Authors: Hilary Mantel

A Place of Greater Safety (80 page)

BOOK: A Place of Greater Safety

8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

“You are allowed to express your opinion—but we are at war, and so your opinion must not be treasonable or seditious. Do you understand what they mean, those words?”

She nods.

“You must remember who I am.”

“You don’t let a person forget, Citizen Danton.”

“Come here,” he says. “Let me try to explain.”

“No.”

“Why won’t you?”

“My parents have forbidden me to be alone with you.”

“But you are. What’s the matter, do they think I might make you a little Jacobin?”

“No, it’s not my politics they worry about. It’s my virginity.”

He grinned. “So that’s what they think of me?”

“They think you’re in the habit of taking what you want.”

“They think I’m not to be trusted alone with a little girl?”

“Yes, they think that.”

“I wish you would go and tell them,” he said, “that I have never in my life forced my attentions on a woman. Despite some dire provocation from a pretty creature around the corner—tell your mother that, she’ll know just what I mean. Tell me, have they singled me out for this? Have they warned you about Camille? Because, I can assure you, if you were alone in an empty house with Camille he would consider it his positive duty to deflower you. His positive patriotic duty.”

“Deflower? What an expression!” she said. “I thought Camille had been having an affair with his mother-in-law?”

“Where the hell do you get these stories from?” Suddenly she has touched the anger that is never far below the surface. “To tell you the truth, it disgusts me that your parents think so badly of me. My wife has been dead a month—do they think I’m a monster?”

That is exactly what they do think, she says to herself. “Have you given up women, then?”

“Probably not forever. For now, yes.”

“Do you think that very moral?”

“I think it shows respect for my wife, who is dead.”

“It would have shown more respect if you had done it while she was alive.”

“We ought not to continue this conversation.”

“Oh, I think we ought. When you come home from Belgium.”

H
e left Paris on March 17, with Deputy Lacroix at his side. By now they knew each other quite well; he could have told Gabrielle everything she wanted to know.

On March 19 he was in Brussels; but by the time they caught up with Dumouriez, he had lost a battle at Neerwinden. They found him in the thick of a rearguard action: “Meet me in Louvain,” he said.

“What is the Convention anyway?” he asked angrily, that same night. “Three hundred fools, led by two hundred scoundrels.”

“You will at least observe the decencies,” Danton suggested.

The general stared at him. For a moment he saw himself spitted on his sword; but without a toga, it didn’t look quite right.

“I mean,” Danton said, “that you should at least write a letter to the Convention, promising a detailed explanation of your conduct, of your closure of the Jacobins clubs, of your refusal to work with the Convention’s representatives. Oh, and of your defeat.”

“God dammit,” Dumouriez said. “I was promised thirty thousand men. Let the Convention write a letter to me, and explain why they’ve got lost on the way!”

“Do you know there is a move to have you arrested? They are fireeaters, on the Committee of General Security. Deputy Lebas has spoken against you—and I hear he’s a young fellow for whom Robespierre has a high regard. And David too.”

“Committees?” the general said. “Let them try it! In the midst of my armies? What’s David going to do, hit me with his paintbrush?”

“It would be wise not to be flippant, General. Think about the Revolutionary Tribunal. I do not think it will make much distinction between failure and treason, and you are the man who has just lost France a battle. You had better be careful what you say to me, because I am here to judge your attitude and report on it to the Convention and the General Defense Committee.”

He was taken aback. “But Danton—haven’t we been good friends? We’ve worked together—in God’s name, I hardly recognize you. What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the effect of prolonged sexual abstinence.”

The general looked up into Danton’s face. It yielded nothing. Again, turning away, he muttered, “
Committees
.”

“Committees are effective, General. So we are beginning to find. If the members work together, and work hard, then it is surprising how much can be achieved. Committees will soon be running the Revolution. The ministers already act under their surveillance. It is not so important to be a minister, these days.”

“Yes—what did I hear—about the ministers being prevented from going to the Convention?”

“A temporary detention only. The mob barricaded them into the Foreign Ministry to prevent them interfering with the debate. The Minister of War, you may be glad to know, showed a bold martial character, and escaped by vaulting over a wall.”

“This is no joke,” the general said. “This is anarchy.”

“I wanted my measures passed,” Danton said.

Dumouriez allowed himself to fold into a chair. He rested his forehead
on a clenched fist. “Christ,” he said, “I’m done for. At my age a man should be thinking of retirement. Tell me, Danton, how is it in Paris? How are all my devoted friends? Marat, for instance?”

“The doctor is the same. A little yellower, perhaps, rather more shrunken. He takes special baths now, to soothe his pains.”

“Any baths would be an improvement,” the general muttered. “Quite ordinary ones.”

“They keep him at home sometimes, the special baths. I’m afraid they don’t improve his temper.”

“Camille can still talk to him?”

“Oh yes. We have a line of communication. It is necessary—his influence over the people has no rival. Hébert dreams that one day he may have as much. But, when you come down to it, people aren’t fools.”

“And young Citizen Robespierre?”

“Looking older. Working hard.”

“Not married that gawky girl yet?”

“No. He’s sleeping with her, though.”

“Is he now?” The general raised his eyebrows. “It’s an advance, I suppose. But when you think of the good time he could have, if he wanted … it’s a tragedy, Danton, a tragedy. I suppose he is not sitting on any of these committees?”

“No. They keep electing him, and he refuses to serve.”

“It’s strange, isn’t it? He wasn’t meant for politics. I’ve never known anyone fight shy of power like he does.”

“He has plenty of power. He prefers it unofficial, that’s all.”

“He baffles me. He baffles you, too, I would suppose. Still, leave that alone—tell me, how’s the beauteous Manon?”

“Still in love, they say. Women in love are supposed to be soft little creatures, aren’t they? You should hear the speeches she writes for her friends in the Convention.”

“Did your baby live?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.” The general looked up. “Listen, Danton. There’s something I want to tell you. But you will have to reciprocate.”

“I love you too.”

“Now it’s you who are flippant. Listen. Pay attention. Roland wrote me a letter. He asked me to turn the armies and march them on Paris. To restore order there. Also, to—as he put it—crush a certain faction. The Jacobins, he meant. Crush Robespierre. And you.”

“I see. You have this letter?”

“Yes. But I won’t give it you. I didn’t tell you this so that you could
hale Roland before your Revolutionary Tribunal. I told you to show what you owe to my forbearance.”

“You were tempted to try it?”

“Well, Citizen—how are your friends in Brittany?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come, Danton, you’re too intelligent to waste time like this. You have contacts with the
émigré
rebels in Brittany. You’re keeping in with them in case they’re successful. You have friends on the Girondist benches and in the House of Commons. You have men with the armies and in every ministry, and you’ve had money from every Court in Europe.” He looked up, propping his chin on his knuckles. “There hasn’t been a pie baked in Europe these last three years that you haven’t had a finger in. How old are you Danton?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Lord. Well, I suppose revolution is a young man’s business.”

“Is there some point to all this, General?”

“Yes. Go back to Paris, and prepare the city for the entry of my armies. Prepare them for a monarchy, a monarchy which will of course be subject entirely to the constitution. The little Dauphin on the throne, Orléans as regent. Best for France, best for me and best for you.”

“No.”

“What will you do, then?”

“I shall go back and indict Roland—and Brissot, too, more to the point. I shall throw them out of the Convention. Robespierre and I will put together our talents and our influence and we will fight our way to a peace settlement. But if Europe won’t make peace—then count on it, I’ll put the whole nation in arms.”

“You believe that? That you can throw the Girondists out of the Convention?”

“Of course I can do it. It may take months, rather than weeks. But I have the resources for it. The ground is prepared for me.”

“Don’t you ever get tired?”

“I’m always tired now. I’ve been trying to struggle out of this bloody business ever since I got into it.”

“I don’t believe you,” Dumouriez said.

“As you please.”

“The Republic is six months old, and it’s flying apart. It has no cohesive force—only a monarchy has that. Surely you can see? We need the monarchy to pull the country together—then we can win the war.”

Danton shook his head.

“Winners make money,” Dumouriez said. “I thought you went where the pickings were richest?”

“I shall maintain the Republic,” Danton said.

“Why?”

“Because it is the only honest thing there is.”

“Honest? With your people in it?”

“It may be that all its parts are corrupted, vicious, but take it altogether, yes, the Republic is an honest endeavor. Yes, it has me, it has Fabre, it has Hebert—but it also has Camille. Camille would have died for it in ’89.”

“In ’89, Camille had no stake in life. Ask him now—now he’s got money and power, now he’s famous. Ask him now if he’s willing to die.”

“It has Robespierre.”

“Oh yes—Robespierre would die to get away from the carpenter’s daughter, I don’t doubt.”

“You are determined to be the complete cynic, General. There is nothing I can do about that. But watch us—we are going to make a new constitution. It will be different from anything the world has ever seen before. It will provide for everyone to be educated, and for everyone to have work.”

“You will never put it into practice.”

“No—but even hope is a virtue. And still, it will add to the glory of our names.”

“We have arrived at the core of you, Danton. You are an idealist.”

“I must sleep, General, I have a journey ahead.”

“You will arrive in Paris and go straight to the Convention, to denounce me. Or to one of your Committees.”

“Don’t you know me better than that? I’m not a denouncer. Though don’t delude yourself—there will be others to do it.”

“But the Convention will expect your report.”

“It can savor its expectations till I’m ready.”

The general stood up suddenly, trim and alert in the flickering light. “Good night, Citizen Danton.”

“Good night, General.”

“Change your mind?”

“Good night.”