by Marge Piercy
François threw his arms around her and held her close. “When a woman becomes well known, it arouses the filth in men. The scum rises to the surface of the boiling pot.”
She thought his metaphor a bit off the mark, but she was comforted in his embrace. She let herself relax against him. “Lanthénas is a nuisance.”
“He keeps glaring at me in the Convention.” François tilted her face up and kissed her.
Hearing someone in the hall, she jumped away from him. “No one takes him seriously any longer. He’s compromised himself, changing sides and yet continuing to sponge off us.”
Her situation was becoming impossible. The Mountain had picked out Jean as vulnerable and attacked him daily about the funds he had spent for propaganda. The most disturbing aspect was the lack of support among the other Girondins. Jean and she had pushed hard for a government modeled on America, with strong states as well as an elected central authority. They wanted to move the capital out of Paris, as the Americans had moved it to a new city—away from the Paris mobs. That well-reasoned position had been turned into treason by the Mountain and the Commune.
Finally Jean had enough. “I want out,” he said. “I cannot endure these accusations. I’ve never deviated from a righteous path for one day in office. I can account for every penny. I want to resign and demand an investigation into the finances of the Ministry of the Interior. I know I’ll be cleared.”
They were both worn down. In February, she wrote a letter of resignation for him and he submitted it. He expected his fellow Girondins to argue him into staying on, but no one did. It was shocking.
They moved out of the mansion and back to their little flat. At least that got rid of Lanthénas as well as the hordes of petitioners and job seekers. In fact it got rid of just about everybody. All attention was on the King’s execution and the war. Only a few good friends like Bosc came around and of course François. Even Jean remarked that Buzot was faithful. It was awkward. Jean was always at home. It was hard to steal time for François. In the mansion the rush of people had not impeded their privacy but guarded it. Now François’ presence was terribly obvious.
When they did snatch a private moment, François was desperate. He seized her. “Jean’s no longer in office. He doesn’t need you the way he did.”
“He always needs me, François. His health is fragile. He’s depressed.”
“I need you more than he does, and I’m in the Convention. We can both get divorces and marry each other.”
“I told you I will never hurt or betray him.”
“Manon, our lives are passing. We have to seize the time to be together.” He kissed her passionately. His hand closed on her breast.
She was shocked at his ardor but more shocked at her own. Desire passed through her like a hot bar of iron. She had never known desire. She had denied its power and felt superior to those it swayed, like that animal Danton, but she had not known what she was scorning. She pulled from him and ran to shut herself in the kitchen with Fleury, weeping on her shoulder.
She realized she must talk to Jean. She had been balancing her wifely role and her love for François for months, but she no longer trusted her own control. She must force herself to remain virtuous. That night as they prepared for bed, she summoned up her courage. “Jean, there is something important I must speak to you about.”
“What’s important now except clearing my name? I fume when I consider how those scoundrels dare accuse me of impropriety, when I’ve always put my own interests aside in the service of the State. Always.”
“Jean, I must tell you that I have strong feelings of affection for Buzot. I have been faithful to you and I’ll always be faithful to you. I am your wife. He is not my lover. But I do … love him.”
“What are you saying?” Jean turned grey. Now she understood what was meant when someone was described as ashen. He sank on the bed’s edge staring at her, haggard, clutching his belly.
She tried to explain but all he could say was, “You love another man. You love Buzot. I want to die!”
“I love you too,” she kept saying, but he repeated, “My wife loves another man.” From that moment, things changed between them. Jean went about with his chin sunk on his chest. He caught a cold two days later, followed by vague fevers and chills for three weeks. She wore herself out nursing him. Remembering the last time, she wondered if she faced months of his weakness and inertia.
They received death warnings in every post. Sometimes they were threatened on the street. Marat’s campaign against her had not stopped with Jean’s resignation. People were furious at the Girondins. People shouted that they were starving and it was the fault of the government. Manon knew it would make sense to leave for Le Clos, but it was winter and dreary there, and she could not bring herself to leave François. He was her heart and soul. Instead she sent Eudora off with her governess, writing to Dominique, Jean’s brother, to watch over them.
Now France was at war with England and Spain as well as Prussia and Austria, battles on land and sea. The war that had started almost lightly as an exercise in patriotism to bring the country together had turned into an interminable campaign on too many fronts. It was draining the country. Had the war been a mistake? She and Jean had strongly supported Brissot. Sometimes she could not remember why. Brissot was no longer calling on them. He was embroiled, fighting for his political life in the Convention.
Jean glared at her across a deep abyss of resentment. They slept in the same bed, they ate their meals at the same sad table, but they were prisoners sharing a cell. Jean was never well, and in mid-March, she herself began to run a high fever. She coughed until she choked. Her linen had to be changed twice a night. Fleury cared for her, bedding her down in Eudora’s room so she would not infect Jean. It was a relief to sleep alone. She was tired of hearing him sigh for dramatic effect, keeping her awake. She could not seem to make him understand that she had been entirely virtuous. With the fuss he was making, she might as well have gone to bed with François.
All the energy had drained from her. She got their passports in order so that they could leave for Le Clos, but she had not the strength to pack. François came to see her daily. He brought flowers, he brought books. Whenever François arrived, Jean shut himself in what had been their bedroom, slamming the door. Sometimes he seemed to be moving furniture in there.
One afternoon when Jean was at his old ministry to look for papers he was sure would clear his name, she napped in Eudora’s bed. When François found her there, he lay beside her and embraced her the full length of their bodies. As he held her, she fell into a feverish sleep. When she awoke, he was gone. The lemon and smoky scent of the cologne he favored clung to her pillow along with the rich scent of his body. How could she leave Paris? How could she leave him?
SIXTY-FOUR
Georges
(Winter-Spring 1793)
GEORGES was greatly relieved that his name did not turn up with Mirabeau’s in the King’s iron safe. He had never been paid directly. His most recent contact with the court had been through Talon, whom he had allowed to escape by sending him on a mission to England. He had promised to help the King if he could, but that became problematic after the affair of the safe. He would always save whomever he could, without too great risk to himself.
Manon Roland would have been far better off making eyes at him instead of that naive idiot Buzot, who couldn’t be trusted to argue a motion that was already sure to pass. She had rejected Georges even as a friend. He might have been able to save her husband’s job if they had worked together. Now she could reap the nasty consequences. The foul mouth of Marat plus accusations of misuse of funds and wanting to move the government from Paris, brought the Rolands down; but it was also Roland’s boring the deputies to death with the recitation of his own virtues, and Manon’s incessant infighting. People were always getting on the Rolands’ bad side. After a while, they had few friends and few supporters. Purity bred its own problems. He had never been able to resis
t shocking her, once he had learned he could not charm her. It was fun to act the bandit chieftain in her presence. For a revolutionary, she was easily appalled. He saw her as a plump-breasted bird, quite the queen of her barnyard but confounded by an unexpected movement or loud noise.
He got himself appointed to the commission sent to General Dumouriez to check into irregularities in supplying the troops. He wanted to stay out of Paris during the King’s trial. He found the troops ill fed, the hospitals primitive, desertions common and the army bogged down. The situation of the army inside Belgium was precarious and unclear: were they liberators, occupiers, annexers? How did they get provisions? Buy them (with what) or take them? It was a mess. He brought Fabre in to furnish boots, and cut himself in as a quiet partner.
By January Gabrielle was begging him to return. The problems in Belgium dragged on. Antoine was almost three; François-Georges was eleven months old. This new pregnancy was proving difficult. Gabrielle feared the child would be born prematurely, and she wanted him with her. In addition to two maids, Gabrielle had Lucile nearby (although unlikely to be much help) and the Gélys upstairs, mother and daughter, with whom she had become close. The daughter Louise was excellent with the boys. Gabrielle trusted Louise, but nothing would replace having her husband at hand for her confinement. Georges arranged to come.
When he returned to Paris, a former minister living in England attempted to bribe him into saving Louis. But the English did not produce the money. He realized he must take a stand in favor of Louis’ death. He had his reputation to consider: he could not afford to seem in the royalist camp. Life was always precarious, and he had scandal and rumor clinging to him like mud to his shoes.
After the King’s trial, an old royal bodyguard went gunning for the due d’Orléans for voting to execute his cousin. He could not find Philippe at the Palais Royal, so he settled for the representative Lepeletier, best known for his plan to reform education and bring it to every French child. Lepeletier was shot in the courtyard of the Palais Royal. The murder scared the Convention.
The Convention sent Georges back to Belgium on the last day of January. Gabrielle was upset, but the situation was acute, and the baby would no longer be premature enough to be in danger. Dumouriez was furious at the King’s execution. The Belgians were unhappy with the occupation. The men were discontented with their provisions. Everybody was at each other’s throats. He had to smooth it all over. He rushed around Belgium from Dumouriez to the camps, from Brussels to Liège. He was having supper one night in mid-February when a messenger arrived to speak to him privately.
He knew what it was. “My wife has had her baby? Is it a girl?” That’s what they had hoped for. Gabrielle would be angry at him for not returning in time, but so it went.
“Citizen Danton, I bring you good and bad news. You have a son—”
“What do you mean, bad news?”
“Your wife died in childbirth, Citizen. We all grieve with you.”
He felt stunned, like a bull about to be slaughtered. “Gabrielle, dead? That can’t be. She’s a healthy woman. She had babies before. She can’t be dead. There’s some mistake!”
He summoned a coach and left at once, traveling all night. When he finally got to Paris six days after Gabrielle had died, he felt numb. How could he live without her? She had been his strength. Only the two maids were in his flat. Gabrielle’s parents had come to Paris for her accouchement and taken the children. She was already buried. She had vanished, but there were her jams in the kitchen, clothes still smelling of her ripe and beautiful body. Her perfume, her rouge, her scarves. The jewelry he had given her. The whole flat said wife. He had lost his wife as if he had somehow misplaced her and she was gone into smoke and air. Only the scent and clothing remained to mock him.
He felt crazed. How could he move? How could he act? A letter from Robespierre was handed to him. “If during the only kind of misfortune which can shake a spirit as strong as yours, you can find any consolation in the knowledge you have a tender and devoted friend, I want you to know that I love you as your true friend. I love you more than ever, until death. We two are one self.”
Georges was moved to tears. He had not thought Robespierre had it in him to respond so tenderly to his loss. He was astonished that Robespierre could understand loss, especially of a woman. Some people said that Robespierre had a fiancee, one of the Duplay girls, but Georges had never believed it. He had always thought the man cold through and through, except with children or animals.
He could not sleep. He kept feeling her in the bed with him, her sweet lush breasts, her hip pressing into him, the way they slept sometimes like spoons fitted together. He kept smelling her. He kept hearing her in the kitchen or in the bedroom. She had been stolen from him.
He went to the cemetery and insisted they exhume her. He had a savage fight with the authorities and with her family, but he would not give in. He must say goodbye to her. He must see her body, or he would never be rid of the feeling that she was hiding just in the next room, that one of his enemies had kidnapped her. The smell was strong but so was his stomach. He knelt and kissed her goodbye and had a sculptor make a death mask for him before he would allow them to close the coffin. Then, finally, he permitted her to be put back in the cold earth. Now he knew she was dead and his life was empty.
He summoned a family council and gave his father-in-law a deputy guardian status and Gabrielle’s brother power of attorney. The last born son was still surviving, but weakly. Georges had no idea if the boy would thrive, but he had two to care for. He signed the papers, put his affairs roughly in order and took a coach for Belgium and the army.
The Belgians were in revolt against the occupying army and had killed French soldiers. They were sick of the army they had welcomed as liberators. The French had gone in a few months from saviors to oppressors. Scandal about provisioning the army was growing, although he had done his best to squash it. The damned radical crew that had wrestled the war office from Girondin control were trying to make sure nobody made a cent, as if you could run a business that way. Fabre was minting money, from none-too-good boots. Dumouriez, Fabre, himself had all made a bundle, so they must cover for each other. It was how things got done, in war and in peace and no doubt everywhere but the kingdom of heaven. When he had first arrived, the men were hungry and cold. If the materiel cost more than it might have, at least the soldiers were fed and clothed and outfitted, boots and bullets.
It was back and forth, back and forth all winter and early spring. There were defeats after defeats and troubles after troubles. He had to raise more battalions in Paris by appealing for volunteers among the sections. This time he would not let the people slaughter the prisoners before the men left Paris. He argued for the creation of a Revolutionary Tribunal to mete out swift justice to traitors, in order to prevent the people from rising again and attacking the prisons. This would persuade the people they didn’t need to kill potentially dangerous prisoners. It would be a kind of pacifying theater, justice every day. This proposal was his, but Robespierre, Marat, Camille, everybody from the Mountain and a huge number of Plain deputies leaped on it. It passed overwhelmingly. He felt frantic, exhausted, rushing from one crisis to another, delivering ringing speeches he scarcely listened to, words and phrases rolling out of his mouth.
Dumouriez was getting harder to control and finally Georges lost his big fish, the general who had won sufficient battles to keep them all in business. Dumouriez went over to the Austrians. Luckily Georges was in Paris reporting to the Convention. Some of the scandal stuck to him, but mostly it was the problem of the Girondins, who had put Dumouriez in power, who had feted and fussed over him. He was not surprised that Dumouriez had defected, but the timing caught him off guard.
Too bad for Philippe Égalité. His son, an aide to Dumouriez, deserted to the Austrians along with the general. Philippe was arrested. Georges had put a fair amount of distance between himself and the Orléans faction in recent years. He should be all righ
t. If only he were not so lonely. Whenever he sat down chez Desmoulins, he found himself melancholy. He was not sleeping well. He took his children back into his flat and got the girl upstairs, Louise Gély, to care for them. Louise told him that Gabrielle had made her promise on her deathbed that she would take over the children. The baby died, quietly. The other two boys cried a lot, but they were used to Louise and began to flourish. She had cared for them through Gabrielle’s difficult pregnancy. The Gélys were old friends of Gabrielle’s family.
Things were not going well for anybody. The Vendée region, one of the most backward of France, was in armed revolt against the government, so now they had a civil war for the improvised French army to fight, as well as the wars on their frontiers. The peasants in the Vendée had been roused by the Church to fight a holy war, and nobles had come back from exile to join them. Dumouriez’s treason had shaken the Girondins’ hold on the government. Gradually they were losing their grip. Now the Convention recognized it was in jeopardy. The nation was in grave danger from within and without. At Marat’s instigation, a Committee of Public Safety was organized to oversee the government, to consist of nine members from the Convention and have broad sweeping powers. It had more scope than the most powerful of the standing committees, Security, which oversaw police and prisons. He understood at once he must get himself appointed.
The infighting in the Convention was growing more partisan and violent. The Girondins tried to impeach Marat and everybody was threatening everybody else with death. Georges made several rousing speeches in the Convention, trying to direct their attention toward winning the war, the one they had entered so blithely and were now losing on every front. But the Girondins were still in control of the government and not about to resign. The bureaucracy was the old royalist engine that preferred spinning idly to doing anything productive. Many of the bureaucrats presided over operations they wanted to see fail. It was a mess that ground round and round in the mire of politics. He was at home there, compromising, finding allies, greasing the wheels, pulling a little here and pushing a little there, trading favors and insults. But he knew they were at crisis.