A Place of Greater Safety (94 page)
Read A Place of Greater Safety Online
Authors: Hilary Mantel
“The closed carriage was somewhat undemocratic, I feel. This is something the people have a right to see.”
Lagarde looked at him sideways. “Hard bastards they breed in your part of the country.” Yet one could understand them, he thought, one could find them—it was a sign of the times—quite reassuring: deadpan Fouquier, lawyer’s lawyer, and his volatile, highly placed relative who had got him the job. One could find them preferable to some of the Republic’s servants—preferable to Hébert, with his obscene mouthings, his maggot whiteness. There had been times during yesterday’s session when he had felt physically sick.
“I know who you’re thinking of,” Camille said. “That expression commonly crosses people’s faces. I suspect that Hébert has laid his paws on War Office money, and if I find the proof he’ll be one of your next big clients.”
Fouquier hurried over. “The jury is returning,” he said. “My commiserations in advance, Lagarde.”
The prisoner was helped across the hall to her chair. One moment she was in darkness; the next moment, light struck her lined and shattered face.
“She seems old,” Camille said. “She seems hardly able to see where she’s going. I didn’t know her eyesight was so poor.”
“I can hardly be blamed for that,” the Public Prosecutor said. “Though no doubt,” he added with foresight, “when I am dead, people will blame me for it. Excuse me, cousin, please.”
The verdict was unanimous. Leaning forward, Hermann asked the prisoner if she had anything to say. The former Queen of France shook her head. Her fingers moved impatiently on the arm of her chair. Hermann pronounced the death sentence.
The court rose. Guards moved forward to take the prisoner out. Fouquier didn’t watch her go. His cousin hurried to help him with his pile of papers. “Easy day tomorrow,” Fouquier said. “Here, take these. Somehow you’d think that the Public Prosecutor would have a clerk available.”
Hermann nodded civilly to Camille, and Fouquier bade the president good night. Camille’s eyes were on the widow Capet’s shuffling withdrawal. “It hardly seems much, really, to be the summit of our ambitions. Cutting some dreary woman’s head off.”
“I swear you are changeable, Camille. I’ve never known you to give the Austrian a good word. Come. I usually preserve my dignity in my
official carriage, but I need some air. Unless you are reporting to Robespierre?”
official carriage, but I need some air. Unless you are reporting to Robespierre?”
He was always proud of his cousin, when they were together in public. Especially when he saw him with Danton—he noted those private allusions they shared, the jokes, the sidelong glances, and he saw, as often as not, Danton’s beefy arm draped around his cousin, or his cousin in some late-night public assembly close his dangerous eyes and lean comfortably against Danton’s shoulder. With Robespierre, of course, it was not like that. Robespierre almost never touched anyone. His face was distant, aloof. But Camille could conjure onto it an expression of lively amiability; they shared memories, and possibly too they shared private jokes. People said—though this felt like a heresy—that they had seen Camille make Robespierre laugh.
Now his cousin shook his head. “Robespierre will be asleep now. Unless the committee is still sitting. It’s not as if there was any chance of your losing, is it?”
“God forbid.” Fouquier put his arm into his cousin’s, and they stepped out into the frosty early hours. A policeman saluted them. “The next big one is Brissot—and all of that crew we’ve managed to lay hold of. I base my prosecution on your writings—your ‘Secret History,’ and the other article you wrote about Brissot after you had that row about your gambling case. Good stuff: I’ll lift some of your phrases if you don’t mind. I hope you’ll be in court to take the credit.”
Think now of those post-Bastille days: Brissot in Camille’s office, perched on the desk. Théroigne swishing in and planting a big kiss on his dry cheek. He was my friend, Camille thinks; then along came the gambling case, and we were suddenly on opposite sides, he made it personal, and
I can’t stand criticism.
He knows this about himself; he either flares up or folds up, he takes some kind of offensive or—or what? “Antoine,” he says to his cousin, “I seem to know all forms of attack. But I seem to know no forms of defense at all.”
I can’t stand criticism.
He knows this about himself; he either flares up or folds up, he takes some kind of offensive or—or what? “Antoine,” he says to his cousin, “I seem to know all forms of attack. But I seem to know no forms of defense at all.”
“Come now,” the Prosecutor said. He did not understand in the least what his cousin was talking about, but that was nothing new. He put out a hand, ruffled his cousin’s hair. Camille flicked his head away as if a wasp had touched him. Fouquier took it quietly. He was in a good humor—looking forward to the bottle of wine he had promised himself when it was all over; he tried not to drink during the big cases. He felt, however, that sleep might elude him: or bring his nightmares back. Perhaps his cousin, with whom he really spent too little time, would like to sit up and talk. For two boys from the provinces, he thought, we are doing extremely well these days.
S
oon after eleven the next morning Henri Sanson entered her cell for the preparations. He was the son of the man who had executed her husband. She wore a white dress, a light shawl, black stockings and a pair of high-heeled plum-colored shoes, which during her imprisonment she had carefully preserved. The executioner tied her hands behind her back and cut off the hair which, according to her maid, she had thought it proper to “dress high” to meet her judge and jury. She did not move, and Sanson did not allow the steel to touch her neck. Within a few seconds the long tresses, once the color of honey and now streaked coarsely with gray, lay on the floor of the cell. He scooped them up to be burned.
oon after eleven the next morning Henri Sanson entered her cell for the preparations. He was the son of the man who had executed her husband. She wore a white dress, a light shawl, black stockings and a pair of high-heeled plum-colored shoes, which during her imprisonment she had carefully preserved. The executioner tied her hands behind her back and cut off the hair which, according to her maid, she had thought it proper to “dress high” to meet her judge and jury. She did not move, and Sanson did not allow the steel to touch her neck. Within a few seconds the long tresses, once the color of honey and now streaked coarsely with gray, lay on the floor of the cell. He scooped them up to be burned.
The tumbrel waited in the courtyard. It was an ordinary cart, once used for carrying wood, now with planks across it for seats. At the sight of it, she lost her composure; she gaped in fear, but she did not cry out. She asked the executioner to untie her hands for a moment, and when he did so she squatted in a corner, by a wall, and urinated. Her hands were tied again, and she was put into the cart. Under the shorn hair and the plain white cap, her tired eyes searched for pity in the faces around her. The journey to the place of execution lasted for an hour. She did not speak. As she mounted the steps, paid, indifferent hands kept her balanced. Her body began to shake, her limbs to give way. In her blindness and terror, she stepped on the executioner’s foot. “I beg your pardon, Monsieur,” she whispered. “I did not mean to do it.” A few minutes after noon her head was off: “the greatest joy of all the joys experienced by Père Duchesne.”
The Marquis Calls
B
oth the monarchs are dead, the he-tyrant and the she-tyrant. You’d think there’d be a feeling of freedom, a feeling inside; Lucile finds she doesn’t have it. She had pressed Camille for details of the Queen’s last hours, anxious to know whether she had been worthy of a place in history; but he seemed reluctant to talk about it. In the end he said that, as she very well knew, nothing would induce him to attend the execution. Hypocrite, she said. You ought to go and see the results of your actions. He stared at her. I know how people die, he said. He made her an old regime bow, very fulsome and ironic, picked up his hat and went out. He seldom quarreled with her, but revenged himself by mysterious absences, of between ten minutes and several days in duration.
oth the monarchs are dead, the he-tyrant and the she-tyrant. You’d think there’d be a feeling of freedom, a feeling inside; Lucile finds she doesn’t have it. She had pressed Camille for details of the Queen’s last hours, anxious to know whether she had been worthy of a place in history; but he seemed reluctant to talk about it. In the end he said that, as she very well knew, nothing would induce him to attend the execution. Hypocrite, she said. You ought to go and see the results of your actions. He stared at her. I know how people die, he said. He made her an old regime bow, very fulsome and ironic, picked up his hat and went out. He seldom quarreled with her, but revenged himself by mysterious absences, of between ten minutes and several days in duration.
He was back within the hour: could they give a supper party? The notice was very generous, Jeanette said tartly. But good food in sufficient quantity can always be procured if you have money and know where to go. Camille disappeared again, and it was Jeanette, out shopping, who found out what there was to celebrate; the Convention had heard that afternoon that the Austrians had been defeated in a long and bloody battle at Wattignies.
So that night they drank to the latest victory, to the newest commanders. They talked of the progress against the Vendee insurgents, of success against the rebels of Lyon and Bordeaux. “It seems to me the Republic is prospering immensely,” she said to Hérault.
“The news is good, yes.” But he frowned. He was preoccupied; he had asked the Committee to send him to Alsace in the wake of Saint-Just, and he was to leave soon, perhaps tomorrow.
“Why did you do that?” she asked him. “We’ll be dull without you.
I’m pleased you could come tonight, I thought you might be at the Committee.”
I’m pleased you could come tonight, I thought you might be at the Committee.”
“I’m not a lot of use to them these days. They tell me as little as possible. I learn more from the newspapers.”
“They don’t trust you anymore?” She was alarmed. “What’s happened?”
“Ask your husband. He has the ear of the Incorruptible.” A few minutes later he rose, thanked her, explained that there were last-minute preparations. Camille stood up, and kissed Hérault’s cheek. “Come back soon. I shall so much miss our regular exchange of veiled abuse.”
“I doubt it will be soon.” Hérault’s voice was strained. “At least, at the frontier I can do useful work, and I can see the enemy, and know who they are. Paris is becoming a place for scavengers.”
“I apologize,” Camille said. “I can see I’m a waste of your time. Can I have my kiss back?”
“I swear,” someone said lazily, “that if you two were to mount the scaffold together you’d quarrel over precedence.”
“Oh, I fancy I’d have the advantage,” Camille said. “Though I cannot imagine which way it lies. My cousin decides the order of execution.”
There was a choking sound, and somebody put his glass down hard. Fabre stared at them, red-faced. “It’s not funny,” he said. “It’s in the worst taste imaginable, and it’s not even funny.”
There was a silence, into which Hérault dropped his good-byes. After he had gone the conversation resumed with a forced hilarity, which Fabre led. The party broke up early. Later, lying in bed, Lucile asked, “What happened? Our parties never fail, never.”
“Oh,” Camille said, “no doubt it is the end of civilization as we know it.” Then he added, tiredly, “It’s probably because Georges is away.” He turned away from her, but she knew that he was lying awake, listening to the sounds of the city by night: black eyes staring into black darkness.
Something’s amiss, she thought. At least, since Saint-Just left Paris, Camille was more with Robespierre. Robespierre understood him; he would find out what was wrong and tell her.
Next day she called on Eléonore. If it was true that Eléonore was Robespierre’s mistress, it didn’t make her any happier, certainly no more gracious. She was not slow to bring the conversation round to Camille.
“He,” she said with disgust, “can make Max do anything he wants, and nobody else can make him do anything they want at all. He’s just always very polite and busy.” She leaned forward, trying to communicate her distress. “He gets up early and deals with his letters. He goes to the Convention. He goes to the Tuileries and transacts the Committee’s
business. Then he goes to the Jacobins. At ten o’clock at night the Committee goes into session. He comes home in the small hours.”
business. Then he goes to the Jacobins. At ten o’clock at night the Committee goes into session. He comes home in the small hours.”
“He drives himself very hard. But what do you expect? That’s the kind of man he is.”
“He’ll never marry me. He says, as soon as the present crisis is over. But it never will be over, will it Lucile, will it?”
A few weeks ago in the street Lucile and her mother had seen Anne Théroigne. It had taken them both a moment to recognize her. Théroigne was no longer pretty. She was thin; her face had fallen in as if she had lost some teeth. She passed them; something flickered in her eyes, but she didn’t speak. Lucile thought her pathetic—a victim of the times. “No one could think her attractive now,” Annette said. She smiled. Her recent birthdays had passed, as she put it, without incident. Most men still looked at her with interest.
Once again, she was seeing Camille in the afternoons. He often stayed away from the Convention now. Many of the Montagnards were away on mission; many of the right-wing deputies, those who had voted against the King’s death, had abandoned their public duties and fled Paris. More than seventy deputies had signed a protest about the expulsion of Brissot, Vergniaud and the rest; they were in prison now, and only Robespierre’s good offices kept them out of the hands of the Tribunal. François Robert was in disgrace, and Philippe Égalité awaited trial; Collot d’Herbois was in Lyon, punishing rebels. Danton was enjoying the country air. Saint-Just and Babette’s husband, Philippe Lebas, were with the armies; the burden of the Committee’s work often kept Robespierre at the Tuileries. Camille and Fabre grew tired of counting the empty places. There was no one they much liked, and no one they much wanted to shout down. And Marat was dead.
Théroigne turned up at the rue des Cordeliers a few days after the supper party. Her clothes hung on her; she looked unwashed and somehow desperate. “I want to see Camille,” she said. She had developed a way of turning her head away from you as she spoke, as if she were engaged in a private monologue into which you mustn’t intrude. Camille heard her voice; he had been sitting doing nothing, staring into space. “Well my dear,” he said, “you have deteriorated. If this is all you can do by way of feminine charm, I think I prefer the way you were before.”
“Your manners are still exquisite,” Théroigne said, looking at the wall. “What’s that? That engraving? That woman’s going to have her head cut off.”
“That is Maria Stuart, my wife’s favorite historical personage.”
“How strange,” she said tonelessly.
“Sit down,” Lucile said. “Do you want something? A warm drink?” She was overwhelmed by pity; someone ought to feed her, brush her hair, tell Camille not to speak to her like that. “Would you rather I left you?” she said.
“No, that’s all right. You can stay if you want. Or go. I don’t mind.”
As she moved slowly into a better light, Lucile saw the scars on her face. Months ago, she knew, she had been beaten in the street by a gang of women. How she has suffered, Lucile thought; God preserve me. Her throat tightened.
“What I want won’t take long,” Théroigne said. “You know, don’t you, what I think?”
“I don’t know that you do,” Camille said.
“You know where my sympathies lie. Brissot’s people go on trial this week. I’m one of them, Brissot’s people.” There was no passion in her voice. “I believe in what they stand for and what they’ve tried to do. I don’t like your politics and I don’t like Robespierre’s.”
“Is that it? Is that what you came for?”
“I want you to go, right away, to the Section committee and denounce me. I’ll come with you. I won’t deny anything you say about me. I’ll repeat exactly what I just said.”
Lucile: “Anne, what’s the matter with you?”
“She wants to die,” Camille said. He smiled.
“Yes,” she said, in the same listless whisper. “I do.”
Lucile crossed the room to her. Théroigne pushed her hands away, and Camille gave her a sharp, fierce look. She dropped back, looking from one to the other.
“It’s easy,” Camille said. “You go out on the street and shout ‘Long live the King.’ They’ll arrest you right away.”
Anne raised a bony hand and touched her eyebrow. A white mark showed where the flesh had been split open. “I made a speech,” she said. “This happened. They hit me with a whip. They kicked me in the stomach and trod on me. I thought I was finished then. But it was a wretched way to die.”
“Try the river,” Camille said.
“Denounce me. Let’s go to the Section now. You’d be pleased to do it. You want your revenge.”
“Yes,” he said, “I do want revenge, but why should you have the benefit of a civilized end? I may detest Brissot’s people, but they shouldn’t have their names linked to scum like you. No, Théroigne, you can die in the street—like Louis Suleau did. You can take your death where you find it, and from whoever hands it out. I hope you wait a long time.”
Her expression didn’t change. Humbly, her eyes sliding across the carpet, she said, “I beg of you.”
“Go away,” Camille said.
She inclined her head. Her face averted, her gait beaten and slow, Théroigne moved towards the door. Lucile cried out for her to come back. “She means to take her life.” Stupidly, she was pointing after her, as if to make herself clear.
“No, she doesn’t,” Camille said.
“Oh, you are wicked,” Lucile whispered. “If there’s a hell, you’ll burn in it.” The door closed. She rushed across the room. She wanted to injure him, to hurt him in reparation for the ghost-like creature who had crept out into the rain. His expression distant, he held her wrists, thwarting her. Her whole body shook, and a rush of tears scalded her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you couldn’t do what she said, it’s absurd, but surely there’s some way to help her and make her want to live? Everybody must want to live.”
“That’s not true. Every day people are taken up off the streets. They wait for a patrol to come along, and then they shout out for the Dauphin, or for Robespierre to be guillotined. There are a multitude of deaths waiting. She only has to choose one.”
She dragged herself from his grasp, ran into the bedroom and slammed the door. Her chest heaved, her heart rose and throbbed in her throat. With all the desperate passions in our heads and bodies, one day these walls will split, one day this house will fall down. There will be soil and bones and grass, and they will read our diaries to find out what we were.
9
Brumaire, the Palais de Justice. Brissot seemed to have aged. He was more papery and stooped, and the hair at his temples had receded further. De Sillery looked old; where were his gambling passions now? He would not bet on the outcome of this; this was a certainty. Only, sometimes, he wondered how he got made into a Brissotin. He should be sitting beside Philippe; Philippe, the lucky devil, has another week to live.
Brumaire, the Palais de Justice. Brissot seemed to have aged. He was more papery and stooped, and the hair at his temples had receded further. De Sillery looked old; where were his gambling passions now? He would not bet on the outcome of this; this was a certainty. Only, sometimes, he wondered how he got made into a Brissotin. He should be sitting beside Philippe; Philippe, the lucky devil, has another week to live.
He leant forward. “Brissot, do you remember? We were witnesses at Camille’s wedding.”
“So we were,” Brissot said. “But then you know, so was Robespierre.”
Vergniaud, who was always careless about his clothes, was immaculate tonight, as if to show that imprisonment and trial had not broken his spirit. His face was carefully devoid of expression; he would give nothing away, give his tormenters no satisfaction. Where was Buzot tonight, he wondered? Where was Citizen Roland? Where was Pétion? Alive or dead?
The clock struck 10:15. Outside it was pitch black, raining. The jury was back; at once they were surrounded by officers of the court. Citizen Fouquier, his cousin with him, strolled across the marble, into the light; there were twenty-two verdicts to be pronounced, twenty-two death sentences to be read, before he could go home to a late meal and a bottle.
His cousin Camille was very pale; his voice shook, he was on edge. For six days he, Fouquier, had been quoting his cousin’s assertions at the jury, his accusations of federalist conspiracy, of monarchist plots. Occasionally, when some now-famous phrase fell on their ears, the accused would turn as one man and look at Camille. It was as if they had rehearsed it; no doubt they had. It had been a strain, Fouquier supposed. He had already ordered the tumbrels; when there were twenty-two accused, you had to be mindful of these details.
There is, Fouquier reflected, something theatrical about the scene, or something for an artist’s brush; the black and white of the tiles, the flare of candle flames, the splashes, here and there, of the tricolor. Light touches his cousin’s face; he takes a chair. The foreman of the jury rises. A clerk flicks from a file a sheaf of death warrants. Behind the Public Prosecutor, someone whispered, “Camille, what’s the matter?”
Suddenly, from the ranks of the accused, there was a single sharp cry. The accused men leapt to their feet, the guards closed in on them, the officers of the court threw down their papers and scrambled from their places. One of the accused, Charles Valazé, had slid backwards from his bench. There were screams from women in the crowd, a rush to see what had happened; guards struggled to hold the spectators back.
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