A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

CHAPTER 5

Burning the Bodies

August 7: “Gone?” Fabre said. “Danton’s gone?”

Catherine Motin rolled her eyes. “Listen to me once more, Monsieur. Mme. Danton has gone to Fontenay to her parents, and M. Danton has gone to Arcis. If you don’t believe me you can step around the corner and ask M. Desmoulins. Because I’ve already had the same conversation with him.”

Fabre tore out of the street door and through the Cour du Commerce and onto the rue des Cordeliers, then into the other door of the same building and up the stairs. He thought, why don’t Georges-Jacques and Camille knock a hole through the wall? Really, it would be easier if we lived under one roof.

Lucile was sitting with her feet up, reading a novel and eating an orange. “Here you are,” she said, offering him a segment.

“Where is he?” Fabre demanded.

“Georges-Jacques? Gone to Arcis.”

“But why, why, why? Mother of God! Where’s Camille?”

“He’s lying on our bed. I think he’s crying.”

Fabre burst into the bedroom, stuffing the segment of orange into his mouth. He hurled himself at the bed and Camille. “No, please, don’t, please,” Camille said. He covered his head with his hands. “Don’t beat me up, Fabre, I feel ill. I can’t take this.”

“What’s Danton up to? Come on, you must know.”

“He’s gone to see his mother. His mother. I didn’t know till this morning. No message, no letter, nothing. I can’t cope.”

“The fat bastard,” Fabre said. “I bet he’s planning to stay away.”

“I’m going to kill myself,” Camille said.

Fabre rolled from the bed. He propelled himself back into the drawing room. “I can’t get any sense out of him. He says he’s going to kill himself. What shall we do?”

Lucile inserted her bookmark and laid her novel aside. It was clear that she would get no further with it. “Georges told me he would be back, and I have no reason to disbelieve him—but perhaps you’d like to sit down here and write him a letter? Tell him you can’t manage the thing without him, which is true. Tell him Robespierre says he can’t get along without him. And when you’re done, you might go and find Robespierre and ask him to call. He is such a steadying influence when Camille is killing himself.”

Sure enough, August 9, 9 a.m., Danton is back. “No point in being in a temper with me. A man must settle his affairs. It’s a dangerous business, this.”

“Your affairs have been settled more times than I can count,” Fabre said.

“Well, you see, I keep on getting richer.”

He kissed his wife on top of her head. “Will you unpack for me, Gabrielle?”

“You have got that right?” Fabre said. “Unpack, not pack?”

Camille said, “We thought you’d run out on us again.”

“What do you mean, again?” He grabbed Camille by the wrist and pulled him across the room, scooped up his small son Antoine in one arm. “Oh, I have missed you, my loves,” he said. “It’s been all of two days. Why are you here, hm?” he asked the child. “You should be out of town.”

“He cried to come home,” Gabrielle said. “I couldn’t settle him last night till I promised he’d see you today. My mother is coming to fetch him this afternoon.”

“Splendid woman, splendid. Child-minding in the cannon’s mouth.”

“Will you stop being so bloody hearty?” Camille asked. “You make me feel sick.”

“Country air,” Danton said. “Got lots of energy now. You should get out of Paris more often. Poor Camille.” Danton pulled Camille’s head into his shoulder and stroked his hair. “He’s scared, scared, scared.”

Twelve noon. “Only twelve hours now,” Danton said. “I give you my word.”

Two p.m. Marat came. He looked dirtier than ever. As if in sympathy with his work, his skin had taken on the color of poor-quality newsprint.

“There are other places we could have met,” Danton said. “I didn’t ask you here. I don’t want my wife and child given nightmares.”

“You will be pleased to invite me, afterwards. Besides, who knows—I might clean myself up under the republic. Now,” he said briskly. (He always allowed a certain amount of time for personal abuse.) “Now. I suspect the Brissotins of trying to make a deal with the Court. They have been talking to Antoinette, and this I can prove. Nothing they do at this stage can harm us, but the question arises of what we do with them afterwards.”

This word keeps intruding into conversations: afterwards.

Danton shook his head. “I find it hard to believe. Roland’s wife wouldn’t be party to a deal. She got them kicked out of office, remember? I can’t see her talking to Antoinette.”

“Lying, am I?” Marat said.

“I admit that some of them would be willing to negotiate. They want their positions back. It just goes to show that there’s no such thing as a Brissotin.”

“Only when it suits us,” Marat said.

Four p.m., the rue des Cordeliers: “But you can’t just say “Good-bye.” Camille was aghast. You can’t turn up in the middle of a sunny afternoon and say, I’ve enjoyed knowing you for twenty years, now I’m off to get killed.”

“Well, you can,” Louis Suleau said, unsteadily. “It seems that you can.”

’He’d had a kind of luck, the chronicler of the Acts of the Apostles. In ‘89, ’90, the mobs might have killed him; they were the mobs the Lanterne Attorney had driven on. “Whenever I pass a lamp post,” he had written, “I see it stretch out towards me, covetously.”

Camille looked at him in silence, stunned—though he must have known, must have expected it. Louis had been over the border, in the émigré camps; why would he be back in Paris now, if he were not bent on some suicidal gesture?

“You have taken risks yourself,” Louis said. “I don’t need to tell you why one does it. I’ve given up trying to make you a royalist. At least we have that in common—we stick to our principles. I am prepared to die in the defense of the palace, but who knows, the King may have the best of it. We may have a victory yet.”

“Your victory would be my death.”

“I don’t want that,” Louis said.

“You’re a hypocrite. You must want it. You can’t pursue a course and then disown the natural consequences of it.”

“I’m not pursuing a course. I’m keeping faith.”

“With that sad fat fool? Nobody who aspires to be taken seriously could be dying for Louis Capet. There’s something ludicrous about it.”

Louis looked away. “I don’t know … perhaps in the end I agree with you. But it can’t be avoided any longer.”

Camille made a gesture of irritation. “Of course it can be avoided. Go back to your apartment and burn anything you think might be incriminating. Be very careful, because you notice that as the Revolution goes on there are new crimes. Pack only what you need, you mustn’t look as if you’re going anywhere. Later you can give me your keys and I’ll see to everything after—I mean, next week. Don’t come back here, we have several of the Marseille men invited for an early supper. Go to Annette Duplessis, stay there till I come. When you get there sit down and prepare for me a very clear statement of how you want your financial affairs to be handled. But dictate it, it shouldn’t be in your own hand, my father-in-law will take it down for you and he will give you his advice. Don’t sign it, and don’t leave it lying around. Meanwhile I’ll get you a passport and some papers. You speak English, don’t you?”

“You’ve really got into the habit of giving orders. One would suppose you were used to banishing people.”

“For God’s sake, Louis.”

“Thank you, but no.”

“Then”—he was pleading—“if you won’t do that, just come back here at nine o’clock this evening, I’ll divert people tomorrow. You won’t be seen. At least you’ll have a chance.”

“But Camille, the risk to you—you could get into trouble, terrible trouble.”

“You won’t come, will you?”

“No.”

“Then why enlarge on the theme?”

“Because I’m afraid of what may happen to you. You have no duty to me. We found ourselves—no, we put ourselves—on opposite sides. I never expected, I never dreamed, that our friendship could last so long with circumstances as they are.”

“You didn’t think that once—you laughed, and said people were above politics.”

“I know. ‘Liberty, Gaiety, Royal Democracy.’ I believed in my slogan, but I don’t anymore. There won’t be any royalty and personally I think precious little liberty and there’ll always be war and civil war, so I don’t give gaiety much of a chance either. You must see that from now on—after tomorrow, I mean—personal loyalty will count for very little in people’s lives.”

“You are asking me to accept that because of the Revolution—because of what you suppose the Revolution to be—I must stand by while someone I love is destroyed by his own stupidity.”

“I don’t want you to think about it, afterwards.”

“I’ll stop you doing this. I’ll have you arrested tonight. I won’t let you kill yourself.”

“You wouldn’t be doing me a favor. I’ve cheated the Lanterne so far, and I don’t want to be dragged out of prison and lynched. That’s not a death fit for a human being. I know that you could have me arrested. But it would be a betrayal.”

“Of?”

“Of principle.”

“Am I a principle to you, and are you a principle to me?”

“Ask Robespierre,” Louis said wearily. “Ask the man with the conscience which is more important, your friend or your country—ask him how he weighs an individual in the scheme of things. Ask him which comes first, his old pals or his new principles. You ask him, Camille.” He stood up. “I wondered whether I should come here at all—whether it might make difficulties for you.”

“No one can make difficulties for me. There is no authority that can do it.”

“No, I suppose it is coming to that. Camille, I’m sorry I never saw your little boy.”

He held his hand out. Camille turned away from it. Louis said, “Father Bérardier is in prison, love. Will you see if you can get him out?”

His face averted, Camille said, “This supper with the Marseille people will be over by 8:30, always assuming that they don’t sing. After that I’ll be with Danton, wherever he is. You could go to his apartment at any time. Neither he nor his wife would give you away.”

“I don’t know Danton. I’ve seen him, of course, but I’ve never spoken with him.”

“You don’t have to have spoken with him. Just tell him I want you safe. That you’re one of my whims.”

“Would you look at me?”

“No.”

“Are you pretending to be Lot’s wife?”

Camille smiled, turned. The door closed.

“I don’t think I should try to get back to Fontenay,” Angélique said. “Victor will put me up. Would you like to go and see your uncle?”

“No,” Antoine said.

Danton laughed. “He’s a fighter, he wants to stay.”

“Will they be safe at Victor’s?” Gabrielle looked ill, sallow with strain.

“Yes, yes, yes. Would I let them go otherwise?” Ah, Lolotte, there you are.

Lucile swirled across the room, put her hands on Danton’s shoulders. “Stop looking worried,” she said. “We’ll win. I know it.”

“You’ve had too much champagne.”

“I am indulged.”

He dropped his head to whisper into her hair, “I wish you were mine to indulge.” She pulled away, laughing.

“How can you?” Gabrielle demanded. “How can you laugh?”

“Why not, Gabrielle? I’m sure we’ll all be crying soon enough. Perhaps tonight.”

“What do you want to take?” Angélique asked the little boy loudly. “Do you want to take your spinning top? Yes, I think perhaps you do.”

“Keep him warm,” Gabrielle said automatically.

“My dear girl, it’s stifling, he’s more likely to suffocate than take cold.”

“All right, Mother. I know.”

“Walk a little way with her,” Danton said. “It’s still light.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Oh, come.” Lucile hauled her bodily from her chair. Angélique was faintly annoyed. All these years, and her daughter had still not learned when men wanted to get rid of women. Was it an incapacity, or a constantly stated objection to the situation? At the door Angélique turned. “I suppose it’s needless to say take care, Georges?” She nodded to Camille, and shepherded the younger women out.

“What a way to put it,” Danton said. From the window they watched the child’s progress across the Cour du Commerce, great leaps sustained by the arms of his mother and grandmother. “He wants to get round the corner without his feet touching the ground.”

“What a good idea,” Camille said.

“You don’t look happy, Camille.”

“Louis Suleau came.”

“Ah.”

“He intends to join the resistance at the palace.”

“More fool him.”

“I told him to come here if he changes his mind. Was that the right thing to do?”

“Risky, but morally impeccable.”

“Any problems?”

“None so far. Seen Robespierre?”

“No.”

“If you do, keep him out of my way. I don’t want him at my elbow tonight. I may have to do things that will offend his delicate sense of propriety.” He paused. “We can count the hours now.”

At the Tuileries the courtiers prepared for the ceremony of the King’s coucher. They greeted each other formally, in the time-honored way. Here was the blue blood who received the royal stockings, warm from the royal calf; here was the grandee whose task was to turn down the royal coverlet; here was the thoroughbred who handed—as his father did before him, his father before that—the royal nightshirt, and assisted Louis Capet to settle it about his blue-white, corpulent torso.

They followed Louis’s slumped shoulders, arranging themselves to enter the bedchamber in the due order. But the King turned to them his pale, full, anxious face—and slammed the door on them.

The aristocrats stood looking at each other. Only then did the enormity of events become plain. “There is no precedent for it,” they whispered.

Lucile touched Gabrielle’s hand, for comfort. There were a dozen people in the apartment, and a stack of firearms on the floor. “Bring more lights,” Danton said, and Catherine brought them, dough-faced, eyes averted, so that new shadows danced across the ceiling and walls.

Louise Robert said, “Can I stay here, Gabrielle?” She wound her shawl about her, as if she were cold.

Gabrielle nodded. “Must these guns stay here?”

“Yes, they must. Don’t go tidying them up, woman.”

Lucile threaded her way across the room to her husband. They spoke in low, small voices. Then she turned away, calling Georges, Georges; her head ached now, that fuzzy champagne kind of headache that you feel you could brush away, and there was a knot of tension in her throat. Without looking at her Danton broke off his conversation with Fréron, put an arm around her and pulled her close to him. “I know, I know,” he said. “But you must be strong, Lolotte, you are not a silly girl, you must look after the others.” His face was distant, and she wanted all his attention, to fix herself finally in his mind, her priority, her need. But he might have been down the street somewhere; his mind was at the Tuileries, at City Hall, and his mouth issued automatic words of comfort.

“Please take care of Camille,” she said. “Please don’t let anything happen to him.”

He looked down at her now, somber, giving her request consideration; he wanted to give her an honest answer.

“Keep him with you,” she said. “I beg of you, Georges.”

Fréron put a hand on her elbow, tentative; her arm shrank away from it. “Lolotte, we all look out for each other,” he said. “It’s the best we can do.”

She said, “I want nothing from you, Rabbit. You just take care of yourself.”

“Listen now.” Danton’s blue eyes fixed her, and she thought she heard those familiar words, I am going to speak to you as if you were grown up. But he did not say that. “Listen now, when you married Camille you knew what it meant. You have to choose, a safe life, or a life in the Revolution. But do you think I would ask him to take any unnecessary risk?” His eyes traveled to the clock, and she followed them. We shall measure our survival by that clock, she thought. It had been a wedding gift to Gabrielle; its hands were pointed, delicate fleur-de-lis—’86,’ 87. Georges had been King’s Councillor. Camille had been in love with her mother. She had been sixteen. Danton touched her forehead with his scarred lips. “Victory would be ashes,” he said. He could of course have driven a bargain with her. But he was not that sort of man.

Fréron picked up a gun. “For my part,” he said, “I wouldn’t be sorry if it ended tonight.” He glanced at Lucile. “I see little point in my life as I live it now.”

Camille’s voice across the room, acidly solicitous: “Rabbit, I didn’t realize you felt like that, is there anything I can do?”

Someone sniggered. Lucile thought, I can’t help it if you’re in love with me, you should have more sense, you do not hear Hérault saying his life is over, you do not hear Arthur Dillon say it, they know when a game is a game. This is no game, now; this has nothing to do with love. She raised her hand to Camille. She felt she ought to salute. Then she turned away and walked into the bedroom. She left the door slightly ajar; a little light penetrated from other rooms, and the odd muted syllable of conversation. She sat down on a couch, leaned back and began to doze—a post-party doze, full of fragmentary dreams.

“The Great Council Chamber, Monsieur.” Pétion was making for the royal apartments, sash of office round substantial chest. The aristocrats removed themselves from his path as he walked.

He reached the outer galleries. “May I inquire why all you gentlemen are standing around?” His tone suggested that he was addressing performing apes, and did not expect an answer.

The first ape who stepped forward was at least eighty years old—a quavering, paper-tissue ape, with orders of chivalry, which Pétion could not identify, gleaming on his breast. He made a courteous little bow. “M. Mayor, one does not sit in or near the royal apartments. Unless specifically commanded to do so. Did you not know this?”

He cast a glance of distress at his companions. A small ceremonial sword hung at his withered shank. They all wore them, all the trained apes. Pétion snorted and strode on.

The King looked dazed; he was accustomed to a long sleep, to his regular hours. Antoinette sat very upright, her Hapsburg jaw clenched; she looked precisely as Pétion had expected her to look. Pierre-Louis Roederer, a high official of the Seine département, was standing by her chair. He was holding three massive bound volumes and talking to the Marquis de Mandat, Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard.

Pétion bowed, but not profoundly; not in any sense obsequiously.

PÉTION: What’s that you have there, Roederer? You’re not going to need law books tonight.

ROEDERER: I wondered, if it became necessary to declare martial law within the city boundaries, whether the département has the authority to do it.

MME. ELISABETH: Has it?

ROEDERER: I don’t think so, Madame.

PÉTION: I have that authority.

ROEDERER: Yes, but I thought I’d check in case you were—detained in some way.

KING [heavily]: As on June 20.

PÉTION: Forget your law books. Throw them away. Burn them. Eat them. Or you might like to keep them to hit people over the head with. Better than those toothpicks they’re all wearing.

MANDAT: Pétion, you do grasp the fact that you’re legally responsible for the defense of the palace?

PÉTION: Defense against what?

QUEEN: The insurrection is being organized under your very eyes.

MANDAT: We have no ammunition.

PÉTION: What, none at all?

MANDAT: Not nearly enough.

PÉTION: How improvident.

Gabrielle sat down with a rustle of skirts. Lucile woke with a gasp. “It’s only me,” Gabrielle said. “They’ve gone.”

Louise Robert sank to the floor in front of her, took both her hands and squeezed them. “Will they ring the tocsin?” Lucile asked.

“Yes. Very soon.”

Anticipation tightened the back of her neck. She put up a hand to her face and tears spilled between her fingers.

At midnight Danton came back. Gabrielle jumped up in alarm when they heard his footsteps, and they scurried after her into the drawing room.

“Why are you back so soon?”

“I told you I would be. If everything’s going smoothly, I said, I’ll be back for midnight. Why do you never believe anything I say?”

“Then it is going smoothly?” Louise demanded. He looked at them, irritated. They were his problems.

“Of course. Or would I be here?”

“Where’s François? Where have you sent him?”

“How the hell do I know where he is? If he’s where I left him, he’s at City Hall. And the place isn’t on fire, and there’s no shooting.”

“But what are you doing?”

He resigned himself. “There is a large body of patriots at City Hall. They are shortly going to take over from the existing Commune and call themselves the Insurrectionary Commune. Then the patriots will have de facto control of the city.”

Gabrielle: “What does de facto mean?”

“It means they’ll do it now and make it legal later,” Lucile said.

Danton laughed. “Your turn of phrase, these days, Madame! We can tell what marriage has done for you.”

Louise Robert said, “Don’t patronize us, Danton. We understand what the plan is, we just want to know whether it’s working or not.”

“I’m going to get some sleep,” Danton said. He walked into the bedroom they had just left and slammed the door. Fully clothed, he lay down: staring at the ceiling, waiting for the tocsin to ring, waiting for the alarm signal that would bring the people surging out into the streets. The clock struck; it was August 10.

Perhaps two hours later, they heard someone at the door; and Lucile shadowed Gabrielle as she answered it.

There was a little group of men outside. They had been very quiet on the stairs. One stepped forward: “Antoine Fouquier-Tinville. For Danton, if you please.” His courtesy was automatic and very brisk; courtroom politeness.

Gabrielle stood aside. “Must I wake him?”

“Yes, we need him now, my dear. It’s time.”

She indicated the bedroom. Fouquier-Tinville inclined his head to Lucile. “Good morning, cousin.”

She nodded nervously. Fouquier had Camille’s thick, dark hair and dark skin; but the hair was straight, the face was hard, the lips were thin and set for crises, for bad situations becoming worse. Possible, yes, to trace a family likeness. But when you saw Camille you wanted to touch him; when you saw his cousin, that was not your reaction.

Gabrielle followed the men into the bedroom. Lucile turned to Louise Robert, opened her mouth to make some usual kind of remark: was shocked by the violence in her face. “If anything happens to François, I’ll put a knife in that pig myself.”

Lucile’s eyes widened. The King? No: Danton was the pig she meant. She could not think of an answer.

“Did you see that man? Fouquier-Tinville? Camille says all his relations are like that.”

They heard Danton’s voice, intermittently, between the others: “Fouquier—first thing tomorrow—but wait—and getting to the Tuileries at the right time, Pétion should know—cannon on the bridges—tell him to hurry it up.”

He came out, hauling his cravat into place, skimming his fingers over his bluish chin. “Georges-Jacques,” Lucile said, “What an unregarding tough you look. A proper man of the people, I do declare.”

Danton grinned. He put a hand on her shoulder, squeezed it; so jovially, so painfully, that she almost cried out. “I’m going now. City Hall. Otherwise they’re going to keep running up here—”He paused at the door. He was not going to kiss his wife and have her start crying. “Lolotte, you look after things here. Try not to worry too much.” They heard him striding down the stairs.

“All right, little man?”

“I am impervious,” Jean-Paul Marat said, “to bullets and your wit.”

“You look even worse at this hour.”

“The Revolution does not value me tor my decorative qualities, Danton. Nor you, I believe. Men of action, that’s what we are, aren’t we?” As usual, Marat seemed to be deeply entertained by some private joke. “Get Mandat here,” he said.

“Is he still at the palace? Message to Mandat,” Danton said over his shoulder. “My compliments to him, and the Commune requests his presence urgently at City Hall.”

From the Place de Grève, the roar of the growing crowd. Danton splashed some brandy into a glass and stood cradling it in his palm. He reached up to loosen the cravat he had wasted his time in tightening, at home in the Cour du Commerce. The pulse jumped at the side of his neck. His mouth was dry. A wave of nausea welled inside him. He took another sip from the glass. The nausea abated.

The Queen extended her hand and Mandat kissed it. “I shall never come back,” he said. It was the sort of thing to say. “Order to the commander of the Place de Grève duty battalion. Attack from the rear and disperse the mob marching on the palace.” He scrawled a signature. His horse was waiting. The duty commander had the order within minutes. At City Hall, Mandat went straight to his own office. He was ordered to make his report, but so far as he could discern there was no proper authority to report to. He toyed with the notion of locking his door. But it seemed an unsoldierly thing to do.

“Rossignol,” said Danton, “thank you.” He glanced over Mandat’s order, which the district police commissioner had put into his hand. “Let us step along the corridor, and ask Mandat to explain to the new commune why he has deployed armed force against the people.”

“I refuse.” Mandat said.

“You refuse.”

“Those people are not the municipal government. They are not the Commune. They are rebels. They are criminals.”

“I shall compound their crimes,” Danton said. He reached forward and took Mandat by the front of his coat, hauling him by physical force from the room. Rossignol leaned forward and deftly confiscated the Marquis’s rapier; he turned its hilt in his fingers and grimaced.

Outside the room Mandat looked up into a ring of hostile faces. He became limp with terror. “Not now,” Danton said. “Not yet, my friends. You can leave this to me, I don’t need help.” He tightened his grip. “Keep refusing, Mandat,” he said, and began to drag him towards the Throne Room, where the new Commune had assembled. He laughed. It was like being a child again—the licensed brutality, when the issues are simple.

Five a.m. Antoinette: “There is no hope.”

Five a.m. Gabrielle began to tremble and shiver. “I’m going to be sick,” she said. Louise Robert sprinted off for a basin, and held it while Lucile lifted Gabrielle’s hair from her shoulders and smoothed it back from her brow. When she had finished her unproductive retching they eased her back onto a sofa, placed the basin inconspicuously at hand, tucked cushions under the small of her back and dabbed her temples with handkerchiefs soaked in lavender water. “Well, you probably guessed,” Gabrielle said. “I’m pregnant again.”

“Oh, Gabrielle!”

“People usually say congratulations,” she said mildly.

“Oh, but so soon,” Lucile moaned.

“Well, what do you do?” Louise Robert shrugged. “It’s either you get pregnant, or you use English overcoats, don’t you, take your choice.”

“What are English overcoats?” Gabrielle said, looking glassily from one to the other.

“Oh really!” Louise was scornful. “What does de facto mean? What are English overcoats? Right little noble savage we’ve got here, Lucile.”

“I’m sorry,” Gabrielle said. “I can’t keep up with your conversation.”

“No point trying,” Lucile said. “Rémy knows all about English overcoats, but they are not things that married men will entertain. Especially Georges-Jacques, I imagine.”

“I don’t think we really want to know what you imagine, Mme. Desmoulins,” Louise said. “Not in this context.”

A tear quivered on the end of Gabrielle’s lashes. “I don’t mind being pregnant, really. He’s always very pleased. And you get used to it.”

“The way things are going,” Louise said, “You’ll have eight, nine, ten. When’s it due?”

“February, I think. It seems such a long way off.”

“Go home. Sleep. Two hours.”

The hideous flare of the torches at three o’clock: the oaths of the fighting men above the creak and rumble of the cannon on the move.

“Sleep?” Camille said. “It would be a novelty. Shall I find you at the palace?”

Danton breathed spirits into his face. “No, why at the palace? Santerre is in control of the National Guard, we have Westermann, he’s a professional, leave it to him. Can I never impress upon you that there is no need to take these personal risks?”

Camille slumped against the wall and covered his face with his hands. “Fat lawyers sitting in rooms,” he said. “It is very exciting.”

“It’s quite exciting enough for any normal person,” Danton said. He wanted to beg, will it be all right, will we make it, will we see sunrise? “Oh Christ, Camille, go home,” he said. “What I violently object to is your hair tied up with that piece of string.”

The Marquis de Mandat had been interrogated by the new Commune, and locked up in a room at City Hall. At first light, Danton suggested that he should be taken to the Abbaye prison. He stood by a window to watch him led down the steps, flanked by a strong guard.

He nodded to Rossignol. Rossignol leaned out of the window and shot Mandat dead.

“Come on,” Lucile said. “Change of scene.” The three women picked up their effects, locked the doors, went downstairs and out into the Cour du Commerce. They would walk around to Lucile’s apartment, to the prison of waiting in another place. No one around; and the air was fresh, even chilly. An hour from now, there would be the promise of heat. Lucile thought, I have never been so alive as I am now: this poor betrayed cow, leaning on my right shoulder, this bird-boned virago leaning on my left. The deadweight, the flyer; she had to coordinate their steps up the stairs.

The servant Jeanette did her best to look shocked when she saw them. “Make up a bed for Mme. Danton,” Lucile said. Jeanette tucked her under a quilt, on one of the drawing-room sofas; Gabrielle, willing to be babied for once, let her head fall back onto the cushions while Louise Robert took out her hairpins and let the warm dark cloak of hair spread over the sofa’s arm and tumble to the carpet. Lucile brought her hairbrush, and knelt like a penitent, smoothing long easy strokes through the electric mane; Gabrielle lay with her eyes closed, hors de combat. Louise Robert edged onto the blue chaise-longue, inched to the back of it, drew her feet up. Jeanette brought her a blanket. “Your mother is rarely fond of this piece of furniture,” she told Lucile. “She always said, you never know when you’ll be glad of it.”

“If you want anything, call me.” Lucile trailed towards her bedroom; did a detour, to pick up a bottle that contained three inches of flat champagne. She was tempted to drink it, but then reflected that there was nothing more unpleasant. It seemed a week since these bottles were opened.

The very thought made her queasy. Jeanette came up behind her; she jumped violently. “Lie down now, my sweetheart,” the woman said. “You won’t make any difference by trying to stay upright.” The grim set of her mouth said: I love him, too, you know.

At 6 a.m. the King decided to inspect the National Guard. He descended to the courtyards of the palace. He wore a sad purple coat, and carried his hat under his arm. It was an unhappy business. The noblemen outside his suite dropped to their knees as he approached and murmured their words of allegiance; but the National Guardsmen insulted him, and a gunner shook a fist in his face.

Rue Saint-Honoré: “Some breakfast?” said Eléonore Duplay.

“I don’t think so, Eléonore.”

“Max, why not eat?”

“Because I never eat at this hour,” Robespierre said. “At this hour I answer my letters.”

Babette at the door. Round morning face. “Father sent this up. Danton is signing proclamations at City Hall.”

Robespierre let the document lie on his desk. He did not touch it, but ran his eyes to the signature. “In the name of the nation—DANTON.”

“So Danton claims to speak for the nation?” Eléonore said. She watched his face.

“Danton is an excellent patriot. Only—I thought he would have sent for me by now.”

“They dare not risk your life.”

Robespierre looked up. “Oh no, that’s not it. I think Danton doesn’t want me to—what shall we say?—study his methods.”

“That may be so,” Eléonore agreed. What did it matter? She would say anything: anything that would keep him safe behind Duplay’s wall, that would keep his heart beating till tomorrow and tomorrow and the day after that.

It was perhaps 7:30 in the morning when the patriots trained their big guns on the palace. Behind those guns were all the weapons the Insurrectionary Commune could find: muskets, sabers, cutlasses and rank upon rank of the sacred pike. The rebel thousands sang the “Marseillaise.”

Louis: What do they want?

Camille slept for an hour with his head on his wife’s shoulder.

“Danton.” Roederer looked up at the apparition blocking the doorway. “Danton, you’re drunk.”

“I’ve been drinking to keep awake.”

“What do you want?” With me, Roederer meant. His fright showed clearly on his face. “Danton, I am not a royalist, whatever you may think. I was at the Tuileries because I was commanded there. But I hope you and your commanders know what you’re doing. You must understand that the carnage will be terrible. The Swiss will fight to the last man.”

“So I’m told,” Danton said. “I want you to go back there.”

“Back?” Roederer gaped at him.

“I want you to get the King out.”

“Out?”

“Stop repeating what I say, imbecile. I want you to get the King out and in doing so force him to abandon the defense. I want you to go back now and tell Louis and tell Antoinette that they’ll be dead within hours unless they leave the palace, call off the resistance and put themselves under the protection of the Assembly.”

“You want to save them? Do I understand you?

I believe I’m making myself plain.”

“But how am I to do it? They won’t listen to me.”

“You must tell them that once the mob gets into the palace there is nothing I can do. The devil himself won’t be able to save them then.”

“But you want to save them?”

“This is becoming tedious. We must have the King and the Dauphin at all costs. The others matter less, though I dislike seeing women harmed.”

“Costs,” the lawyer repeated. Something seemed to take shape in his tired brain. “Costs, Danton. Now I see.”

Danton launched himself across the room. He grabbed Roederer’s coat front and wrapped a hand round the man’s throat. “You will bring them out or you will answer to me. I shall be watching you, Roederer.”

Choking, Roederer put out a hand, clawing at Danton’s arm. The room was spinning. I shall die, he thought. He struggled for breath and his ears roared. Danton flung him to the floor. “That was the first cannon fire. They are attacking the palace now.”

Roederer looked up, propping himself weakly on one arm, along the column of Danton’s heavy body to his savage face. “Now get them out for me.”

“A clothes brush, I think,” Camille said. “We are supposed to be distinguishing ourselves from the rabble. So Danton says.” He looped the tricolor sash over his shoulder. “Am I presentable?”

“Oh, you could take your morning chocolate with a duchess. Supposing there were one left to take it with. But what now?” Lucile could not keep the fear off her face for long.

Louise and Gabrielle were waiting for news. He had been uncommunicative, when he came in.

“Georges-Jacques intends to remain at City Hall, in control of operations. François is there, too, working away in the next office.”

Louise: “Will he be safe?”

“Well, apart from a great earthquake, and the sun going black, and the moon becoming as blood, and the heavens departing as a scroll when it is rolled together, and the coming of the seven last angels with the seven last plagues—all of which is an ever-present risk, I agree—I can’t see much going wrong for him. We’ll all be safe, as long as we win.”

“And at the palace?” Gabrielle said.

“Oh, at the palace they’ll be killing people by now.”

ANTOINETTE: We still have a defense here.

ROEDERER: Madame, all Paris is marching on you. Do you wish to be responsible for the massacre of the King, of yourself and your children?

ANTOINETTE: God forbid.

ROEDERER: Time presses, Sire.

Louis: Gentlemen, I beg you to abandon a futile defense, and withdraw. There’s nothing to be done here, either for you or for me. Let’s go.

The account of Thomas Blaikie, a Scottish gardener employed at the French court:

But all seemed to prepaire for the great catostrophe of the 10th August and many people wished a Change and they talked of people come from Marsielles to attact the Thuilleries; this seemed a projected affaire and the Thuileries was garded by the Suisse gardes and many more in Suisse dress was expecting to take part with the King. The night before we was nearly informed of what was to happen although non could emagine how it was to turn; the evening of the 9 by the fall of a Bottle from the wall which happened to cut my leg and render me lame so that I was forced to sit on our Terrasse which was opposite the Champs Elize and the Thuileries, where I could hear the first coup de Cannon about 9 and then the other firing and tumult continued. I could see the people running to and fro in the Champs Elize and the horror of the misacre increased and as the King left his gardes and went to the Nationalle assembly, so that those poor wretches that had come to defend him being deserted by him was left to be misacred by the rabble, whereas if the King had stopt there was the greatest part of the Sections ready to defend him; but when they found he had gone to the Assembly they all turned to the mesacre of the poor Suisse gardes … . Many of these anthrophages passed in the Street and stoppt to show us parts of the Suisses they had misacred some of whom I knew … every one seemed to glory in what he had done and to show even their fury on the dead body by cutting them or even tearing their clothes as monuments of triumph, so that this seemed as if the people were struck with a sort of Madness … . But it was impossible to describe all the acts of wanten horor that happened this day … .

“Camille.” A young National Guardsman whom he’d never seen before, pop-eyed with nervousness and expecting to be slapped down. “We have taken a royalist patrol, they were dressed in our uniforms, we have them shut in our guard room at the Cour de Feuillants. Some people are trying to take them off us. Our commander has asked for reinforcements to clear the courtyard but no one has come. We can’t hold them back much longer—can you talk to this rabble, can you talk some sense into them?”

“What is the point?” Fréron said.

“People shouldn’t be killed like dogs, Monsieur,” the boy said to Fréron. His mouth trembled.

“I’m coming,” Camille said.

When they reached the courtyard, Fréron pointed: “Théroigne.”

“Yes,” Camille said calmly. “She’ll get killed.”

Théroigne had taken charge; here was her own, her little Bastille. A hostile, unfocused rabble had a leader now; and already it was too late for the prisoners in the guardroom, for above the shouts, above the woman’s own voice, you could hear the crash of glass and the splinter of wood. She had driven them on, as they stoved in the door and pitted their strength, like goaded beasts in a cage, at the iron bars of the windows. But they were breaking in, not breaking out; confronted by bayonets in a narrow passage, they had dropped back for a moment, but now they were tearing the building apart. They were stone-eating beasts, and it was not meant for a siege; they had pick-axes, and they were using them. Behind the front rank of attackers the courtyard was swarming with their well-wishers, shouting, shaking their fists, waving weapons.

Seeing the Guardsman’s uniform, the tricolor sashes, sections of the crowd gave way to them, letting them pass. But before they reached the front of the crowd, the boy put a hand on Camille’s arm, holding him back. “Nothing you can do now,” he said.

Théroigne wore black; she had a pistol in her belt, a saber in her hand, and her face was incandescent. A cry went up: “The prisoners are coming out.” She had stationed herself before the doorway, and as the first of the prisoners was dragged out she gave the signal to the men beside her and they raised their swords and axes. “Can’t someone stop her?” Camille said. He shrugged off the Guardsman’s restraining hand and began to push forward, yelling at people to get out of his way. Fréron forced a path after him and took him by the shoulder. Camille pushed him violently away. The crowd fell back, diverted by the prospect of two patriotic officials about to take each other apart.

But the few seconds of grace had passed; from the front rank there was an animal scream. Théroigne had dropped her arm, like a public executioner; the axes and swords were at work, and the prisoners were being kicked and hauled, one by one, to the deaths prepared for them.

Camille had made headway; the National Guardsman was at his back. Louis Suleau was the fourth prisoner to emerge. At a shout from Théroigne the crowd held off; they even moved back, and as they did so they crushed the people behind them, so that Camille was helpless, immobile, arms pinioned to his sides, when he saw Théroigne approach Louis Suleau and say to him something that only he could have heard; Louis put up a hand, as if to say, what’s the point of going into all this now? The gesture etched itself into his mind. It was the last gesture. He saw Théroigne raise her pistol. He did not hear the shot. Within seconds they were surrounded by the dying. Louis’s body—perhaps still breathing, no one could know—was dragged into the crowd, into a vortex of flailing arms and blades. Fréron yelled into the National Guardsman’s face, and the young man, red with anguish and bewilderment, drew his saber and shouted for a way out. Their feet splashed through fresh blood.

“There was nothing you could do,” the young man kept saying. “Please, Camille, I should have come before, they were royalists anyway and there was really nothing you could do.”

Lucile had been out to buy some bread for breakfast. No point in asking Jeanette to go; with daylight, the woman’s nerve had snapped, and she was running round the apartment, as Lucile said, like a hen without a head.

Lucile put her basket over her arm. She draped a jacket around her, though it was warm, because she wanted to put her little knife into the pocket. No one knew she had this little knife; she hardly allowed herself to know, but she kept it on her person in case of need. Just think, she said to herself. I could be living on the Right Bank. I could be married to a senior clerk at the Treasury. I could be sitting with my feet up, embroidering a linen handkerchief with a rambling-rose design. Instead I’m on the rue des Cordeliers in pursuit of a baguette, with a three-inch blade for comfort.

She looked into the eyes of her familiar neighbors. Who would have thought our Section contained so many royalists? “You murderer’s whore,” a man said to her. She kept a smile on her face, a particularly maddening smile that she had learned from Camille, a smile that taunted and said, all right, just try it. In imagination, she eased the knife’s smooth handle into her palm, pressed its point against yielding flesh. As she was on her way back, and outside her own front door, another man recognized her and spat in her face.

She stopped inside the front door, to wipe the saliva away, then wafted up the stairs, sat down, the bread in her lap. “Are you going to eat that?” Jeanette said, wringing her apron between her hands in a pantomime of anguish.

“Of course I am, since I went to such trouble to get it. Pull yourself together, Jeanette, put some coffee on.”

Louise called from the drawing room “I think Gabrielle is going to faint.”

So possibly she never got her breakfast; afterwards she didn’t remember. They got Gabrielle onto the bed, loosened her clothes, fanned her. She opened a window, but the noise from the street was agitating Gabrielle even more; so she closed it again, and they endured the heat. Gabrielle dozed; she and Louise took turns at reading to each other, and gossiped and bickered gently, and told each other their life stories. The hours crept on, until Camille and Fréron came home.

Fréron flopped into a chair. “There are bodies—” he indicated a height from the ground. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Lucile, but Louis Suleau is dead. Yes, we saw it, we saw it happen, we saw him killed before our eyes.”

He wanted Camille to say, Fréron saved my life; or at least to say, Fréron stopped me doing something very very stupid. But Camille only said, “For the love of Christ, Rabbit, save it for your memoirs. If I hear any more about this morning I’ll do you an injury. And not a trivial one, either.”

At the sight of him, Jeanette pulled herself together. The coffee was produced at last. Gabrielle came staggering from the bedroom doorway, fastening the bodice of her dress. “I haven’t seen François since early morning,” Camille told Louise. His voice was unnaturally flat, without the trace of a stutter. “I haven’t seen Georges-Jacques, but he is signing decrees from City Hall, so clearly he is alive and well. Louis Capet and all his family have deserted the palace and are at the Riding School. The Assembly is in permanent session. I don’t think even the Swiss Guard knows the King has gone and I’m sure the people attacking the palace don’t know. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to tell them.” He stood up, held Lucile in his arms for a moment. “I am going to change my clothes once more, because I have got dried blood on them, and then I am going out again.”

Fréron looked after him gloomily. “I’m afraid the reaction will set in later,” he said. “I know Camille. He’s not cut out for all this.”

“You think not?” Lucile said. “I think he thrives on it.” She wants to ask how Louis Suleau died, how and why. But now is not the time. As Danton had said, she is not a silly girl; no, no, she is the voice of common sense. Maria Stuart, on the wall, approaches the headsman; nubile, shapely, Maria wears a sickly Christian smile. The pink silk cushions are looking the worse for wear, as Camille could have predicted but didn’t; the blue chaise-longue has a knowing air, like a piece of furniture that’s seen a lot in its time. Lucile Desmoulins is twenty-two years old, wife, mother, mistress of her house. In the August heat—a fly buzzing against glass, a man whistling in the street, a baby crying on another floor—she feels her soul set into its shape, small and stained and mortal. Once she might have said the prayers for the dead. Now she thought, what the fuck’s the use, it’s the living I have to worry about.

When Gabrielle felt strong enough, she said that she would like to go back to her own house. The streets were packed and noisy. The porter had panicked and closed the big gate to the Cour du Commerce; Gabrielle hammered and banged and rang the bell, yelling to be let into her own home. “We can go in through the baker’s if he’ll let us,” she said, “in at his front door and out through his back kitchen.”

But the baker wouldn’t even let them into his shop; he shouted into their faces and pushed Gabrielle in the chest, bruising her and winding her and sending her flying back into the road. Dragging her between them, they retreated to the big gate, huddled against it. As a group of men crowded around them Lucile reached into her pocket and felt that the knife was there and caressed it with her fingertips; she said, “I know you, I know your names, and if you approach one step nearer your heads will be on pikes before nightfall and I will take the greatest pleasure in helping to put them there.”

And then the gate opened for them; hands pulled them inside; bolts slammed home; they were inside the front door, they were on the stairs, they were in the Dantons’ house, and Lucile was saying crossly, “This time we’re staying put.”

Gabrielle was shaking her head—lost, utterly exhausted. From across the river the gunfire was heavy and constant. “Mother of God, I look as if I’ve been three days in the tomb,” Louise Robert said, catching sight of herself as they once again plumped pillows and disposed Gabrielle to the horizontal.

“Why do you think the Dantons have separate beds?” she whispered to Lucile, when she thought they were out of earshot.

Lucile shrugged. Gabrielle said in a drugged voice, “Because he lashes his arms about, dreams he’s fighting—1 don’t know who.”

“His enemies? His creditors? His inclinations?” Lucile said.

Louise Robert raided Gabrielle’s dressing table. She found a pot of rouge, and applied it in round scarlet spots, as they used to do at Court. She offered some to Lucile, but Lucile said, “Come, you minx, you know I am beyond improvement.”

Midday passed. The streets fell silent. This is what the last hours will be like, Lucile thought; this is what it will be like when the world ends, and we are waiting for the death of the sun. But the sun did not fail; it beat down, and beat down at last on the blazing tricolor, on the heads of the Marseille men, on the singing victory processions and the loyal lurking Cordeliers who’d had the sense to stay indoors all day and who now poured onto the streets, chanting for the republic, calling for the death of tyrants, calling for their man Danton.

There was a pounding at the door. Lucile threw it open; nothing could worry her now. A big man stood propping himself in the doorway, swaying a little. He was a man from the streets: “Forgive me, Monsieur,” Louise Robert said, laughing. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

“They’re smashing the mirrors at the palace,” the man said. “The Cordeliers are kings now.” He tossed something to Gabrielle. She caught it awkwardly. It was a hairbrush, heavy, silver-backed. “From the Queen’s dressing table,” the man said.

Gabrielle’s forefinger traced the embossed monogram: “A” for Antoinette. The man lurched forward and caught Lucile around the waist, spinning her off her feet. He smelled of wine, tobacco and blood. He kissed her throat, a sucking, greedy, proletarian kiss; he set her on her feet again, clattered back into the street.

“Goodness,” Louise said. “What a legion of admirers you have, Lucile. He’s probably been waiting two years for the chance to do that.”

Lucile took out her handkerchief and dabbed at her neck. It wasn’t my admirers I met this morning, she thought. She wagged a finger and dropped her voice a tone, for her well-rehearsed Rémy imitation: “I just say to them, now boys, stop quarreling over me—liberty, equality, fraternity, remember?”

The Queen’s hairbrush lay where Gabrielle had dropped it, on the drawing-room carpet.

Danton came home. It was late afternoon. They could hear his voice out in the street. He came home with Fabre the genius of our age, with Legendre the butcher, with Collot d’Herbois much-the-worst-person-in-the-world; with François Robert, with Westermann. He came home with his arms around the shoulders of Legendre and Westermann, unsteady on his feet, unshaven, exhausted, reeking of brandy. “We won!” they shouted. It was a simple chant—as slogans go it was right to the point. He gathered Gabrielle into his arms, hugged her fiercely, protectively; once again she felt her knees give way.

He propped her into a chair. “She’s had terrible trouble staying upright at all,” Louise Robert said. Her skin glowed now, beneath the rouge; François was back at her side.

“Get out, the lot of you!” Danton said. “Haven’t you beds to go to?” He crashed into his own bedroom, threw himself down on his bed. Lucile followed him. She touched the back of his neck, took him by the shoulders. He groaned. “Try me some other time,” he advised. He flopped onto his back, grinning. “Oh, Georges-Jacques, Georges-Jacques,” he said to himself, “life’s just a series of wonderful opportunities. What would Maître Vinot make of you now?”

“Tell me where my husband is.”

“Camille?” His grin broadened. “Camille’s at the Riding School, fixing the next bit of the Life Plan. No, Camille’s not like humans, he doesn’t need sleep.”

“When I last saw him,” she said, “he was in a state of shock.”

“Yes.” The grin faded. His eyelids fluttered closed, then opened again. “That bitch Théroigne slaughtered Suleau within twenty yards of where he stood. You know, we never saw Robespierre all day. Perhaps he was hiding in Duplay’s cellar.” His voice began to trail off. “Suleau was at school with Camille. Small world, so was Max. Camille is a hardworking boy, and will go far. Tomorrow we shall know … .” His eyes closed. “That’s it,” he said.

The Assembly had begun its current sitting at 2 a.m. The debate was attended by some inconveniences: drowned out intermittently by gunfire, and thrown into confusion by the arrival of the royal family at about 8:30 in the morning. Only yesterday it had voted to suspend any further discussion on the future of the monarchy, yet it did seem now that the vestiges of the institution had been left behind in the smashed and devastated palace. The Right said that the adjournment of the debate had been the signal for insurrection; the Left said that when the deputies abandoned the issue they also abandoned any claim to be leaders of public opinion.

The King’s family and a few of their friends were squashed into a reporters’ box which looked down on the deputies from behind the President’s dais. From mid-afternoon onwards, a constant procession of petitioners and delegates jostled through the corridors and overflowed the debating chamber. The rumors from outside were frightful and bizarre. All the bolsters and mattresses in the palace had been slashed, and the air was thick with flying feathers. Prostitutes were plying their trade on the Queen’s bed: though how this fitted with the earlier story, no one could say. A man had been seen playing the violin over the corpse of someone whose throat he had cut. A hundred people had been stabbed and clubbed to death in the rue de l‘Échelle. A cook had been cooked. The servants were being dragged from under beds and up chimneys and tossed out of windows to be impaled on pikes. Fires had been started, and there were the usual dubious reports of cannibalism.

Vergniaud, the current president of the Assembly, had long ago given up trying to distinguish truth from fantasy. Below him, on the floor of the House, he counted rather more invaders than deputies. Every few minutes the doors would burst open to admit begrimed and weary men staggering under the weight of what, if it had not been brought straight to the Riding School, would have been loot. Really, Vergniaud thought, it was going too far to place inlaid night-stools and complete sets of Molière at the feet of the Nation. The place had begun to resemble an auction room. Vergniaud tried unobtrusively to loosen his cravat.

In the cramped, airless reporters’ box, the royal children were falling asleep. The King, who believed in keeping his strength up, was gnawing at the leg of a capon. From time to time he wiped his fingers on his sad purple coat. On the benches below him a deputy put his head in his hands. “Went out for a piss,” he said. “Camille Desmoulins ambushed me. Pushed me against the wall, made me support Danton for Pope. Or something. Seems Danton might stand for God, they haven’t decided yet, but I’m told I’d better vote for him or else I might wake up with my throat cut.”

A few benches away, Brissot conferred with ex-minister Roland. M. Roland was yellower in the face than he used to be; he hugged his dusty hat to his chest, as if it were his last line of defense.

“The Assembly must be dissolved,” Brissot said, “there will have to be fresh elections. Before this session breaks up, we must nominate a new cabinet, a new Council of Ministers. Yes, now, we must do it now—someone must govern the country. You will return to your post as Minister of the Interior.”

“Really? And Servan, Clavière?”

“Yes, indeed,” Brissot said. He thought, this is what I was born to do: shape governments. “Back to the situation as it was in June, except that you won’t have the royal veto to hamper you. And you’ll have Danton for a colleague.”

Roland sighed. “Manon won’t like this.”

“She must make her mind up to it.”

“Which ministry do we want Danton to have?”

“It hardly matters,” Brissot said bleakly, “as long as he has the whip hand.”

“Has it come to that?”

“If you’d been on the streets today, you couldn’t doubt it.”

“Why, have you been on the streets?” Roland rather doubted that.

“I’m informed,” Brissot said. “Very fully informed. I’m told he’s their man. They’re yelling their throats out for him. What do you think of that?”

“I wonder,” Roland said, “whether this is a proper beginning for the republic. Shall we be chivvied by the rabble?”

“Where is Vergniaud going?” Brissot asked.

The president had signaled for his substitute. “Please make way for me,” he was asking pleasantly.

Brissot followed Vergniaud with his eyes. It was entirely possible that alliances, factions, pacts would be proposed, framed, broken—and, if he were not everywhere, party to every conversation—the dreadful possibility arose that he might forfeit his status as the best-informed man in France.

“Danton is a complete crook,” Roland said. “Perhaps we should ask him to take over as Minister of Justice?”

By the door Vergniaud, faced with Camille, had been unable to get into his proper oratorical sweep and stride. One quite sees, he said, and one does appreciate, and one fully understands. For the first time in his three-minute tirade, Camille faltered. “Tell me, Vergniaud,” he said, “am I beginning to repeat myself?”

Vergniaud released his indrawn breath. “A little. But really what you have to say is all so fresh and interesting. Finish what you’ve started, you say. In what way?”

Camille made a sweeping gesture, encompassing both the Riding School and the howling streets outside. “I don’t understand why the King isn’t dead. Plenty of better people are dead. And these superfluous deputies? The royalists they’ve crammed into the prisons?”

“But you can’t kill them all.” The orator’s voice shook.

“We do have the capacity.”

“I said ‘can’t’ but I meant ’ought not to.’ Danton wouldn’t require a superfluity of deaths.”

“Would he not? I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for hours. I think he arranged for the Capet family to be brought out of the palace.”

“Yes,” Vergniaud said. “That seems a reasonable supposition. Now, why do you think he did that?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he’s a humanitarian.”

“But you’re not sure.”

“I’m not even sure if I’m awake.”

“I think you should go home, Camille. You are saying all the wrong things.”

“Am I? You are kind. If you were saying the wrong things I’d be, you know, making mental notes.”

“No,” Vergniaud said reassuringly. “You wouldn’t.”

“Yes,” Camille insisted. “We don’t trust you.”

“So I see. But I doubt you need spend anymore energy frightening people. Did you not think that we might want Danton anyway? Not because of what he might do if he were denied power—which I am sure would be quite as distasteful as you imply—but because of a belief that he’s the only man who can save the country?”

“No,” Camille said. “That never occurred to me.”

“Don’t you believe it?”

“Yes, but I’ve got used to believing it by myself. It’s been such a long time. And the greatest obstacle has been Danton himself.”

“What is he expecting?”

“He isn’t expecting anything. He’s asleep.”

“Now listen. I intend to address the Assembly. It would be an advantage if the rabble were removed.”

“They were the sovereign people until they put you into power this afternoon. Now they’re the rabble.”

“There are petitioners here asking for the suspension of the Monarchy. The Assembly will decree it. And the calling of a National Convention, to draw up a constitution for the republic. I think now you can go and get some sleep.”

“No, not until I hear it for myself. If I went away now everything might fall apart.”

“Life takes on a persecutory aspect,” Vergniaud murmured. “Let us try to remain rational.”

“It isn’t rational.”

“It will be,” Vergniaud said smoothly. “My colleagues intend to remove government from the sphere of chance and prejudice and make it into a reasoned process.”

Camille shook his head.

“I assure you,” Vergniaud said. He broke off. “There’s a horrible smell. What is it?”

“I think—” Camille hesitated—“I think they’re burning the bodies.”

“Long live the republic,” Vergniaud said. He began to walk towards the president’s dais.