A Place of Greater Safety (38 page)
Read A Place of Greater Safety Online
Authors: Hilary Mantel
They have no regular form of debate on ordinary business; some speak from their seats, some from the floor, some from the table and some from their tribune or desk … the riot is so great that it is very difficult to collect what is being said. I am certain I have seen above a hundred in the act of addressing the Assembly together, all persisting to speak, and as many more replying in different parts of the House; then the President claps his hands on both ears and roars Order, as if he were calling a coach … he beats his table, his breast … wringing his hands is quite a common action, and I really believe he swears … the galleries approve and disapprove by groaning and clapping.
I went to court this morning at the Tuileries, and a very gloomy court it was … . The King seemed well, but I thought his manner evidently humbled since I was introduced to him before; he now bows to everybody, which was not a Bourbon fashion before the Revolution.
L
ucile’s year: I keep two sets of notebooks now. One’s for pure and elevated thoughts, and the other’s for what really goes on.
ucile’s year: I keep two sets of notebooks now. One’s for pure and elevated thoughts, and the other’s for what really goes on.
I used to live like God, in different Persons. The reason for this was, life was so dull. I used to pretend to be Maria Stuart, and to be quite honest I must say I still do, for old time’s sake. It’s not easy to break yourself of these habits. Everybody else in my life would be assigned a role—usually as a lady-in-waiting, or something—and I would hate them when they wouldn’t play it properly. If I got tired of Maria S., I would play at being Julie from
La Nouvelle Héloïse.
These days I wonder what is my relationship to Maximilien Robespierre. I’m living inside his favorite novel.
La Nouvelle Héloïse.
These days I wonder what is my relationship to Maximilien Robespierre. I’m living inside his favorite novel.
You have to employ some fantasy to keep brute reality at bay. The year began with Camille being sued for libel by M. Sanson, the public executioner. Strange—you don’t think of executioners having recourse to law, in the normal way, you don’t think of them having any animosity to spare.
Fortunately, the law is slow, its processes are cumbersome, and when damages are awarded the Duke is ready to pick up the bill. No, it’s not the courts that worry me. Every morning I wake up and think to myself: is he still alive?
Camille is attacked on the street. He is denounced in the Assembly. He is challenged to duels—though the patriots have made a pact never
to respond. There are lunatics going round the city, boasting that they’re waiting for a chance to put a knife in him. They write him letters, these lunatics—letters so demented and so revolting that he won’t read them himself. You can tell, he says, by a quick scan, what sort of letter it is. Sometimes you can tell by the handwriting on the outside of the packet. He has a box that he throws them into. Then other people have to look through them, in case any of the threats are very specific—I will kill you, at such a time and place.
to respond. There are lunatics going round the city, boasting that they’re waiting for a chance to put a knife in him. They write him letters, these lunatics—letters so demented and so revolting that he won’t read them himself. You can tell, he says, by a quick scan, what sort of letter it is. Sometimes you can tell by the handwriting on the outside of the packet. He has a box that he throws them into. Then other people have to look through them, in case any of the threats are very specific—I will kill you, at such a time and place.
My father’s odd. About twice a month he’ll forbid me ever to see Camille again. But every morning he’s making a grab for the papers—“Any news, any news?” Does he want to hear that Camille’s been found across the river with his throat cut? I don’t think so. I don’t think my father would find any joy in his life if it weren’t for Camille. My mother teases him in the most cold-blooded way. “Admit it, Claude,” she says. “He’s the son you’ve never had.”
Claude brings home young men for supper. He thinks I might like them. Civil servants. Dear God.
Sometimes they write me poems, lovely civil service sonnets. Adèle and I read them out with suitable sentimental expressions. We turn up our eyes, slap our hands on our rib cages and sigh. Then we make them into paper darts and bombard each other. Our spirits, you see, are high. We roll through our days in a sort of unwholesome glee. It’s either this, or a permanent welter of sniffles and tears, forebodings and fears—and we prefer to be hilarious. We prefer to make blood-curdling jokes.
My mother, by contrast, is strained, sad; but fundamentally, I think she suffers less than I do. Probably it’s because she’s older, and she’s learned to ration these things. “Camille will survive,” she says. “Why do you think he goes around in the company of such large men?” There are guns, I say, knives. “Knives?” she says. “Can you imagine someone trying to get a knife past M. Danton? Hacking through all that muscle and flesh?” That’s to imagine, I say, that he would interpose himself. She says, “Isn’t Camille rather good at exacting human sacrifices? After all,” she says, “look at me. Look at you.”
We expect, quite soon, to hear of Adèle’s engagement. Max came here, and quite gratuitously praised the Abbé Terray. Much that the abbé had done, he said, had not been generally understood. Claude has consequently ceased to mind that Max has only his deputy’s salary, and that he is supporting a younger brother and a sister out of it.
What will Adèle’s life be like? Robespierre gets letters, too, but they’re not the same as the ones Camille gets. They come from all over the city; they’re letters from little people, who have fallen foul of the authorities
or got themselves into some form of trouble, and they think he can take up their case and put everything right. He has to get up at 5 a.m. to answer these letters. Somehow I think his standards of domestic comfort are rather low. His requirements for recreation, amusement, diversion seem to be nil. Now, ask yourself—will that suit Adèle?
or got themselves into some form of trouble, and they think he can take up their case and put everything right. He has to get up at 5 a.m. to answer these letters. Somehow I think his standards of domestic comfort are rather low. His requirements for recreation, amusement, diversion seem to be nil. Now, ask yourself—will that suit Adèle?
R
obespierre: It’s not just Paris he must consider. Letters come from all over the country. Provincial towns have set up their Jacobin Clubs, and the Correspondence Committe of the Paris club sends them news, assessments, directives; back come their letters, distinguishing among the Paris brethren the deputy Robespierre, marking him out for their praise and thanks. This is something, after the vilification of the royalists. Inside his copy of
The Social Contract
he keeps a letter from a young Picard, an enthusiast called Antoine Saint-Just: “I know you, Robespierre, as I know God, by your works.” When he suffers, as he does increasingly, from a distressing tightness of the chest and shortness of breath, and when his eyes seem too tired to focus on the printed page, the thought of the letter urges the weak flesh to more Works.
obespierre: It’s not just Paris he must consider. Letters come from all over the country. Provincial towns have set up their Jacobin Clubs, and the Correspondence Committe of the Paris club sends them news, assessments, directives; back come their letters, distinguishing among the Paris brethren the deputy Robespierre, marking him out for their praise and thanks. This is something, after the vilification of the royalists. Inside his copy of
The Social Contract
he keeps a letter from a young Picard, an enthusiast called Antoine Saint-Just: “I know you, Robespierre, as I know God, by your works.” When he suffers, as he does increasingly, from a distressing tightness of the chest and shortness of breath, and when his eyes seem too tired to focus on the printed page, the thought of the letter urges the weak flesh to more Works.
Every day he attends the Assembly, and every evening the Jacobin Club. He calls when he can at the Duplessis house, dines occasionally with Pétion—working dinner. He goes to the theater perhaps twice in the season, with no great pleasure and regret at the time lost. People wait to see him outside the Riding School, outside the club, outside the door of his lodgings.
Each night he is exhausted. He sleeps as soon as his head touches the pillow. His sleep is dreamless, a plummeting into blackness: like falling into a well. The night world is real, he often feels; the mornings, with their light and air, are populated by shadows, ghosts. He rises before dawn, to have the advantage of them.
W
illiam Augustus Miles, observing the situation on behalf of His (English) Majesty’s government:
illiam Augustus Miles, observing the situation on behalf of His (English) Majesty’s government:
The man held of least account in the National Assembly … will soon be of the first consideration. He is a stern man, rigid in his principles, plain, unaffected in his manners, no foppery in his dress, certainly above corruption, despising wealth and with nothing of the volatility of a Frenchman in his character. Nothing the King could bestow … could warp this man from his purpose. I watch him closely every night. He is
really a character to be contemplated; he is growing every hour into consequence, and strange to relate, the whole National Assembly hold him cheap, consider him insignificant; when I said he would be the man of sway in a short time, and govern the million, I was laughed at.
really a character to be contemplated; he is growing every hour into consequence, and strange to relate, the whole National Assembly hold him cheap, consider him insignificant; when I said he would be the man of sway in a short time, and govern the million, I was laughed at.
E
arly in the year, Lucile was taken to meet Mirabeau. She would never forget the man, standing squarely on a good Persian rug in a room decorated in appalling taste. He was thin-lipped, scarred and massive. He looked her over. “I believe your father’s a civil servant,” he said. He thrust his face forward and leered at her. “Do you come in duplicate?”
arly in the year, Lucile was taken to meet Mirabeau. She would never forget the man, standing squarely on a good Persian rug in a room decorated in appalling taste. He was thin-lipped, scarred and massive. He looked her over. “I believe your father’s a civil servant,” he said. He thrust his face forward and leered at her. “Do you come in duplicate?”
Mirabeau, in a room, seemed to use up all the available air. He seemed, too, to use up all Camille’s brains. It was extraordinary, the set of delusions Camille could entertain; no,
of course
Mirabeau was not in the pay of the Court, that was slander.
Of course
Mirabeau was the perfect patriot. Come the day Camille can no longer sustain these eccentric beliefs, he is practically suicidal. There is almost no newspaper that week.
of course
Mirabeau was not in the pay of the Court, that was slander.
Of course
Mirabeau was the perfect patriot. Come the day Camille can no longer sustain these eccentric beliefs, he is practically suicidal. There is almost no newspaper that week.
“Max warned him,” Adèle said. “He wouldn’t listen. Mirabeau has called that half-educated Austrian baggage ‘a great and noble woman.’ And yet, to the people in the streets, Mirabeau is a god still. It shows how easily they can be misled.”
Claude put his head in his hands. “Must we have this every hour, every hour of the day and night, this blasphemy and sedition from the mouths of young women? In our own house?”
“I was thinking,” Lucile said, “that Mirabeau must have his own reasons for talking to the Court. But he has lost his credit with the patriots now.”
“His reason? Money is his reason, and greed for power. He wants to save the monarchy so that they will be grateful to him and bound to him forever more.”
“Save the monarchy?” Claude said. “From what? From whom?”
“Father, the King has asked the Assembly for a civil list of twenty-five million, and the groveling fools have granted it. You know the state of the nation. They want to drain its blood. Consider, can this last?”
He looked at his daughters to discern, if he could, the children they had once been. He felt impelled to plead with them. “But if you had not the King, or Lafayette, or Mirabeau, or the ministers—and I have heard you speak against them all—who would there be left to rule the nation?”
They exchanged glances. “Our friends,”, the sisters said.
Camille attacked Mirabeau in print, with a savagery he had not known himself to command. He did command it; abuse moves in the bloodstream, anger is better than food. For a time Mirabeau continued to speak out for him, defending him against the Right when they tried to silence him. “My poor Camille,” he called him. In time, he would pass over to the ranks of his enemies. “I am truly Christian,” Camille said.
“I love my enemies.”
And indeed, his enemies gave him definition. He could read his purpose in their eyes.
“I love my enemies.”
And indeed, his enemies gave him definition. He could read his purpose in their eyes.
Moving away from Mirabeau, he became closer to Robespierre. This made for a different life—evenings spent pushing papers across a desk, silence broken only by the odd murmur of consultation, the scratching of quills, the ticking of a clock. To be with Robespierre, Camille had to put on gravity like a winter cloak. “He is all I should be,” he told Lucile. “Max doesn’t care for failure or success, it all evens out in his mind. He doesn’t care what other people say about him, or what opinion they hold of his actions. As long as what he does feels right, inside, that’s enough for him, that’s his guide. He’s one of the few men, the very few men, to whom only the witness of their own conscience is necessary.”
Yet just the day before, Danton had said to her, “Ah, young Maximilien, he’s too good to be true, that one. I can’t work him out.”
But after all, Robespierre. had been quite right about Mirabeau. Whatever you thought about him, you had to admit that he was almost always right.
I
n May, Théroigne left Paris. She had no money, and she was tired of the royalist papers calling her a prostitute. One by one, the murky layers of the past had been peeled away. Her time in London with a penniless milord. Her more profitable relationship with the Marquis de Persan. Her sojourn in Genoa with an Italian singer. A silly few weeks, when she was new in Paris, when she introduced herself to people as the Comtesse de Campinado, a great lady fallen on hard times. Nothing criminal, or madly hyperbolic: just the sort of thing we’ve all done when necessity has pressed. It left her open, though, to ridicule and insult. Whose life, she asked as she did her packing, would stand up to the sort of scrutiny mine has received? She meant to be back in a few months. The press will have moved on to new targets, she thought.
n May, Théroigne left Paris. She had no money, and she was tired of the royalist papers calling her a prostitute. One by one, the murky layers of the past had been peeled away. Her time in London with a penniless milord. Her more profitable relationship with the Marquis de Persan. Her sojourn in Genoa with an Italian singer. A silly few weeks, when she was new in Paris, when she introduced herself to people as the Comtesse de Campinado, a great lady fallen on hard times. Nothing criminal, or madly hyperbolic: just the sort of thing we’ve all done when necessity has pressed. It left her open, though, to ridicule and insult. Whose life, she asked as she did her packing, would stand up to the sort of scrutiny mine has received? She meant to be back in a few months. The press will have moved on to new targets, she thought.
She left a gap, of course. She’d been a familiar figure at the Riding School, lounging in the public gallery in a scarlet coat, her claque around her; strolling through the Palais-Royal, with a pistol in her belt. News
came that she’d disappeared from her home in Liege; her brothers thought she’d gone off with some man, but before long rumors seeped through that she’d been abducted, that the Austrians had got her.
came that she’d disappeared from her home in Liege; her brothers thought she’d gone off with some man, but before long rumors seeped through that she’d been abducted, that the Austrians had got her.
Hope they keep her, Lucile said. She was jealous of Théroigne. What gave her the right to be a pseudo-man, turning up at the Cordeliers and demanding the rostrum? It made Danton mad. It was funny to see what a rage it put him into. The kind of woman he liked was the kind he met at the Duke’s dinner table: Agnès de Buffon, who gave him the most ridiculous languishing looks, and the blonde Englishwoman, Grace Elliot, with her mysterious political connections and her mechanical, eye-flashing flirtatiousness. Lucile had been to the Duke’s house; she had watched Danton there. She supposed he knew what was happening; he knew that Laclos was setting him up, danging these women under his nose. The procuress, Félicité, he left to Camille. Camille didn’t mind having to have intelligent conversations with women. He seemed to enjoy them. One of his perversions, Danton said.
That summer Camille’s old school enemy, Louis Suleau, came to Paris. He came from Picardy under arrest, charged with seditious, anti-constitutional writings. He had a different brand of sedition from Camille, being more royalist than the King. Louis was acquitted; on the night of his release he and Camille sat up and argued until dawn. It was a very good argument—very articulate, very erudite, and its patron saint was Voltaire. “I have to keep Louis away from Robespierre,” Camille said to Lucile. “Louis is one of the best people in the world, but I’m afraid Max doesn’t understand that.”
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