Daughters of the Storm (37 page)

‘Alors,'
he said, drinking his share, ‘the sooner I begin writing letters to the authorities, the sooner we shall be out of this place.'

The evening fell and the inhabitants of La Force prepared themselves for another night of incarceration. The sound of voices died. Those fortunate enough to occupy cells moved quietly around inside them, tending their clothes, letter-writing or praying. In the corridors the nightly scuffles as to who slept in what space were subsiding and the prisoners laid out on long rows of straw pallets grew quiet, only a moan or a snore breaking the stillness.

The marquis slept fitfully. At one point he imagined he was back at Versailles, consulting with the king. He could hear a babble of courtiers' voices and his own debating some issue. He jerked in his sleep. Above him the painted ceiling of the king's council chamber melted into harsh grey stone and he turned in surprise – to encounter a hard, unfamiliar mattress. The marquis raised himself on one elbow to reassure himself that the marquise was sleeping. She lay motionless, her hair in neat plaits. The marquis settled himself with his face to the wall and thought of his paintings.

The prisoners in La Force slept on.

*

Near dawn the marquis was torn from sleep by a cry – an unearthly sound filled with pain and terror that sent him crashing bolt upright. The cry came again, sharp and anguished, ending with a terrified choking, and this time the marquis heard the sounds of laughter and a stream of oaths.

He threw back the blanket and groped his way towards the door to peer through the bars set into the wood at eye level. In the gloom he could just make out the outlines of the sleeping figures in the corridors, some of whom, like himself, had been rudely awakened. Once again a scream tore through the air.

‘Qu'est-ce qui passe?'
hissed a voice.

‘I don't know,' whispered the marquis from his vantage point. ‘But I think it would be best if you pretend to be asleep.'

A tramping of feet interrupted him, and a group of men swung round the corner. They carried flaring torches which cast uneven patches of light and sent demonic shadows up the wall. They moved purposefully along the row of sleepers. The marquis shrank back. He knew at once that these intruders were murderous and that something foul was afoot. One of the men gestured to his companion and leant over to jerk a sleeping figure upright. The prisoner stumbled blearily to his feet and his captor slapped him round the face in order to wake him. The prisoner gave a cry of protest.

‘Shut up,' ordered the man. ‘And follow me.'

By now six or seven other prisoners were on their feet. The guards prodded them down the corridor and out of sight. The cries began again.

‘What is it?' the marquise was awake, hugging her blanket to her.

‘Nothing, my dear,' replied the marquis.

‘Charles, something terrible is going on. I know it. Listen to those screams.'

The marquise slumped back on the mattress and pressed her hands to her ears.

‘We must pray,' said the marquis quickly, and knelt down by the window.

‘Dear God,' he began, and as he did so the door swung open. The marquise screamed and the marquis spread his arms out in an involuntary movement to protect her.

‘None of that,' said a voice from the doorway. ‘We don't want her. Only you.'

An icy chill settled on the marquis, but with it came courage. He drew himself to his full height, every inch the courtier. ‘You dogs,' he said slowly and with some relish. ‘You filthy murdering dogs.'

The gaoler laughed and gestured over his shoulder.

‘Here,' he said, ‘we have a joker.'

Two of his companions stood in the doorway with torches, and even in the deceptive light the marquis could see the blood smeared on their arms and clothes.

Behind him the terrified marquise sobbed. Then she too chose to pull herself together. She got up from the bed and took her husband's arm.

‘Charles,' she murmured, and in her voice were the memories of the life they had shared. ‘Charles.'

‘Marguerite,' he said, proud that she had chosen to bear this moment in a way that he approved. He bent and kissed her on the forehead. She clung to him.

‘The children,' he whispered into her ear. ‘You must tell them not to give up hope. Nor must you.'

‘Go with God,' she said tenderly and pressed her rosary into his hands. The guard gestured towards the corridor.

‘Out,' he ordered.

The noise was now deafening in the prison as the prisoners resisted the round-up. In contrast, the marquis went quietly. There was no point in resistance.

He was dragged into the concierge's office where a tall, thin, inquisitor-like figure sat at a rough wooden desk. He was wearing red cap, striped breeches and a tricolour sash. He was writing furiously. Rolls of parchment littered the table and lay on the floor.

‘ Aha, ‘ he said, without looking up. ‘I've been waiting for you. ‘

The marquis did not reply. The voice was one he had heard before, not familiar but recognisable. He struggled to place it.

‘Your name,
citoyen
?'

‘Charles Antoine Louis LuDucq, Marquis de Guinot, Chevalier de Brion...'

‘No more,
citoyen
,' the man cut him short. ‘All titles are abolished.'

‘I know you,' said the marquis suddenly. ‘Your family lived on one of my estates.'

‘Correct,
citoyen
, at La Joyeuse.'

‘You are...?'

‘Maillard. Jacques Maillard, and I have been waiting some time to deal with you. In fact, I have been waiting a long time to deal with all your family.'

‘But why?' asked the marquis in surprise. ‘You were always well treated.'

Jacques rose and walked over to his former master, and thrust his face into his.

‘I could bear neither your charity nor your pitiful wages. Each winter my family nearly starved – and we were the lucky ones.'

That is not true,' said the marquis quietly. ‘Nobody in my demesne ever starves.'

‘How would you know,
citoyen
? Did you ever visit us in our hovels? Or did the stench offend you too much?'

He caught at the marquis by his hair and forced his head back. ‘I am glad that you are going to die,' he said unemotionally. ‘And I will see that your family dies with you. I still have this to account for.'

Maillard pulled up his shirt to reveal his scarred torso, patterned with red welts.

‘Your daughter ordered this,' he said, and his voice thickened. ‘She will pay for it.'

Maillard released the marquis and returned to his desk.

‘But I am almost forgetting the point,
citoyen
. You are convicted of crimes against France and must take the punishment.'

The marquis drew himself up to his full height. ‘By whose authority?'

‘The people of France.'

‘Are you going to kill me?'

Maillard shrugged and pointed in the direction of the door. ‘What do you think?' he asked.

It was all too obvious what was happening. The cries of pain and the sound of bodies thudding to the floor were clearly audible; so too were the grunts of the men butchering them. In response to a signal from Maillard, the guard ripped the marquis' coat from his back and motioned for him to step outside.

‘You are judged guilty', said Maillard with a smile, ‘by true patriots and you must suffer the penalty.'

In the doorway, the marquis shook off the restraining hands.

‘I ask only that you spare my family,' he said.

‘Adieu,'
said Maillard his face expressionless.

‘You will roast in hell for this...' The marquis' control slipped. ‘You...' His voice faded.

He had been taken into a small interior courtyard of the prison, at one end of which stood a group of men surrounded by bodies. The walls were covered in blood and the air was rank with it. One man, a huge giant of a fellow, leant on his axe with the body of a still quivering victim lying at his feet. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

‘Another, Durand,' shouted the marquis' escort, and pushed him towards the wall.

‘God's teeth,' said Durand. ‘I need a rest. Get me some wine.'

Someone thrust a skin of wine into Durand's hands and said: ‘Hurry up. We want to see the old goat's brains.'

Durand raised it to his lips, flashing a grin at the marquis as he did so. ‘You don't mind waiting, do you?' he asked.

The marquis' fingers explored the cold stones of the wall behind him and willed himself to remain silent, He was grasping his rosary so tightly that the beads cut into his flesh.

Moved by... what?... a shred of pity perhaps?... one of the watching guards leant over to the marquis.

‘Don't cover your head with your hands,' he muttered. ‘It takes longer that way.'

His pulses pounding, the marquis watched Durand put down the wine and take up the axe. He was still clasping the rosary when the blade sliced deep into the space between his shoulder and his neck. The rosary slipped from his fingers and fell with a hiss to the floor.

‘Jesus have pity on me,' the marquis got out between lips already stretched by death's rictus.

The axe rose and fell twice. It was over.

The marquis' death and those of his fellow-prisoners who perished with him at La Force marked the beginning of the massacres that swept the prisons of Paris for five days; to begin with as isolated incidents and then in a tide of blood that broke over the city.

First one prison then another was invaded by a mob.. Dragging their victims from their cells, they paraded them at a mock trial and then butchered them where they stood, the self-styled avengers of France did their work. La Force, La Salpêtrière, Le Châtelet, the Carmelite Convent and the Abbaye... the toll grew longer and the murderers madder with collective blood lust. The screams of the dying had no sooner stilled in one quartier than they were taken up by the unfortunates in another. There was no respite, no mercy, only savagery.

In the streets onlookers watched as cartloads of bodies, some of which still twitched, were drawn through the streets to the burial grounds. At the Conciergerie the assassins and their companions made a pile of their victims in the Cour du Mai and danced around it, dipping their bread into the gore and eating it. At La Petite Force the Princesse de Lamballe, the queen's dearest friend, was one of the first to be murdered and her mutilated corpse and severed head were waved in front of the royal prisoners' window.

‘So dies a whore, an enemy of France,' shouted one old crone at the sight.

‘Death will come to all enemies of
la patrie,'
echoed a brawny jeweller from the Faubourg St Antoine.

Gradually the fury abated, leaving the authorities to count the cost. Over 1,200 prisoners lay dead, thirty-seven of them women, and the murderers – the
septembriseurs –
returned to where they had come from, to boast of their exploits in the wine shops and beer cellars.

Paris returned to a semblance of normality. For a time many citizens had no idea what had happened, and, if they did, they comforted themselves with the notion that the deaths were a necessary evil to save France from her enemies.

Chapter 15

‘Héloïse.'

Sophie swept into the sitting room that she and Héloïse shared in the mornings. Héloïse looked up from the letter she was drafting to her father's lawyers. De Choissy had tried to dissuade her from such a task, telling her that she should leave such things to him, but Héloïse had been firm. This was something that she could do and she needed the occupation to divert her mind.

Where was Louis? Was he safe? Had he reached Neuilly? The questions to which she had no answer nagged day and night. She had had no real rest since that early morning when she fled from the sacked Tuileries Palace and made her way back to Hotel de Choissy where a frantic Sophie caught her up in her hands. ‘Your health... your health...' Sophie had been franctic and insisted on sending for the doctor. William was prepared to fetch him, but Héloïse assured them that she had taken no lasting injury from her experiences. With that they had to be content. De Choissy had said nothing much, except to warn her that their plans for leaving France must go forward. Héloïse had been too shaken to argue.

Sophie slid an arm around Héloïse's shoulders. ‘Héloïse. We must go immediately to La Force.'

Héloïse put down her quill and sanded her letter.

‘Why?' she asked. ‘Is there news of Monsieur le Marquis?'

‘There are rumours that something dreadful has happened. Miss Edgeworth has just returned from a visit to Miss Williams's and there's talk... there's talk in the city of killing in the prisons.'

Héloïse stared down at her letter... and she knew. ‘Well, then, we must go at once,' she said. ‘You're sure?'

‘I hope I am wrong. It is probably nothing. Where is Monsieur le Comte?'

‘At the Louvre, I believe. I don't know.'

‘Ned has gone out yet again to try to obtain visas for England, but Mr Jones is here and will accompany us.'

‘Good,' said Héloïse, and rang for her maid.

‘Héloïse.' Sophie chose her words carefully. ‘Héloïse, I think you must prepare yourself. It is possible.... Remember,' she said in a rush, ‘I am here to help you and I won't ever leave you as long as you need me.'

Héloïse was so touched that she kissed Sophie.

‘I am glad you said that, Sophie,' she said. ‘The truth is I do need you. Perhaps today even more so. It's selfish, I know, but it's true.'

‘Not so,' said Sophie. ‘I cannot imagine life without you,
chérie –
and I don't want to go home... for all sorts of reasons, and Ned is trying to make me. Anyway, if I go, you can always come with me.'