Immortal Muse (34 page)

A
NOTHER FEW YEARS ON, and Verdette continued as she was without change. Not so the world around Marie-Anne and Antoine.

That world continued to deteriorate. Not long after Marie-Anne gave Verdette the elixir, food riots broke out in Paris. Austria and Prussia allied against France, beginning a war that France hardly needed, given its own internal turmoil. In the summer of that year, after the Prussian Commander, the Duke of Brunswick, issued a manifesto announcing that the allies would enter France to restore the monarchy of Louis XVI, the citizens of Paris stormed the Tuileries Palace, slaughtering the Swiss Guard protecting the king, and the royal family was taken into custody. In September, the kingship of France was dissolved and the First Republic proclaimed; in December, Louis XVI was tried, with Robespierre declaring that “Louis must die, so that the country may live.”

On a cold, late January day in 1793, Citizen Louis Capet—formerly known as King Louis XVI—was guillotined at the Place de la Révolution. Marie-Anne heard with horror that many in the vast crowd ran forward to dip their handkerchiefs in the former king's blood as it gushed from his body. The two main political factions within the Republic, the Girondins and the Jacobins, began to tear at each other; in July the scientist and radical journalist Jean-Paul Marat, one of the Jacobin leaders, was assassinated. On October 18, Marie-Antoinette's head was also struck from her body, and with that final purge of the royal family, the political parties of the Republic began to look suspiciously at each other. The Revolutionary Tribunal, under the direction of Maximilien Robespierre, had already convicted several hundred if not thousands of citizens of treasons. Heads were being lopped from bodies by the dozens every day in the Place de la Révolution.

On the 10th of November (or, under the new Republic calendar, 20 Brumaire, Year II), Jacques-Louis David came to their house. Marie-Anne hadn't seen the painter for some months, not since he'd shown them his painting of Marat's death—a painting that Marie-Anne found disturbing both for the grisly subject matter and David's idealization of Marat's features. The Lavoisiers had met Marat in their scientific circles, and his face and skin were disfigured with a hideous blistering skin condition, yet his skin was unblemished in David's painting. “You've made him look like a martyred saint,” had been Marie-Anne's reaction to the painting.

“
Oui
. That's exactly what he is,” David had answered in his slurred speech. The growth on his scarred face had become more prominent in the last few years, further interfering with his speech and giving his face an even more lopsided appearance. Marie-Anne had no adequate answer to his statement; she'd remained silent.

Now David was back in their house, and his excitement was evident. Marie-Anne, with Verdette in her arms, met him in the foyer as Etienne opened the door for him and took his cloak and hat. “Ah, look at this small miracle!” David said. “Verdette, you look as young and fit as one of your daughters.” He reached out toward the cat but Marie-Anne stepped back, shaking her head as she felt the cat stiffen in her grasp and growl.

“I wouldn't,” she warned him. “Verdette's become . . . temperamental of late.”

“Ah,” David said. He looked at her and Verdette quizzically, but he withdrew his hand. “You and Antoine should come with me and Marguerite,” he said. “Marguerite's waiting in a carriage outside. Robespierre is speaking at the Celebration of the Goddess of Reason tonight—it would be good for the two of you to make an appearance with us.”

Marie-Anne nearly laughed. Earlier in the year, she knew, David had been named a member of the Art Commission as well as the Committee of Public Safety, making his opinion the preeminent one for painting. Marie-Anne had already heard David referred to as ‘the Robespierre of the brush.' Now here he was at their door urging them to go see the genuine article. “Good?” Marie-Anne asked him. “In what way? Antoine and I have not been involved in politics; you know that.”

“That is precisely why you should come,” David answered. “Those who are not for the Republic are considered to be against it. And I've heard whispers . . .”

“Whispers, Jacques-Louis?” Antoine interjected. Marie-Anne turned to see her husband descending the stairs to the foyer, accompanied by Joseph Louis Lagrange, a mathematician, family friend, and possessor of a soul-heart similar to Antoine's. “What whispers have you heard?”

David gave Antoine and Lagrange a small bow. “I hesitate to say,” he said to Antoine, glancing at Lagrange.

“You can say whatever you want in front of Joseph,” Antoine said. “He's a friend of the family, as are you.”

David gave another small bow. “The gossip is that the Tribunal is starting to look at the former members of the Ferme-Générale, Antoine, and that arrests might follow soon. I worry about you.”

Marie-Anne gasped. “Is this true? Antoine did nothing—he wasn't one of those collecting taxes for the king, after all. He was just a low-level administrator.”

“But all those in the Ferme-Générale profited from the taxes that were raised, and that, evidently, might be enough,” David answered. “Come with me to the Celebration tonight—I know Robespierre well, and I can introduce you to him; he'll see you with me and know that you're loyal citizens of the Republic, as much as I am. Monsieur Lagrange can come with us, if he wishes.”

Marie-Anne glanced at Antoine, who was frowning. “Antoine, perhaps we should listen to him. What could it hurt?”

“I've done nothing wrong,” Antoine told them all. “All I've ever done has been for my family, my science, and for France.”

“I know that,” David answered. “But it's important that Robespierre knows this as well. He is a friend of science, as both you and Monsieur Lagrange should know. Have you met him yet?”

Antoine shook his head. “I certainly know
of
him, as does any citizen,” he said, with a curl of the lips that spoke of his opinion of the man. “But Marie-Anne and I have had no occasion to be introduced to him.”

“I'll do so tonight,” David said. “Antoine, Marie-Anne, I tell you again—this is important for you. You can no longer hide away and pretend that all this turmoil will pass. France has changed; the world has changed. You must change with it or face the consequences. Please, get yourselves ready, and we'll go.”

Marie-Anne glanced at Antoine, nodding slightly. Antoine took a long, slow breath. “Joseph?” he asked his companion.

Lagrange shrugged. “I've nothing else planned. It might be . . . interesting,” he said.

“Then we'll go,” Antoine said, “since you deem it so vital, Jacques-Louis. Don't leave Marguerite out in the cold; fetch her and wait for us in the dining room; Josette will bring the two of you some refreshment while we dress and make ourselves ready. Joseph, my closet is yours as well if you wish to change; we're of the same size.”

“Excellent,” David said. “And all of you—no powdered hair and no periwigs. Not tonight. This is not a night for you to appear to be putting yourself above others.”

 * * * 

The Celebration of the Goddess of Reason took place at the Cathedral of Notre Dame on the Île de la Cité, though since the several laws enacted by the National Council forbidding religious affiliations, the great cathedral had since been re-dedicated as the “Temple of Reason.” The initial ceremonies had already begun by the time they arrived; they could hear drums inside the cathedral and a choir singing the “Hymn of Liberty.” The crowd outside was large and raucous; inside, the noise was tremendous, with the musicians and choirs and people shouting. The interior of the cathedral had been stripped of anything that spoke of the Church: all the crucifixes and images of Mary and the saints were gone. The high altar had been similarly modified: there was a throne set there and the inscription “To Philosophy” had been carved over the doors of the cathedral.

As they approached the cathedral, Marguerite took Marie-Anne's arm as they walked, letting the three men precede them. “I sometimes think this all feels wrong,” Marguerite whispered, inclining her slender neck toward Marie-Anne. Her dark hair was tucked under a bonnet adorned with silken flowers, and her high cheeks were reddened by both rouge and the cold night air. “After all the masses I attended here—why, this feels like desecration.”

Marie-Anne patted her hand. “I feel the same,” she told her. “But those words would be dangerous to speak too loudly.”

Marguerite had a short laugh at that, her fingers squeezing Marie-Anne's arm. “Even thoughts are dangerous in these days.”

David took the lead as they entered through the wide, central double doors, escorting them through the throngs, hailing those he recognized and introducing Marguerite, Marie-Anne, Antoine, and Lagrange. He stopped midway up the aisle as trumpets sounded. At the high lectern, a short man dressed in black lifted his hands for attention, and the tumult under the great arched ceiling abated somewhat. “That's him,” David whispered to them. “That's Robespierre.”

Robespierre began to speak as the crowd quieted. Marie-Anne could barely see him over the top of the crowd and with the lectern in front of him—just a dark-haired speck at the far end of the temple, features indistinguishable in the dim light. “Citizens, we wish an order of things where all low and cruel passions are enchained by the laws, all beneficent and generous feelings aroused; where ambition is the desire to merit glory and to serve one's fatherland; where distinctions are born only of equality itself; where the citizen is subject to the magistrate, the magistrate to the people, the people to justice; where the nation safeguards the welfare of each individual, and each individual proudly enjoys the prosperity and glory of the fatherland; where all spirits are enlarged by constant exchange of Republican sentiments and by the need of earning the respect of a great people; where the arts are the adornment of liberty, which ennobles them; and where commerce is the source of public wealth, not simply of monstrous opulence for a few families.”

Marie-Anne found his delivery to be slow and measured, but his voice was weak and she was doubtful that those to the rear could hear him at all, though he was interrupted often by applause, especially by those closest to the lectern. David took Marguerite's arm and pushed forward to hear him better; Marie-Anne, Antoine, and Lagrange followed. Robespierre's phrases were so long that every time he paused she thought that he had nothing more to say, but after looking slowly and searchingly over the audience, he would then add more adornment to his sentences. She wondered how such a person could have come to hold such power. David finally stopped when they were nearly underneath the raised lectern, his arm around Marguerite's waist, and Marie-Anne could see Robespierre's face clearly for the first time in the lamplight.

The sight nearly made her faint. She knew the face. Knew it far too well even though it had been long decades since she'd seen it. Robespierre looked again at the crowd, but he'd not yet glimpsed her. She started to back away. Antoine noticed her distress and looked at her quizzically. “Marie-Anne? What's wrong?”

“I'm not feeling well,” she told him, turning her face away from the lectern. “Please, can we go home?”

Antoine's face reflected his concern. “Certainly, my dear,” he told her. “Let me just tell Jacques-Louis and Joseph . . .” He took a step back into the crowd toward where David and Lagrange were standing even as Marie-Anne tried to stop him.

“Here, tonight, we celebrate the power of reason over the failed power of false faith,” Robespierre was intoning in his pale, low voice. As Marie-Anne turned to Antoine to pull him away, Robespierre glanced down at the movement. She heard the intake of his breath and his dark, intense eyes met hers, then dropped lower down her body. Her hand came up involuntarily to her breast; she had worn the sardonyx pendant over her dress. Her hand grasped it, hiding it from sight. He seemed to smile at her, at Antoine, and at David. The pause before he began again was even longer. “We celebrate the true Supreme Being, the Goddess of Reason. Let us welcome her into our midst.”

“Antoine!” Marie-Anne pulled at his arm, dragging him away even as he whispered to the others that they were leaving, even as she heard David say, “But wait, I wanted to introduce you personally . . .”

Drums and trumpets sounded, and the hymn began again even as Marie-Anne tried to push through the crowds. A processional was coming down the central aisle, moving toward the Altar of Logic. The crowd on the floor began to surge toward the procession, and Marie-Anne took the opportunity to move down the side aisle toward the door. She glimpsed the goddess on her palanquin—an actress from the opera, David had told them on the way to Notre Dame, would portray the goddess so there would be no question of idolatry. The hymn rose, the drums and trumpets clamored, and the procession with its lights and banners, proceeded into the church. Marie-Anne risked a glance back. Robespierre had left the lectern; she could no longer see him.

Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe he didn't see me, didn't recognize me.

She clung desperately to that hope as she pushed through the last of the crowd and outside. The knife edge of the cold in her lungs seemed a relief after the atmosphere in the cathedral. She took in great gasping lungfuls as she leaned back against the great stone walls of Notre Dame. Antoine reached her side and put his arm around her. She leaned into his embrace, putting her own arms tight around him. “Darling, you look so feverish, and you're shivering.” He touched his hand to her forehead. “Let's find a carriage and get you home.” He glanced back at the spires and gargoyles of Notre Dame, which seemed to mock her with their silent laughter. “The Goddess of Reason,” Antoine nearly spat out the words. “There's no reason here. Only more madness.”