A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

CHAPTER 13

Conditional Absolution

Cour du Commerce: March 31, 10 Germinal: “Marat?” The black bundle moved, fractionally. “Forgive me.” Danton put his hand to his head. “A stupid thing to say.”

He moved to a chair, unable to drag his eyes from the scrap of humanity that was the Citizeness Albertine. Her garments were funereal layers, an array of wraps and shawls, belonging to no style or fashion that had ever existed or ever could. She spoke with a foreign accent, but it was not the accent of any country to be found on a map.

“In a sense,” she said, “you are not mistaken.” She raised a skeletal hand, and laid it somewhere among her wrappings, where it might be supposed her heart beat. “I carry my brother here,” she said. “We are never separated now.”

For several seconds he found himself unable to speak. “How can I oblige you?” he said at last.

“We did not come to be obliged.” Dry voice: bone on bone. She paused for a moment, as if listening. “Strike now,” she said.

“With respect—”

“He is at the Convention now. Robespierre.”

“I am haunted enough.” He got up, blundered across the room. Superstitious dread touched him, at his own words. “I can’t have his death on my hands.”

“It’s yours or his. You must go to the Convention now, Danton. You must see the patriot walk and talk. You must judge his mood and you must prepare for a fight.”

“Very well, I’ll go. If it will please you. But I think you’re wrong, Citizeness, I don’t think Robespierre or any of the Committee would dare to move against me.”

“You don’t believe they would dare.” Mockery. She approached him, tilted up her yellow wide-lipped face. “Do you know me?” she asked. “Tell me, Citizen, when were we ever wrong?”

Rue Honoré: “You’re wasting my time,” Robespierre said. “I told you my intentions before the Convention met. The papers for Hérault and Fabre are with the Public Prosecutor. You may draw up warrants for the arrest of Deputy Philippeaux and Deputy Lacroix. But for no one else.”

Saint-Just’s voice shook the little sitting room. His fist hammered a table. “Leave Danton at large and you will be locked up yourself tomorrow. Your head will be off before the week is out.”

“There is no need for this. Calm yourself. I know Danton. He has always been a cautious man, a man who weighs a situation. He will make no move unless he is forced into it. He must be aware you are collecting evidence against him. He is no doubt preparing to refute it.”

“Yes—to refute it by force of arms, that will be his idea. Look—call in Philippe Lebas. Call in the Police Committee. Call in every patriot in the Jacobin Club, and they will tell you what I am telling you now.” Scarlet flared against his perfect white skin: his dark eyes shone. He is enjoying himself, Robespierre thought in disgust. “Danton is a traitor to the Republic, he is a killer, he has never in his life known how to compromise. If we don’t act today he will leave none of us alive to oppose him.”

“You contradict yourself. First you say, he has never been a republican, he has accommodated every counter-revolutionary from Lafayette to Brissot. Then you say, he has never compromised.”

“You are quibbling. What do you think, that Danton is fit to be at large in the Republic?”

Robespierre looked down, considering. He understood the nature of it, this republic that Saint-Just spoke of. It was not the Republic that was bounded by the Pyrenees and the Rhine, but the republic of the spirit; not the city of flesh and stone, but the stronghold of virtue, the dominion of the just. “I cannot be sure,” he said. “I cannot make up my mind.” His own face looked back at him, appraisingly, from the wall. He turned. “Philippe?”

Philippe Lebas stood in the doorway between the little parlor and the Duplays’ larger sitting room. “There is something which may help make up your mind,” he said.

“Something from Vadier,” Robespierre said skeptically. “From the Police Committee.”

“No, something from Babette.”

“Babette? Is she here? I don’t follow you.”

“Would you come in here, please? It won’t take very long.” Robespierre hesitated. “For God’s sake,” Lebas said passionately, “you wanted to know if Danton was fit to live. Saint-Just, will you come and listen?”

“Very well,” Robespierre said. “But another time, I should prefer not to conduct these arguments in my own house.”

All the Duplays were present in the salon. He looked around them. The room was live with tension; his skin crawled. “What is this?” he asked gently. “I don’t understand.”

No one spoke. Babette sat alone at the big table, as if she were facing some sort of commission. He bent to kiss her forehead. “If I’d known you were here, I’d have cut this stupid argument short. Well?”

Still no one spoke. Seeing nothing else to do, he pulled up a chair and sat down beside her at the table. She gave him her soft little hand. Babette was five or six months pregnant, round and flushed and pretty. She was only a few months older than Danton’s little child bride, and he could not look at her without an uprush of fear.

Maurice was sitting on a stool by the fire, his head lowered: as if he had heard something that had humbled him. But now he cleared his throat, and looked up. “You’ve been a son to us,” he said.

“Oh, come now,” Robespierre said. He smiled, squeezed Babette’s hand. “This is beginning to seem like the third act of some dreadful play.”

“It is an ordeal for the girl,” Duplay said.

“It’s all right,” Elisabeth said. She dropped her head, blushed; her china-blue eyes were half-hidden by their lids. Saint-Just leaned against the wall, his own eyes half-closed.

Philippe Lebas took up his station behind Babette’s chair. He wrapped his fingers tightly round the back of it. Robespierre glanced up at him. “Citizen, what is this?”

“You were debating the character of Citizen Danton,” Babette said softly. “I know nothing of politics, it is not a woman’s province.”

“If you want to have your say, you can do. In my opinion, women have as much discernment as men.” He gave Saint-Just a venomous glance, begging contradiction. Saint-Just smiled lazily.

“I thought you might like to know what happened to me.”

“When?”

“Let her tell you in her own way,” Duplay said.

Babette slid her hand out of his. She joined her fingers on the polished tabletop, and her face was dimly reflected in it as she began to speak. “You remember when I went to Sèvres, last autumn? Mother thought I needed some fresh air, so I went to stay with Citizeness Panis.”

Citizeness Panis: respectable wife of a Paris deputy, Étienne Panis: a good Montagnard, with a record of sterling service on August 10, the day the monarchs were overthrown.

“I remember,” Robespierre said. “Not the date—it would be October, November?”

“Yes—well, Citizen Danton was there at that time, with Louise. I thought it would be nice to call on her. She’s nearly the same age as me, and I thought she might be lonely, and want someone to talk to. I’d been thinking, you know, about what she has to put up with.”

“What is that?”

“Well, some people say that her husband married her for love, and other people say he married her because she was happy to look after his children and run his household while he was occupied with Citizeness Desmoulins. Though most people say, of course, that the Citizeness likes General Dillon best.”

“Babette, keep to the point,” Lebas said.

“So I went to call on her, and she wasn’t at home. And Citizen Danton was. He can be—well, very pleasant, quite charming. I felt a bit sorry for him—he was the one who seemed to need someone to talk to, and I thought, perhaps Louise is not very intelligent. He said, stay and keep me company.”

“She didn’t realize that they were alone in the house,” Lebas said.

“No, of course—I had no way of knowing. We talked: about this and that. Of course, I had no idea what it was leading up to.”

“And what was it leading up to?” Robespierre sounded faintly impatient.

She looked up at him. “Don’t be angry with me.”

“No, of course—I’m not angry. Did I sound angry? I’m sorry. Now, the thing is—Danton made some remark, in the course of your conversation, which you feel you must report. You are a good girl, and you are doing what you see as your duty. No one will blame you for that. Tell me what he said—and then I can see what weight to give it.”

“No, no,” Mme. Duplay said faintly. “He is so good. He has no idea of half the things that happen in the world.”

He glared at the interruption. “Now, Babette.” He took her hand again, or did rather less than that: he placed the tips of his fingers against the back of her hand.

“Come on,” her husband said: more roughly than he would have liked. “Say what happened, Babette.”

“Oh, he put his arm around me. I didn’t want to make a fuss—one must grow up, I suppose, and after all—he put his hand inside my dress, but I thought, of course, he’s been seen in the most respectable company to—well, I mean the things he has done with Citizeness Desmoulins, I have heard people say that he has quite fallen upon her, in public, and of course that it is of no consequence, because he won’t actually go to the extreme. All the same, I did try very hard to pull away from him. But he is a very strong man you know, and the words he used—I couldn’t repeat them—”

“I think you must,” Robespierre said. His voice was frozen.

“Oh, he said that he wanted to show me how much better it could be with a man who had experience with women than with some high-minded Robespierrist virgin—then he tried—” She put her hands, fingers interlaced, before her face. Her voice came almost inaudibly from behind them. “Of course, I struggled. He said, your sister Eléonore is not so moral. He said, she knows just what we republicans want. I think, then, that I fainted.”

“Is there any need to go on?” Lebas said. He moved: transferred his hands to the back of Robespierre’s chair, so that he stood looking down at the nape of his neck.

“Don’t stand over me like that,” Robespierre said sharply. But Lebas didn’t move. Robespierre looked around the room, wanting a corner, an angle, a place to turn his face and compose it. But from everywhere in the room, the eyes of the Duplay family stared back. “So, when you came to yourself?” he said. “Where were you then?”

“I was in the room.” Her mouth quivered. “My clothes were disordered, my skirt—”

“Yes,” Robespierre said. “We don’t need details.”

“There was no one else in the room. I composed myself and I stood up and looked around. I saw no one so I—I ran out of the front door.”

“Are you—let’s be quite clear—are you telling me Danton raped you?”

“I struggled for as long as I could.” She began to cry.

“And what happened then?”

“Then?”

“Presumably you got home. What did Panis’s wife say?”

She raised her face. A perfect tear rolled down her cheek. “She said I must never tell anyone anything about it. Because it would make the most dreadful trouble.”

“So you didn’t.”

“Until now. I thought I must—” She dissolved into tears again. Unexpectedly, Saint-Just straightened up from the wall, leaned over her, patted her shoulder.

“Babette,” Robespierre said. “Now, dry your tears, listen to me. When this happened, where were Danton’s servants? He is not a man to do without them, there must have been somebody in the house?”

“I don’t know. I cried out, I screamed—nobody came.”

Mme. Duplay spoke. She had been, of course, extraordinarily forbearing, to keep silent for so long, and now she was hesitant. “You see, Maximilien—the fact of what happened is bad enough, but there is a further problem—”

“I’m sure he can count on his fingers,” Saint-Just said.

It was a moment before he understood. “So then, Babette-at that date, you didn’t know—”

“No.” She dropped her face again. “How can I know? Perhaps I had already conceived—I can’t be sure. Of course, I hope I had. I hope I’m not carrying his child.”

She had said it out loud: they had all arrived at the idea, but now it was spoken out loud it made them gasp with shock.

Only he, Robespierre, exercised self-control. To resist temptation is important now: temptation to look in like a beggar at the lighted window of emotion. “Listen, Babette,” he said. “This is very important. Did anyone suggest to you that you should tell this story to me today?”

“No. How could anyone? Until today, nobody knew.”

“You see, Elisabeth, if this were a courtroom—well, I would ask you a lot of questions.”

“It is not a courtroom,” Duplay said. “It is your family. I saved your life, three years ago in the street, and since then we have cared for you as if you were a child of our own. And your sister, and your brother Augustin—you were orphans, and you had nobody except each other, and we have done our best to be everything to you.”

“Yes.” Defeated, he sat at the head of the table, facing Elisabeth. Mme. Duplay moved, brushing lightly against him, to take her daughter in her arms. Elisabeth began to sob, with a sound that pierced him like steel.

Saint-Just cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to take you away now, but the Police Committee will be meeting our Committee in an hour. I have drawn up a preliminary report regarding Danton—but it needs supplementation.”

“Duplay,” Robespierre said, “you understand that this matter cannot come to court. There is no need, really—in the context of other charges, I’m afraid it’s trivial. You will not sit as a juror at Danton’s trial. I shall tell Fouquier to exempt you. It would not be just.” He shook his head. “No, it would not be equitable.”

“Before we leave,” Saint-Just asked, “would you go upstairs and get those notebooks of yours?”

The Tuileries, 8 p.m.: “I am going to be very plain with you, Citizen,” the Inquisitor said. Robespierre transferred his attention from Vadier’s long sallow face to his hands, to his peculiar fingers obsessively re-sorting papers on the green-draped oval table. “I shall be plain with you, on behalf of your own colleagues, and my colleagues on the Police Committee.”

“Then please do proceed.” His mouth was tight. His chest hurt. There was blood in his mouth. He knew what they wanted.

“You will agree with me,” Vadier said, “that Danton is a powerful and resourceful man.”

“Yes.”

“And a traitor.”

“Why are you asking me? The Tribunal will determine what he is.”

“But the trial, in itself, is a dangerous business.”

“Yes.”

“So every precaution must be taken.”

“Yes.”

“And every circumstance that might unfavorably influence the course of the trial must be attended to.”

Vadier took his silence for consent. Slowly, like primitive animals, the Inquisitor’s fingers curled up. They formed a fist. It hit the table. “Then how do you expect us to leave this aristocrat journalist at large? If Danton’s course since ‘89 has been treasonable, how do you exonerate his closest associate? Before the Revolution, his friends were the traitor Brissot and the traitor d’Églantine. No, don’t interrupt me. He has no acquaintance with Mirabeau—yet suddenly, he moves in with him at Versailles. For months—the months when Mirabeau was plotting his treason—he was never out of his company. He is impecunious, unknown—then suddenly he appears nightly at Orléans’s supper table. He was Danton’s secretary during his treasonable tenure at the Ministry of Justice. He is a rich man, or he lives like one—and his private life does not bear discussion.”

“Yes.” Robespierre said. “And he led the people, on July 12. He raised revolt, and then the Bastille fell.”

“How can you exonerate this man?” Vadier bawled at him. “One person to whom the misguided people may have some—some sentimental attachment?” He made a sound expressive of disgust. “You think you can leave him at liberty, while his friend Danton is on trial? Because once, five years ago, he was bribed to talk to a mob?”

“No, that is not why,” Saint-Just said smoothly. “The reason is that he himself has a sentimental attachment. He appears to put his personal feelings before the welfare of the Republic.”

“Camille has made a fool of you for too long,” Billaud said.

Robespierre looked up. “You slander me, Saint-Just. I put nothing before the welfare of the Republic. I do not have it in me to do so.”

“Let me just say this.” Vadier’s yellow fingers uncurled themselves again. “No one, not even your admirable and patriotic self, may stand out against the people’s will. We are all against you. You are on your own. You must bow to the majority, or else here and now, tonight and in this room, your career is finished.”

“Citizen Vadier,” Saint-Just said, “sign the order for arrest, then pass it around the table.”

Vadier reached out for a pen. But Billaud’s hand leapt out, like a snake from a hole; he snatched the document and signed his name with a flourish.

“He wanted to be first,” his friend Collot explained.

“Was Danton so tyrannical an employer?” Robert Lindet asked. Vadier took back the paper, signed it himself, and pushed it along the table. “Rühl?”

Rühl, of the Police Committee, shook his head.

“He is senile,” Collot suggested. “He should be turned out of govemment.”

“Perhaps he’s just deaf.” Billaud’s forefinger stabbed at the paper. “Sign, old man.”

“Because I am old, as you say, you can’t browbeat me by threatening to end my career. I do not believe that Danton is a traitor. Therefore I will not sign.”

“Your career may end sooner than you think, then.”

“No matter,” Rühl said.

“Then pass the paper on to me,” Lebas said savagely. “Stop wasting the Republic’s time.”

Carnot took it. He looked at it thoughtfully. “I sign for the sake of the unity of the committees. No other reason.” He did so, and laid the paper in front of Lebas. “A few weeks, gentlemen, three months at the outside, and you’ll be wishing you had Danton to rally the city for you. If you proceed against him, you pass into a new phase of history, for which I think you are ill-prepared. I tell you, gentlemen—you will be consulting necromancers.”

“Quickly,” Collot said. He snatched the paper from a member of the Police Committee, and scribbled his name. “There you are, Saint-Just—quickly, quickly.”

Robert Lindet took the warrant. Without glancing at it, he passed it on to his neighbor. Saint-Just’s eyes narrowed. “No,” Lindet said shortly.

“Why not?”

“I am not obliged to give my reasons to you.”

“Then we are bound to put the worst construction on them,” Vadier said.

“I am sorry you feel so bound. You have put me in charge of supply. I am here to feed patriots, not to murder them.”

“There is no need for unanimity,” Saint-Just said. “It would have been desirable, but let’s get on. There are only two signatures wanting, I think, besides those who have refused. Citizen Lacoste, you next—then be so good as to put the paper in front of Citizen Robespierre, and move the ink a little nearer.”

The Committees of Public Safety and General Security hereby decree that Danton, Lacroix (of the Eure-et-Loire département), Camille Desmoulins and Philippeaux, all members of the National Convention, shall be arrested and taken to the Luxembourg, there to be kept in secret and solitary confinement. And they do command the Mayor of Paris to execute this present decree immediately on receipt thereof.

Cour du Commerce, 9 p.m.: “Just a moment,” Danton said. “Introductions.”

“Danton—”

“Introductions. My dear, this is Fabricius Paris, an old friend of mine, and the Clerk of the Court to the Tribunal.”

“Delighted to meet you,” Paris said hurriedly. “Your husband got me my job.”

“And that’s why you’re here. You see, Louise, I inspire loyalty. Now?”

Paris was agitated. “You know I go every evening to the Committee. I collect the orders for the following day.” He turned to Louise. “Orders for the Tribunal; I take them to Fouquier.” She nodded. “When I arrived the doors were locked. Such a thing had never happened before. I said to myself, it may be useful to a patriot to know what is going on in there. I know the building, you see. I went by a back way, and I found—forgive me—a keyhole—”

“I forgive you,” Danton said. “And you put your eye to the keyhole, and then your ear, and you saw and heard Saint-Just denouncing me.”

“How do you know?”

“It is logical.”

“Danton, they were sitting in silence, listening to every lie he uttered.”

“What exactly has he in mind? Do you know? Was there a warrant?”

“I didn’t see one. He was talking about denouncing you before the Convention, in your presence.”

“Couldn’t be better,” Danton said. “He wants to match his oratory against mine, does he? And his experience? And his name in the Revolution?” He turned to his wife. “It’s perfect. It is exactly as I wanted. The imbecile has chosen to meet me on my own ground. Paris, it couldn’t be better.”

Paris looked incredulous. “You wanted it forced to this point?”

“I shall crucify that smug young bastard, and I shall take the greatest pleasure in driving in the nails.”

“You will sit up and write your speech, I suppose,” Louise said. Danton laughed. “My wife doesn’t know my methods yet. But you do, Paris? I don’t need a speech, my love. I get it all out of my head.”

“Well, at least go and get the report of it written in advance for the newspapers. Complete with ‘tumultuous applause,’ and so on.”

“You’re learning,” he said. “Pâris, did Saint-Just mention Camille?”

“I didn’t wait, as soon as I caught the drift I got around here. I suppose he’s not in danger.”

“I went to the Convention this afternoon. Didn’t stay. He and Robespierre were deep in conversation.”

“So I heard. I was told they appeared very friendly. Is it possible then …?” He hesitated. How to ask someone if his best friend has reneged on him?

“In the Convention tomorrow I shall put him up to confront Saint-Just. Imagine it. Our man the picture of starched rectitude, and looking as if he has just devoured a beefsteak; and Camille making a joke or two at our man’s expense and then talking about ’89. A cheap trick, but the galleries will cheer. This will make Saint-Just lose his temper-not easy, since he cultivates this Greek statue manner of his—but I guarantee that Camille can do it. As soon as our man begins to bawl and roar, Camille will fold up and look helpless. That will get Robespierre on his feet, and we will all generate one of these huge emotional scenes. I always win those. I shall go round now—no, I won’t, we’ll plan this in the morning. I ought to leave Camille alone. Bad news from home. A death in the family.”

“Not the precious father?”

“His mother.”

“I’m sorry,” Paris said. “Bad timing. He may not be so keen to play games. Danton—I suppose you wouldn’t consider any less risky course of action?”

Rue Marat, 9:30 p.m.: “I could have gone home,” Camille said. “Why didn’t he tell me she was ill? He was here. He sat in the chair where you sit now. He didn’t say a word.”

“Perhaps he wanted to spare your feelings. Perhaps they thought she’d get better.”

One day at the end of last year, a stranger had come to the door: a distinguished man of sixty or so, spare, remote, with an impressive head of iron-gray hair. It had taken her a long moment to work out who he was.

“My father has never spared my feelings,” Camille said. “He has never understood the concept of sparing feelings. In fact, he has never understood the concept of feelings at all.”

It had been a brief visit—a day or two. Jean-Nicolas came because he had seen the “Old Cordelier.” He wanted to tell his son how much he admired it, how much he felt that he had done the right thing at last; how much, perhaps, he missed him, and wanted him to come home sometimes.

But when he tried to do this, a kind of hideous embarrassment swept over him, like the socially disabling blush of a girl of thirteen. His voice had strangled in his throat, and he had confronted, speechless, the son who usually preferred not to speak anyway.

It had been, Lucile thought, one of the worst half-hours in her life. Fabre had been there, bemoaning his lot as usual; but at the sight of the elder Desmoulins in such straits, he had actually found tears in his eyes. She had seen him dab them away; Camille had seen it too. Better that they had cried, Fabre said later; haven’t they a lot to cry for? When Jean-Nicolas gave up the effort at speech, father and son had embraced, in a minimal and chilly fashion. The man has some defect, Fabre had said later: I think there’s something wrong with his heart.

There was, of course, another aspect to the visit. Even Fabre wouldn’t mention it. It was the Will you survive this? aspect. They couldn’t either, mention it tonight. Camille said, “When you think of Georges-Jacques and his mother, it’s odd. She may be a tedious old witch, but they’re always on some sort of terms, they’re always connected. And you, and your mother.”

“Practically the same person,” Lucile said, acidly.

“Yes, but think of me—it’s hard to believe I’m related to my mother at all, perhaps Jean-Nicolas found me under a bush. I’ve spent my whole life trying to please him, and I’ve never succeeded, and I’ve never given up. Here I am, Father, I am ten years old, I can read Aristophanes as my sisters read nursery rhymes. Yes, but why did God give us a child with a speech impediment? Look, Father, I have passed every examination known to man—are you pleased? Yes, but when will you make some money? See, Father, you know that revolution you’ve been talking about for twenty years? I’ve just started it. Oh yes, very nice—but not quite what we had in mind for you, and what will the neighbors say?” Camille shook his head. “When I think, of the years of my life that I’ve spent, if you add it up, writing letters to that man. I could have learned Aramaic, instead. Done something useful. Put my head together with Marat, and worked on his roulette system.”

“He had one, did he?”

“So he said. It was just that he was so generally deplorable as a person that the gaming houses wouldn’t let him in.”

They sat in silence for a minute or two. The topic of Camille’s mother was exhausted. He didn’t know her, she didn’t know him, and it was that lack of knowledge that made the news of her death so miserable: that feeling of having calculated on a second chance, and missed it. “Gamblers,” she said. “I keep thinking of Hérault. He’s been in prison for a fortnight now. But he knew that they were going to arrest him. Why didn’t he run?”

“He is too proud.”

“And Fabre. Is it true that Lacroix will be arrested?”

“They say so. And Philippeaux. You can’t defy the Committee and live.”

“But Camille, you have defied them. You’ve done nothing but attack the Committee for the last five months.”

“Yes, but I have Max. They can’t touch me. They’d like to. But they can’t, without him.”

She knelt before the fire. Shivered. “Tomorrow I must send to the farm for more wood.”

Cour du Commerce: “Deputy Panis is here.” Louise had picked up fear in an instant from the man who stood at the door.

It was a quarter to one, the morning of 12 Germinal. Danton was in his dressing gown. “Forgive me, Citizen. The servants are in bed and we were just going ourselves. Come to the fire—it’s cold out.”

He knelt before the embers. “Leave that,” Panis said. “They are coming to arrest you.”

“What?” He turned. “You’re misinformed. Fabricius Paris was here before you.”

“I don’t know what he told you, but he was not at the meeting of the two Committees. Lindet was. He sent me. There is a warrant out. They mean to deny you a hearing before the Convention. You are never to appear there again. You are to go straight to prison, and from there to the Tribunal.”

Danton was silenced for a moment: the shock made his face a blank. “But Paris heard Saint-Just say he wanted to fight it out with me, before the Convention.”

“So he did. What do you think? They talked him down. They knew the risk and they were not prepared to let him take it. They are not novices—they know you can start a riot in the public galleries. He was furious, Lindet said. He stormed out of the room, and he—” Panis looked away.

“Well, he what?”

Panis put a hand before his mouth. “Threw his hat into the fire.”

“What?” Danton said. The Deputy’s eyes met his own. They began to laugh, with a silent, contained, unsuitable mirth.

“His hat. It blazed up merrily, Lindet said. His notes would have followed his hat, but some benighted so-called patriot wrested them from his hand, as he was about to skim them into the flames. Oh, he did not care to be deprived of his moment of glory, I tell you. Not at all.”

“His hat! Oh, that Camille had been there!” Danton said.

“Yes,” the deputy agreed. “Camille would have been the one to appreciate it most.”

And then Danton remembered himself. No joke, he thought, none at all. “But you are saying they have signed a warrant? Robespierre too?”

“Yes. Lindet says you should take the chance, your last chance. At least get out of your apartment, because they may come here at any time. And I must go now—I must go round the corner, and tell Camille.”

Danton shook his head. “Leave it. Let them sleep, let them find out in the morning. Because this will be a cruel business for Camille. He will have to face Robespierre, and he won’t know what to say.”

Panis stared at him. “My God, you don’t realize, do you? He’ll not be saying anything to Robespierre. He’ll be locked up with you.”

Louise saw his body sag. He folded into a chair, and sat with his hand before his eyes.

Two o’clock. “I came,” Lindet said, “hoping to find that you were no longer here. For God’s sake, Danton, what are you trying to do? Are you bent on helping them destroy you?”

“I can’t believe it,” Danton said. He stared into the dying fire. “That he would have Camille arrested—and just this afternoon I saw them deep in conversation, he was friendly, smiling—oh, the consummate hypocrite!”

Louise had dressed hurriedly. She sat apart from them, hiding her face in her hands. She had seen his face, seen the will and power drain out of him. Tears seeped between her fingers. But at the back of her mind, an insistent little message hammered out its rhythm: you will be free, you will be free.

“I thought they would let me go before the Convention. Lindet, did no one remind them that the Convention has to agree to our arrest, that it has to lift our immunity?”

“Of course. Robespierre reminded them. Billaud told him that they would get the consent when you were safely under lock and key. They were very frightened men, Danton. They bolted the doors, and still they acted as if they expected you to burst through them at any minute.”

“But Lindet, what did he say? About Camille?”

“I felt sorry for him,” Lindet said abruptly. “They drove him into the ground. They gave him a straight choice. And the poor devil, he thinks he has to stay alive for the Republic. Much good his life will be to him, after this.”

“Marat was indicted before the Tribunal,” Danton said. “The Gironde arrested him and put him on trial, and the business blew up in their hands. The Tribunal acquitted. The people carried him through the streets in triumph. He came back stronger than ever.”

“Yes,” Lindet said. But, he thought, in those days, the Tribunal guarded its independence. Marat had a trial; do you think it will be a trial, what you’ll get?”

But he did not speak. He watched Danton gather himself; saw him take heart. “They can’t gag me, can they?” he said. “They can arrest me, but they have to let me speak. All right—I’m ready to take them on.” Lindet stood up. Danton slapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll see what those buggers look like by the time I’ve finished with them.”

Rue Marat, 3 a. m.: Camille had begun to talk, in little more than a whisper, but fluently, without hesitation, as if a part of his mind had been set free. Lucile had finished crying; she sat and watched him now, in the drugged, hypnotized state that succeeds extreme emotion. In the next room, their child slept. There was no sound from the street outside; no sound in the room, except this low sibilation; no light, except the light of one candle. We might be cut adrift from the universe, she thought.

“You see, in ‘89, I thought, some aristocrat will run me through. I shall be a martyr for liberty, it will be very nice, it will be in all the papers. Then I thought, in ’92, the Austrians will come and shoot me, well, it will be over quickly, and I will be a national hero.” He put his hand to his throat. “Danton says he doesn’t care what they think of him, the people who come after us. I find I want their good opinion. But I don’t think I’m going to get it, do you?”

“I don’t know,” Lindet said.

“But after all this, to die on the wrong side of patriotism—to be accused of counter-revolution—I can’t bear it. Robert, will you help me to escape?”

Lindet hesitated. “There’s no time now.”

“I know there is no time, but will you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Lindet said gently. “We would both be sacrificed. I’m very sorry, Camille.”

At the door Lindet put an arm around her. “Go to your mother and father. By morning this will be no place for you.” Suddenly he turned back. “Camille, did you mean it? Are you really prepared to run for it? Not go to pieces on me and do as I say?”

Camille looked up. “Oh no,” he said. “No, I don’t really want to. I was just testing you.”

“For what?”

“Never mind,” Camille said. “You passed.” He dropped his head again.

Robert Lindet was fifty years old. His age showed in his dry administrator’s face. She wondered how anyone survived to attain it.

“It must be almost dawn,” Lucile said. “No one has come yet.”

And she hopes—hope takes you by the throat like a strangler, it makes your heart leap—is it possible that Robespierre has somehow reversed the decision, that he has found courage, talked them down?

“I wrote to Rabbit,” she said. “I didn’t tell you. I asked him to come back, give us his support.”

“He didn’t reply.”

“No.”

“He thinks, when I am dead, he will marry you.”

“That’s what Louise said.”

“What does Louise know about it?”

“Nothing. Camille? Why did you call him Rabbit?”

“Are people still trying to work out why I called him Rabbit?”

“Yes.”

“No reason.”

She heard, below, boots on cobblestones; she heard the patrol halt. That might be, she thought, just the regular patrol; it is time for them, after all. How the heart deceives.

“There.” Camille stood up. “I’m glad Jeanette is away tonight. That’s the street door now.”

She stood in the middle of the room. She was aware of a puppet-like stiffness in her limbs. She seemed unable to speak.

“Are you looking for me?” Camille said. She watched him. She remembered August 10, after Suleau’s death: how he had cleaned himself up and gone back into the screaming streets. “You’re supposed to ask me who I am,” he told the officer. “Are you Camille Desmoulins, you’re supposed to say, professional journalist, deputy to the National Convention—just as if there might be two of us, very similar.”

“Look, it’s very early,” the man said. “I know damn well who you are and there aren’t two of you. Here’s the warrant, if you’re interested.”

“Can I say good-bye to my little boy?”

“Only if we come with you.”

“I wanted not to wake him. Can’t I have a moment on my own?”

The men moved, took up stations before the doors and windows. “A man last week,” the officer said, “went to kiss his daughter and blew his brains out. Man across the river jumped out of a window, fell four floors, broke his neck.”

“Yes, you can’t understand why he’d bother,” Camille said. “When the state would have broken it for him.”

“Don’t give us any trouble,” the man said.

“No trouble,” Camille promised.

“Take some books.” She was appalled to hear her voice come out, full of bravado. “It will be boring.”

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

“Hurry up then.” The officer put his hand on Camille’s arm.

“No,” she said. She flung herself at Camille. She locked her arms around his neck. They kissed. “Come on now,” the officer said. “Citizeness, let him go.” But she clung tighter, shrugging off the hand on her arm. A moment later the officer tore her away bodily, and with her fist she caught him one good blow on the jaw, felt the impact of it run through her own body, but felt nothing as her head hit the floor. As if I were a fly, she thought, or some little bird: I am just brushed away, I am crushed.

She was alone. They had hustled him out of the room, down the stairs, out of the house. She sat up. She was not hurt, not at all. She picked up a cushion from the sofa, and held it against her, rocking herself a little, eyes blank: and the scream she had meant to scream, and the words of love she had meant to speak, locked into her throat and set there like iron. She rocked herself. What now? She must dress herself. She must write letters and deliver them. She must see every deputy, every committeeman. She knows how she must set things moving. She must act. She rocks herself. There is the world and there is the shadow-play world; there is the world of freedom and illusion, and then there is the real world, in which we watch, year by year, the people we love hammer on their chains. Rising from the floor, she feels the fetters bite into her flesh. I’m bound to you, she thinks: bound to you.

Around the corner in the Cour du Commerce, Danton turned over the warrant, read it with some interest. He was in a hurry. He did not ask if he could say good-bye to his children, and kissed his wife in a cursory way on the top of her head. “The sooner I go, the sooner I’ll be back,” he said. “See you in a day or two.” He stepped out briskly, under guard, into the street.

Eight a.m. at the Tuileries: “You wanted to see us,” Fouquier-Tinville said.

“Oh yes.” Saint-Just looked up and smiled.

“We thought we were coming to see Robespierre,” Hermann said.

“No, Citizen President: me. Any objection?” He didn’t ask them to sit down. “Earlier this morning we arrested four persons-Danton, Desmoulins, Lacroix, Phillippeaux. I have drawn up a report on the case which I shall present to the Convention later today. You, for your part, will begin preparations for the trial—drop everything else, treat it as a matter of urgency.”

“Now just stop there,” Hermann said. “What sort of a procedure is this? The Convention hasn’t yet agreed to these arrests.”

“We may take it as a formality.” Saint-Just raised his eyebrows. “You’re not going to fight me over this, are you, Hermann?”

“Fight you? Let me remind you where we stand. Everybody knows, but cannot prove, that Danton has taken bribes. The other thing everybody knows—and the proof is all around us—is that Danton overthrew Capet, set up the Republic and saved us from invasion. What are you going to charge him with? Lack of fervor?”

“If you doubt,” Saint-Just said, “that there are matters of substance alleged against Danton, you are welcome to look through these papers.” He pushed them across the desk. “You will see that some sections are in Robespierre’s hand and some in mine. You may ignore the passages by Citizen Robespierre which relate to Camille Desmoulins. They are only excuses. In fact, when you have finished I will delete them.”

“This is a tissue of lies,” Hermann said, reading. “It is nonsense, it is a complete fabrication.”

“Well,” Fouquier said, “it is the usual. Conspired with Mirabeau, with Orléans, with Capet, with Brissot. We’ve handled it before—it was Camille, in fact, who taught us how. Next week, if we have an expeditious verdict, we may be able to add ‘conspired with Danton.’ As soon as a man’s dead it becomes a capital crime to have known him.”

“What are we to do,” Hermann asked, “when Danton begins to play to the public gallery?”

“If you need to gag him, we will provide the means.”

“Oh, dramatic!” Fouquier said. “And these four accused are all lawyers, I think?”

“Come, Citizen, take heart,” Saint-Just said. “You have always shown yourself capable. I mean, that you have always been faithful to the Committee.”

“Yes. You’re the government,” Fouquier said.

“Camille Desmoulins is related to you, isn’t he?”

“Yes. I thought he was related to you too?”

Saint-Just frowned. “No, I don’t think so. It would be unsettling to think that it might influence you.”

“Look, I do my job,” Fouquier said.

“That’s fine then.”

“Yes,” Fouquier said. “And I’d be grateful if you didn’t keep harping on it.”

“Do you like Camille?” Saint-Just asked.

“Why? I thought we agreed it had nothing to do with anything.”

“No, I only wondered. You needn’t answer. Now—you recall I said it was a matter of urgency?”

“Oh yes,” Hermann said. “The Committee will be sweating till these heads are off.”

“The trial must begin either tomorrow or the day after. Preferably tomorrow.”

“What?” Fouquier said. “Are you mad?”

“It is not a proper question to put to me,” Saint-Just said.

“But man, the evidence, the indictments—”

With one fingernail, Saint-Just tapped the report in front of him.

“The witnesses,” Hermann said.

“Need there be witnesses?” Saint-Just sighed. “Yes, I suppose you must have some. Then get about it.”

“How can we subpoena their witnesses till we know who they want to call?”

“Oh, I would advise you,” he turned to Hermann, “not to allow witnesses for the defense.”

“One question,” Hermann said. “Why don’t you send in some assassins to kill them in their cells? God knows, I am no Dantonist, but this is murder.”

“Oh come.” Saint-Just was irritated. “You complain of lack of time, and then you use it up with frivolous questions. I am not here to make small talk. You know quite well the importance of doing these things in the public eye. Now, the following people are to be charged with the four I have already named. Hérault, Fabre—all right?”

“The papers are ready,” Fouquier said sourly.

“The swindler Chabot, and his associates Basire and Delaunay, both deputies—”

“To discredit them,” Hermann said.

“Yes.” Fouquier said. “Mix up the politicians with the cheats and thieves. The public will think, if one is on trial for fraud, all the rest must be.”

“If you’ll allow me to continue? With them a batch of foreigners—the brothers Frei, the Spanish banker Guzman, the Danish businessman Diedrichsen. Oh, and the army contractor, the Abbé d’Espanac. Charges are conspiracy, fraud, hoarding, currency speculation, congress with foreign powers—I’ll leave it to you, Fouquier. There’s no shortage of evidence against any of these people.”

“Only against Danton.”

“Well, that’s your problem now. By the way, Citizens—do you know what these are?”

Fouquier looked down. “Of course I know. Blank warrants, signed by the Committee. That’s a dangerous practice, if I may say so.”

“Yes, it is dangerous, isn’t it?” Saint-Just turned the papers around and entered a name on each. “Do you want to see them now?” He held them up between finger and thumb, flapping them to get the ink dry. “This one is yours, Hermann—and this one, Citizen Prosecutor, is for you.” He smiled again, folded them and slipped them into an inside pocket of his coat. “Just in case anything goes wrong at the trial,” he said.

The National Convention: the session opens in disorder. First on his feet is Legendre. His face is haggard. Perhaps noises in the street woke him early?

“Last night certain members of this Assembly were arrested. Danton was one, I’m not sure about the others. I demand that the members of the Convention who are detained be brought to the Bar of the House, to be accused or absolved by us. I am convinced that Danton’s hands are as clean as mine—”

A whisper runs through the chamber. Heads turn away from the speaker. President Tallien looks up as the Committees enter. Collot’s face seems flaccid, unused: he does not assume a character till the day’s preformance begins. Saint-Just wears a blue coat with gold buttons, and carries many papers. A rustle of alarm sweeps the benches. Here is the Police Committee: Vadier with his long, discolored face and hooded eyes, Lebas with his jaw set. And in the small silence they command, like the great tragedian who delays his entrance—Citizen Robespierre, the Incorruptible himself. He hesitates in the aisle between the tiered benches, and one of his colleagues digs him in the small of the back.

When he had mounted the tribune he said nothing; he folded his hands on his notes. The seconds passed. His eyes traveled around the room-resting, it was said, for the space of two heartbeats on those he mistrusted.

He began to speak: quite calmly, evenly. Danton’s name was raised, as if some privilege attached to it. But there would be no privilege, from now on; rotten idols would be smashed. He paused. He pushed his spectacles up onto his forehead. His eyes fixed upon Legendre, fixed with their glacial, short-sighted stare. Legendre pressed together his huge slaughterer’s hands, his throat-cutting and ox-felling hands, until the knuckles grew white. And in a moment he was on his feet, babbling: you have mistaken my intention, you have mistaken my intention. “Whoever shows fear is guilty,” Robespierre said. He descended from the tribune, his thin, pale mouth curved between a smile and a sneer.

Saint-Just read for the next two hours his report on the plots of the Dantonist faction. He had imagined, when he wrote it, that he had the accused man before him; he had not amended it. If Danton were really before him, this reading would be punctuated by the roars of his supporters from the galleries, by his own self-justificatory roaring; but Saint-Just addressed the air, and there was a silence, which deepened and fed on itself. He read without passion, almost without inflection, his eyes on the papers that he held in his left hand. Occasionally he would raise his right arm, then let it fall limply by his side: this was his only gesture, a staid, mechanical one. Once, towards the end, he raised his young face to his audience and spoke directly to them: “After this,” he promised, “there will be only patriots left.”

Rue Marat: “Well, my love,” Lucile said to her child, “are you coming with me to see your godfather? No, perhaps not. Take him to my mother,” she said to Jeanette.

“You should bathe your face before you go out. It is swollen.”

“He might expect me to cry. He might predict it. He won’t notice what I look like. He doesn’t.”

“If it’s possible,” Louise Danton said, “this place is in a worse state than ours.”

They stood in the wreck of Lucile’s drawing room. Every book they possessed was piled broken-spined on the carpet; drawers and cupboards gaped open, rifled. The ashes in the hearth had been raked over minutely. She reached up and straightened her engraving of Mary Stuart’s end. “They have taken all his papers,” she said. “Letters. Everything. Even the manuscript of the Church Fathers.”

“If Robespierre agrees to see us, what shall we say? Whatever shall we say?”

“You need say nothing. I will do it.”

“Who would have thought, that the Convention would hand them over like that, with no protest!”

“I would have thought it. No one—except your husband—can stand up to Robespierre. There are letters here,” she told Jeanette, “to every member of the Committee of Public Safety. Except Saint-Just, there is no point in writing to him. Here are the letters for the Police Committee; this is for Fouquier, and these are for various deputies, you see that they are all addressed. Make sure they go right now. If I get no replies, and Max won’t see me, I’ll have to think of some new tactics.”

At the Luxembourg, Hérault assumed the role of gracious host. It had been, after all, a palace, and was not designed as a prison. “Secret and solitary, you’ll find it isn’t,” Hérault said. “From time to time they do lock us away, but generally we live in the most delightfully sociable manner—in fact I have seen nothing like it since Versailles. The talk is witty, manners are of the best—the ladies have their hair dressed, and change three times a day. There are dinner parties. Anything you want—short of firearms—you can get sent in. Only be careful what you say. At least half the people here are informers.”

In what Hérault described as “our salon,” the inmates inspected the newcomers. A ci-devant looked over Lacroix’s sturdy frame: “That fellow would make a fine coachman,” he remarked.

General Dillon had been drinking. He was apologetic about it. “Who are you?” he said to Philippeaux. “I don’t know you, do I? What did you do?”

“I criticized the Committee.”

“Ah.”

“Oh,” Philippeaux said, realizing. “You’re Lucile’s—Oh Christ, I’m sorry, General.”

“That’s all right. I don’t mind what you think.” The general swayed across the room. He draped his arms around Camille. “Now that you’re all here, I’ll stay sober, I swear it. I warned you. Didn’t I warn you? My poor Camille.”

“Do you know what?” Hérault said. “The thieving Arts Commission have laid their paws on all my first editions.”

“He says,” said the general, pointing to Hérault, “that against the charges they will bring he disdains to defend himself. What sort of attitude is that? He thinks it is suitable, because he is an aristocrat. So am I. And also, my love, I am a soldier. Don’t worry, don’t worry,” he said to Camille. “We’re going to get out of here.”

Rue Honoré: “So you see,” Babette said, “there are a great many patriots with him, and he can’t be disturbed.”

Lucile laid a letter down on the table. “In common humanity, Elisabeth, you will see that this is put into his hand.”

“It won’t do any good.” She smiled. “He’s made his mind up.”

At the top of the house Robespierre sat alone, waiting for the women to go. As they stepped into the street the sun burst from behind a cloud, and they walked down to the river in heady green spring air.

From the Luxembourg prison, Camille Desmoulins to Lucile Desmoulins:

I have discovered a crack in the wall of my room. I put my ear to it and heard someone groaning. I risked a few words and then I heard the voice of a sick man in pain. He asked my name. I told him, and when he heard it he cried out, “Oh my God,” and fell back on the bed from which he had raised himself. I knew then it was Fabre d’Églantine’s voice. “Yes, I am Fabre,” he said, “but what are you doing here? Has the counterrevolution come?”

Preliminary examination at the Luxembourg:

L. Camille Desmoulins, barrister-at-law, journalist, deputy to the National Convention, age thirty-four, resident rue Marat. In the presence of F.-J. Denisot, supplementary judge of the Revolutionary Tribunal; F. Girard, Deputy Registrar of the Revolutionary Tribunal; A. Fouquier-Tinville, and G. Liendon, Deputy Public Prosecutor.

Minutes of the examination:

Q. Had he conspired against the French nation by wishing to restore the monarchy, by destroying national representation and republican government?

A. No.

Q. Had he counsel?

A. No.

We nominate, therefore, Chauveau-Lagarde.

Lucile and Annette go to the Luxembourg Gardens. They stand with their faces raised to the façade, eyes hopelessly searching. The child in his mother’s arms cries; he wants to go home. Somewhere at one of the windows Camille stands. In the half-lit room behind him is the table where he has sat for most of the day, drafting a defense to charges of which he has not yet been notified. The raw April breeze rips through Lucile’s hair, snaking it away from her head like the hair of a woman drowned. Her head turns; eyes still searching. He can see her; she can’t see him.

Camille Desmoulins to Lucile Desmoulins:

Yesterday, when the citizen who brought you my letter came back, “Well, have you seen her?” I said, just as I used to say to the Abbé Laudréville; and I caught myself looking at him as if something of you lingered about his person or his clothes … .

The cell door closed. “He said he knew I’d come.” Robespierre leaned back against the wall. He closed his eyes. His hair, unpowdered, glinted red in the torchlight. “I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have come. But I wanted … I couldn’t prevent myself.”

“No deal then,” Fouquier said. His face expressed impatience, some derision; it was impossible to say at whom it was directed.

“No deal. He says Danton gives us three months.” In the dimness, his blue-green eyes sought Fouquier’s, inquiringly.

“It is just something they say.”

“I think that, for a minute, he thought I’d come to offer him the chance to escape before the trial.”

“Really?” Fouquier said. “You’re not that sort of person. He should know that.”

“Yes, he should, shouldn’t he?” He straightened up from the wall, then put his hand out, let his fingers brush the plaster. “Good-bye,” he whispered. They walked away in silence. Suddenly Robespierre stopped dead. “Listen.” From behind a closed door they heard the murmur of voices, and over the top of them a huge, unforced laugh. “Danton,” Robespierre whispered. His face was awestruck.

“Come,” Fouquier said: but Robespierre stood and listened.

“How can he? How can he laugh?”

“Are you going to stand there all night?” Fouquier demanded. With the Incorruptible he had always been warily correct, but where was the Incorruptible now? Sneaking around the prisons with deals and offers and promises. Fouquier saw an undergrown young man, numb and shaking with misery, his sandy lashes wet. “Move Danton’s mob to the Conciergerie,” Fouquier said, over his shoulder. “Look,” he said, turning back, “you’ll get over him.”

He took the Candle of Arras by the arm, and hustled him out into the night.

Palais de Justice, 13 Germinal, 8 a.m.: “Let’s get right down to business, gentlemen,” Fouquier said to his two deputy prosecutors. “We have in the dock today a disparate company of forgers, swindlers and con men, plus half a dozen eminent politicians. If you look out of the window, you will see the crowds; in fact, there is no need, you can hear them. These are the people who, if mishandled, could send this business lurching the wrong way and threaten the security of the capital.”

“It is a pity there is not some way to exclude them,” Citizen Fleuriot said.

“The Republic has no provision for trials in camera,” Fouquier said. “You know quite well the importance of doing these things in the public eye. However, there is to be nothing in the press. Now—as for our case, it is non-existent. The report we were handed by Saint-Just is—well, it is a political document.”

“You mean lies,” Liendon suggested.

“Yes, substantially. I have no doubt, personally, that Danton is guilty of enough to get him executed several times over, but that doesn’t mean he is guilty of the things we will charge him with. We have had no time to prepare a coherent case against these men. There are no witnesses we can put up without the fear that they will blurt out something extremely inconvenient for the Committee.”

“I find your attitude defeatist,” Fleuriot remarked.

“My dear Fleuriot, we all know that you are here to spy for Citizen Robespierre. But our job is to pull nasty forensic tricks—not to mouth slogans and pat phrases. Now—please consider the opposition.”

“I take it,” Liendon said, “that by ‘the opposition’ you don’t mean those unfortunates selected as defense counsel.”

“I doubt they will dare to speak to their clients. Danton is of course well known to the people; he is the most forceful orator in Paris, and also a much better lawyer than either of you two. Fabre we need not worry about. His case has received a lot of publicity, all of it unfavorable to him, and as he is very ill he’ll not be able to give us any trouble. Hérault is a different matter. If he condescends to argue, he could be very dangerous, as we have almost no case against him.”

“I think you have a certain document, relating to the woman Capet?”

“Yes, but as I have had to arrange for alterations to it I am not very anxious for it to be brought forward. Now, we must not underestimate Deputy Philippeaux. He is less well known than the others but I am afraid he is utterly intransigent and appears not to be afraid of anything we can do to him. Deputy Lacroix is of course a cool-headed man, something of a gambler. Our informant reports that so far he treats the whole thing rather as a joke.”

“Who is our informant?”

“In the prison? A man called Laflotte.”

“I am afraid of your cousin Camille,” Fleuriot said.

“Again, our informant has made useful observations. He describes him as hysterical and distraught. It seems he claims that Citizen Robespierre visited him secretly at the Luxembourg, and offered him his life to testify for the prosecution. An absurd story, of course.”

“He must be out of his mind,” Liendon said.

“Yes,” Fouquier said. “Perhaps he is. Our aim from the first hour of the trial must be to unnerve, browbeat and terrorize him; this is not particularly difficult, but it is essential that he be prevented from putting up any sort of defense, as the people who remember ’89 are somewhat attached to him. But now, Fleuriot—what are our assets, would you say?”

“Time, Citizen.”

“Precisely. Time is on our side. Procedure since Brissot’s trial is that if after three days the jury declares itself satisfied, the trial can be closed. What does that suggest, Liendon?”

“Take care in selecting the jury.”

“You know, you two are really getting quite good. Shall we get on with it then?” Fouquier took out his list of the regular jurors of the Revolutionary Tribunal. “Trinchard the joiner, Desboisseaux the cobbler—they sound a staunch plebeian pair.”

“Reliable men,” Fleuriot said.

“And Maurice Duplay—who could be sounder?”

“No. Citizen Robespierre himself has vetoed his presence on the jury.”

Fourquier bit his lip. “I shall never understand that man. Well then—Ganney the wig maker, he’s always cooperative. I suppose he needs the job—there can’t be much call for wigs. And Lumière.” He ticked off another name. “He may need some encouragement. But we’ll provide it.”

Liendon peered over the Public Prosecutor’s shoulder.

“How about Tenth-of-August Leroy?”

“Excellent,” Fouquier said. He put a mark by the name of the man who had once been Leroy de Montflobert, Marquis of France. “And now?”

“We’ll have to put in Souberbielle.”

“He’s a friend of Danton and Robespierre both.”

“But I think he has the right principles,” Fleuriot said. “Or can be helped to develop them.”

“To balance him out,” Fouquier said, “we’ll have Renaudin the violin maker.”

Fleuriot laughed. “Excellent. I was at the Jacobins myself that night he knocked Camille down. But what was the cause of the quarrel? I never knew.”

“Only God knows,” Fouquier said. “Renaudin is no doubt demonstrably insane. Can you remember, if you address my cousin in court, not to call him by his Christian name?” He frowned over the list. “I don’t know who else is absolutely solid.”

“Him?” said Liendon, pointing.

“Oh no, no. He is fond of reasoning, and we don’t want people who reason. No, I’m afraid we’ll have to go ahead with a jury of seven. Oh well, they’re hardly in a position to argue. You see, I’ve been talking as if there were some sort of contest. But we aren’t, here, playing any game we can lose. See you in court at eleven o’clock.”

“My name is Danton. It is a name tolerably well known in the Revolution. I am a lawyer by profession, and I was born at Arcis, in the Aube country. In a few days’ time, my abode will be oblivion. My place of residence will be History.”

Day One.

“That sounds distinctly pessimistic,” Lacroix says to Philippeaux. “Who are all these people?”

“Fabre of course you know, this is Chabot—delighted to see you looking so well, Citizen—Diedrichsen, this is Philippeaux—this is Emmanuel Frei, Junius Frei—you are supposed to have conspired with them.”

“Delighted to meet you, Deputy Philippeaux,” one of the Frei brothers says. “What did you do?”

“I criticized the Committee.”

“Ah.”

Philippeaux is counting heads. “There are fourteen of us. They’re going to try the whole East India fraud. If there were any justice, that would take a court three months. We have three days.”

Camille Desmoulins is on his feet. “Challenge,” he says, indicating the jury. He is being as brief as possible in the hope that he can avoid stuttering.

“Route it through your counsel,” Hermann says shortly.

“I am defending myself,” Desmoulins snaps back. “I object to Renaudin.”

“On what grounds?”

“He has threatened my life. I could call several hundred witnesses.”

“That is a frivolous objection.”

The report of the Police Committee is read out, relating to the East India affair. Two hours. The indictments are read. One hour more. Behind the waist-high barriers at the back of the court, the spectators stand packed to the doors: out of the doors, and along the street. “They say the line of people stretches as far as the Mint,” Fabre whispers.

Lacroix turns his head in the direction of the forgers. “How ironic,” he mumurs.

Fabre passes a hand over his face. He is slumped in the armchair which is normally reserved for the chief person accused. Last night when the prisoners were transferred to the Conciergerie he was hardly able to walk, and two guards had assisted him into the closed carriage. Occasionally one of his fits of coughing drowns out the voice of Fabricius Paris, and the Clerk of the Court seizes the opportunity to pause for breath; his eyes travel again and again to the impassive face of his patron, Danton. Fabre takes out a handkerchief and holds it to his mouth. His skin looks damp and bloodless. Sometimes Danton turns to look into his face; another few minutes, and he will turn to watch Camille. From above the jury, corrosive shafts of sunlight scour the black-and-white marble. Afternoon wears on, and an unmerited halo forms above the head of Tenth-of-August Leroy. In the Palais-Royal, the lilac trees are in bloom.

Danton: “This must stop. I demand to be heard now. I demand permission to write to the Convention. I demand to have a commission appointed. Camille Desmoulins and myself wish to denounce dictatorial practices in the Committee of Public—”

The roar of applause drowns him. They call his name; they clap their hands, stamp their feet and sing the “Marseillaise.” The riot travels backwards into the street, and the tumult becomes so great that the president’s bell is inaudible; in frenetic dumb show, he shakes the bell at the accused, and Lacroix shakes his fist back at the president. Don’t panic, don’t panic, Fouquier mouths: and when Hermann makes his voice heard, it is to adjourn the session. The prisoners are led below to their cells. “Bastards,” Danton says succinctly. “I’ll make mincemeat out of them tomorrow.”

“Sold? I, sold? There is not a price high enough for a man like me.”

Day Two.

“Who is this?”

“Oh, not another,” Philippeaux says. “Who is this man?”

Danton looks over his shoulder. “That is Citizen Lhuillier. He is the Attorney—General-or used to be. Citizen, what are you doing here?”

Lhuillier takes his place with the accused. He does not speak, and he looks stunned.

“Fouquier, what do you say this man’s done?”

Fouquier looks up to glare at the accused, and then back to the list he holds in his hand. He confers with his deputies in a furious whisper. “But you said so—” Fleuriot insists.

“I said subpoena him, I didn’t say arrest him. Do everything your bloody self!”

“He doesn’t know what he’s done,” Philippeaux says. “He doesn’t know. But he’ll soon think of something.”

“Camille,” Hérault says, “I do believe your cousin’s incompetent. He’s a disgrace to the criminal Bar.”

“Fouquier,” his cousin asks him, “how did you get this job in the first place?”

The Public Prosecutor rummages among his papers. “What the hell,” he mutters. He approaches the judge’s table. “A fuck-up,” he tells Hermann. “But don’t let them know. They’ll make us a laughing-stock.”

Hermann sighs. “We are all under a great deal of pressure. I wish you would employ more seemly language. Leave him there, and on the last day I’ll direct the jury that there’s insufficient evidence and they must acquit.”

Vice President Dumas reeks of spirits. The crowd at the back moves, restive and dangerous, bored by the delays. Another prisoner is brought in. “God in Heaven,” Lacroix says, “Westermann.”

General Westermann, victor of the Vendee, places his belligerent bulk before the accused. “Who the hell are all these people?” He jerks his thumb at Chabot and his friends.

“Divers criminal elements,” Hérault tells him. “You conspired with them.”

“Did I?” Westermann raises his voice. “What do you think, Fouquier, that I’m just some military blockhead, some oaf? I was a lawyer at Strasbourg before the Revolution, I know how things should be done. I have not been allotted counsel. I have not been put through a preliminary investigation. I have not been charged.”

Hermann looks up. “That is a formality.”

“We are all here,” Danton says drily, “by way of a formality.”

There is an outburst of rueful laughter from the accused. The remark is relayed to the back of the court. The public applaud, and a line of sansculotte patriots take off their red caps, wave them, sing the “Ça Ira” and (confusingly) yell à la Lanterne.

“I must call you to order,” Hermann shouts at Danton.

“Call me to order?” Danton explodes to his feet. “It seems to me that I must recall you to decency. I have a right to speak. We all have a right to a hearing. Damn you, man, I set up this Tribunal. I ought to know how it works.”

“Can you not hear this bell?”

“A man on trial for his life takes no notice of bells.”

From the galleries the singing becomes louder. Fouquier’s mouth is moving, but nothing can be heard. Hermann closes his eyes, and all the signatures of the Committee of Public Safety dance before his lids. It is fifteen minutes before order is restored.

The affair of the East India Company again. The prosecutors know they have a case here, so they are sticking to the subject. Fabre lifts his chin, which had fallen onto his chest. After a few minutes he lets it return there. “He should have a doctor,” Philippeaux whispers.

“His physician is otherwise engaged. On the jury.”

“Fabre, you’re not going to die on us, are you?”

Fabre makes a sick effort at a smile. Danton can feel the fear which holds Camille rigid between himself and Lacroix. Camille spent the whole of last night writing, because he believes that in the end they are bound to let him speak. So far the judges have put him down ferociously whenever he has opened his mouth.

Cambon, the government’s financial expert, takes the stand to give evidence about profits and share certificates, banking procedure and foreign currency regulations. He will be the only witness called in the course of the trial. Danton interrupts him:

“Cambon, listen: do you think I’m a royalist?”

Cambon looks across at him and smiles.

“See, he laughed. Citizen Clerk of the Court, see that it goes down in the record that he laughed.”

HERMANN: Danton, the Convention accuses you of showing undue favor to Dumouriez, of failing to reveal his true nature and intentions and of aiding and abetting his schemes to destroy freedom, such as that of marching on Paris with an armed force to crush republican government and restore the monarchy.

DANTON: May I answer this now?

HERMANN: No. Citizen Paris, read out the report of Citizen Saint-Just—I mean, the report that the citizen delivered to the Convention and the Jacobin Club.

Two hours. The accused have now separated into two camps, the six politicians and the general trying to put a distance between themselves and the thieves: but this is difficult. Philippeaux listens attentively, and takes notes. Hérault appears sunk in his own thoughts; one cannot be sure he is listening to the court at all. From time to time the general makes an impatient noise and hisses in Lacroix’s ear for some point to be elucidated; Lacroix is seldom able to help him.

For the first part of the reading the crowds are restless. But as the implications of the report become clear, a profound silence takes possession of the court, stealing through the darkening room like an animal coming home to its lair. The chiming of the clocks marks off the first hour of the report, Hermann clears his throat, and behind his table, back to the accused, Fouquier stretches his legs. Suddenly Desmoulins’s nerve snaps. He puts a hand to his face, wonders what it is doing there, and anxiously flicks back his hair. He looks quickly at the faces to the left and right of him. He holds one fist in the other palm, his mouth pressed against the knuckles; taking his hands from his face, he holds the bench at each side of himself until the nails grow white with pressure. Dictum of Citizen Robespierre, useful in criminal cases: whoever shows fear is guilty. Danton and Lacroix take his hands and hold them surreptitiously by his sides.

Paris has finished, voice cracking over the final phrases. He drops the document on the table and its leaves fan out. He is exhausted, and if there had been any more he would have broken down and wept.

“Danton,” Hermann says, “you may speak now.”

As he rises to his feet, he wonders what Philippeaux has recorded in his notes. Because there is not one allegation he can drag screaming into disrepute; not one charge that he can hold up and knock down again and trample on. If only there were a specific accusation … that you, Georges-Jacques Danton, did on the 10th day of August 1792 traitorously conspire … But it is a whole career he has to justify: a whole life, a life in the Revolution, to oppose to this tissue of lies and innuendo, this abortion of the truth. Saint-Just must have made a close study of Camille’s writings against Brissot; that was where the technique was perfected. And he thinks fleetingly of the neat, malicious job Camille would have done on his career.

After fifteen minutes he finds the pleasure and the power of rolling out his voice into the hall. The long silence is over. The crowd begins to applaud again. Sometimes he has to stop and let the noise defeat him; then he draws breath, comes back stronger. Fabre taught him, he taught him well. He begins to imagine his voice as a physical instrument of attack, a power like battalions; as lava from the mouth of some inexhaustible volcano, burning them, boiling them, burying them alive. Burying them alive.

A juryman interrupts: “Can you enlighten us as to why, at Valmy, our troops did not follow up the Prussian retreat?”

“I regret that I cannot enlighten you. I am a lawyer. Military matters are a closed book to me.”

Fabre’s hand unclenches from the arm of his chair.

Sometimes Hermann tries to interrupt him at crucial points; Danton overbears him, contemptuously. At each of the court’s defeats, the crowds cheer and whistle and shout derisive comments. The theaters are empty; it is the only show in town. And that is what it is—a show, and he knows it. They are behind him now—but if Robespierre were to walk in, wouldn’t they cheer him to the echo? Père Duchesne was their hero, but they laughed and catcalled when his creator begged for mercy in the tumbrel.

After the first hour his voice is as strong as ever. At this stage the physical effort is nothing. Like an athlete’s, his lungs do what he has trained them to do. But now he is not clinching an argument or forcing a debating point, he is talking to save his life. This is what he has planned and waited and hoped for, the final confrontation; but as the day wears on he finds himself talking over an inner voice that says, they are allowing this confrontation because the issue is decided already: you are a dead man. A question from Fouquier brings him to a pitch of boiling rage: “Bring me my accusers,” he shouts. “Bring me a proof, part proof, the flimsiest shadow of a proof. I challenge my accusers to come before me, to meet me face to face. Produce these men, and I will thrust them back into the obscurity from which they should never have emerged. Come out, you filthy imposters, and I will rip the masks from your faces, and deliver you up to the vengeance of the people.”

And another hour. He wants a glass of water, but he dares not stop to ask for one. Hermann sits hunched over his law books, watching him, his mouth slightly ajar. Danton feels as if all the dust of his province has got into his throat, all the choking yellow country beyond Arcis.

Hermann passes a note to Fouquier. “IN HALF AN HOUR I SHALL SUSPEND DANTON’S DEFENSE.”

Finally, denying it while he can, he knows his voice is losing its power. And there is still tomorrow’s fight; he cannot afford to become hoarse. He takes out a handkerchief and wipes his forehead. Hermann springs.

“The witness is exhausted. We will adjourn until tomorrow.”

Danton swallows, raises his voice for a last effort. “And then I resume my defense.”

Hermann nods sympathetically.

“And then tomorrow, we have our witnesses.”

“Tomorrow.”

“You have the lists of the people we wish to call.”

“We have your lists.”

The applause of the crowd is solid. He looks back at them. He sees Fabre’s lips move, and bends to catch the words. “Go on speaking, Georges. If you stop now they will never let you speak again. Go on, now—it’s our only chance.”

“I can’t. My voice must recover.” He sits down, staring straight ahead of him. He wrenches off his cravat. “The day is over.”

14 Germinal, evening, the Tuileries: “You’ll probably agree with me,” Robespierre said, “that you’ve not got very far.”

“The riot has to be heard to be believed.” Fouquier paced the room. “We are afraid the crowd will tear them out of our hands.”

“I think you can put your mind at rest on that score. It has never happened yet. And the people have no particular affection for Danton.”

“With respect, Citizen Robespierre—”

“I know that, because they have no particular affection for anyone, these days. I have the experience, I know how to judge these things. They like the spectacle. That’s all.”

“It remains impossible to make progress. During his defense Danton constantly appeals to the crowd.”

“It was a mistake. It was a cross-examination that was needed. Hermann should not have allowed this speech.”

“Make sure he doesn’t continue it,” Collot said.

Fouquier inclined his head. He remembered a phrase of Danton’s: ‘the three or four criminals’ who are ruining Robespierre.” “Yes, yes, naturally,” he said to them.

“If things go no better tomorrow,” Robespiere said, “send a note to us. We’ll see what we can do to help.”

“Well—what could you do?”

“After Brissot’s trial we brought in the three-day rule. But it was too late to be helpful. There is no reason why you shouldn’t have new procedures when you need them, Fouquier. We don’t want this to take much longer.”

Ruined, corrupted, Fouquier thought, a savior bled dry: they have broken his heart. “Yes, Citizen Robespierre,” he said. “Thank you, Citizen Robespierre.”

“The Desmoulins woman has been making a lot of trouble,” Saint-Just said suddenly.

Fouquier looked up. “What kind of trouble could little Lucile make?”

“She has money. She knows a lot of people. She’s been about town since the arrests. She seems to be desperate.”

“Start at eight tomorrow,” Robespierre said. “You might foil the crowds.”

Camille Desmoulins to Lucile Desmoulins:

I have walked for five years along the precipices of the Revolution without falling, and I am still living. I dreamt of a republic which the world would have adored; I could never have believed that men could be so ferocious and so unjust.

“On a day like this, one year ago, I founded the Revolutionary Tribunal. I ask pardon of God and man.”

Day Three.

“We will proceed,” Fouquier says, “to the examination of Emmanuel Frei.”

“Where are my witnesses?”

Fouquier affects surprise. “The matter of witnesses is with the Committee, Danton.”

“With the Committee? What business has the Committee with it? This is my legal right. If you have not got my witnesses ready, I demand to resume my defense.”

“But your co-accused must be heard.”

“Must they?” Danton looks at them. Fabre, he thinks, is dying. It is a moot point whether the guillotine will slice his neck through before something ruptures inside his chest and drowns him in his own blood. Philippeaux did not sleep last night. He talked for hours about his three-year-old son: the thought of the child paralyzes him. Herault’s expression makes it clear that they should regard him as hors de combat; he will have no dealings with this court. Camille is in a state of emotional collapse. He insists that Robespierre came to see him in his cell and offered him his life to testify for the prosecution: his life, his freedom and his political rehabilitation. No one else saw him: but Danton is willing to believe that it could be so.

“Right, Lacroix,” he says. “Go on, man.”

Lacroix is on his feet instantly. He has the tense and exhilarated air of a participant in a dangerous sport. “Three days ago I handed in a list of my witnesses. Not one of them has been called. I ask the Public Prosecutor to explain, in the presence of the people, who see my efforts to clear my name, why my lawful request has been refused.”

Calm and cool, Fouquier says to himself. “It is nothing to do with me,” he says innocently. “I have no objection to your witnesses being called.”

“Then order that they be called. It is not enough for me to know that you have no objection.”

Suddenly violence is in the air. Cousin Camille is standing beside Lacroix, one hand on his shoulder for support, bracing himself as though standing against the wind. “I have put Robespierre on my list of witnesses.” His voice shakes. “Will you call him? Will you call him, Fouquier?”

Without speaking or moving from his place, Fouquier conveys the impression that he is about to cross the courtroom and knock his cousin to the ground: and this would surprise no one. With a gasp, Camille subsides back into his place. But Hermann is panicking again. Hermann, Fouquier thinks, is a rubbish lawyer. If this is all the Artois Bar has to offer, then he, Fouquier, could have got to the very very top. But then, he supposes, he is at the top.

With a click of impatience, he crosses to the judges.

“The crowds are worse than yesterday,” Hermann says. “The prisoners are worse than yesterday. We shall get no further.”

Fouquier addresses the accused. “It is time this wrangling ceased. It is a scandal, both to the Tribunal and the public. I am going to send to the Convention for directions as to how this trial shall proceed, and we shall follow its advice to the letter.”

Danton leans over to Lacroix. “This may be the turning point. When they hear about this travesty, they may recover their wits and give us a hearing. I have friends in the Convention, many friends.”

“You think so?” Philippeaux says. “You mean there are people who owe you favors. Another few hours of this, and they won’t be obliged to repay you. And how do we know he will tell them the truth? Or what else Saint-Just will find to scare them with?

Antoine Fouquier-Tinville to the National Convention:

We have had an extremely stormy session from the moment we started. The accused are insisting, in the most violent manner, on having witnesses examined for the defense. They are calling on the public to witness what they term the refusal of their just claims. Despite the firm stand taken by the president and the entire Tribunal, their reiterated demands are holding up the case. Furthermore, they openly declare that until their witnesses are called they will persist in such interruptions. We therefore appeal to you for an authoritative ruling on what our response to their request for witnesses should be, since the law does not allow us any legitimate excuse for refusing it.

The Tuileries: Robespierre’s nervous fingers tap the table. He is not pleased with the situation. “Get out,” he tells the informer Laflotte.

As soon as the door closes, Saint-Just says, “I think it will do.” Robespierre stares down at Fouquier’s letter, but his eyes are not taking it in. When Saint-Just speaks again, the eagerness in his tone makes Robespierre look up sharply. “I shall go to the Convention and tell them that a dangerous conspiracy has been thwarted.”

“Do you believe that?” Robespierre says.

“What?”

“A dangerous conspiracy. You see, I don’t understand about Lucile. Is it something that is being said in the prison? Is it true? Is it something Laflotte thought of as he came upstairs? Or … did you put into his mouth what you wanted to hear?”

“Informers always tell you what you want to hear. Look,” Saint-Just says impatiently, “it will do. We need it, it’s just what we need.”

“But is it true?” Robespierre persists.

“We’ll know when we put her on trial. Meanwhile, circumstances force us to act on it. I must say, the whole thing sounds plausible to me. She’s been seen about the city since the morning of the arrests, as if she had something in hand. She’s no fool, is she? And after all, Dillon is her lover.”

“No.”

“No?”

“She has no lovers.”

Saint-Just laughs. “The woman is notorious.”

“It is ill-founded gossip.”

“But everyone speaks of it.” The same exuberant tone. “When they were at the Place des Piques, she lived shamelessly as Danton’s mistress. And she was involved with Hérault. Everyone knows these things.”

“They think they know them.”

“Oh, you only see what you want to see, Robespierre.”

“She has no lovers.”

“How do you account for Dillon then?”

“He is Camille’s close friend.”

“All right then, Dillon is his lover. I’m sure it is all the same to me.”

“My God,” Robespierre says. “You are over-reaching yourself.”

“The Republic must be served,” Saint-Just says passionately. “These sordid private involvements have no interest for me. All I want is to give the Tribunal the means to finish them off.”

“Listen to me,” Robespierre says. “Now that we have begun on this there is no turning back, because if we hesitate they will turn on us, seize the advantage and put us where they are now. Yes—in your elegant phrase, we must finish them off. I will let you do this, but I don’t have to love you for it.” He turns on Saint-Just his cold eyes. “Very well, go to the Convention. You tell them that through the informer Laflotte you have discovered a plot in the prisons. That Lucile Desmoulins, financed by—financed by enemy powers—in concert with General Dillon, has conspired to free the prisoners of the Luxembourg, raise an armed riot outside the Convention and assassinate the Committee. Then ask the Convention to pass a decree to silence the prisoners and bring the trial to a conclusion either today or tomorrow morning.”

“There is a warrant here for Lucile Desmoulins’s arrest. It would add conviction to the business if you were to sign it.”

Robespierre picks up his pen and puts his signature to the paper without looking at it. “It hardly matters,” he says. “She will not want to live. Saint-Just?” The young man turns to look at him sitting behind the table, his hands clasped in front of him, pallid, compact, self-contained. “When this business is over, and Camille is dead, I shall not want to hear your epitaph for him. No one is ever to speak of him again, I absolutely forbid it. When he is dead, I shall want to think about him myself, alone.”

The testimony of Fabricius Paris, Clerk to the Revolutionary Tribunal, given at the trial of Antoine Fouquier-Tinville, 1795:

Even Fouquier and his worthy associate Fleuriot, atrocious as they were, seemed thunderstruck by such men, and the deponent thought they would not have the courage to sacrifice them. He did not know the odious means being employed to this end, and that a conspiracy was being fabricated at the Luxembourg, by means of which … the scruples of the National Convention were overcome and the decree of outlawry was obtained. This fatal decree arrived, brought by Amar and Voulland [of the Police Committee]. The deponent was in the Witnesses’ Hall when they arrived: anger and terror were written on their faces, so much did they seem to fear their victims would escape death; they greeted the deponent. Voulland said to him, “We have them, the scoundrels, they were conspiring at the Luxembourg.” They sent for Fouquier, who was in the courtroom. He appeared at once. Amar said to him, “Here is something to make life easier for you.” Fouquier replied with a smile, “We wanted it badly enough.” He re-entered the courtroom with an air of triumph … .

“They are going to murder my wife.”

Camille’s cry of horror rings over all the noise of the courtroom. He tries to get at Fouquier, and Danton and Lacroix hold him back. He struggles, shouts something at Hermann and collapses into sobs. Vadier and David, of the Police Committee, are whispering to the jury. His eyes averted from the accused, Fouquier begins to read out the decree of the National Convention:

The president shall use evey means that the law allows to make his authority and the authority of the Revolutionary Tribunal respected, and to suppress any attempts by the accused to disturb public order or hinder the course of justice. It is decreed that all persons accused of conspiracy who shall resist or insult the national justice shall be outlawed and shall receive judgement without any further formality.

“For God’s sake,” Fabre whispers. “What does it mean?”

“It means,” Lacroix says dispassionately, “that from now on they dictate absolutely the form of the trial. If we call for our witnesses, ask to be cross-examined, ask to speak at all, they will close the trial immediately. To put it more graphically—the National Convention has assassinated us.”

When he finishes reading, the Public Prosecutor raises his head cautiously to look at Danton. Fabre has folded forwards in his chair. His ribs heave, and fresh blood splashes and flowers onto the towel he now holds before his mouth. From behind him Hérault puts a hand on his shoulder, hauling him back to an approximately upright position. The aristocrat’s face is disdainful; he has not chosen his company, but he means to scrape them up to his standards if he can.

“We may need to assist the prisoner,” Fouquier says to an usher. “Desmoulins also seems at the point of collapse.”

“The session is adjourned,” Hermann says.

“The jury,” Lacroix says. “There is still hope.”

“No,” Danton says. “There is no hope now.” He gets to his feet. For the last time that day, his voice echoes through the hall: and even now he seems impossible to kill. “I shall be Danton till my death. Tomorrow I shall sleep in glory.”

Rue Marat: She had written again to Robespierre. When she heard the patrol outside, she shredded the letter in her hands. She moved to the window. They were disposing themselves; she heard the clatter of steel. What do they think, she wondered: that I have my army in here?

By the time they arrived at the door she had picked up her bag, already packed with the few things she might need. Her little diaries were destroyed: the true record of her life expunged. The cat rubbed around her ankles, and she bent and drew her finger along its back. “Quietly,” she said. “No trouble.”

Jeanette cried out when the men held up the warrant. Lucile shook her head at her. “You will have to say good-bye to the baby for me, and to my mother and father, and to Adèle. Give my best wishes to Mme. Danton, and tell her I wish her greater good fortune than she has so far enjoyed. I don’t think there is any point in a search,” she said to the men. “You have already taken away everything that could possibly interest the Committee, and much that could not.” She picked up her bag. “Let’s go.”

“Madame, Madame.” Jeanette hung onto the officer’s arm. “Let me tell her just one thing, before you take her.”

“Quickly then.”

“There was a young woman here. From Guise. Look.” She ran to the bureau. “She left this, to show where she was staying. She wanted to see you, but it’s too late now.”

Lucile took the card. “Citizeness du Tailland,” it said, in a bold angular hand. Underneath, in a hasty bracket: “Rose-Fleur Godard.”

“Madame, she was in a pitiful state. The old man is ill, she had traveled by herself from Guise. She says they have only just heard of the arrests.”

“So she came,” Lucile said softly. “Rose-Fleur. Too late.”

She put her cape over her arm. It was a warm evening, and there was a closed carriage at the door, but perhaps the prison would be cold. You would think a prison would be cold, wouldn’t you? “Good-bye, Jeanette,” she said. “Take care. Forget us.”

A letter to Antoine Fouquier-Tinville:

Réunion-sur-Oise, formerly Guise

15 Germinal, Year II

Citizen and Compatriot,

Camille Desmoulins, my son, is a republican in his heart, in his principles and, as it were, by instinct. He was a republican in heart and in choice before July 14, 1789, and has been so in reality and in deed ever since … .

Citizen, I ask you only one thing: investigate, and cause an examining jury to investigate, the conduct of my son.

Health and fraternity from your compatriot and fellow citizen, who has the honor to be the father of the first and most unhesitating of republicans—

Desmoulins

“Hey, Lacroix. If I left my legs to Couthon, and my balls to Robespierre, the Committee would have a new lease on life.”

Day Four.

The interrogation of the brothers Frei proceeds. Ten, eleven o’clock. Hermann keeps the decree of the Convention under his hand. He watches the prisoners, the prisoners watch him. The signs of the night they have passed are written on their faces. And Hermann has seen the text of a letter to hearten him, from the Committee to the commander of the National Guard:

“Do not—we emphasize, do not—arrest either the Public Prosecutor or the President of the Tribunal.”

As noon approaches, Fouquier addresses Danton and Lacroix. “I have a great number of witnesses available to testify against both of you. However, I shall not be calling them. You will be judged solely on documentary evidence.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Lacroix demands. “What documents? Where are they?”

He receives no answer. Danton stands up.

“Since yesterday, we may no longer expect observance of the proper forms of law. But you promised me that I might resume my defense. That is my right.”

“Your rights, Danton, are in abeyance.” Hermann turns to the jury. “Have you heard enough?”

“Yes: we have heard enough.”

“Then the trial is closed.”

“Closed? What do you mean, closed? You haven’t read our statements. You haven’t called a single one of our witnesses. The trial hasn’t even begun.”

Camille stands up beside him. Hérault reaches forward to take hold of him, but he sidesteps and evades his grasp. He takes two paces forward towards the judges. He holds up the papers. “I insist on speaking. Through these whole proceedings you have denied my right to speak. You cannot condemn people without hearing their defense. I demand to read out my statement.”

“You may not read it.”

Camille crumples the papers in his two hands, and throws them with amazing accuracy at the president’s head. Ignominiously, Hermann ducks. Fouquier is on his feet: “The prisoners have insulted the national justice. Under the terms of the decree, they may now be removed from the court. The jury will retire to consider its verdict.”

Behind the barrier, the crowd is already drifting away, to take its place along the death route and by the scaffold. Last night Fouquier issued an order for three tumbrels: three tumbrels, mid-afternoon.

Two officers hurry forward to help Fabre.

“We must take you below, Citizens, while the jury is out.”

“Take your hands off me, please,” Hérault says, with a dangerous politeness. “Come, Danton: no point in standing here. Come, Camille—I hope you’ll not make a fuss.”

Camille is going to make as much fuss as he can. An officer of the court stands before him. The man knows—it is an article of faith with him—that the condemned don’t fight back. “Please come with us,” he says. “Please come quietly. No one wants to hurt you, but if you don’t come quietly you’re going to get hurt.”

Danton and Lacroix begin to plead with Camille. He clings desperately to the bench. “I don’t want to hurt you,” the officer says abjectly. A section of the crowd has detached itself and come back to watch. Camille sneers at the officer. The man tries without success to pull him away. Reinforcements arrive. Fouquier’s eyes rest unseeingly on his cousin. “For God’s sake, overpower him, carry him off,” Hermann shouts. He slams a book down in irritation. “Get them all out of here.”

One of the officers puts his hand into Camille’s long hair and jerks his head back violently. They hear the snap of bone and his gasp of pain. A moment later they have knocked him to the floor. Lacroix turns his face away in distaste. “I want Robespierre to know,” Camille says, as they drag him up from the marble floor. “I want him to remember this.”

“Well,” Hermann says to Fouquier, “half the Police Committee are in the jury room, so we may as well join them. If there is any more hesitation, show them the documents from the British Foreign Office.”

Just outside the courtroom, Fabre’s strength almost gives way. “Stop,” he gasps. The two officers assisting him put their hands under his elbows and lean him against the wall. He struggles for breath. Three men pass him, dragging Camille’s limp body. His eyes are closed and his mouth is bleeding. Fabre sees him; his face crumples, and suddenly he begins to cry. “You bastards, you bastards,” he says. “Oh, you bastards, you bastards, you bastards.”

Fouquier looks around the members of the jury. Souberbielle avoids his eye. “I think that’s about it,” he says to Hermann. He nods to Vadier. “Satisfied?”

“I shall be satisfied when their heads are off.”

“The crowds are reported large but passive,” Fouquier says. “It is as Citizen Robespierre says; in the end, they have no allegiance. It is finished.”

“Are we to have them back in the courtroom, and go through all that again?”

“No, I think not,” Fouquier says. He hands a sheet of paper to one of the court officials. “Get them into the outer office. This is the death sentence. Read it to them while Sanson’s men are cutting their hair.” He takes out his watch. “It’s four o’clock. He’ll be ready.”

“I don’t give a fuck for your sentence. I don’t want to hear it. I’m not interested in the verdict. The people will judge Danton, not you.”

Danton continues talking over the official’s voice, so that none of the men with him hear their death sentences being read. In the courtyard beyond the prison’s outer office, Sanson’s assistants are joking and calling to each other.

Lacroix sits on a wooden stool. The executioner tips open the collar of his shirt and rapidly cuts off the hair that grows over the back of his neck. “One unconscious,” a guard calls out. “One unconscious.”

Behind the wooden grille that separates the prisoners from the courtyard, the master executioner raises his hand to show that he has understood. Chabot is covered by a blanket. His face is blue. He is slipping into a coma. Only his lips move.

“He ordered himself some arsenic,” the guard says. “Well, you can’t stop the prisoner’s requirements getting through.”

“Yes,” Hérault says to Danton. “I contemplated it. In the end I thought, to commit suicide under these circumstances is an admission of guilt, and if they insist on cutting your corpse’s head off, as they do, it is in questionable taste. One should set an example to this riff-raff, don’t you think? In any event, it is better to open a vein.” His attention is drawn to the opposite wall, where a savage scuffle is going on. “My dear Camille, what is the point?” Hérault asks.

“You are giving us a lot of trouble, you are,” one of the guards says. They have finally got Camille tied up very tightly. They have discussed whether to accidentally knock him unconscious, but if they do that Sanson will get testy and call them bloody amateurs. His shirt was torn off his back when they tried to hold him still to cut his hair, and the rags of it hang on his thin shoulders. A dark bruise is spreading visibly under his left cheekbone. Danton crouches by him.

“We must tie your hands, Citizen Danton.”

“Just one second.”

Danton reaches down, and takes from around Camille’s neck the locket that holds a twist of Lucile’s hair. He puts it into his bound hands, and feels Camille’s fingers close over it.

“You can go ahead now.”

Lacroix digs him in the ribs. “Those Belgian girls—it was worth it, yes?”

“It was worth it. But not for the Belgian girls.”

Hérault is a little pale as he steps into the first tumbrel. Otherwise, there is no change visible on his face. “I am glad I don’t have to travel with the thieves.”

“Only the best-quality revolutionaries in this tumbrel,” Danton says. “Are you going to make it, Fabre, or shall we bury you en route?

Fabre lifts his head with an effort. “Danton. They took my papers, you know.”

“Yes, that is what they do.”

“I just wanted to finish The Maltese Orange, that was all. There were such beautiful verses in it. Now the Committee will get the manuscript, and that bastard Collot will pass it off as his own.” Danton tips back his head and begins to laugh. “They will put it on at the Italiens,” Fabre says, “under that blasted plagiarist’s name.”

Pont-Neuf, Quai de Louvre. The cart sways and jolts. He plants his feet apart to keep upright and to steady Camille’s sagging weight. Camille’s tears seep through the cloth of his shirt. He is not crying for himself but for Lucile: perhaps for their composite self, their eternity of letters, their repertoire of gestures and quirks and jokes, all lost now, vanished and for their child. “You are not meeting Hérault’s standards,” Danton says softly.

He scans the faces of the crowd. Silent, indifferent, they slow the progress of the carts. “Let us try to die with dignity,” Hérault suggests.

Camille looks up, snaps out of his coma of grief, “Oh, fuck off,” he says to Hérault, “stop being such a ci-devant.”

Quai de l’Ecole. Danton raises his eyes to the facade of the buildings. “Gabrielle,” he murmurs. He looks up as if he expects to see someone there: a face withdrawing behind a curtain, a hand raised in farewell.

Rue Honoré. The interminable street. At the end of it they shout curses at the shuttered facade of the Duplay house. Camille, though, tries to speak to the crowds. Henri Sanson glances over his shoulder apprehensively. Danton drops his head, whispers to him, “Be calm, now. Let that vile rabble alone.”

The sun is setting. It will be quite dark, Danton thinks, by the time we are all dead. At the tail of the cart, muffled in sansculotte garb, the Abbe Kéravenen recites silently the prayers for the dying. As the cart turns into the Place de la Revolution, he raises his hand in conditional absolution.

There is a point beyond which—convention and imagination dictate—we cannot go; perhaps it’s here, when the carts decant onto the scaffold their freight, now living and breathing flesh, soon to be dead meat. Danton imagines that, as the greatest of the condemned, he will be left until last, with Camille beside him. He thinks less of eternity than of how to keep his friend’s body and soul together for the fifteen minutes before the National Razor separates them.

But of course it is not like that. Why should it be as you imagine? They drag Hérault away first: rather, they touch him on the elbow, and conduct him to his end. “Good-bye, my friends,” Hérault says, just that; then immediately they have got their hands on Camille. It makes sense. Quickly dispose of anyone who might discomfit the crowds.

Camille is now, suddenly, calm. It is too late for Hérault to see how his example has been beneficial; but Camille nods his head towards Henri Sanson. “As Robespierre would say—you have to smile. This man’s father sued me for libel. Wouldn’t you think that I have the grievance now?”

He does smile. Danton’s stomach turns over: breathing flesh, dead meat. He sees Camille speak to Sanson: he sees the man take the locket from his bound hands. The locket is for Annette. He will not forget to deliver it; the last wishes are sacred, and he is of an honorable trade. For ten seconds Danton looks away. After that he watches everything, each bright efflorescence of life’s blood. He watches each death, until he is tutored to his own.

“Hey, Sanson?”

“Citizen Danton?”

“Show my head to the people. It’s worth the trouble.”

Rue Honoré: One day, a long time ago, his mother sat by a window, making lace. The broad morning light streamed in on both of them. He saw that it was the gaps that were important, the spaces between the threads which made the pattern, and not the threads themselves. “Show me how to do it,” he said. “I want to learn.”

“Boys don’t do it,” she said. Her face was composed; her work continued. His throat closed at the exclusion.

Now, whenever he looks at a piece of lace—even though his eyes are bad—he seems to see every thread in the work. At the Committee table, the image rises at the back of his mind, and forces him to look far, far back into his childhood. He sees the girl on the window seat, her body swollen, pregnant with death: he sees the light on her bent head; beneath her fingers the airy pattern, going nowhere, flying away.

The Times, April 8, 1794:

When the late reconciliation took place, between Robespierre and Danton, we remarked that it proceeded rather from the fear which these two famous revolutionists entertained of each other, than from mutual affection; we added, that it should last only until the more dexterous of the two should find an opportunity to destroy his rival. The time, fatal to Danton, is at length arrived … . We do not comprehend why Camille Desmoulins, who was so openly protected by Robespierre, is crushed in the triumph of this dictator.