Mistress of the Revolution (44 page)

I was waiting for Pierre-André well before the appointed time in front of the Marseilles Section. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw him arrive precisely at half past six, wearing the black suit of his judge’s uniform, but without the cape or medal and with a regular hat. He did not greet me, barely looked at me and pushed me by the shoulder in front of him as we entered the building. He paused to pull out of his pocket and tie around his waist a tricolour sash fringed in gold, the emblem of his functions at the Municipality. A crowd was already gathered in the waiting room where I had spent many hours a few days earlier. He spoke to the guard on duty, who disappeared into an office and, a minute later, invited us to enter. The Secretary rose.

“Greetings and fraternity, Citizen Judge,” he said. “What brings you here?”

“Sit down, Citizen Secretary. This woman tells me you are giving her some trouble over her Civic Certificate. There is no reason for it. I know her; she is a good Patriot.”

“Yes, that’s right, I recognize her. She says she came from Cantal last July, but she can’t produce a passport or even a baptismal record or a residence certificate. Her papers were stolen, supposedly. She says she’s the widow of a cheese merchant, but, if you want my opinion…”

“No, I do not want your opinion. As I believe I told you already, I know her. You would not doubt my word, I am sure.”

“Nobody would, Citizen Judge. That’s not what I meant. It’s just that we need to see some evidence of what she says. Who’s going to explain to the President of the Section that I gave her a Civic Certificate without any proof ?”

Pierre-André rested both of his hands flat on the desk and threw his weight forward until his chest was only inches from the face of the officer. He lowered his voice. “You have all of the evidence you need right in front of you, Citizen Secretary. Are you telling me that you disregard my testimony?”

The Secretary drew back and muttered indistinct apologies.

“Fetch the President immediately,” continued Pierre-André in a louder tone.

“I didn’t mean any offense, Citizen Judge. Come to think of it, there can’t be a better proof of Citizen Labro’s story than your word.”

The Secretary took out a portfolio with a shaky hand and retrieved my incomplete certificate. He crossed out “adjourned until production of further evidence,” signed it and handed it to me.

“Now, Citizen Labro, all you need to do is go next door for the President’s signature.”

Pierre-André took the piece of paper from my hands and held it in front of the Secretary’s face.

“So you want this woman to walk around with a certificate full of your scribblings?” he asked. “It would be worse than none at all. One would think that she carries a forged document. Give her a clean one. I will keep this one and destroy it myself.”

The Secretary opened his mouth, but after a look at my companion, said nothing and hastened to prepare a new certificate. Pierre-André reviewed it and slapped the man in the back with such cordiality that he almost fell off his chair.

“Thank you for clearing up this matter so quickly, Citizen Secretary. When good patriots receive their Civic Certificates, it makes it easier to detect and punish the enemies of the Nation.”

We went to the next office, where the President of the Section, sitting with several other men at a long table, also recognized Pierre-André, chatted with him for a minute, signed my certificate without looking at it and affixed to it the seal of the Section. I had received in less than fifteen minutes what I had waited and begged for in vain for hours.

Once on the street, I turned towards Pierre-André. He was no longer there. Towering above the crowd, he was already walking away. He had left without taking leave of me. I followed him at a distance in the direction of the river until I turned towards Rue de l’Hirondelle.

I could now fetch Aimée. With the precious Certificate in my pocket, my step felt quicker and lighter. I ran up the stairs to Louise’s lodgings. When Manon opened the door, no words were needed. There was a smile on my face which nothing could repress. She cried with joy and we embraced. Aimée was waking. A new period of hope and happiness opened before me. Even my financial distress did not seem so dire anymore. Thanks to Pierre-André, I now had fifty francs in my pocket. Two months earlier, I would not have stooped to pick up that
assignat
if I had dropped it on the street, but as Pierre-André had observed the night before, times had changed. Now that I was in possession of the Civic Certificate, I could find work to support us. Manon herself was still without a place.

“Louise knows a laundress who needs a servant, Madam,” she said, “but it’s backbreaking work for very little pay. You wouldn’t be able to do it for more than a couple of days without exhausting yourself. It’d break my heart to see your beautiful hands wrecked by those harsh soaps. Even I, after having been Your Ladyship’s maid, have refused that offer.”

“Manon, please stop addressing me as
Your Ladyship
. Those titles can only create trouble for both of us. Why not call me
Citizen Labro
? It is my official name now. And we cannot afford to be too fastidious about the work we can find.”

“It will not feel right to call you
Citizen
. I will try, though. As for work, I would hope to find you something like sewing or embroidery.”

“I have enough money to last a couple of months if I am careful, but I am more than ready to take any kind of work. Embroidery is less in demand these days, but sewing would suit me.”

Aimée and I returned to our garret. I stopped by the porter’s lodge to show Marcelin my Civic Certificate.

“Good,” he said, returning it to me. “I knew you couldn’t be an aristocrat. You’re too decent a person for that.”

I seized Aimée’s hand and hastened towards the stairs.

“You had a visitor last night,” he continued, “that great hulking fellow.”

I turned around, looking straight at Marcelin. “He is a cousin of mine.”

“Is he? He calls at odd hours for a cousin. Not that I mind, Citizen Labro. He must be on good terms with the authorities since you received your Civic Certificate.” Marcelin grinned. “He may visit you every night if he likes. You did what you had to do, that’s all. It’s the result that counts, like they say.”

I hurried upstairs. When I pushed open the door to the garret, tears came to my eyes. I was reminded of the night. How I wished Pierre-André had said that he still loved me, that he wanted to see me again. Now I realized that
I
loved him, that
I
wanted to see him again. In his arms, I had felt more than pleasure, more even than happiness. I had felt that we should never be parted. Then I chastised myself for indulging in such thoughts. Of course he did not want anything to do with me. He had put himself at risk to secure my Civic Certificate, a service I would never be able to repay. What right had I to hope for more? Once again destiny was tearing us asunder.

On the following Sunday, Aimée and I enjoyed a luncheon of boiled beef stewed with lentils and carrots, which I had purchased at the inn. It was a celebration, the first Sunday after I had obtained my Civic Certificate. We had nearly finished our meal when I heard a familiar step and a knock at the door. I ran to open it. It was indeed Pierre-André. In my confusion, I made a deep curtsey, my forehead almost touching the floor, as I had done before the Queen on the day of my presentation. Then I remembered what he had said about the marks of servility inherited from the Old Regime. My embarrassment increased. I rose in haste and gestured to him to enter. I still could not find any words to greet him.

“
Diou sia çains
,” Pierre-André said. It is the traditional blessing in the Roman language, “God be here,” that one speaks in Auvergne upon entering a house. I felt my eyes burning. I had not heard it in five years. It meant more to me than anything else he could have said. It was an expression of his respect, his goodwill, his remembrance of the old days and the old country.

He was looking intently at Aimée. “This must be your daughter.”

“Yes. She is called Aimée.”

I wanted to tell him that I had named her because of him, because that was the term of endearment he had used with me. Yet I could not. Aimée herself did not know it.

“She looks just like you,” he said, “except for her colouring.”

I was grateful that he did not mention her father. “Would you like to share our meal?” I asked. “I used some of your money to buy meat. No matter what you say, I will never be able to thank you enough for your kindness.”

“I already ate, thank you. Can you take this child away? I need to speak to you.”

I put Aimée’s cloak on her shoulders and hastened to take her to Manon’s.

“My goodness, My L—I mean, Citizen Labro, what’s the matter?” she asked. “You look so pale. You’re not going to be arrested again, are you?”

“I cannot tell yet, Manon. Something unexpected has happened.”

My head spinning, I hurried back to the garret. Pierre-André was sitting on his haunches, looking out the dormer. He rose and looked at me. For a moment, we were both at a loss for words.

“What a surprise this is,” I managed to say at last. “You did not want to see me again.”

He smiled. “True. I did change my mind more than once in the course of our recent acquaintance. Can you not guess why I am here today?”

“No.” Indeed the wild hope that he had returned because he wanted me had entered my mind. Yet I dared not believe it, let alone say it.

“When I came here the other night, Gabrielle, my intention, or so I believed, was only to humiliate you, to take my revenge for your abandonment of me.”

“I know. I was convinced that you would have me arrested in the morning.”

“Some idea you have of me! Why did not you tell me to go to hell?”

I had nothing to hide from him now. “I did not want to die without being yours, if only for a few hours.”

He had walked to the other end of the room and turned slowly to me. “So you let me take you, believing that I was so depraved as to send you to jail after enjoying you all night.” He shook his head. “I meant only to treat you like a whore and to leave as soon as I had enough of you. That was my first mistake. When I found you in this garret, in your plain black dress, stripped of your rank, of your luxury, of even the hated name of your husband, I saw the Gabrielle I had met by the river.”

He sat on a chair and drew me to him. “I had yearned for you all these years and you gave yourself to me wholeheartedly. I could not abandon you to your fate. Yet after I had decided to help you, I resolved never to see you again. It seemed easy enough while I was still in your bed, feeling you, warm and soft, against me. I had not begun to miss you yet.”

He tugged on my kerchief and touched the skin between my breasts. I shuddered. So it was true, he still loved me. I closed my eyes, dizzy with happiness, and stroked his hand.

“When I left you in front of your Section,” he continued, “my resolution had begun to falter. It took all of my fortitude to part with you. That explains, if it does not excuse, the uncouth manner in which I went my own way. I reached the courthouse and went to work. I thought that I would erase you from my mind in the course of a day or two. I was wrong again. The more time passed, the more I thought of you.” He sighed. “I had to remind myself that any association with you can destroy my position, even put my life in danger. I have managed to keep my mind otherwise occupied in the courtroom, but I cannot go to my chambers without remembering your visit there or lie in my bed without thinking of yours. I decided to break the spell. I went to the
Palais-Egalité
this morning, Gabrielle. I closed my eyes to imagine that I was holding you, and not some poor trollop, in my arms. All I achieved was to miss you more. Forgive me.”

He was looking up at me, holding my waist with both hands. “So here I am, my beloved,” he said, “three days after I asked you to seek me no more. I told you years ago that I wanted you forever. It is still true.”

I reached for him and held him against my breast. “Pierre-André, never let me go again.”

We spent the afternoon together. He was not yet thirty. I had turned twenty-three two months earlier. Life had separated us, tried us in different ways and taught us different lessons. He now held my fate in his hands. The world we knew had collapsed in successive waves of violence, to be replaced by a new one, governed by unpredictable rules that were unfolding before our eyes. Yet for a few blessed hours, we were once again the young man and the girl who had met by the river in Auvergne. I was his Gabrielle, his beloved, and he was everything to me.

Pierre-André needed to leave around seven that night to attend a meeting at the Common House. Before he left, I explained to him my dealings with Marcelin.

“I will find you decent lodgings,” he said while dressing. “I cannot afford to keep you in luxury on a judge’s salary, which I do not supplement as some of my colleagues do, but you and your daughter will lack nothing.”

When Pierre-André returned two days later, he proposed to give my landlord notice on my behalf. I readily accepted since I was not fond of Marcelin’s conversation.

“Here is your money,” Pierre-André said when he came back fifteen minutes later, handing me one hundred and fifty francs in
assignats
. “I represented to Marcelin that the Municipality takes a dim view of those who prey on widows and orphans. He assured me that you had misunderstood him regarding the additional payment for lack of a passport. He was in fact on the verge of returning the hundred francs to you. He was very sorry to have given me the trouble to call on him, which I easily believe. He hoped that I would not report him to the Section for an innocent mistake. As a token of his good faith, he insisted on refunding every
sol
you ever paid him, even the rent for the time you spent here.”

I hesitated. “I do not feel that it would be right to leave without paying him anything. And I am surprised. He seemed so fond of his money. Did you beat him?”

“I only caught him by the collar while I expressed my opinion of him. It would have been unnecessary to push things any further. He was shaking in his trousers at the very sight of me. Do not feel sorry for him, Gabrielle. Those who take advantage of the helpless deserve no such concern.”

Again I packed my things and Aimée’s. They now fit in one trunk and one bag, which Pierre-André carried downstairs himself. After making sure that no one was following us, he hailed a hackney on the Place Saint-Michel. We crossed the
Pont-au-Change
and arrived in the Island of the City. We passed Notre-Dame and turned into the warren of narrow streets north of the cathedral. The lodgings he had found, on a second floor in Rue de la Colombe, “Dove Street,” included a tiny kitchen, a water closet and a vestibule leading to two main rooms. One served as a dining parlour and had a couch on which Aimée could sleep, while the other was furnished as a bedroom. Over the last few weeks, I had almost forgotten the existence of such luxuries as drapes and carpets. I would not have felt happier if Pierre-André had offered me the Queen’s apartment in Versailles.

“I am infinitely grateful to you,” I said, sitting on the bed and patting the plump red coverlet. “And look, there are fireplaces in both rooms!”

“I am glad to be able to make you comfortable,” said Pierre-André. “This is nothing out of the ordinary, but who needs more these days? It will be better for you to do without a maid. The last thing you need is someone to spy on you. This district is very quiet and conveniently located midway between the courthouse and my own lodgings on the Island of the Fraternity. You will find that, between my functions as a judge, my mandate as a member of the Municipality and my attendance at the Jacobins, I am a busy man. Do not imagine things, my beloved, if I cannot spend as much time with you as I would like.” He stroked my cheek. “I would marry you tomorrow if I could. You know that it is impossible now: it would doom both of us. I will nonetheless regard you as my wife and expect you to keep faith with me.”

He sat on the bed next to me. “If I discover otherwise, my love,” he continued in a quiet tone, “I will take you to the river and drown you in the muck of the banks.”

I shuddered at the idea of his hand holding my face down in the cold, foul slime. I wondered whether he had spoken in earnest and looked into his eyes.

“No, Gabrielle,” he added, “I would never do it.” He ran a finger on my cheek. “I was simply trying to tell you that I would be very unhappy if you strayed. My jealousy is in proportion to my affections. Until last year, I had a pretty little maid who also served me in another capacity. One afternoon when I came home early from court, I discovered the slut in
my
bed, if you please, with the butcher’s apprentice. You should have seen their faces. They must have thought I was going to disembowel them on the spot and started begging for mercy.” Pierre-André chuckled. “I was content to kick them both out of my lodgings without a shred of clothing on their backs. I threw their rags into the fire since I did not expect the turtledoves to come back. They must have had to hide until nightfall, and then hope not to meet a patrol. It was enough to assuage my lust for revenge. But that was Suzanne. I would take it differently from you.”

“Did you hire another maid?”

“One fell into my arms, as it were.”

I frowned.

“You need not worry about her,” he continued, smiling. “She is not to my taste, although otherwise she gives me full satisfaction.” He paused, looking grave again. “I might as well tell you that, since Suzanne’s hasty departure, I have had a few mistresses. I may have acted a bit wild on occasion. I have also resorted to prostitutes. I am not proud of it and will put an end to it.”

“Thank you for telling me, but you do not owe me any explanation. I am grateful and honoured that you want me now.” I threw my arms around his neck. “And I will regard you as my husband.”

He embraced me tightly.

I felt safe at last, as much as those times allowed. A new law required that a bill posted on the outside of each building indicate the identity of all of its occupants. Thanks to my Civic Certificate, Number 7 Rue de la Colombe reported as one of its tenants a Gabrielle Labro, age twenty-three, widow, living with her daughter, Aimée Labro, age seven.