Mistress of the Revolution (55 page)

Pierre-André rubbed his hands on his face. “The first order of business was to free Hanriot. He was, after all, the Commander in Chief of the National Guard. I stormed the offices of the Committee of General Safety, where I found him tied like an idiot to a chair. I spoke to the gendarmes who were guarding the Convention. I shamed them for arresting patriots instead of the conspirators who wanted to lead the Nation to its doom. They too cheered and abandoned their posts to follow me. The scoundrels of the Convention were completely defenseless. I had the cannons pointed, loaded, ready to fire in their direction. What followed, Gabrielle, I will never forgive myself.”

He stared straight ahead. “We needed Robespierre. There are not two men like him. And I am only a judge, Hanriot was the General. I took only a dozen men with me, including Sanson, the executioner, and his brother, to go free Robespierre who was still held at the Courthouse. The rest of my troops, the cannons, the gendarmes, I handed over to Hanriot. I gave him instructions to open fire on the Convention if the scoundrels who had attacked Robespierre were not immediately delivered to us. He had done it last year with the Girondins, I thought he could do it again. I left. I found Robespierre at the Courthouse, freed him without encountering any serious resistance and brought him back to the Common House.”

He was now shaking. “There, what did you think I saw, but the troops I had left into the hands of Hanriot, the cannons, everything! I could not believe my eyes. The soldiers were idle, some were beginning to drink, others were leaving. Hanriot had been content to bring them back to the Common House without attacking the Convention. Now, even with Robespierre there, the occasion was missed; the battle was lost.”

“How could Hanriot fail to act?”

“He drank himself silly, no doubt out of fear. He could barely ride his horse. The Convention was able to muster a force to attack the Common House after two in the morning. We heard gunfire outside the door of the hall where we were gathered. It was clear that we were all going to be killed or arrested. Robespierre blew his brains out. His younger brother opened a window and jumped. The others, I believe, were arrested without offering any resistance. I, for one, was not going to give the scoundrels that satisfaction. As I was running down a hallway, whom do you think I saw? Hanriot! That coward, that drunkard, that imbecile who had destroyed all of our hopes! That piece of rubbish was not even worthy of the guillotine. He fled from me, but I was faster and caught him in a moment. When I was done with him, I sent him flying through a second-floor window.”

“Did you kill him?”

“I did not take the time to ascertain his condition. I can find my way around the Common House blindfolded and had no trouble escaping through a back door. Now you know everything. Robespierre is dead; the Nation is in the hands of scoundrels.”

I undressed Pierre-André like a child and joined him in bed. He went to sleep immediately, his head on my shoulder.

The next morning Hanriot was found in a gutter, one of his eyes torn from its socket, but alive. Robespierre, against all odds, had also survived. He had only shot himself in the jaw. He was taken, along with his younger brother, Dumas, Hanriot, Payan, Couthon and sixteen others, to the Revolutionary Tribunal. Sellier was acting as President now that both senior judges were unavailable: Dumas was among the accused and Pierre-André missing. Upon Fouquier’s request, all of the defendants were sentenced to death without trial. They were executed during the afternoon of the same day, the 10th of Thermidor. That night, I learned that Madame Duplay, whose sole crime had been to be Robespierre’s landlady and Eléonore’s mother, had been thrown into jail. A mob of women stormed the prison and hanged her from the bars of her cell window.

A vast conspiracy had been forming for several days to overthrow Robespierre. It comprised members of the Committees of Public Salvation and General Safety, former Representatives in mission like Carrier, steeped in blood and afraid of answering for their crimes, friends of the late Danton, and rich people who were tired of the price controls imposed under Robespierre’s leadership. All of that disparate group would be called the Thermidorians. They were the victors.

I did not feel the least doubt that Pierre-André, if he were discovered, would meet the same fate as his friends. He was the last of the Jacobin leaders still at large. I offered to call on his brother Joseph, since he had prudently kept to his judicial functions on the 9th and 10th of Thermidor. Pierre-André reluctantly accepted.

I visited Joseph Coffinhal at his home in the
Marais
district, Rue Beautreillis. Pierre-André had told me that his brother had married well. The fine house into which I was shown had been part of his wife’s dowry. I had never met Joseph before but would have recognized him without difficulty. He was well over six feet tall, a slightly shorter model of Pierre-André, as broad in the shoulders, though not as lean around the stomach.

“Jeanne-Françoise Dunoyer?” he asked coldly, his eyebrow raised. “How is it that you bear my mother’s maiden name?”

“Pierre-André chose it when he procured my residence certificate.”

“Who are you really?”

“Gabrielle de Montserrat.”

His eyes narrowed. “Now this is familiar. You are the youngest sister of the
ci-devant
Marquis de Castel. I remember that scandal. Almost ten years ago, was it not? Pierre-André almost went to the gallows because of you. I have never met anyone more adept than my younger brother at creating trouble for himself and his family. So he has laid his hands on you at last. How long have you been his mistress?”

“I have been living under his protection for almost two years.”

“Well, it seems that
he
is the one in need of protection now.”

“That was the purpose of my visit.”

Joseph shrugged. “What does he expect me to do? To help a fugitive, a man who is already under a death sentence?”

I shook my head. “He is your brother. He saved my life. These claims are higher than any set by the laws of men.”

“I find it imprudent to disregard the laws of men. I may be more attached to my life than you are to yours.”

“Can you not arrange for him to go abroad?”

He sniggered. “Pray name a country that would give him asylum. He has made himself rather conspicuous these past few years. Everyone knew him to be an acolyte of Robespierre long before the events of the 9th. He might have saved himself by keeping quiet that day. But no, instead he was riding all over Paris, rallying the enemies of the Convention, his sword drawn, his tricolour sash waving in the wind.”

“What about Auvergne? Your brother Jean-Baptiste would hide him.”

“And how would you send a man like my younger brother, who is so easily recognizable and whose description is posted throughout France, safely to Auvergne? Even
I
do not dare stir from this house for fear of being mistaken for him. No, the only thing I can suggest is that you continue hiding him until further notice.”

“Can you at least write Jean-Baptiste?”

“Let us assume that I do that. How would I let you know of his response? Where do you live?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“What do you fear? That I will warn the authorities of Pierre-André’s whereabouts? I will not betray him. Come back here in a week.”

That week was the strangest, the most intense, the most dreadful of my existence. It changed me forever. For the first time, Pierre-André and I could spend as much time as we liked together. I kept bringing him news. On the 11th of Thermidor, seventy members of the Council General of the Municipality were sentenced to death, also without trial, the largest batch ever to go to the guillotine. Another twelve followed the next day. All were Pierre-André’s “friends and brothers,” as the Jacobins called one another, his comrades in arms. Sometimes he was lost deep in his own sorrow and sometimes he clung to me as if I alone could shield him from death, his own and that of all the others. We were each other’s sole comfort. There was something approaching happiness in our despair.

I took Pélagie with me when I called again on Joseph Coffinhal. He glanced at my companion.

“Who is that? Why did you bring this woman here?”

“She is Pierre-André’s maid. I thought that you might hire her as a servant. She has nowhere to go now. You have nothing to fear on her account. She is entirely devoted to your brother. In any event, no one can understand her speech.”

“Thank you very much, but we have all the maids we need. Why on earth would I want such a freak in my house? You seem to forget that I have two young daughters.”

“She is very kind and hard working. I am sure that your children would grow fond of her in no time. My own little girl already likes her.”

He shrugged. “Keep her then.”

“I may flee Paris if Pierre-André leaves. I do not want to attract attention by traveling with someone so conspicuous.”

“And why should I want someone so conspicuous, as you put it, around my house? She might be recognized as Pierre-André’s maid. My connection to my younger brother cannot be forgotten too soon.” He looked straight at me. “But you came here, I believe, to discuss his fate, not this woman. I was able to make arrangements. A countryman of ours by the name of Lescure owns an inn on Rue Croix des Petits Champs. Pierre-André is to knock at the back door at one o’clock tonight. The man has a false passport for him and will take him, hidden in his cart, to Clamart. There Pierre-André can catch the five o’clock stagecoach to Clermont. Jean-Baptiste will have a manservant meet him there. Pierre-André will have to hide in the mountains until things settle.”

“Can that man Lescure be trusted?”

“I have known him for years, and so has my brother. Pierre-André lent him money on more than one occasion, and even helped clear charges against him when Lescure was in trouble with his Section for hoarding flour.”

“So you are certain that the man will not betray Pierre-André?”

“I would trust him with my life.”

Pierre-André was pacing the parlour when I returned to my lodgings. I told him of Joseph’s plan.

“Something does not sound right,” I said. “I cannot bring myself to trust your brother. Please, I beg you, stay here with me.”

He sighed. “It is useless to insist. I have made up my mind to go. Lescure owes me more than money, after all, and in any event I have no choice. Please do not make it more difficult for me. Take care of yourself, Gabrielle, for your daughter’s sake and for my own. I put a great deal of effort into saving you, my beloved. Do not let it go to waste.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket. “There, keep these in memory of me.”

He handed me his watch and removed the antique ring from his little finger. “My body will go to the scoundrels who will kill me, but I want you to have these.”

I shook my head, refusing to take the objects. He put them in my hand and closed it around them.

“So you know that this so-called escape scheme is a trap,” I said. “Please, my love, listen to me. Do not go.”

“What else can I do? Stay here? Make you run the risk of being arrested for hiding a fugitive? You know that you would be sentenced to death too. Do you think I want you to be guillotined with me? Worse, to be massacred by a mob in jail like Citizen Duplay?”

“I am willing to take that risk.”

“I know. But what for? What kind of life is left for me? I still have you, my Gabrielle, my poor, my tender love, but my friends are dead, all of them. Can you imagine how it feels to be the last one standing? The Revolution is over; the Nation can fall prey to a dictator. Now that the fear of the Tribunal is gone, any victorious general may use his popularity to seize power. Liberty and equality are defeated, perhaps for decades. For me it is too late. I will not see them reborn. You may, but only if you live.”

He raised my face, forcing me to look at him. “You must live, Gabrielle. I beg you. You have done so much for me this past week, these past years. Now I am asking you to do still another thing. Please let me go, my beloved.” He pressed his lips on mine. “We will be reunited someday, I am sure of it, though maybe not in this world.”

I ran my hands on his face, kissed it, smelled it, filled my eyes with its image. I thought of the children we would not have, of the years we would not spend together, of all the things that take a lifetime to share. Words I had never spoken came to my mind, words he would never hear if I did not say them now. I needed to tell him all.

“You will never know…” I was shaken by sobs. “I will never see you again, and you will never know…”

He pressed me in his arms. His embrace was stronger than the crushing feeling in my chest. “I do know, my love. I have long known. Stop this. You are killing yourself, and me too.” He held my face in his hands. “Look at me. Promise me to live. I need to hear it.”

I could only moan. He held me by the shoulders and shook me.

“Do you promise? Say it.”

I caught my breath. “I promise.”

He left just after midnight. From the doorstep, I watched his large frame receding into the shadows of the stairwell. I listened to the sound of his footsteps, fainter and fainter. At last there was nothing left. He was gone. All was empty.

Finding any rest, any occupation was impossible. At dawn I dressed and woke Pélagie. I gave her a note, with instructions to take it to Manon if I did not return by nightfall.