by Marge Piercy
She had just taken off her bonnet and looked around at the dear familiar furniture in her flat—the cabinets and drawers still secured with the red sealing wax of the authorities—when she heard heavy feet on the stairs followed by knocking on the door. Fleury opened it cautiously.
“Citizeness Philipon, wife of Roland, I have a warrant for your arrest. Please come with me at once.”
They took her, not back to l’Abbaye, but to Sainte Pélagie, to a narrow cell with a slit of window onto the courtyard. The whole charade had been to assure her arrest was legal, since she had been picked up the first time on her husband’s warrant. Now she was properly arrested.
The jailer here was even kinder to her, since he had been appointed by Jean. She soon had her cell in Sainte Pélagie fixed up as cozy as her last. This time she was under no illusion she would be out soon. She must get on with her memoirs, all she could leave to her daughter, to posterity: a record of who she had been. Now there was no hiding behind Jean or François. These were the memoirs of Manon Roland, by herself, about herself. In the long run, she understood politics as well as Brissot, as well as Jean or François. Most memoirs she had read were marked by hypocrisy. She would tell the truth of her life with an openness and an honesty that must convince. She had seen little truthful written about girlhood. She remembered her own vividly but without sentimentality. She would include everything, including what would be considered in bad taste for a lady to discuss. This would be a memoir as honest as salt. Friends could sneak out the pages.
A letter from François was brought by a sympathizer. He was in Caen. There were revolts all over France, he said, in Marseille, in Toulon, in Normandy, in Lyon. They would soon be together and he would no longer allow her to keep them apart. This danger had taught him to value love above life. He would not allow her to sacrifice them to an outmoded notion of virtue.
She wrote him often, trusting the letters to friends. His letter she read and reread. She wrote him about life in Sainte Pélagie. She had been shocked to find herself thrown with prostitutes, madams, thieves, women accused of murdering an unwanted baby or their husbands or another woman of whom they had cause to be jealous. But none of them tried to hurt her and some became her friends.
Sophie came to see her. Their friendship, interrupted by Jean’s jealousy, now grew as intimate as when they were seventeen. Sophie was a widow. Manon no longer felt like a married woman. She had no idea where Jean was. She wished him well, she wished him safe. She sent a couple of letters to him, urging him to be careful; her letters would be passed along until they reached someone who knew where Jean was. She did not spend much time thinking about him, outside the context of the memoirs she was writing as quickly as possible. No time for fancy language, no time for long philosophical discourses. She might be tried at any moment; she might be killed.
One afternoon she heard two women quarreling outside. They started slapping and punching each other and had to be separated.
“What’s wrong? Was Marie flirting with Anatole?” she asked Berthe. Berthe was extremely jealous of her pimp.
“Some slut killed Marat, and this bitch says it’s a fine thing. I want to kick the shit out of her. The friend of the people is like my father.”
Some father, she thought, but tried to soothe Berthe. “Killing is always terrible. But we all have different heroes. If we don’t respect each other, then we’ll be at each other’s throats. I’ll talk to Marie for you.”
To Marie she said, “It’s reasonable to rejoice in the death of that butcher, but unwise to celebrate publicly. You’ll get yourself beaten or worse. You can talk to me, but be careful what you say to the others.”
Often the women came to her with disputes, with problems, with letters they had to read or write. She helped them prepare for interrogation. She had a social circle of women of the streets. Surprisingly many of them had dreams of a better, fuller life. It was odd to think of a prostitute as a good woman, but Berthe, in spite of her jealousy and her temper, was hardworking, a good mother, loyal to her friends, willing to share any extra food or drink she was given. She had a handsome son who, Manon felt secretly after she spoke with him, was much smarter than her own Eudora.
She had frightening news of Eudora. Her governess had gone to the Tribunal and offered to testify against the Rolands. She had submitted a formal accusation of counter-revolutionary activity. Manon begged Bosc to find out where Eudora was and to take care of her. He promised.
Fleury had been interrogated. Manon felt a noose of malice tightening. They meant to make an example of her. Did they mean to kill her? Some nights she lay awake, imagining her trial, her execution. She had never actually seen the guillotine, for she had avoided it. As if casually, she asked the other women what it was like, so that she would be prepared. But they must free her, they must, for she had done nothing wrong.
The woman who had stabbed Marat, Charlotte Corday, a Girondin from Normandy, had been shut up in her old cell at l’Abbaye. She wondered about Charlotte, a heroine to some, a murderess to others. Had she seen herself as Brutus? As Judith with the head of Holofernes? Manon was insatiably curious, but could learn little. Charlotte was said to be young and quite beautiful. Her portrait had been painted in Manon’s old cell by an artist Charlotte sent for. Charlotte’s trial was swift. The next day she was taken to be guillotined.
Marat’s funeral was huge. The people mourned him wildly, but not Manon. He had tried to kill her. Posthumously, he still might succeed.
SIXTY-EIGHT
Georges
(Summer 1793)
GEORGES had been noticing Louise Gély. She was, after all, around a great deal. Her parents lived in the same building—it was their building—and Gabrielle had entrusted his sons to Louise. Louise was excellent with the boys. They were not only used to her; they loved her. She was affectionate with them but kept discipline. Gradually she had taken over the job of ordering food and instructing the cook. She made a good wife, Georges thought, eyeing her body. She was fully developed for sixteen. He caught her looking at him too, sideways through her thick lashes.
She was dark, like Gabrielle, lighter of body and step. She was extremely pretty, as he paid more attention. She did not own many clothes and did not dress to show off her figure. She was a good girl, unfortunately, or he would have bedded her already. He caught her in his arms and kissed her. She did not pull away, but immediately afterwards, she ran out of the flat. She slipped a note under the door asking him please not to do that again, or she would find someone else to care for the darling boys.
If he wanted her, it was the same story as Gabrielle: he’d have to ask her parents for her. Well, he lacked a wife, and she could slide into that role. The boys liked her. She was attractive and full of sap and energy. He could hear her running up and down the steps, light and fast. The boys needed a mother. He had no time to court a lady who’d play games. He went to see the Gélys. They were reluctant. “Georges, you’re twice her age.”
“When I’m seventy, she’ll be fifty-four. Is that so bad?”
Madame spoke up. She had been close to Gabrielle. He knew she was pious. Indeed, the flat where he was making his pitch was hung with crucifixes and lugubrious paintings of the saints. There was Saint Denis with his head under his arm dripping along, like a graduate of the guillotine. Some notion of interior decorating. Well, he wouldn’t have to look at it, and once he married her, neither would Louise, who seemed a more cheerful type.
“We can’t accept a civil ceremony,” Madame said grimly. “It’s not valid in the eyes of God. And we can’t accept any but a real priest.”
“What’s a real priest?” Danton asked, although he suspected.
“What you call a nonjuring priest. Not one who swears allegiance to the government instead of the Pope. A real one.”
“Henri IV said that Paris was worth a mass. So is your daughter.”
Louise expressed no surprise that he wanted to marry her. The negotiations began in earnest. It
was not that he didn’t get laid from time to time. Women were always around in the cafes. He remembered fondly the night he had spent with that actress Claire, but she was either with that troop of wild women or with Leclerc, a young ultra-left hothead who wanted to kill all the aristocrats and half the bourgeoisie. Even if Claire had been free, a quick romp in some soft bed was no replacement for a good wife.
Finally Mme Gély, the chief negotiator, agreed he could marry Louise in a Catholic ceremony in the attic. Then they would be publicly married in a civil ceremony at City Hall, protecting both his revolutionary reputation and their religious sensibilities. Once the agreement had been drawn up, he saw no reason to dally. After the Girondins were tossed out, he was ready. One ceremony occurred June eleventh and the public one, the next day at noon. His colleagues congratulated him, a little stunned.
“How long do you think it will take him to wear this one out?” Camille told him what they said. They envied him a young and gorgeous wife. Most of them had married for money and had prunes for wives.
He had an instinct for women. This one was young and pious, but within a week, she began to enjoy love-making. Louise had a strong back and powerful thighs, from running up and down the steps all day, no doubt. “Ah, Louise, Louise, I’m crazy about you,” he breathed into her wavy dark hair.
“Of course,” she said. “That’s how it should be.”
Everyone was shocked he had married again so quickly, everyone but Louise. He had the impression that she thought he had been slow to figure out he should marry her. She seemed to have assumed their marriage since Gabrielle had told her that the boys were hers to care for. She took no interest in politics. She was conventionally pious but not a fanatic like her mother. She understood food and servants. She had been raised to be a good wife, and she performed above his expectations. He felt a certain reluctance to leave in the morning for the Convention, and he came hurrying home at night.
The asinine Girondins, thrown out of the Convention but in no real danger, did themselves in royally. They tried to drum up revolts all over the country. The rebellion in Normandy was put down immediately, as it had little public backing. But Marseille and Toulon were in revolt and so was Lyon, far more serious upheavals. A civil war was still raging in the Vendée.
His policy of accommodation was discredited and he was in trouble politically. Marat wrote a blistering piece, calling him the leader of the Committee of Public Loss. He was blamed for military failures and blamed for the Girondin uprisings, because he had tried to protect them. Then on July tenth, when the members of the great Committee of Public Safety came up for their monthly review, he was out on his ear. Let them grind along without him for a month. They’d beg him back soon enough.
He was still angry at Marat when a crazy girl from Caen, where the Girondins had been fomenting revolt, stabbed Marat in his bath. Georges was secretly relieved to have a wild card removed from the political scene, but he had protected Marat and been supported by him as often as he had quarreled with him. He did not like the man-a stinking fanatic-but he could be counted on to call out the people when they were needed. Marat had hated Manon, now rotting in prison; he had hated Marie-Antoinette. But when Théroigne de Méricourt was stripped and beaten by the women, he stepped in to save her. Marat had a soft spot for the flamboyant Théroigne. People said he had been her lover in the old days, when he was a society doctor and she, a fancy courtesan ruining counts and bankers, but Georges doubted it. Marat never had the kind of money that Théroigne had drawn before she quit the business. They simply liked each other. Now Théroigne was in the Salpêtrière, mad after her head injury, and Marat was dead, leaving a pauper’s estate of twenty-five sous.
Charlotte Corday went to the guillotine, and after her would walk many Girondins because of her quick knife. After the revolts, after the murder of Marat, the Convention no longer discussed Girondins in respectful tones. They were traitors. They were the enemy as much as the Prussians or the English. She had been acting for the Girondins, and most people thought they had sent her.
Burying Marat was a full-time business. On the sixteenth of July, at five in the afternoon so people could come from work, the painter David arranged Marat’s funeral. Marat lay on a fanciful huge bier a foot deep in flowers. He was already starting to rot, so the flowers helped. The bier was supported by a dozen men. None of the weight was Marat, skinny as a piece of paper. The cortege started at Marat’s house. The hearse was followed by children in white throwing flowers. Then came the Convention in mourning. Then patriotic clubs and people in the thousands, under the banners of their sections. Every five minutes an artillery salute went off on the Pont Neuf.
Long after dark they ended up in the garden of the Cordeliers Club, where he was to be buried under a clump of trees in a tomb that had been hastily knocked out by the sculptor Martin. It was supposed to be a granite mountain symbolizing Marat’s inflexible resolve. The coffin and two urns, one with his lungs and the other with his intestines, were placed inside. Then every orator got a chance to make a speech, himself included.
Two days later they did it all again, when the heart of Marat was placed ceremoniously on the old altar in the Cordeliers Club, in a vase carved out of a single chunk of agate and adorned with jewels-part of the royal hoard of Louis. Danton was amused that Marat’s heart should end up inside such a casing.
In the following weeks, the cult got out of hand. Every corner was selling mementos of the fallen hero: Marat busts, Marat engravings, Marat pins, Marat scarves, Marat dishes, Marat mugs, Marat cravats. Little replicas of his bath were everywhere. Half the theaters in Paris were staging tableaus, plays, pantomimes, musicals on Marat’s life and death. Songs were composed and hawked on the street corners. Danton got used to seeing depictions of the death scene on every other wall. He was reminded of the lugubrious paintings and artifacts that adorned the walls of his new in-laws. Marat was filling a niche that used to be occupied by the sacred heart of Jesus and the crucifixion. Ordinary people bought representations of the death of their saint and hung it over the matrimonial bed.
He fucked his new wife, ate the good meals she put on the table and dreamed of the countryside. In the midst of a rainy July, Robespierre was elected to Georges’ old place on the Committee of Public Safety. Robespierre had finally succumbed to power. Now Georges would see if the Incorruptible could avoid being corrupted. Georges was careful to offer congratulations and vote approval. What would happen now that Robespierre had the great Committee and thus the government in his bony hands?
The government was cracking down. Marie-Antoinette was moved from the Temple to the Conciergerie, the jail in the same building as the Revolutionary Tribunal. The Dauphin was given to a cobbler to raise. This treatment felt unnecessarily cruel to Georges. Marie had been extravagant in the face of poverty, gilding her favorites. She was one of the stupid Hapsburgs; but that needn’t be a lethal offense. It would be quite sufficient to lock her up in some unused palace until the war was over, then send her home to Austria.
They were gearing up to execute her. Maybe he was lucky to be out of the great Committee for a while. It was getting a little too bloody for his taste. He said to Camille as they walked to the Convention, “So if we were the ultimate high judges, couldn’t we be more imaginative in our sentencing instead of death death chop chop chop.”
“Robespierre has that gesture on the podium, have you ever noticed? He really shouldn’t do that.” Camille chopped with his hand.
“Marie is going to trial. So, we convict her. What should she be sentenced to?”
“That’s easy.” Camille tossed his hair. “Nursing wounded soldiers. Washing bloody bandages. Changing bedpans. That would teach her a few things about war and the common man. But death is the simplest way to solve any problem. The guillotine is so fast, it’s like slapping a fly.”
“Unless you’re the fly.”
Marseille was taken. The troops supposed to be supporting the Girondins deserted to the gover
nment. Toulon was another story. Late in August, the French admiral turned over the fleet at Toulon to the British. Georges felt that blow. When Barère read the dispatch to the Convention, a great groan went up and they all turned to each other. Never had such a thing happened. Robespierre rose to say this was proof that the worst enemies of France were within. The old commanders would sell them out like Dumouriez. New men who had risen from the ranks might not have the polish or military school background of the old officers, but they would not go over to the enemy.
Georges understood the problem because he read history. For centuries soldiers had been mercenaries. Generals and admirals were professionals who sold their services to the highest bidder. It was not treason for a general to be bought by the enemy and lead their troops. Spaniards commanded French troops; French generals commanded Austrian troops-all in the line of a good career.
The new soldiers were patriots. They were fighting for their country, their freedom. That’s how it had been for the Americans. That’s what the slaves in Dominique wanted. But an army of free Frenchmen needed officers who were patriots too, not career men who would lead them into death and then go over to the other side if they got a better offer.
“It’s a mess,” he told Louise as he was resting from his pleasant labors on her sweet body.
“I want to move to our house at Arcis. I love the country.”
“So do I, Louise my peach. We’ll do that before too long, I promise you. It’s almost time for the good life for us. I’ve managed to put away a decent amount of money. When I retire from public life, we’ll be comfortable. I know how to live, how to be happy-and so do you.”
“Oh yes,” Louise agreed, plucking at the hairs of his chest. “You should retire before you wear out. I’m younger than you, but I don’t want to bury you. The boys would grow up healthier in Arcis.”
“It would be a pleasure,” Georges agreed. To be done with the daily battles. Not to have to witness the execution of men he had worked with. The Girondins were going to the guillotine soon. Why not retire and enjoy what he had accumulated? He wished Robespierre joy in governing. Let him run himself into the ground and see how easy it was to criticize compromises from the outside. Let him figure out that in governing, everybody wanted from you, and whatever you did, nobody was satisfied. Let Robespierre find out how dismaying it was to shed real and not rhetorical blood. It was his turn.