Citizen Tom Paine (37 page)

They were all very happy to meet Citizen Paine. Some he knew; most he had heard of, Bonaparte's generals and advisors, some of them intriguers, others open-faced men who had started off in the blue smock of the national militia in those dim, distant days of the Republic, and now were faintly troubled—though vastly impressed—by the heights to which they had risen. Some had been confidants of Robespierre and looked at Paine none too kindly; others dated from the Girondin times. It was only in events, not in years, that those periods were so ancient; almost entirely, the men at the council were young, Paine standing awkwardly among them like a fragment of the past.

It was the first time he had been in a group of French leaders and felt such a biting, incisive insularity. Heretofore, France and the world could be identified; Paris was civilization, and the revolution excluded nobody. Even during the worst of The Terror, when the revolution lashed out so frantically, it did so to defend itself, not to make itself exclusive. And in the beginning, many, many foreigners had sat in the National Convention along with native Frenchmen. The light-haired, stolid-faced, grim and tired Polish radicals had come to Paris after fighting alongside the Americans in the Revolution; British exiles, too, had come by the hundreds, Prussians who loathed what Prussia had come to stand for, Italians who dreamed of a free Italy, Spaniards who dreamed of a free Spain; they had all come to a rendezvous at Paris, because Paris was the heart and soul of the revolution, and the Parisians had welcomed them.

But here that was gone; this was a narrow, close gathering, and the terms used were entirely terms of military conquest. Enough of such drivel as freedom and liberty and fraternity and equality; this was Bonaparte.

When they said, “Most pleased to greet you, Citizen Paine,” he knew they were thinking, “How useful will this Englishman be?”

When he spoke—and his French was still execrable, for all the years he had spent in France—they could not keep their lips from curling at his accent; and when they, in turn, said something which they did not wish him to understand, they lapsed into their quick, flashing patois, a rippling flow of sound that was utterly meaningless to Paine.

Finally, they were all assembled, and the council came to order. The men were seated in the form of a horseshoe, at the open end of which Napoleon stood behind a small table. There was a chair for him, but not once during the council did he sit down. Most of the time he paced back and forth, as if consumed by a nervous energy which would give him no rest. When he spoke, his head poked forward like a bird's and sometimes he would fling an arm at the man to whom he was speaking. Paine had a feeling that through all his thoughts, through all his scheming, planning, lightening-quick decisions, he was never for a moment forgetful of the fact that he was so small, so pudgy, so little physically of what a great conqueror should be. His French was not the French of the others; it rasped, it grated, it popped sometimes like rapid fire. He could be imperious, and a moment later, meek and humble; he had a black forelock which in moments of anger he shook down over his high white brow, over his eye. He could be crossed only when he asked himself to be crossed.

“We speak not of France, not of Europe, but of the world,” he began.

Marcy: “And the world belongs to England.”

“Does it? I presume more of the world. I presume it is not the possession of a nation of clerks and shopkeepers.”

D'Arcon: “They are very good sailors.”

Bonaparte: “One does not have to be a Columbus to cross the English Channel.”

Gabreou: “That, sir, makes it a question of transport and potentials. I have no doubt that with the continent of Europe at our backs, we can outbuild them ten to one. If it is merely a question of putting an army ashore on the coast of England, we should not regard that as an obstacle, but rather as a problem.”

Bonaparte: “Then as a problem?”

Gabreou: “It can be solved, naturally.”

D'Arçon: “I am sorry, sir, if I do not see it that way. At least all our first brigades will be cut to pieces unless we raise some sort of diversion among the people. The manpower of France is not limitless, and there is no operation so difficult as a landing against a defended line of coast.”

Bonaparte: “We have with us that illustrious republican, Citizen Paine. Already, I think, I have made it clear to him that our whole movement is a continuation of the revolution. Citizen Paine has had signal success with the revolutionary cause in England. We may presume that had not the liberal party abandoned him to the Tories, he would have been successful. What do you say, Citizen Paine, to a popular uprising in England?”

Paine: “There is no doubt that the British people have grievances enough against their rulers.”

Bonaparte: “Then they will aid a French army? They will not resist?”

Paine (
very quietly
): “I think they will resist, sir. I think they will cut your army to pieces. I think that if you invade England, not a man of the invading force will return to France.”

Bonaparte: “Are you trying to make a fool of me, citizen?”

Paine (
uncertainly
): “I don't know—it is so many years since I have been in England. I did not think, coming here, that it would be a question of military invasion.”

D'Arçon: “Did Citizen Paine imagine that we proposed to invade England without weapons?”

Paine (
very uncertainly
): “I didn't know—I thought that the revolution would be reaffirmed. The English people are disaffected and mistreated, but that would not matter in the case of invasion.”

Bonaparte: “And why would that not matter?”

Paine: “Because, my general, it must be understood that in England there are two things, the people and the empire. The empire can be destroyed, but the people cannot be conquered. Force would only unify them, and if you were to land an army on their shores they would forget that they work for sixpence a day and remember only that they are Englishmen. The revolution must come from within them, not with invasion. With the empire, it is another matter.”

Bonaparte (
very evenly and coldly
): “And how is it another matter with the empire, Citizen Paine?”

Paine (
wavering, but his voice gaining in strength as he speaks
): “The empire is vulnerable. Make peace, promote franchise, reassert the principles of the Republic and proclaim them throughout Europe, cry out for the rights of man, win back the glory of Republican France and ally yourself with Republican America. What is the empire? Commerce? Then proclaim the freedom of the seas and enforce it; America will join you; abolish duties and open the ports, and see how long Britain can compete with you. Is the empire subjugation? Then glorify France, establish old-age pensions, lower the working hours, raise the pay of the poor, and proclaim the revolution far and wide. Then the English people will rise up and join you. England can't be conquered, but she can be won.”

There was a silence after that, a silence so deep and ominous that Paine felt sick and afraid. From the old sores, there was heat and fire as he felt his way back to his chair. This end, this last frail hope was over. This was the outcome of all he had lived for, invasion of the green shores of England, death and destruction to all the small men and women he had once promised to lead from the abyss into bright sunlight.

And Gabreou, rising, sneered, “Citizen Paine, I presume, talks as an Englishman?”

There was one spark left; groping to his feet, Paine whispered, “Ask that of the dead, not of the living. Ask the people of three nations whether Paine ever spoke other than for humanity.”

And Bonaparte said, “That is enough, Monsieur Paine.”

15

“
BUT NO MAN KNOWETH OF HIS SEPULCHRE …
”

I
T WAS
a long passage, but not a bad one; even for the time, it was long, fifty-four days now and still no landfall. The experienced travelers said, no, that was nothing at all; a bad voyage was a hundred days; ships were better now in this year of 1802; you didn't call a voyage bad until the drinking water went bad, and, God willing, there would be a landfall tomorrow's dawn.

Tomorrow's dawn found half the passengers clustered on the foredeck, each wanting to have first sight of the good, green country called America; and the same thing happened on the next day and the next, each time more passengers crowding the dipping prow until at last land was sighted.

Among the passengers was the old man, Paine, standing silently at the rail, peering ahead, trembling a little, and nodding when the captain said, in a rich, down-east twang:

“Looks good, the old country, aye, Mr. Paine?”

“Yes—”

“A leetle bit changed, but not so much that you won't recognize it.”

“It's been a long time.”

“Well, that's the way. A man may have an itch to travel, but he's mighty glad to get home in the end.” Above, they were making sail, and as a loose rope whipped by, the captain roared up, “Look lively there, you confounded lubbers!” And then to Paine, “We'll make Baltimore close enough, just a day or two. You'll be going on to Washington?”

“I had planned to,” Paine nodded. His voice was somewhat hesitant as he said, “I will want to see my old friend, Mr. Jefferson. It's been a long time—”

“There you are,” the captain laughed, raising his voice enough to make sure that those standing by overheard him talking so familiarly with a friend of the President of the United States. Privately, he had little enough sympathy with this old rascal, although Paine was in no way so repulsive as he had been pictured. He was said to be the enemy of Christianity. The captain was a religious man and didn't hold with that sort of thing, but still it never hurt to put in the right word at the right place.

“There you are,” he laughed. “I go home to the missus, and you go off to dinner with the president.”

And it was time enough, Paine thought to himself, that he had come home. A man wants to die in a friendly place; he wants to have a friend or two about him. The world is too big—a man wants to have just a little corner of it when he's old and tired. They might hate him, laugh at him, abuse him everywhere else on earth; but America would not forget. The times that tried men's souls were not so long ago that they should have any real reason for forgetfulness. Washington was dead, but most of the others were still alive. They would remember old Common Sense.

They hadn't wanted much to do with him on shipboard, and that was just as well; break clean; his work was done. Napoleon was the master of Europe, and all Paine wanted now was to go home and forget.

He came into the president's house, and the colored doorman announced, “Mr. Paine to see the president,” and it was too much a dream. He felt like an old man in front of Tom Jefferson, although there was only six years' difference in their ages; Paine felt used up and purposeless before the tall, straight, handsome person who was President of the United States. Jefferson was at the height of his power and glory; the second phase of the revolution, they called it when he won the election, the dawn of the day of the common man. And Paine was used up and finished.

But Jefferson, striding forward, offering his hand and smiling, said, “Tom, Tom, you're a sight for old eyes. So the wars are over, and you've come home! It's the turn of the wheel, Tom; it's a sign that fortune is smiling when old comrades come together again.”

Paine could say nothing; he smiled and then he began to cry, and then Jefferson was tactful enough to leave him alone. The old man sat in the reception room of the new presidential house, crying maudlin tears, taking snuff with a trembling hand, and then crying again.

He was all right when Jefferson came back; he was wandering through the two front rooms, peering at the old furniture and standing back to look at the oil portraits of men he had once known and fought by.

“It's new,” Jefferson explained. “The whole city is new. I like to think that someday it will be one of the great capitals of the world.”

“It will be,” Paine said solemnly.

“You'll stay for dinner, of course?”

“The president is a busy man—”

“That's nonsense, and you'll stay for dinner, Tom. We have a lot to talk about.”

Paine was eager to stay. All during the trip across, he had been speculating upon how Jefferson would welcome him. Even now the two Toms were grouped together as the world's foremost democrats, and it would be strange indeed if there was not some place for him in the Jefferson administration, even a very small place, such as secretary to the British or French legation, or perhaps one of the lesser cabinet ministers. That would be better, for it would permit him to spend his last years in America, and how could Jefferson evade the responsibility? Didn't he show immediately that he remembered the old times? A little work, a little honor, a little respect, and he would be able to die content.

It was good to be home.

At dinner, Jefferson beat all around the subject before he came directly to it. Talking about old times, he picked up one memory after another, and it soon became apparent to Paine that he was handling them uneasily; Jefferson was not a man to play hob with his own conscience; he lived by words and ideals, not by actions. He said to Paine:

“It's not that we ever differed. Our ends were always the same.”

And Paine, eagerly, “That was a consolation in the worst times. If things were black, they were never so black but that I was able to tell myself, There's one man in the world who understands and believes.”

When coffee and brandy were served, Jefferson shifted the conversation to Paine's experiences in Europe. But the old man was not anxious to bring back memories of a great hope that had died. It seemed incredibly banal of the president to ask so curiously of those gallant men who had gone forth from the Luxembourg to meet their deaths, Clootz, Danton, Condorcet. Of Marat's murder by Charlotte Corday, Paine would say nothing at all.