Sit up,” she said. “Sit up and listen to me.” She was a little girl, pallid, with tiny bones. She walked about the room. “This is not our revolution. This is not ours, or Brissot’s or Robespierre’s” She stopped suddenly. “I knew Robespierre,” she said. “I suppose I might have been Mme. Candle of Arras, if I’d taken trouble. Would that have been a good thing for me?”
“I really don’t know.”
“This is Lafayette’s revolution,” she said. “And Bailly’s, and fucking Philippe’s. But it’s a start.” She considered him, both hands at her throat. “You of all people,” she said.
“Come back.” He held out a hand to her. He felt that he had drifted out on a sea of ice, far far beyond human contact. She sat down beside him, arranging her skirts. “I have put the shutters of the shop up. No one is interested in delicacies from the colonies. No one has done any shopping for two days.”
“Perhaps there will be no colonies. No slaves.”
She laughed. “In a while. Don’t divert me. I have my job to do. I have to stop you going anywhere near the Bastille, in case your luck runs out.”
“It’s not luck.” Barely awake, he is working on his story.
“You may think not,” Louise said.
“If I went to the Bastille, and I were killed, they’d put me in books, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes.” She looked at him oddly. “But you’re not going anywhere to be killed.”
“Unless your husband comes home and kills me,” he said, with reference to their situation.
“Oh yes.” She smiled grimly, eyes elsewhere. “Actually, I mean to be faithful to François. I think we have a future together.”
We all have a future now. It was not an accident, he thinks, it was not luck. He sees his body, tiny and flat, his hands groping for handholds against the blinding white chalk face of the future, feels his face pressed against the rock, and the giddy lurch of vertigo inside; he has always been climbing. Louise held him tightly. He sagged against her, wanting to sleep. “Such a
coup de théâtre,”
she whispered. She stroked his hair.
She brought him some coffee. Stay quite, quite still, she said. He watched it go cold. The air around him was electric. He examined the palm of his right hand. Her finger traced the cut, thin as a hair. “How would you think I got that? I don’t remember, but in the context it seems, with people being crushed to death and trampled on—”
coup de théâtre,”
she whispered. She stroked his hair.
She brought him some coffee. Stay quite, quite still, she said. He watched it go cold. The air around him was electric. He examined the palm of his right hand. Her finger traced the cut, thin as a hair. “How would you think I got that? I don’t remember, but in the context it seems, with people being crushed to death and trampled on—”
“I think you lead a charmed life,” she said. “Though I never suspected it until now.”
François Robert came home. He stood in the doorway of the room and kissed his wife on the mouth. He took off his coat and gave it to her. Then deliberately he stood in front of a mirror and combed his curly black hair, while Louise waited by him, her head not quite up to his shoulder. When he finished he said, “The Bastille has been taken.” He crossed the room and looked down at Camille. “Despite the fact that you were here, you were also there. Eyewitnesses saw you, one of the mainstays of the action. The second man inside was Hérault de Séchelles.” He moved away. “Is there some more of that coffee?” He sat down. “All normal life has stopped,” he said, as if to an idiot or small child. He pulled off his boots. “Everything will be quite different from now on.”
You think that, Camille said tiredly. He could not entirely take in what was said to him. Gravity has not been abolished, the ground below has been spiked. Even at the top of the cliff there are passes and precipices, blank defiles with sides like the sides of the grave. “I dreamt I was dead,” he said. “I dreamt I had been buried.” There is a narrow path to the heart of the mountains, stony, ambivalent, the slow-going tedious country of the mind. Still your lies, he says to himself. I did not dream that, I dreamt of water; I dreamt that I was bleeding on the streets. “You would think that my stutter might have vanished,” he said. “But life is not as charmed as that. Can you let me have some paper? I ought to write to my father.”
“All right, Camille,” Francois said. “Tell him you’re famous now.”
“Tell many people that your reputation is great; they will repeat it, and these repetitions will make your reputation.
“I want to live quickly … .”
“The Theory of Ambition” an essay:
JEAN-MARIE HÉRAULT DE SÉCHELLES
JEAN-MARIE HÉRAULT DE SÉCHELLES
Virgins
M
. Soulès, Elector of Paris, was alone on the walls of the Bastille. They had come for him early in the evening and said, Lafayette wants you. De Launay’s been murdered, they said, so you’re governor
pro tem
. Oh no, he said, why me?
. Soulès, Elector of Paris, was alone on the walls of the Bastille. They had come for him early in the evening and said, Lafayette wants you. De Launay’s been murdered, they said, so you’re governor
pro tem
. Oh no, he said, why me?
Pull yourself together, man, they’d said; there won’t be anymore trouble.
Three a.m. on the walls. He had sent back his weary escort. The night’s black as a graceless soul: the body yearns towards extinction. From Saint-Antoine, lying below him, a dog howled painfully at the stars. Far to his left a torch licked feebly at the blackness, burning in a wall-bracket: lighting the clammy stones, the weeping ghosts.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, help us now and in the hour of our deaths.
He was looking into a man’s chest, and the man had a musket.
There should be, he thought wildly, a challenge, you are supposed to say, who goes there, friend or foe? What if they say “foe,” and keep coming?
“Who are you?” the chest said.
“I am the governor.”
“The governor is dead and all chopped up into little pieces.”
“So I’ve heard. I am the new governor. Lafayette sent me.”
“Oh really? Lafayette sent him,” the chest said. There were sniggers from the darkness. “Let’s see your commission.”
Soulès reached inside his coat: handed over the piece of paper that he had kept next to his heart all these nervous hours.
“How do you expect me to read it in this light?” He heard the sound of paper crumpling. “Right,” the chest said with condescension. “I am
Captain d’Anton, of the Cordeliers Battalion of the citizens’ militia, and I am arresting you because you seem to me a very suspicious character. Citizens, carry out your duty.”
Captain d’Anton, of the Cordeliers Battalion of the citizens’ militia, and I am arresting you because you seem to me a very suspicious character. Citizens, carry out your duty.”
Soulès opened his mouth.
“No point shouting. I have inspected the guard. They’re drunk and sleeping like the dead. We’re taking you to our district headquarters.”
Soulès peered into the darkness. There were at least four armed men behind Captain d’Anton, perhaps more in the shadows.
“Please don’t think of resisting.”
The captain had a cultured and precise voice. Small consolation. Keep your head, Soulès told himself grimly.
T
hey rang the tocsin at Saint-André-des-Arts. A hundred people were on the streets within minutes. A lively district, as d’Anton had always said.
hey rang the tocsin at Saint-André-des-Arts. A hundred people were on the streets within minutes. A lively district, as d’Anton had always said.
“Can’t be too careful,” Fabre said. “Perhaps we should shoot him.”
Soulès said, over and over again, “I demand to be taken to City Hall.”
“Demand nothing,” d’Anton said. Then a thought seemed to strike him. “All right. City Hall.”
It was an eventful journey. They had to take an open carriage, as there was nothing else available. There were people already (or still) in the streets, and it was obvious to them that the Cordeliers citizens needed help. They ran along the side of the carriage and shouted, “Hang him.”
When they arrived, d’Anton said, “It’s much as I thought. The government of the city is in the hands of anyone who turns up and says, ‘I’m in charge.’” For some weeks now, an unofficial body of Electors had been calling itself the Commune, the city government; M. Bailly of the National Assembly, who had presided over the Paris elections, was its organizing spirit. True, there had been a Provost of Paris till yesterday, a royal appointee; but the mobs had murdered him, when they had finished with de Launay. Who runs the city now? Who has the seals, the stamps? This is a question for the daylight hours. The Marquis de Lafayette, an official said, had gone home to bed.
“A fine time to be asleep. Get him down here. What are we to think? A patrol of citizens leaves their beds to inspect the Bastille, wrested from tyrants at enormous cost—they find the guard the worse for drink, and this person, who cannot explain himself, claiming to be in charge.” He turned to his patrol. “Someone should account to the people. There are skeletons to be counted, one would think. Why, there may be helpless victims chained in dungeons still.”
“Oh, they’re all accounted for,” the official said. “There were only seven people in there, you know.”
Neverthless, d’Anton thought, the accommodation was always available. “What about the prisoners’ effects?” he asked. “I myself have heard of a billiard table that went in twenty years ago and has never come out.”
Laughter from the men behind. A blank wild stare from the official. D’Anton’s mood was suddenly sober. “Get Lafayette,” he said.
Jules Pare, released from clerking, grinned into the darkness. Lights flared in the Place de Grève. M. Soulès’s eyes were drawn irresistibly to the Lanterne—a great iron bracket from which a light swung. At that spot, not many hours earlier, the severed head of the Marquis de Launay had been kicked around like a football among the crowd. “Pray, M. Soulès,” d’Anton suggested pleasantly.
D
awn had broken when Lafayette appeared. D’Anton saw with disappointment that his turnout was immaculate; but his newly shaven face was flushed along the cheekbones.
awn had broken when Lafayette appeared. D’Anton saw with disappointment that his turnout was immaculate; but his newly shaven face was flushed along the cheekbones.
“Do you know what time it is?”
“Five o’clock?” d’Anton said helpfully. “Just guessing. I always thought that soldiers were ready to get up at any time of the night.”
Lafayette turned away for a second. He clenched his fists, and cast up his eyes to the red-fingered sky. When he turned back his voice was crisp and amiable. “Sorry. That was no way to greet you. Captain d’Anton, isn’t it? Of the Cordeliers?”
“And a great admirer of yours, General,” d’Anton said.
“How kind.” Lafayette gazed wonderingly at the subordinate this new world had brought him: this towering, broad-shouldered, scar-faced man. “I don’t know that this was necessary,” he said, “but I suppose you’re only doing your—best.”
“We’ll try to make our best good enough,” Captain d’Anton said doggedly.
For an instant, a suspicion crossed the general’s mind: was it possible that he was the victim of a practical joke? “This is M. Soulès, I formally identify him. M. Soulès has my full authority. Yes, of course I’ll give him a new piece of paper. Will that do?”
“That will do fine,” the captain said promptly. “But your word alone will do for me, anytime, General.”
“I’ll get back home now, Captain d’Anton. If you’ve quite finished with me.”
The captain didn’t understand sarcasm. “Sleep well,” he said. Lafayette
turned smartly, thinking, we really must decide if we’re going to salute.
turned smartly, thinking, we really must decide if we’re going to salute.
D’Anton wheeled his patrol back to the river, his eyes glinting. Gabrielle was waiting for him at home. “Why ever did you do it?”
“Shows initiative, doesn’t it?”
“You’ve only annoyed Lafayette.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“It’s just the sort of game people around here like,” Pare said. “I should think they really will make you a captain in the militia, d’Anton. Also, I should think they’ll elect you president of the district. Everybody knows you, after all.”
“Lafayette knows me,” d’Anton said.
W
ords from Versailles: M. Necker is recalled. M. Bailly is named Mayor of Paris. Momoro the printer works through the night setting up the type for Camille’s pamphlet. Contractors are brought in to demolish the Bastille. People take it away, stone by stone, for souvenirs.
ords from Versailles: M. Necker is recalled. M. Bailly is named Mayor of Paris. Momoro the printer works through the night setting up the type for Camille’s pamphlet. Contractors are brought in to demolish the Bastille. People take it away, stone by stone, for souvenirs.
The emigration begins. The Prince de Condé leaves the country in haste, lawyers’ bills and much else unpaid. The King’s brother Artois goes; so do the Polignacs, the Queen’s favorites.
On July 17, Mayor Bailly leaves Versailles in a flower-bedecked coach, arrives at City Hall at 10 a.m. and immediately sets off back again, amid a crowd of dignitaries, to meet the King. They get as far as the Chaillot fire pump: mayor, Electors, guards, city keys in silver bowl—and there they meet three hundred deputies and the royal procession, coming the other way.
“Sire,” says Mayor Bailly, “I bring Your Majesty the keys of your good city of Paris. They are the very ones that were presented to Henri IV; he had reconquered his people, and here the people have reconquered their King.”
It sounds tactless, but he means it kindly. There is spontaneous applause. Militiamen three deep line the route. The Marquis de Lafayette walks in front of the King’s coach. Cannon are fired in salute. His Majesty steps down from the coach and accepts from Mayor Bailly the nation’s new tricolor cockade: the monarchy’s white has been added to the red and the blue. He fastens the cockade to his hat, and the crowd begins to cheer. (He had made his will before he left Versailles.) He walks up the staircase of City Hall under an arch of swords. The delirious crowd pushes around him, jostling him and trying to touch him to see if he
feels the same as other people. “Long live the King,” they shout. (The Queen had not expected to see him again.)
feels the same as other people. “Long live the King,” they shout. (The Queen had not expected to see him again.)
“Let them be,” he says to the soldiers. “I believe they are truly fond of me.”
Some semblance of normal life takes hold. The shops re-open. An old man, shrunken and bony, with a long white beard, is paraded through the city to wave to the crowds who still hang about on every street. His name is Major Whyte—he is perhaps an Englishman, perhaps an Irishman—and no one knows how long he has been locked up in the Bastille. He seems to enjoy the attention he is getting, though when asked about the circumstances of his incarceration he weeps. On a bad day he does not know who he is at all. On a good day he answers to Julius Caesar.
E
xamination of Desnot, July 1789, in Paris:
xamination of Desnot, July 1789, in Paris:
Being asked if it was with this knife that he had mutilated the head of the Sieur de Launay, he answered that it was with a black knife, a smaller one; and when it was observed to him that it was impossible to cut off heads with so small and weak an instrument, he answered that, in his capacity as cook, he had learned how to handle meat.
C
amille was now
persona non grata
at the rue Condé. He had to rely on Stanislas Fréron to come and go, bring him the news, convey his sentiments (and letters) to Lucile.
amille was now
persona non grata
at the rue Condé. He had to rely on Stanislas Fréron to come and go, bring him the news, convey his sentiments (and letters) to Lucile.
“You see,” Fréron told him, “if I grasp the situation, she loved you for your fine spiritual qualities. Because you were so sensitive, so elevated. Because—as she believed—you were on a different planet from us more coarse-grained mortals. But now what happens? You turn out to be the kind of man who goes storming round the streets covered in mud and blood, inciting butchery.”
D’Anton said that Fréron was “trying to clear the field for himself, one way or another.” His tone was cynical. He quoted the remark Voltaire had made about Rabbit’s father: “If a snake bit Fréron, the snake would die.”
The truth was—but Fréron was not about to mention this—Lucile was more besotted than ever. Claude Duplessis remained convinced that if he could introduce his daughter to the right man she’d get over her obsession. But he’d have a hard job finding anyone who remotely interested her; if he found them suitable, it followed she wouldn’t. Everything
about Camille excited her: his unrespectability, his
faux-naïf
little mannerisms, his skittish intellect. Above all, the fact that he’d suddenly become famous.
about Camille excited her: his unrespectability, his
faux-naïf
little mannerisms, his skittish intellect. Above all, the fact that he’d suddenly become famous.
Fréron—the old family friend—had seen the change in Lucile. A pretty curds-and-whey miss had become a dashing young woman, with a mouth full of political jargon and a knowing light in her eye. Be good in bed, Fréron thought, when she gets there. He himself had a wife, a stay-at-home who hardly counted in his scheme of things. Anything’s possible, these days, he thought.
Unfortunately, Lucile had taken up this ludicrous fashion for calling him “Rabbit.”
C
amille didn’t sleep much: no time. When he did, his dreams exhausted him. He dreamt,
inter alia
, that the whole world had gone to a party. The scene, variously, was the Place de Grève: Annette’s drawing room: the Hall of the Lesser Pleasures. Everyone in the world was at this party. Angélique Charpentier was talking to Hérault de Séchelles; they were comparing notes about him, exploding his fictions. Sophie from Guise, whom he had slept with when he was sixteen, was telling everything to Laclos; Laclos had his notebook out, and Maitre Perrin was at his elbow, demanding attention in a lawyer’s bellow. The smirking, adhesive Deputy Pétion had linked arms with the dead governor of the Bastille; de Launay flopped about, useless without his head. His old schoolfriend, Louis Suleau, was arguing in the street with Anne Théroigne. Fabre and Robespierre were playing a children’s game; they froze like statues when the argument stopped.
amille didn’t sleep much: no time. When he did, his dreams exhausted him. He dreamt,
inter alia
, that the whole world had gone to a party. The scene, variously, was the Place de Grève: Annette’s drawing room: the Hall of the Lesser Pleasures. Everyone in the world was at this party. Angélique Charpentier was talking to Hérault de Séchelles; they were comparing notes about him, exploding his fictions. Sophie from Guise, whom he had slept with when he was sixteen, was telling everything to Laclos; Laclos had his notebook out, and Maitre Perrin was at his elbow, demanding attention in a lawyer’s bellow. The smirking, adhesive Deputy Pétion had linked arms with the dead governor of the Bastille; de Launay flopped about, useless without his head. His old schoolfriend, Louis Suleau, was arguing in the street with Anne Théroigne. Fabre and Robespierre were playing a children’s game; they froze like statues when the argument stopped.
He would have worried about these dreams, except that he was going out to dinner every night. He knew they contained a truth; all the people in his life were coming together now. He said to d’Anton, “What do you think of Robespierre?”
“Max? Splendid little chap.”
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