Ribbons of Scarlet

by Kate Quinn

  I have devoted a good deal of thought to that. What will be my last words when I mount the scaffold?

  I speak aloud in the cold cell, breath puffing white in the air. “Liberty,” I say slowly, “what crimes are committed in your name.”

  How does that sound?

  Part V

  The Assassin

  Not a sensitive or generous heart beats that does not shed tears of blood.

  —Charlotte Corday

  Pauline

  Paris, July 7, 1793

  The nightmare was always the same.

  Being dragged into the alley outside my family’s chocolat café. I had been walking home just after dark from a night of dinner with friends when they jumped me. Neighborhood ruffians. Beaten until bloodied and limp by too many meaty male fists. Robbed of the last coin in my purse—not even enough to buy a loaf of bread, if there were any to be found—and threatened with worse.

  And I awakened from it as I always did—sweating, gasping, heart galloping out of my chest. Involuntary reactions to the terror some part of me could not let go, and which quickly gave way to a gut-deep conviction—I would never be defenseless again.

  That beating two years ago had proved the final push I’d needed to risk my life and reputation for the people’s Revolution. And yet, shortly after, when we’d stormed the Tuileries on 10 August in 1792, I’d been forced to give up my pike to a man.

  Disarmed once more. At the mercy of those around me. It had been hard not to retreat into a corner or to run away.

  This was the reason I was determined to give women a voice, and fight for our rights to bear arms, so that women could become equal in our new republic. This was the reason I woke every morning and started the day anew.

  I whipped off the covers and stood in the heat of my room wishing there was a hint of a breeze coming through the open window, but all we had for the past few weeks in Paris was sweltering heat that was driving the whole city mad.

  I touched the scar on my left forearm, puckered and pink. It always throbbed after I dreamed of the attack. They’d tried to stab me in the belly, but I blocked it with my arm. I flexed my fingers, the smallest one still tingly, never having fully regained feeling. A reminder that I was alive, and what my purpose was.

  “Bastards,” I murmured.

  The door to my bedroom burst open and two tiny faces peered into the room.

  “Pauline, why are you still sleeping? We are starving!”

  I couldn’t help smiling at my younger siblings. They looked like Maman and smiled just as sweetly as our departed papa. I hugged them, feeling the warmth of sleep still on their skin.

  “Where is Maman?” I asked.

  “Baking.”

  With Papa gone, the running of the café and the raising of my siblings was left to Maman and me. “Ah. Go and wash up and I will see if I can find you some eggs.”

  They hurried out of the room, scrambling over each other like puppies going after a ball. Two little girls who remembered nothing before the Revolution. Two little girls who thought the madness of our city was normal. When I first witnessed the execution of peasants who had rioted for bread, who were starving and demanding their king do something about their rumbling bellies and dying children, I knew this world was wrong. I would riot for my petit brothers and sisters. Would I be killed for trying to feed them? If so, it was a worthy cause.

  This was why our government must change, why we’d run those swindling Girondins out of town. Why they must be executed along with every other traitor. You were either with us or against us. Before the king’s execution in January, the Girondins had voted for Louis to be spared. But living, he left open a door, even if just a crack, for the return of the monarchy. And we’d come too far and bled too much for that. If our country was going to make its true transformation, it had to be all the way. No king living, and no heirs to take up his mantle. Which meant that his wife and his children needed to follow him to the guillotine, and soon. Their lives were a necessary sacrifice. The death of one family to spare the lives and secure the just futures of the rest.

  I dressed quickly, tugging my chemise down from the drying cord where I’d hung it the night before. I tried to tame my mass of blond curls into a bun at the nape of my neck, but little rebellious wisps sprang free. They did not want to be contained any more than I did.

  I picked up the tiny kitchen knife and tucked it securely into my boot, my need to carry it a stark reminder of what could happen to any woman on the street. Women might not yet have the right to bear arms, but no one could tell me not to protect myself. I’d knife a man without hesitation if he tried to harm me. Gut him right where he stood. What I did, I did for my sisters across France as much as for myself. I aim to leave behind a legacy. So I can depart the world knowing I’ve done something for every woman in the republic. Given her a voice, equal rights, and the kind of meaningful citizenship we all strived for.

  Citizen Condorcet, the representative in my neighborhood of Faubourg Saint-Germain, is fond of saying, “Be careful not to mistake heat of head for heat of soul; because what you want is not heat, but force, not violence but steadfastness.”

  I disagree. I am force, I am heat, I am steadfastness, but I am also not opposed to violence. Let them just try and stand in my way.

  * * *

  Paris, July 9, 1793

  “Ma petite fille, you are an inspiration,” Maman said as she fussed at pinning my tricolor cockade to my bonnet rouge. The cap had become synonymous with not only the revolutionaries, but the women of the Société des Républicaines-Révolutionnaires, a highly respected society of women activists, and a branch of the Jacobin Club.

  A society that was now mine to lead.

  “It’s fine, Maman,” I said as she tried to tame my curls where they escaped from my bonnet. “It’s almost time.” Below, the men waiting for the start of the club’s meeting in our café au chocolat grew rowdier by the second.

  Admittedly, I was overeager to flee her grasp, but that was because today’s meeting was special. Today, I was leading the first march as president of the women’s Société des Républicaines-Révolutionnaires. My dear friend Claire Lacombe, a former actress and great beauty, secretary of our women’s club, would join me. I’ve strived for respect amongst my peers since that moment when I’d been disarmed at the Tuileries. Claire and Louise—the Queen of the Market Women—were like sisters to me, had been given awards for their service in that same battle. Louise had gone head to head with a Swiss Guard and won. If I’d not been disarmed, maybe I would have been recognized too.

  Where was my glory? It was coming, I could feel it.

  My stomach made a loud rumbling noise. Maman ran her hands over my shoulders. “I fear you will get nothing to eat with all those downstairs. They will want to hear you speak.”

  “They do not come to see me, Maman, they come because they know you have made progress with your potato flour, and everyone is hungry for something better than dust.”

  My mother blushed. At one time, we’d been famous for our chocolat chaud. A favorite drink of one of King Louis’s mistresses, Madame du Barry. La Maison du Chocolat Léon had been popular, and our coffers overflowed. Everything changed when the old king died and the new king married his Austrian chienne. Widow Capet brought her own chocolatier to court and would have none of our peasant concoction.

  I took great satisfaction in knowing she has no chocolat now. Well, at least not any that wasn’t tainted with the spit of her enemies.

  “We shall take their sous either way.” Maman clucked her tongue and pinned her cockade to her apron. “The coin will help keep you in bonnets rouges and feed your brothers and sisters.”

  They cheered us and called out flatteries as we entered the café.

  Louise shoved aside a few men, giving one a few choice words when he dared jostle her back. “Madame President.” She gave a mocking bow. In recent months, there had been a gradual change with Louise. We used to be like sisters, and now the
re seemed to be an ever-widening divide between us, the reason for which remained hidden to me.

  “La Reine Audu,” I teased back.

  “I managed to convince Jeanne that we should move our cart to the Champs de Mars for the rally. So I will be there.”

  “Thank you, my friend.” I squeezed her hand, feeling a sudden course of raw emotion.

  Louise was still painfully thin with sunken half-moons beneath her eyes, which were more often wide with intensity now than before. A fervor for our Revolution, or something deeper and more complicated?

  “I saved a few rotten apples to throw at anyone who tries to ruin your day.” She jerked her hand away, staring down at it for a minute before giving a raspy laugh.

  I laughed too, though there was no humor in it. “I have no doubt you’ll find a use for them.” I wanted to ask her what was wrong, why she was pulling away from me, but a shout from behind interrupted us.

  “Pauline, there you are!” Claire leapt onto a table, her dark curls bouncing around her shoulders, and her bright coffee-colored eyes vibrant. Claire played a bonne Goddess of Liberty and had a talent for inspiring a crowd. With no preamble she pressed her hand to her heart and began to recite the speech I gave at the National Assembly last year. The one in support of the right of women to bear arms for which I’d gathered hundreds of signatures. I could still feel all those eyes on me. The sweat that prickled beneath my arms. A thrumming of heat through my limbs. The anger of most of the men as they rejected not only me, but all of my gender. How dare we rise up? How dare we try to take from men their due? Run back to the kitchen, to the birthing room, that was what they shouted. Only a few were quiet, or even nodded slightly in agreement. The few who knew and saw. The few who understood that women, half the population, had a place in this world. A place in change.

  In fairness, I must admit our representative Condorcet had been among those few. But even though he wished to help women in our fight for equality and was reputed to give his wife, Sophie, an unusual degree of freedom and autonomy, he was not a man who got things done. I could never respect him for opposing the king’s execution. But Sophie, she was beautiful, intelligent, and perhaps the only aristo I might spare, for she’d befriended Louise, taught her, and had helped to educate many women with her school. She’d visited our little chocolat shop a few times now and was always kind.

  As Claire recited my words, this group of men looked at me appraisingly—some with approval in their eyes and others with resentment darkening their expressions. Let them resent me all they would. Because every day, a growing number of us women vowed: we will not go back, we will not sit down, we will not be quiet. I was certainly one of them.

  We didn’t always agree on every point—instead, we ran the gamut from progressives like myself to those conservative Girondins, such as Madame Roland, who called themselves revolutionaries but only accepted half measures. Oh, how the Girondins cause my blood to boil. That was how ingrained antiquated ideas about a woman’s place were, that even some revolutionaries could only accept single women in the ranks of the marchers and agitators, but not the married ones. And some likewise insisted a mother’s place was at home. I glanced across the café at my mother. She spent her days taking care of her children and the café, and she still found time to promote the rights of women. I saw no reason why we couldn’t be both mother and activist. Wasn’t the duty of a mother to show her daughter that she, too, had a voice?

  Then there were the royalist-friendly women who catered to the men, like Citizeness de Sainte-Amaranthe, a courtesan, of all things, who ran the gambling club Cinquante. Of course she was a royalist. Flaunting luxuries like high-paying whores and tossing coin into the gutter just like that bitch Widow Capet.

  “Attention seeker.” Louise snorted in Claire’s direction.

  I grinned. There was nothing more refreshing than Louise’s brutal honesty. But for the most part, Claire and I were on the same side of things. And we’d risen together through the ranks of our society and the clubs. We were both held in respect by other republicans: especially the men who sat above the Convention floor in the seats known as the Mountain, and by Danton and Robespierre themselves. I knew this because such men mostly kept their filthy hands off us—though I wasn’t sure Claire had been entirely able to escape their roving touches.

  Even enlightened men sometimes felt beautiful women were things they might possess.

  Which was one more reason why, together, the women of the Société des Républicaines-Révolutionnaires meant to make good on the promises of the Revolution. To no longer pay a king’s ransom for a loaf of bread. To no longer fear that any child born might soon starve. To end the hypocrisy and the blatant disregard for the lives of those who kept this country alive—peasants, soldiers, women.

  Claire came to my favorite part of my speech, and I interrupted her, taking over, reliving the words, and letting my voice carry over the crowd. “You cannot refuse us and society cannot remove from us this right which nature gives us, unless it is alleged that the Declaration of Rights is not applicable to women and that they must allow their throats to be slit, like sheep, without having the right to defend themselves!”

  I jumped up on the table beside my friend and continued. “Well, what choice do we have but to protect ourselves? My fellow lovers of a free nation, what say you join us today on our march to the Champs to Mars where we will celebrate our rise to victory? We will leave on the hour!”

  Cheers, applause, and thumping hands upon the wooden tables nearly shook the shop. Grinning, Claire tossed her arm about my shoulder and kissed my cheeks. “Today is a good day, mon amie.”

  “Oui, a great day.” I leapt off the table to make ready for our march that would take place when the hour struck. As soon as the rest of our members arrived, we’d take the streets by storm, gathering anyone we could as we went.

  As Claire launched into another speech, her alleged lover and fellow activist Jean-Théophile Leclerc sidled closer to my side. I battled away the attraction I felt for him, for it was out of place and impossible. And yet, Théo was the only man to give me a weapon when others disarmed me. How could I not admire him for that?

  “Citizeness,” he crooned, running a hand through his short-cropped noir hair. “Look at all these people who have come here for you.”

  He’d been casting me dark looks full of lust and not a little rage for months now. This constant simmering of anger and outrage was the very reason he’d been kicked out of the Jacobin Club and formed his own political group which he named Les Enragés.

  He and others like him had made a name defending the lower class, the less fortunate—people like me and the rest of the sans-culottes, working-class poor who wore pantaloons instead of bourgeois knee breeches.

  I respected Théo for fighting for the rights of every man, woman, and child. The man had a courage that surpassed all others. Every day he woke, ready to fight, despite the dangers. This was who he was, an enraged one. Even years earlier, after he’d been arrested in Martinique for aiding in the slave revolt, he’d returned to the islands to defend other revolutionists who’d taken a stand. And we could all count on that same commitment today, for we’d seen progress already.

  I looked away, because I hated the way the desire in Théo’s eyes made me question my own choice to remain without a man. Because I liked that he looked at me that way. And because I hated the way liking it made me a betrayer to my friend. I did not have time for the weakness that so often came when a woman spread her legs. For centuries, women had been considered fit only for breeding. Now we had a chance to make a difference. I would not let this moment be taken from me by base desires that might push me into the role of mother. If the only way to remain politically active was to maintain a stoic abstinence, then so be it.

  I respected Théo for aiding in the expulsion of the Girondins from power in order to see his beliefs—my beliefs—realized. Respect for him—that was all I would allow myself. Thanks to that expulsion,
the Montagnards, who we jokingly called our voices on the Mountain, wielded control of the Convention. Minister Roland—and don’t mistake me, I do not mean the man, but his wife—had finally been arrested, even though her husband escaped. And I couldn’t wait to see her head roll. I wanted her to look out into the crowd and see me, and know that indeed our pikes and slogans—which she’d once dismissed—had made a nation.

  I was bitterly disappointed that the rest of “the twenty-two” who ought to have been arrested and awaiting death along with Madame Roland had been able to escape. Olympe, too, but not for long. The list of gathered evidence against her was longer than the line of men at our café. A defender of women, of slaves, I wish I could have admired her, but having aligned herself to my enemies, I could look at her no other way. We’d find them all. Just like we’d found the king and his family.

  There was no escaping justice.

  The only way to show true power was to feed these enemies of the republic to Madame Guillotine. I had made a vow that I’d find the rotten bastards and make them pay for their views in blood. For the Girondins made promises in vain and profited from the Revolution at the expense of the working class and destitute. Their greed had ruined the finances of France to a point we might never recover. Yet, where was the promised bread? The distribution of wealth? Why must widows whose husbands and sons were sent to the battlefield for the cause of freedom pay a year’s wages for the cotton to wipe their tears? This was why we fought still, women like myself, and Théo and his fellow Enragés, because even though the king was dead, we still suffered.

  “Any news on the Girondins who escaped Paris?” I asked Théo softly, not wanting to drag anyone’s attention from Claire, who was still speaking, toward us.

  “There have been rumors from the north.” Théo lifted a cup of coffee to his lips, sipping as he met my eyes over the rim. “Your maman makes good coffee.” He smirked. “Do you make coffee so well as she?”