City of Darkness, City of Light

by Marge Piercy

  “I want to show you the first number before it goes to press.”

  Thus implicating him in its genesis. Georges saw what Camille was up to.

  “Would you have time to look it over now? Shall I read it to you to save your eyes?”

  “I’d be delighted. Yes, read it to me.” He called out to Mme Duplay for more coffee.

  “Not for me, thanks.” Georges rose. “I have work to do.” Mme Duplay saw him out. Robespierre did not rise but went on talking with Camille. Georges supposed that he had offended the Incorruptible, but sometimes his prudery offered too inviting a target. God flowing through Robespierre, that was a rich one. The saddest thing was, he supposed Robespierre believed it. His answer had really been to the point: don’t confuse thrills with religion. Robespierre hadn’t got it. And yes, he did find sex as holy and powerful as Robespierre found virtue.

  Thus began a power struggle acted out in the Convention, the Committee, the Commune, the clubs. Georges said to Camille, “The ultimate irony is that each of us feels we must win for the Revolution. You and I think the Terror has gone too far and we’ll solidify the gains, make peace with the allies and strengthen the economy. Hébert thinks he’s the next stage, power to the sections, terror stepped-up, a revolutionary army moving grain to Paris, the bottom on top. And Robespierre thinks he has a pipeline to God and he’ll police the rest of us.”

  “Max can be won over. When he was a judge, he couldn’t endure sentencing a man to death. He likes a tidy frugal life. At the Duplays’, it’s just like those sentimental scenes Greuze used to paint. All the little people gathered around the hearth singing and knitting. Max has no taste, but he also has no taste for blood.”

  “Saint-Just is the wild card.”

  “He’s away more than he’s here. He’s the soldiers’ darling.”

  “He’s also Robespierre’s. I wouldn’t insult him quite so freely if I were you.” Danton wagged his finger.

  Camille had said in the Convention that Saint-Just carried his head on his stiff cravat as it if were the holy sacrament. Saint-Just answered that he would force Camille to carry his like Saint Denis: under his arm. Camille giggled. “I still think my bon mot was wittier.”

  “Camille, the difference is, he means it. And these days, heads come off rather easily.”

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  Claire

  (Fall-Winter 1793–1794)

  CLAIRE stared at Théo and Pauline, lined up before her like guilty children. She was shocked that they had not come until they had been married at City Hall. They made her feel guilty along with them, that they feared her reaction, that they thought she might prevent them. “Pauline, how could you think I wouldn’t be happy for you? Théo, of course I was worried. There were rumors you’d been killed.” She did not tell him she had gone to the morgue to look for him. “Why didn’t you let me stand with you for the ceremony?”

  “You’re not hurt?” Pauline asked, her eyes enormous.

  “You mean too much for me to be angry. If you’re happy, I’m happy for you.” It was a delicate situation. She could scarcely say to Pauline, look, I was getting tired of him anyhow. I’m not really comfortable living in one little room with a man. He was starting to push me, the way men do. She had noticed that Pauline had a crush on Théo, but Pauline did not have affairs. It would have been nice to bow out gracefully, but the essential thing was to emerge with the political alliances intact. “Théo.” She cleared her throat. “You and Pauline are better suited than you and I were. Pauline is far more serious.”

  Théo was tense and nervous, making him look even younger than he was. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  They clutched hands, standing before her. She felt their eagerness to flee. She rose. “Théo, you still have stuff here. Do you need help moving to Pauline’s?”

  “There’s nothing that won’t fit in my valise, except a few books and my musket. I could pack up now?”

  “A good idea. I have a meeting with Hébert. He wants to see me.”

  Pauline snapped into focus. “What does he want? Will he support us and try to lift the ban?”

  “That’s my hope.” She took her shawl and went out. Hébert was at the Commune, in City Hall. He kept her waiting. She read his paper, marshalling her arguments.

  “Come in, my dear, come in.” Hébert was a portly man who reminded her of a pigeon. “How are you? Those of us who’ve been in the theater have a special bond.”

  Hébert had been a ticket seller at the Opera before the Revolution. Even so, there was a camaraderie in the theater that extended to everyone who sewed a button on a costume, put up posters, guarded the stage door. Claire said, “The Convention crushed our group. That leaves us out in the cold politically, with no way to look out for the women’s interests except by taking to the streets.”

  “That wouldn’t be advisable right now. Not so soon after September. But it will happen again, never fear.”

  “Then we need our organizations—”

  “It’s not becoming, a bunch of women wearing red pantaloons and caps with daggers stuck in their belts and pistols in their teeth. It offends everyone. Now, you look dashing, but most of the Lacombe Amazons looked ridiculous.” Was Hébert trying to flatter her? One of his best traits was his fidelity to his wife, who rather resembled him. They were a team. Indeed, he was talking about her now. “The way for a woman to be politically effective is to work through a man. Look at my wife. There isn’t a stronger revolutionary in all Paris. But do you see her making speeches in front of men? Brandishing pistols? She’s my right arm, but she keeps quiet in public, like a decent woman.”

  “So you won’t support us.”

  “You haven’t a chance. Robespierre is determined to suppress women’s groups because he doesn’t want you screaming about economic issues. Your violence, my dear, it makes him faint.” Hébert giggled. “Now me, I go along with your demands. I think you could find a more effective way of presenting them. But if I was as powerful as Robespierre, you’d get what you want, believe me.”

  It was sad. She disliked the man personally, but she needed him. He really was a man of the sans-culottes. He saw the world as they did. Robespierre felt for the poor people, but he’d never lived among them. He knew the world of lawyers, of comfortable artisans like the carpenter he lived with. He didn’t know life in a furnished room with five other people, pissing in the hall and sleeping all in the same bed. Hébert knew. He was doing well by the Revolution. He had made a bit of money on the side, but so what? Danton had made a lot more. She didn’t mind if politicians put money in their pockets so long as they did the same for ordinary people. One great advantage of dealing with Hébert was that she could speak to him bluntly. “Hébert, what do you want from me?”

  “We’re putting on a festival of reason. …”

  So there she was two weeks later, perched on an artificial, somewhat tipsy mountain with her breasts bare and the rest of her covered only by diaphanous chiffon, freezing for two hours while the choir sang and the children threw flowers and speeches were made and songs were sung en masse. At the end fireworks went off just outside the church doors.

  Afterward, Pauline and Théo told her how beautiful she had looked, how moving the ceremony was. It was hard for her to imagine. Yet sometimes she loved the festivals. They were inventing their own holidays, their own rituals, their own symbols and icons. It was exciting to be part of that invention, even if the results ranged from striking to ludicrous. Spectacles affirmed popular beliefs, whether in Sainte Geneviève or the Revolution. They broke up the days of the poor and hard working. They brought people together in a common vision. It was considered an honor to have been the Goddess of Reason; Hébert’s choice had caused controversy. She was considered too scandalous. But playing goddess said that someone valued her politically, that she had protection.

  Lately when she had any chance to address a group, she concentrated on a few economic demands: taxing the rich, enforcing price controls, settin
g a limit to the size of the income and properties any individual could amass. But mostly she urged that the Constitution of ’93 the entire country had ratified be put into effect. Men and women alike cheered her speeches, but when she looked into the audience, a man always sat in the second row. He had a pad on his lap and all the time she spoke, he scribbled. He was all grey: grey hair, grey complexion, a grey coat he kept on. She described him to Hébert. “He reports directly to the Committee of Security. He’s Amar’s man.” Hébert grimaced in disgust.

  A cold draft blew on her nape. She was under special surveillance. Her room had been searched twice. Amar was one of those responsible for squashing the women’s groups. She still remembered his face that day in the Convention when he reminded women about the fates of Olympe de Gouges, Manon Roland, Marie-Antoinette and Louis XV’s mistress du Barry, who had returned from exile to look after her properties. When women try to assume power, he said, thrusting themselves into the spotlight, this is what happens: he smiled when he described their deaths.

  Hébert offered her some protection. Her old boss, Collot, had become one of the most powerful men in France, one of the twelve who ruled in the Committee of Public Safety. They were the government. Collot mocked the women but was friendly to her. Hébert had strong support in the poor sections. She suspected that he was going to try to move on the Committee of Public Safety and Robespierre soon.

  She was coming from a surreptitious meeting with a small group of former RRW women, when she passed through the Palais Royal. It was a cold crisp day, the air metallic. The Palais was not as exciting a scene, for the Committee had closed down the sex shows. Robespierre did not appreciate them. Fewer people hung around the Palais and fewer speeches were made, from fear.

  Danton hailed her from a table where he and Camille were drinking. She had observed Fabre d’Églantine with them earlier and pretended not to see them. She could not bring herself to be polite to that woman-hating pornographer. She despised his calendar. She imagined ninety percent of Paris going around saying, “Oh, the second of Frimaire” and then a blank look and the mental translation, let me see, they really mean seventeenth of February, oh. However Danton did not give her a chance to slip past. “Claire, come on over and we’ll buy you a drink.”

  “Something hot,” she said, slipping into the seat that was still warm from Fabre’s behind. “One of those coffees with brandy in it. I’m freezing.”

  “And you looked so warm in the chilly cathedral,” Camille said. “Quite the goddess.” He was giving her a lascivious look from under long lashes. She was not interested in Camille in her bed. He had flirted with her before.

  “You should watch out for Hébert and his crew. They’re nipping Robespierre like terriers. The Jacobin government has huge popular support, and Hébert won’t overthrow it. The Committee just needs to loosen up a bit.”

  Was everyone trying to recruit her? Perhaps it had been a mistake to play Reason for it seemed to have stirred up a little too much interest in her by both opposition factions. What was it about showing your tits in public that attracted men’s attention? She drank the brandied coffee quickly and it went straight to her head. Danton ordered another. At least it made her warm. In fact she began to sweat, under her chemise. She sat there wanting to hide under the table. She felt vulnerable. Even Pauline had a husband now. She was out there alone, without her organization, without a job, with the fear she could be arrested tomorrow and trundled off to the guillotine. She could imagine herself ending up in bed with either, with both these men just because she felt so alone and because there was always the illusion that if you went to bed with a man, he might protect you.

  They were both watching her with palpable sexual interest. Camille put his hand on her knee. “How could that Mad Dog Leclerc prefer the little troll Pauline Léon to you?”

  She stood. “Thank you for the drinks, old Cordeliers. … Is it true that Robespierre is hopping mad at you for the last issue?”

  “Oh, everyone gets mad at me sooner or later. I have that effect on people. But then I charm them around again. So it goes,” Camille said. “Do consider if you wouldn’t be better off under our big umbrella than with Père Duchesne or the Mad Dogs.”

  Danton smiled. He looked better than he had when she had seen him in September, before he went off on extended leave from the Convention. He was less bloated. His eyes were clear. “They call us the Indulgents. An actress should feel at home in such a group. Keep that in mind.”

  That evening, she sat on her bed in her cold room and fretted. She could not afford to buy wood to burn in the fireplace. She must find a job to pay her rent. Victoire came by while Claire was crouched on the bed brooding.

  Victoire shook back her curly black hair. “So why don’t I move in? I hate where I live. I can smell the tannery.”

  “Why not?” Claire said. “Théo’s gone.”

  “He wasn’t for you,” Victoire touched her shoulder.

  Claire shrugged. “Skip the attempts to make me feel better. What I need is money and a job and to get the police off my back.”

  Victoire looked around the room. “Let’s see how we do keeping house together. My old-clothes business has picked up. So many people are going into prison, I keep getting clothes to sell.”

  “You know, there’s some danger in living with me. I’m a little too interesting to the Committee of Security.”

  “I’ll take that chance,” Victoire said. “You’re worth the risk.”

  Claire sighed. “Everyone’s scared now, have you noticed? When did that happen? When did our people start to be afraid of each other? I don’t understand how it came to be. We won, didn’t we? And now we’re worried for our lives.”

  SEVENTY-SIX

  Max

  (January-March 24, 1794)

  MAX had always been fond of Camille. If Augustin was his responsible and stalwart brother, Camille was the brother who was impetuous yet endearing. Since their days at Louis-le-Grand, Camille had often blundered into trouble. But Camille was one of the first to be totally given to the Revolution. Max permitted Camille more leeway for error than anyone else. Because Camille was a perennial adolescent, Max, who had felt like an adult since he was ten, envied Camille’s insouciance. In spite of all the rumors of vice and corruption that buzzed around Camille—half of which he probably started himself—Max saw something innocent in his friend: the innocence of the direct impulse.

  He had seen and annotated the first two issues of The Old Cordelier, but he and Camille had not managed to get together before the third came out. When he read it, he suspected Camille had not wanted to show it to him. Instead of an attack on the Hébertists, the third issue was a direct attack upon terror. Since he was the linchpin of the Committee of Public Safety and since terror was their policy, this was obviously an attack upon him. When confronted, Camille denied it. “But, Max, you want to ease the terror. I know that.”

  “Let’s not confuse hesitancy, not to say personal weakness, with public necessity. Camille, you’ve given heart to the worst elements. I was trying to establish procedures for letting the innocent go free quickly, but you’ve cut the ground from under me. Anything I do now will look as if I have gone over to the Indulgents. You and Danton have taken away my freedom to protect suspects.”

  Just after the old New Year, Camille was being attacked by the Hébertists in the Jacobin Club. Camille seemed overwhelmed when he took the floor. “I confess, with everyone fighting everybody else, I scarcely know where to take a stand. Everybody seems to be accusing everybody else of corruption and worse. Treason, foreign plots, it makes my head spin.”

  Robespierre stood at the rostrum, looking down at the Club. Hébert had made headway against him here, but he still held the majority. “Camille’s recent writings must be condemned, but we must separate the man from the journalism. Camille is a good-hearted but spoiled child easily led astray by bad company. I propose that we signal our disapproval of his recent issues by a public burning of t
hem here at the Club.”

  He had expected the forlorn Camille to acquiesce gratefully in the out he had given him. But Camille chose that moment to quote Rousseau in a self-righteous spurt, “Burning is not answering.”

  Max was livid. His voice came out as icy as he intended it. “So be it. I withdraw my motion. Let the paper be read and let Camille receive an answer.” He paused, lowered his glasses and looked over them at Camille. “Know, Camille, that if you were not Camille, we would not be so patient with you.”

  He was furious. How dare Camille stand in the Jacobins and quote Rousseau at him? Rousseau was his. He had based his adult life on Rousseau’s teachings and example, while Camille was indulging his senses and his curiosity and the patience of his friends. Something in Max began to recoil. His pride was injured. That night when he got home from the late and stormy session, Eléanore was waiting to let him in. She looked the image of peace, reading a book at the table, wearing a white nightgown with a dark red robe thrown over it.

  One thing he appreciated about Eléanore was that she always observed him carefully, then attuned herself to his moods. Not for her the selfish tirades and emotional outbursts of his sister Charlotte. Eléanore had discipline. Most nights she would light his way up the stairs, light the candle in his room, then retire gracefully. But she always knew when he desired her company, either the tension release of intimacy or the intimacy of conversation. Quietly they got into bed, leaving the candle flickering. In candlelight the blue walls looked almost black.

  “Camille takes advantage of me. He assumes I will always protect him no matter at what cost to myself.”

  “You can’t sacrifice your reputation to him. He was cheeky tonight. I was shocked he answered you back when you were trying to save him.”

  He had not known she was in the gallery. He was pleased not to have to explain. She held him gently, saying, “You have to do what your conscience bids you. If that’s to save a man who barely appreciates you, then you have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve acted with kindness. If you need to cut him loose, then it will be because that is the correct action.”