A Shot Rolling Ship (16 page)

So every trader paid their dues, and passed the cost on to the citizens of a capital that seethed with fear of speculators. Quite likely émigrés, should there still be any, could get out of Paris as long as they had the funds and made the proper arrangements in advance, the sum based on their need and their implied crimes, which was why the men who now ran France, and suffered from the delusion
as to the number of their enemies, tried to make sure they were locked up before they could escape. Enemies of the Revolution entered Paris even more easily, for the
fonctionnaires
who manned the gates saw it as no part of their duty to protect anything other than their investment. There was a risk; every so often they would ostentatiously apprehend some individual, almost certainly someone without the means to pay a bribe, and march him off to the nearest prison. Guilt or innocence mattered less than appearances; the gatekeepers of Paris had to be seen to be doing their duty.

Pearce got through for a bundle of paper
assignats
, the heartily disliked currency of the Revolution, money which went down in value on a daily basis, a stack of which he had exchanged for one golden guinea in St Omer. Another couple of guineas had got him some pre-Revolutionary coinage, which he needed to buy food, and was useful where an inducement, most in his case, was not worth the expenditure of more than silver or copper. His vegetable grower lost two boxes of cabbages from the back of his wagon, and though he cursed the robbing bastards who taxed him, he did so in a very soft voice that they could not hear. In fairness, Pearce gave him some of his
assignats
to alleviate the loss.

Near the vegetable market, still north of the Seine, he retrieved his garments from their hiding place and parted company from the grateful farmer, disappearing into the maze of narrow streets that constituted the Marais section of the city. From there he made his way down the Rue
du Temple to the river, and looked with a creeping sense of despair at the walls of the Conciergerie, at the constant stream of people coming and going through the great gate, before crossing the twin parts of the Seine by the Pont Neuf, past Notre Dame, and heading for the Quartier St Généviere behind the University of Paris, where he and his father had lived for two years.

At the house which contained the apartment his father had rented, three floors up in the Rue St Etienne de Gres, he found a broken lock on the street door, with whatever the place had contained, furniture and possessions, looted. The two lower floors, occupied by a maker of coach lamps and his plump wife, had been comfortably furnished, better than that with which he had endowed the floor he rented. Now, what had not been taken had been smashed or wrecked, not that there was much of that, some broken chairs, torn drapes and the shards of a mirror; they looked as if they had suffered in the rush to steal rather than been left for lack of value. Up the stairs he went, knowing that he would, likewise, find his own and his father’s possessions gone.

It saddened him to stand at the open door and survey what had become of the place in which he had so recently lived. It had been cold in winter and too damned hot in summer, but it represented the only home he could truly say he had shared with his father, for in Paris their travelling existence had stopped, and even if Adam Pearce had things to do, he was, for the first time in many years, free from responsibilities. Regardless of what was happening outside 
the cracked panes of glass on the windows it had been a place from which a youngster might come and go knowing that there was some constancy in his life. Right now it was too painful to look at the bare floor boards stripped of oilcloth, the empty grate of the fire by which his father was wont to work in winter, oblivious to the smoke which never ever wholly made its way up the chimney or the missing desk by the window, which was flooded by daylight when the sun shone.

Pearce turned, went back downstairs and secured the front door, jamming it shut with a sliver of broken timber, wondering about the owners. Had they fled, or been arrested, denounced for a trade that served the wealthy, or worse, caught up just because his father had been arraigned? Whatever, they were gone, so he had a place to lay his head, albeit on a bare floor with nothing but the rags of those torn drapes to cover him. The well in the backyard still functioned, a scoop still in the bucket. There was broken timber for a fire to heat water in, so using the shards of mirror he was able to wash and shave and that completed, and having hidden his pistol and other possessions in the rear courtyard, he set out to see what he could find. The result was depressing; most houses he called at were either empty or occupied by grubby strangers, who were happy to imply that the previous owner was
sans tête
.

Others, people who had been friends to Adam Pearce in the past, refused to open their doors to the son of a man in prison, lest some sharp eye spotted the connection and denounced them. The church house in Cluny where
his tutor, the Abbé Morlant, had lived, was a gutted, burnt out shell, with no one passing willing or able to tell him why or how it had happened. The old Abbé had, of course, refused to take the Oath to the Constitution demanded by the state, and had thus earned the dubious honour of becoming what was called a non-juring priest, a man loyal to Rome, not the Revolution. He crossed the river to the Hotel de Ville to see if he could find anyone who might intercede, only to find his way blocked by a crowd of supplicants, all with a grievance, a complaint or seeking a favour from the men who held the power in Paris Commune.

It was impossible to miss the fear that permeated the entire citizenry. Paris had been a city of laughter, the streets as full of costermongers, jugglers, fire-eaters and hucksters as it was of beggars, pickpockets and thieves. Now it seemed full of the destitute. Nowhere was this more obvious than around the Palais-Royale, home to the one-time Duc d’Orleans, now the self-styled Philippe Egalité who had voted for the death of his royal cousin. The colonnaded passages that surrounded the palace had been home to all sorts of whores and pimps, pornographers, writers of scurrilous pamphlets, silver and goldsmiths, purveyors of luxury goods, and charlatans passing off everything from useless patent medicines to false religious relics. It was from the Café du Foy that Camille Desmoulins had started the riot that led to the fall of the Bastille.

The Palais-Royale had not only survived the fall of that Royal prison, it had seemed to thrive on it, its cafes and
restaurants and walkways filled to overflowing. Only the pornographers were left now, selling tales old and new of the supposed debauchery of the Queen and the ladies of the court; they, the whores, the pimps and the vendors of the dozens of news sheets which flooded the city, spewing forth bile. Most had long since ceased to be purveyors of news if you excepted listing, as they did, those who had been condemned to the guillotine, and had become organs for the various ranting editors. Denunciation stood at the core of their polemics, of anyone remotely tainted by their own less than objective standards, that and demands for more radical reforms to the way the nation was run, in reality a plea by those who penned them to be elevated to a station where they could put their ideas into action.

Further on along the Rue de Faubourg St Honoré lay the Jacobin Club and Pearce stopped to look at the message above the door; a mockery, for there was no
Humanité, Indivisibilité, Liberté, Egalité or Fraternité
that he could feel, only the kind of naked power that reduced the people to beggars after justice. He turned away from that, momentarily debating the worth of making for the National Assembly, housed in the Tuileries Palace, when a voice addressed his back.

‘Young Monsieur Pearce, is it not?’

John froze, turning slowly, not knowing whom he was about to encounter. The man looking at him had a handsome if somewhat florid face, thick red lips and, as he placed the name, a dark colouring that betokened his southern upbringing. He was well dressed, almost dandyish 
in burgundy silk, which seemed a dangerous thing to be in such times when black was the colour of choice, but he also seemed to have an assurance that such display, in his case at any rate, was acceptable. The lips were smiling and there was no animosity in the dark brown eyes.

‘Monsieur de Cambacérès.’

‘Indeed.’

He had met Régis de Cambacérès many times, because he was a man who frequented the same salons as those which welcomed young Monsieur Pearce, though John had always tried to avoid too close an association with the man, because, although interesting in a firebrand sort of way, he was a well known and quite open pederast. That he had gravitated, in those salons, towards a handsome young fellow and engaged him in conversation was to be expected, but it was under no circumstances, however enlightening, to be encouraged.

‘I was given to understand that you had left Paris.’

‘You know about my father?’

‘Sadly, yes.’ That was examined for hypocrisy, but to Pearce it seemed genuine, as Cambacérès added, ‘Walk with me. It does not do these days to be seen standing and talking in the street. Suspicious minds, of which we have an abundance, see conspiracy everywhere, even in innocent conversation.’

‘You have come from the Jacobin Club?’

‘I have,’ Cambacérès sighed. ‘I swear the place becomes more tedious by the day.’

As they began to walk, John remembered a
conversation he had had with his father about this man, with old Adam wondering how the one time deputy to the Legislative Assembly had survived when so many of his contemporaries had fled. Régis de Cambacérès had been an original electee to the States General in ’89, had taken the famous oath in the Tennis Courts, had been, if not at the forefront of the Revolution, a leading light. Vain, highly intelligent, not given to holding his tongue when he saw political chicanery, he had become a member of the National Assembly as well, voting openly for the death of King Louis, yet not afraid to denounce those who shared the odium of that ballot if he felt they were less than true to the revolutionary purity he saw as essential. The man, in short, was a survivor.

‘It was unwise of your father to publish his views.’

‘Nothing would stop him,’ Pearce replied. Cambacérès obviously detected the slight weariness in that reply, for he looked at his young companion keenly. ‘It has been his way all his life, and at least he has been in prison before.’

‘I doubt even an English jail would prepare him for what he faces now?’

‘What does he face?’

‘It is small consolation,’ the Frenchman said, avoiding the question, ‘to observe that he is in excellent company. I daresay with the quality of mind that these rabid dogs have incarcerated, the highest level of debate in Paris today is in its prisons.’

Pearce thought it not the sort of remark you made at
a time like this if you wanted to be safe. Indeed it was exactly the kind of expression of opinion that had probably seen his father arrested. ‘Are you still a member of the Assembly, monsieur?’

‘I am, and of the Committee of Public Defence, which is supposed to be the guardian of the Revolution.’

‘Can my father be got out of the Conciergerie?’

Cambacérès stopped, and looked at the younger man. ‘You are asking me if I have the power to intervene?’ ‘I am.’

‘Alas, I fear not. Indeed at this very moment Danton and my pretty young friend St Just are conspiring to edge me off the aforesaid Committee, since they find the way I disagree with them so frequently unpalatable. They are in the process of forming a new body, of which I suspect I will not be a member.’

‘Who then?’

‘Danton could do it, but you must understand, young Jean, that he has Mayor Pache and the beasts of the Paris Commune at his heels, watching his every move, who want to cut off the head of everyone in France with either blue blood or a brain. Quite apart from that the air is full of treachery. No one trusts our generals not to surrender to the Austrians or Prussians, Lyon and Marseilles refuse to accept the writ of Paris, and there is a full scale effort to restore the monarchy in the Vendée.’

‘I believe he was denounced by a man called Fouché.’

The reply was non-committal. ‘Was he?’

‘Could I appeal to him?’

‘He is not in Paris. Fouché has been sent to Lyon as a Representative on Mission.’ Seeing the look of confusion on John Pearce’s face, Cambacérès explained about this new revolutionary office. ‘They carry with them the power of the Committee of Public Defence, soon, I believe, to be renamed Public Safety, and they have the power to impose the Revolution by whatever means are necessary. But I am bound to say, even if he was here, he is a loathsome creature, to whom I doubt any appeal would be successful.’

‘I need help.’

‘I can offer you hospitality, food, a place to lay your head, but not more. I desire to keep my head on my shoulders and pleading for someone denounced by a fellow member of the Jacobin Club, however odious, is not the way to achieve that. There are too many voices in the Assembly looking for victims, so that they may prove the purity of their own revolutionary credentials.’

‘It is kind of you, but no.’

The slight smile on Cambacérès’ thick red lips was wet and unattractive. ‘You fear for your virtue?’

Pearce did not want to offend this man, it being a bad idea to do so when he had no notion what tomorrow would bring. ‘Let me just say that, with all the other things I have to worry about, I would not want to add that to the list.’

‘Politely put, young man,’ the Frenchman replied with good humour. ‘I recall you had a deft turn of phrase. The offer stands, if you should need it. My home is just along
from the Jacobins in the Rue de Faubourg St Honoré. It is open to you should you need it, and you have word that hospitality is all I will offer you.’

‘Thank you,’ John replied, ‘now I must go and see if I can visit my father.’

‘Then I wish you both good luck.’

Dispirited, he made his way back past the Louvre and along the banks of the Seine, crossing the Pont Neuf once more to westernmost point of the Ile de la Cité, a walk around the Conciergerie depressing him even further. The walls were thick, the windows – heavily barred at ground level – were small, the gates massive, closed and well guarded. Eyeing the place provided no solutions as to how to get someone free, but the escorted tumbrel that came out of the massive gate on the far side, with six miserable looking souls stood up in it, two women and four men, hands tied behind their backs, provided an even more telling reason to do something, though a quick search of the faces relieved him of the worry that his father might be amongst them.

As soon as the passers-by spotted them, they reached for some of the abundant filth that lay in the streets and began to pelt the prisoners, and the names they used to denigrate
these poor unfortunates left Pearce in no doubt as to their station or their fate; they were condemned souls, being taken across and along the bank of the river to le Place de la Revolution, where a gathering crowd and a guillotine awaited them. With a sinking heart he watched them as they rattled over the cobbles, only the bonds that lashed them to the cart keeping them upright, drums playing as their solemn escort marched them to their death. One woman sobbed uncontrollably, the others looked straight ahead in studied defiance. The men had their heads bowed and all were in filthy rags that had once been fine clothes, evidence of long incarceration. Who where they, what had they done? Probably little, and certainly nothing to warrant the loss of their heads. He fought a morbid desire to follow them; he had seen enough of executions before he left Paris nearly two months before, including that of the King.

Yet the sight of that tumbrel gave urgency to his needs and he made his way to the Café St Florien, which lay across a short bridge to the Ile St Louis, the place where those with business at the Conciergerie took their refreshments. If food was short in Paris, there seemed no evidence of it here; everyone seemed to be able to eat their fill as long as they had the means to pay. It was busy with noisy advocates, who were determined not to confine their arguments to a court of law, of men with hooded eyes who looked like functionaries of the state, they who would execute the warrants issued by the demagogues who now ruled France, and who looked at him as if measuring him for arrest. There were, too, sad-eyed looking individuals,
men and women who, no doubt like him, had relatives behind the massive walls that surrounded the nearby prison. It was they who identified for him the men he must talk to, as they sought favours from the
gardiens
who manned the world beyond the gates, and who used this place to trade for the right to either news of a relative or a visit.

One seemed more approachable than the rest, a
heavy-jowled
fellow in a leather waistcoat and a grubby cap of liberty, with a stomach so huge that it defied gravity, that surmounted by a thick belt which had on it a ring for the keys he had left behind. He approached him once the others supplicants had finished, to be greeted by a raised eyebrow and a cynical sneer on a near round face that spoke volumes. Here was a fellow who knew he was cock-of-thewalk, a man who could demand and get obeisance from those to whom he might formally have had to grovel. His love of the power he wielded was so obvious that Pearce had to stifle the temptation to clout him and wipe that smirk off his face, his body shaking with the tension that emotion produced. It was doubly galling that the trembling seemed to be evident in his voice, which was taken by the
gardien
to represent fear.

‘I want to go in to the prison.’

A flick of the head preceded the reply, given in the kind of gutter French from the eastern part of the city that would have been incomprehensible to anyone who had not lived in Paris, and the smell of his breath was redolent of garlic and stale wine. ‘There be one or two here’ll take you in if you so desire.’

John deliberately juggled a number of coins in his hand, the dull sound of which made the man narrow his eyes, which led Pearce to wonder how often he was offered real money instead of
assignats
or goods in kind. Clearly he knew the sound of gold from that of copper and silver.

‘My father is in there.’

Suddenly he was all concern. ‘Then keep your voice down, for those same men will have you up. Blood relative to a prisoner is enough. What is his name?’

‘Pearce, Adam. Not French.’

He looked at him keenly then, to see if the name made any impression. There were a lot of people in the crowded prison, probably well over a thousand, that he knew, but someone not of French nationality should stand out. Nothing in the blank expression obliged.

‘A foreigner?’

Pearce nodded, ‘I assume it is possible.’

‘It is, if the fee be right,’ then, annoyingly, he smirked again. ‘Seein’ as it has to get you out again.’

‘English gold.’

That was a risk, but one he had to take. The man did not even blink. ‘As good as any?’

‘One in, and another when I come out.’

The heavy jowled cheeks shook slowly. ‘Two to go in and out, paid here and now.’

That was steep, but being in no position to bargain, Pearce nodded, yet he did wonder at the sense of what he was doing, knowing that he might himself never get out
again. Not for the first time since leaving Colbourne’s ship he was conscious of being alone, without support, so he added, ‘I will want to visit him more than once.’

The
gardien
nodded to indicate he understood the message; that there was more gold to come and Pearce resolved that after he had seen his father, he would ask this turd how much of a bribe it would take to get the old man out. He might not have enough, there might not be a sum that was enough, but there was no harm in knowing. Before they left he bought some bread, cheese and a
straw-covered
flagon of wine. Having been incarcerated before, he knew that they would be welcome.

Let in through a heavily guarded postern door that opened onto the Rue du Palais, John Pearce was glad he had not given much consideration to a daring rescue. There had been escapes from the Paris prisons, but that had been in the early days of proscription, before those in charge got their regime properly organised. Walking beside the stout, waddling
gardien
, Pearce surmised he had been a royal gaoler before he had become a revolutionary one; he had that air about him of a man long in his occupation. Nods were exchanged at the next gate, silent looks that no doubt told his fellows warders that there was a share of something good for letting them through. It was how they made their living, that and fleecing the prisoners for every favour granted. They were cast from the same mould as the Bridewell warders he and his father had had to deal with in London, and while one part of Pearce saw that they had little choice if they were to eat,
he could not fathom what sort of man would choose such a life as an occupation. The last postern gate led into a vaulted guardroom and the
gardien
took him through a side door from that.

‘Can’t use the Great Hall,’ he said. ‘Tribunals sitting.’

‘What tribunal?’

As soon as he said that Pearce cursed himself for an unguarded comment, for it had the potential to engender suspicions in the
gardien
’s mind which he would rather not raise. The Paris he had lived in before was daily awash with rumours of plots and daring rescues, mostly of the royals. Few, if any, were true, but that did not stop the mill of rumour fabricating and disseminating them.

‘Where you been, the moon?’ the
gardien
sneered. ‘The Revolutionary Tribunal, that God willing, now that it is sitting permanent, is going to chalk the doors and clear some of the folk out of this place, ’cause I tell you no lie when I say it is bursting at the seams.’

‘I have been away from the city.’

‘Then you missed them doin’ what should have been done this last year. Stands to reason you can’t just keep takin’ traitors up without the sods going somewhere, not that a few don’t die right here. The tribunal will do the trick. Drag ’em in and if they’re innocent, not that there’s many of those, they’re free. If not, then it’s straight out the door to execution and good riddance.’

These words echoed off the walls of a series of dank, dimly lit corridors, which finally brought them to a
courtyard surrounded by high walls and windows, crowded with humanity, the hub of noise dying as all eyes fixed on the pair just come through the last postern gate. With a shock John Pearce realised that the look on their faces was one of terror, not curiosity. They feared the call to that tribunal the
gardien
had talked about, to be followed by the tumbrel and the blade, and this is how it would come to them, except it would be a man with their name on a piece of paper.

‘One sandglass, then I’ll come back for you. Be waiting for me, for I shan’t wait on you.’

As he moved forward, the crowd parted, no one, given they had no idea who he was, wanting to make eye or bodily contact, in case he was the representative of the Grim Reaper. In his cloak, hat and his bold tricolour cockade he probably looked like one, and he would have removed the latter so as to appear less threatening if he had not been clasping the provisions he had bought. Scanning the faces, looking for his father, he could not help but notice how much faded grandeur there was in the person and clothes of some of those who looked away, of the same sort as he had seen in that tumbrel. Once beautiful women looking haggard, their dresses turned to rags, men of all ages in
ancien régime
coats that had once been bright but were now dun coloured and dirty. Those who had once been fat now had folds of skin hanging off them in the same manner as their now too large clothes, and it took no great insight to see that everyone here was close to starving.

He would have asked where they slept and where they eased themselves if the stench and the bundles of untidy straw that lined the outer walls did not make that unnecessary and he surmised that each morning some of the bodies that huddled against that wall at night would not move, would not wake to the new day. They would be carted out, to be thrown into a common grave somewhere outside the walls of Paris; the régime had more ways to dispose of its enemies than ritualised decapitation. It was common knowledge that there were dungeons below his feet,
oubliettes
, so dank, cold and perennially wet that made this courtyard a place to value.

A series of large chambers, equally crowded, lay off the courtyard; no cleaner than outside they at least had the virtue of shelter from the elements. From one he heard the sound of singing, a sweet young male voice intoning the phrases of a hymn, that in itself, in this place, seeming like an act of defiance. Pushing his way through a watching crowd, John found the source, a young man in a straw-coloured wig that had once been dressed white and a coat that had once been fine, rendering his
chanson
to an audience rapt with attention, most with their eyes closed, no doubt seeing behind those lids the better life than the one they lived now. Behind them rose a set of stone stairs that led to the landings above, the space between each riser seemingly the home of one prisoner. The landings and tiny cell-like rooms on the upper floor were just as crowded, each enquiry he made met with
mostly slack-eyed indifference, at best a slow and weary shake of the head.

He found his father eventually, after many enquiries, in a cot in one of those cells, propped up by a roughly made pillow of straw wrapped in cloth, his appearance shocking, the green coat with pale silk facing he had been so pleased with when new, now just as dull as those of everyone else in this place. The already lined face was now skeletal; sunken eye sockets, prominent jaw bones and a mouth that was slack from the loss of muscle. Taking his cold hand and leaning close John heard mumbled words that were familiar, the same tirade now whispered against all the things the Edinburgh Ranter had opposed all his life; kings, courts, obsequious lackeys, rack-rent landlords and the stupidity of those who maintained them by their refusal to risk change.

‘Father.’

It took several shakes of the hand, and repetition of the word, to open the eyes, and there was a moment when it seemed there was no recognition. Then just a flicker of the bright blue eyes presaged a ghost of a smile, and, as the squeeze was returned, he said, ‘Laddie.’

About to say that ‘he had come to take him home,’ John stopped. How was he going to get him out of here in this condition? He needed to be fed, needed a doctor, for there was little likelihood that the affliction that had kept him in Paris had abated. He felt a flash of anger then. Why had he not been silent? Why had he continued to bait people with the power to do this to him? It did
not last long, for John Pearce knew that if his father was stubborn, a man who refused to bend, then it was a trait he had inherited.

‘Who are you?’

Pearce turned to face the gently posed question, to find himself looking into another skeletal face. ‘I am his son.’

‘Ah! He has spoken of you often, with much pride I might add.’

‘Do not all fathers praise their sons?’

‘No, young man, they do not. Most curse them roundly as wastrels until they have sons of their own. Only then do they become indulgent.’

‘Do not argue with the Marquis, laddie,’ croaked his father, feebly trying to raise himself, ‘look what he has reduced me to.’

‘You should remain still, Adam, as I told you. You know how movement causes you pain.’ As he spoke, John Pearce was looking at the face of this Marquis, and what he saw there was genuine concern; indeed, if John had not been there he was sure this man would have come forward to help his father, for he smiled as he said, ‘You will observe he has not lost the power of disobedience.’

‘He will never lose that, monsieur…?’

‘De la Motte,’ the Marquis replied, ‘at your service.’

John Pearce, as he turned back to his father, had the vague sensation that he had met this man before, but he could not place him. Not that such a thing was unusual, for Adam Pearce had been much fêted when he came
to Paris by those who had read his writings. Even men who wished only to curb the power of the monarchy, and found his republican ideas too radical, sought out the new arrival.