City of Darkness, City of Light

by Marge Piercy

  Since he had no home life for the moment, he went out every night, to the Cordeliers, to the Jacobins, to the theater, to meetings of other clubs and societies. He saw the new plays. He even went to the one most reviled and discussed, a play by an illiterate butcher’s daughter. It was a perfectly workable play full of nonsense about women. What he liked about it was the heroine, a big gorgeous woman with dark cascading hair, a voice that the crowd could hear in the back row, a commanding presence and the body of a goddess.

  Afterward he went backstage. She recognized him at once. “Oh, I go to the Cordeliers when I can. I’m one of those women who are always marching around shouting at the Assembly.” She grinned at him.

  Close up, in ordinary street clothes and with her make-up cleaned off, she was just as impressive. Beautiful skin. Flawless. Like a piece of perfect ripe fruit. Gradually the other admirers left the room. He daunted them. He could usually dominate other men. The two of them studied each other. He wondered if she was used to presents, jewels, whatever. He was not about to do that. Best to be clear from the start.

  “Claire,” he said, using her first name intentionally now that they were alone, “I find you irresistible. Is there any reason to resist you? Let’s go have some supper and then some pleasure.”

  “You get right to the point.”

  “I’m a revolutionary, Claire. I’m no marquis to pave the way to bed with gold or diamonds. If you like me, then we’ll have a good time tonight.”

  “I like you,” she said, shaking her hair back. “I’m hungry for some supper. But aren’t you a married man?”

  “My wife’s in the country. I won’t tell you she doesn’t understand me, because she does. I adore her. But I’m here on my own for a few weeks. You’re the best thing I’ve laid eyes on since I got back to Paris.”

  She explained she shared lodgings. After supper in a cafe, he simply brought her back to his flat. If Camille or Lucile noticed, they would not say anything to Gabrielle. Ultimately, they were loyal to him.

  She was as beautiful naked as she had been on the stage. Further, she had been well schooled. She was sensual without being jaded, accomplished without a hint of whorishness. But she did not admire him as he liked to be admired. He sensed that she was looking around carefully, watching him. She had a critical eye he disliked in a woman. “You live very well,” she said at one point. He did not like to be observed. She was good at sex, but he did not think she would be good at loving. She lay under him, but he did not have the feeling of entering an open city. She was still defended.

  She left early in the morning, not lingering for breakfast or expecting a present. He had been correct in his assessment. She was not an amateur whore. She was also not as much a woman of the south as he had imagined, not as languid or as generous as Gabrielle. Once again, the encounter with another woman refreshed him—although neither had gotten much sleep—but made him appreciate his wife anew. He did not imagine Gabrielle would forgive him if she ever found out, but she would not; he knew his occasional forays did nothing but confirm the strength of his marriage.

  He had used the opportunity to question Claire about the politics of the theater. He did not think he would bed her again, but he might consult her as a good source on neighborhood women and theatrical folk. That critical intelligence he disliked in an intimate encounter was useful when he was gathering political information. Claire Lacombe seemed a reliable source.

  Most days and evenings were spent politicking. He was running for prosecutor in a full field of candidates. His primary opponent was a playwright also active in the Cordeliers, Collot d’Herbois. He had asked Claire and she knew him well. Perhaps he had been her lover. Collot was a fine speaker, although not as forceful as Georges. He was a handsome actor. He had revolutionary credentials from the Cordeliers Club and from his political plays, written with a popular touch. Georges learned that Claire had been in several. She seemed highly regarded. He hoped he hadn’t gotten into anything sticky. He had not realized how integrated into local politics she was.

  The next time he saw her, at the Cordeliers, Gabrielle was back in town and he felt rooted again. He was nervous, avoiding eye contact. She was with a group of the sans-culottes women who were always marching around screaming their heads off. She sat with a cute redhead and Pauline Léon, the bulldog of the neighborhood women, their leader and a real fire eater. He realized why he had not recognized Claire on stage, although he must have seen her at the Cordeliers numerous times. She did not seem glamorous offstage. She did not dress like an imitation lady or a whore. She dressed like the other women of the neighborhood, somewhat cleaner, a bit more style to the cut of her apron or the way she pinned the cockade, but he would not have guessed she was an actress. Like the Léon girl, she was in the thick of the neighborhood brigade. She smiled at him briefly but did not approach him or pay him more attention than anyone else speaking that night. He was intensely relieved. Obviously, she did not regard their night as the beginning of a heavy liaison. He was amused to notice he was also a little piqued that she could so easily dismiss him. Even in an old striped skirt and a tricolor shawl, she was certainly lovely.

  The race for prosecutor was hotly contested. There were always rumors about him, that he took bribes, that he lived too well, that he had just bought a big estate. He would deal with them head-on. Bull on through. He spoke till he was hoarse, talked with every little subgroup and guild and organization, everyone he ran into on the street. On the night of the election, he and Camille drank themselves silly.

  It took two days to count the ballots. He was ahead, he was behind, he was defeated. Finally, when he had resigned himself to losing, he was told he had won election as deputy prosecutor. Manuel was the real prosecutor, but it gave Georges a foot in the door of the Paris Commune and a base from which to operate. His acceptance speech was improvised, but he had decided beforehand to paint himself as a self-made man, the opposite of those born to wealth and privilege. He depicted himself as rough-hewn, vigorous, the working man’s champion, the people’s pugilist. He took on the rumors. He mentioned his house near the village where he was born, which he described as a sort of comfortable peasant holding. He knew what it was like to be persecuted wrongly. He was a down-to-earth man and he would continue to be who he was—more of a sow’s ear than a silk purse, but one hundred percent there for the people he was proud to represent—because he was one of them. He would never have made a monk. But he would fight hard for the Commune and the people’s Revolution.

  The crowd at City Hall liked the speech. He had begun to shape his public persona, not exactly a mask or a fiction, but more of a cartoon, a simplified Danton for general consumption. Camille saw clearly what he was doing and teased him in private. “You better hide your library,” Camille said. “It gives away that agile brain and broad education you’re bound to conceal these days. You and Marat are outdoing each other with the common touch. How about belching contests?”

  “You’re just jealous because you could never bring it off.”

  “Too true. I am a fop to the very bones of my elegant, refined and utterly irresistible body.”

  Camille understood the stakes. He was seen as a loose cannon, still the lamppost lawyer who had raised the mob to storm the Bastille. His paper was popular and sold well, but he wanted office too. They were young married men making their way across volcanic country, with no maps and no guides but their wits and the help of their friends.

  FORTY-SIX

  Max

  (Fall 1791-Winter 1792)

  WHEN the Assembly held its last meeting, the people seized Pétion and Max as they were leaving and made an embarrassing fuss. They crowned Max with oak leaves, they read him bad poetry, they kissed him and pelted him with flowers. He endured it, because it was genuine. Now, because of his own motion that former deputies could not serve in the Legislative Assembly, his time as a delegate was over. The Jacobin Club needed his full attention.

  Max had much work to do after t
he more conservative members of the Jacobin Club walked out and started the Feuillants—so named for the former monastery where they began to hold rival meetings. Without monasteries and convents, what would the Revolution do for public buildings? The Feuillants met just down the street from the Jacobins. The conservative city administration allowed the warrant on him to run out. He knew the reason: Lafayette and Bailly feared repercussions in the streets. Even though they had cowed people with the Champ de Mars massacre, they were not about to forget that passivity could erupt into violence if provoked.

  Or perhaps they thought that by walking out of the Jacobins, they had destroyed the Club, and he was no longer to be feared. But they had walked out dramatically, a poor way to accomplish such a move. They had left the membership rolls, the addresses of contacts at the daughter clubs. Even before he dared resurface, he sent Eléanore for the addresses. After he had written to every one of the hundreds of Jacobin clubs with her help and that of her younger sister Elisabeth—most clubs thrilled to receive a personal note from the Incorruptible himself—only four clubs defected to the Feuillants. How he hated that appellation, “the Incorruptible”: as if not to be bought and sold was such an unusual characteristic as to warrant public note.

  Most members attended now and then, when there was a good speech coming or a controversial stand being debated or they had something they wanted to propose. He went every night. He arrived in a timely manner, sat at the back or leaned against the wall and listened. He did not speak unless he had something to say. Then he prepared a speech. He preferred to write his speeches beforehand, although most members spoke extemporaneously. Some, like Danton, were best that way. Others were not, but never seemed to learn. He let his eyes half shut and followed without seeming to pay attention. He knew others were always watching him for his reactions, so he had learned to produce a slightly bored and impervious facade to protect himself from their curiosity.

  Nothing escaped his notice. He involved himself in the daily running of the Club, in correspondence, in the minutes. Many politicians had joined the Jacobins and then left. No one had been with it from the beginning and stayed the way he did. It was the place he could always get the floor, always receive a respectful and most times enthusiastic hearing.

  Lately his life felt calmer. In the Duplays’ cozy home with the hammering in the courtyard, the smell of sawdust, the scent of good simple cooking, the voices of the women of the household, he was close to happy. Even when meetings ran long into the night, Eléanore would be sitting up to open the gate for him. If Eléanore stayed late at the Club, Madame or Elisabeth would wait.

  Couthon, a wheelchair-bound cripple who was braver than any whole man, came to see him often. He relied upon Couthon for reports on the newly elected Legislative Assembly. Couthon followed his lead. Max also enjoyed the company of the painter David. He had never entertained before, but the Duplays encouraged him to invite friends and colleagues. The Duplays provided a core group for singing, readings, excursions, walks. Eléanore would sketch his friends and of course himself. David thought she had talent. Max was pleased by this evidence that she was a genuine artist, but more pleased that whatever she was doing, she would stop when he needed something.

  In October he returned to Arras for the first time since he had been elected to the Estates General. A few leagues outside the city, he was met by a contingent of National Guard. When he entered his home town, candles were lit in every window, an illumination in his honor. However, he learned quickly he was the bête noire of the local Feuillants and royalists. No rumor was too vile to be repeated and believed.

  Charlotte was fussy and demanding, combining overacted submission with an insistence on unremitting appreciation. Augustin had grown into a full political man with strong character, but practicing law halfheartedly. Augustin seemed someone he could depend upon. Augustin was a hand taller, but Max was still head of the household. He felt guilty for his neglect. Perhaps Augustin would find a political career in Paris; perhaps Charlotte would find a husband. He wrote to the Duplays, to see if they had room.

  The local authorities had prepared a banquet for him where he was presented with a civic crown. Speeches were made, unctuous and endless. Some of his old friends were delighted, but he could feel the envy, the mistrust, even the hatred of others. If this was a triumphant homecoming of the outcast semi-bastard orphan, he could taste a hidden menace. Speeches praised the Revolution, but among the worthies of the town, he felt little genuine commitment. The tradesmen, workers and peasants who had sent him to the Estates General had his picture on their walls. They shouted when they saw him. They had begun naming their babies Maximilien.

  One day when he was walking with Augustin outside of Arras, they met a bricklayer with a Great Dane. It was a magnificent animal, friendly but dignified. Max got down on his knees to stroke the fine head.

  “He’s a proud papa,” the bricklayer said. “Back at home, my bitch had pups. If you like dogs, sir, I’d be happy, I’d be honored to give you one.”

  “You shouldn’t call me ‘sir.’” Max considered the offer. “Can we see your pups?”

  Thus he acquired Blount, a two-month-old Great Dane who went home with him that day and slept on the foot of his bed at night. Since he had been out of the legislature and living just down the street from the Jacobins, he had not been walking nearly enough. Blount would fix that.

  A reply came from the Duplays: they had a small apartment in the north wing that could be fixed up for Augustin and Charlotte. By all means, Max should bring his families together. He told them to pack up. They would retain the house in Arras in case things did not work out. Charlotte fussed and wrung her hands, but Augustin was delighted.

  Blount immediately chased Felicia, the calico cat who was mother of all cats in residence, and got his nose scraped. Vivienne took an immediate liking to Blount and had to be ordered not to spoil him. Augustin and Charlotte moved into the apartment. It opened directly on the street instead of into the courtyard, but also connected internally through a corridor. Charlotte was displeased by the furniture, displeased by the arrangement, displeased by the decoration. He told her to fix it as she chose, as long as she did not spend much. He had little money but needed almost nothing for himself. The Duplays took care of everything.

  Upon his return, he was disturbed to notice how much war was talked of. Some Jacobins were forming a war party, touting how the armies of the Revolution could crush their enemies, unite the nation behind the flag, liberate neighboring countries from their kings and nobles. Their leader was Brissot. Max considered his position carefully. Finally in December, he made his first speech opposing war. The émigrés presented no real danger. They played at war across the Rhine and talked big but could do little without armies to back them up.

  The dangerous enemies were the King and those around him, former nobles and powerful foes all over France who tried to undermine and defeat the Revolution. France was not prepared for war. To go into war with the King commanding armies against his own brother and cousin was insane; to expect Louis to spearhead an effort to liberate other countries from their kings was idiocy. Further, people seldom appreciated an invasion, even one aimed at liberating them. They could not expect neighboring countries, with a traditional mistrust of French armies, to greet them as liberators. Finally he argued that a war might unite the nation, as Brissot expected, but could lead to dictatorship. A successful general could march on Paris.

  In January Marat came to see him at the Duplays’. It was clandestine, because Marat was pursued by the government. He had been chased out of the country, taking refuge in England. Now he was back, forced to hide in the sewers where he contracted a skin disease that tortured him and gave him an odor that made Max feel slightly faint in the close room. For once Charlotte was tactful and silently opened a casement just behind Marat’s back.

  Max had often seen him across a room, but they had never sat down face to face. Marat had praised him in his paper, The Friend
of the People. Max suspected that Marat and he had hung back from meeting because both of them preferred a certain distance. They agreed in much but their styles were discordant. Max found distasteful Marat’s gutter rhetoric and constant references to slitting throats. He suspected Marat found him too formal. “Why do you write with such violence? Your paper is extremely popular and you make so many excellent points, why mar it by posturing like a criminal?”

  “Posturing? The language I use is mild as mothers’ milk next to how I feel. I feel a rage I can never put into words against those who have power and use it to destroy the common people. All words fall short of the fury I know.”

  Marat was little taller than Max, but broader built. He dressed in old filthy clothes and wore a stained kerchief around his head. He looked as if he had just escaped from the galleys. He had been hunted like the British ran a fox, and he had developed the cunning and the cornered ferocity of a beast. Max spoke gently to him. Marat roared back. “We have to slaughter them before they fuck up the Revolution. Every scheming lying priest, the aristocrats who have dined on the liver of the nation so long and so well. If they had one head, I’d chop it off. They want to freeze society the way it is, with the people getting nothing, nothing at all!”

  Marat had scraggly brown air, uncombed, caked with some salve he was using. His hands were covered with running sores. He wore a brace of pistols in his belt. Max never carried a weapon and had no idea how to use one. He had never learned to wave a sword around.