by Kate Quinn
A tear escaped from the corner of his eyes. “Would there have been children?” he asked, his voice tight with emotion.
“Oh, yes. Two, I should think. A boy and a girl.” I let the pain of the imagining tear through me.
“With my dark hair and your blue eyes,” Charles said, seeing it with me. “Oh, Émilie,” he rasped, hugging me tight until I lost the fight with my own tears.
In a confused rush, the whole group of us were herded into the registrar’s office, where it was explained that we would prepare for the scaffold. There were so many prisoners that the authorities had to open a second room, the office of the head jailer, who was quite taken aback as more than twenty prisoners, wailing and shouting, spilled into his space.
Four hours passed in this horrible place between life and death. Many fell into such despair that they wouldn’t speak and their eyes refused even to focus. Others attempted to negotiate for another outcome with the jailers and guards. All the while, the loud murmur of the crowd that thronged the court buildings was ever present. For a long time, I sat in a little circle with Charles, Maman, and Louis, all of us clutching tight to one another as we struggled to confront that the worst had come to pass. It seemed impossible, unbelievable, so utterly unjust that I labored to breathe. My heart thundered within my breast, as if even my blood raged against my fate.
“Maybe your friend will help us yet again, Maman,” Louis said, tears straining his voice.
My mother appeared so fragile that I told the lie for her, “Perhaps he will, Louis. Why keep us alive this long only to allow us to perish now?” If my sixteen-year-old brother, whose age should’ve shielded him from the guillotine, required lies to get through his final hours, I would give them to him again and again.
After a while, assistants of the public prosecutor came around with a pair of sheers and a basket filled with hair—dark, fair, and gray together. When it was my turn for the sheers, I sat and held out my hand, then serenely gathered the long lengths of my once marvelous hair and cut it off as close to the neck as I could. When it was done, I held my tresses out to the jailer. “Take it, monsieur. I am robbing the executioner, but this is the only legacy I can leave to our friends. They will hear of it, and perhaps someday they will come to claim this souvenir of us. I rely on your honesty to keep it for them.”
The man carefully clutched at the long rope of my hair as if he were holding strands of gold. “You have my word,” he said solemnly.
I cut the hair of the rest of my family, too, and when I was done, one of the prosecutor’s assistants called me over toward the far door and handed me a note. Bewildered, I opened it to find a message from Prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville—the purveyor to the guillotine—himself.
Madame de Sartine, you might be spared if you would declare yourself enceinte.
~Fouquier
My eyes flashed to those of the messenger, and my heart ached at the idea that a pregnancy might be the thing to save us after Charles and I had just imagined the very thing. “And my family?”
A single shake of his head. “The offer is for you alone, madame.”
The momentary flare of hope now was like a dagger sinking slowly, but no less violently, into my chest. “And what would be the payment for this clemency?” I managed, knowing such a favor would never come for free. Not from a man like Fouquier, who seemed exactly the type who’d require a woman to buy her liberty without recognizing the hypocrisy. To say nothing of how the offer revealed what this brave new republic valued about women.
In that regard, it seemed to me there had been no revolution at all.
The assistant gave me a meaningful look, which decided it for me entirely. If the only way I could live was by lying with one of the most evil men in all France, I would rather face the guillotine.
Let them destroy me and every beautiful thing in this country until they stood among nothing but ash and ruin.
Without another word, I left the assistant at the door and returned to find my Charles and Louis already bound, their hands tied behind their backs with cords still damp with blood from an earlier execution. Nausea rolled over me so harshly that I clutched my stomach. And then one of Fouquier’s assistants tied Maman’s hands. To see my proud, beautiful, witty mother treated in such a manner was a thing that couldn’t be borne, and only a desire to shield her from the depths of my grief kept me quiet.
An official came to me next—the same man who’d passed me Fouquier’s offer. “What a waste,” he muttered as he trussed my wrists.
“Yes, killing fifty-four of your countrymen is a terrible waste, monsieur,” I said.
He cinched the bindings unmercifully tight, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of voicing my discomfort. And then he came to stand in front of me, where he wrenched the fabric of my sleeves from my shoulders, exposing them.
“Don’t touch her!” Charles shouted before nearly charging the man. Only the restraint of another of the prosecutor’s assistants held him back.
Louis sobbed aloud, and then Maman let out an anguished shriek and swooned to the floor.
“Maman!” I sank to my knees beside her. But I couldn’t rouse her or stroke her face or help her up because of the damned restraints.
“Let me help her,” the Vicomte de Pons said in a kindly voice. Still unrestrained, he stroked his hand over her forehead and stared down at her with an ancient longing. “Madame. Madame, please.” He squeezed her hand. “Jeanne, it is I, your old friend, Pons.”
Her eyelids fluttered. For just a second, a smile began to grow on her face at seeing the vicomte, but I saw the moment awareness returned to her, because she let out a sorrowful sob. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just so . . . sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Maman,” I said from beside her. “Never apologize for giving me a life I loved.”
“It is time!” a deep voice rang out. “Line up, women first.”
Mon Dieu, this was really the beginning of the end.
Rough hands pushed us this way and that, and the mob seemed to know the time was upon them, as it roared with renewed vigor. But from my position near the door to the courtyard, raised voices reached my ears. A debate or an argument of some sort, complete with curses.
Fouquier marched through the door, his gaze taking me in even as he spoke to all. “We are postponed. Be seated.”
Cautious elation rolled through the assembled prisoners. More than one person shouted, “Have we been pardoned?”
Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but wonder if the delay was Robespierre’s doing yet again. No matter how many times I attempted to smother that dangerous hope, it managed to take root. Meeting Maman’s gaze, it was clear that she wondered the same. Long minutes of suspension between hope and despair stretched into more than an hour, and a few who hadn’t lost their senses already were on the verge of doing so now.
Suddenly, the courtyard door opened again to reveal Fouquier’s assistants carrying sacks that they placed upon a table.
Shirts and even shawls in every kind of material and varying shades of red, as if they’d grabbed whatever red clothing they could on such short notice.
Which was when I recalled that after reading the verdict, the Tribunal had decreed that we should be dressed in red for our executions, as assassins and murderers of the people’s representatives.
There was to be no reprieve, then. They had merely been waiting for our absurd costumes.
A hollow pain racked through me, even as I donned a fine handwoven shawl, which reminded me of another young woman who’d been forced to don this mark of shame. I hadn’t known Charlotte Corday, who’d been executed last summer for murdering that terrible Marat, but I’d secretly held this young lady in high regard for risking all for something bigger than herself. “I knew that Marat was perverting France,” she’d said at her trial. “I have killed one man to save a hundred thousand.”
From the Terror, she’d meant. The very thing leading us to our deaths even now.
For
perpetrating an act that many people believed transgressed societal norms for a woman—not so much murder, as making a political statement by murdering a representative of the government—some whispered that Corday’s actions had made the Revolution more dangerous for women. Others went so far as to blame Corday for the executions of Olympe de Gouges, Madame Roland, and even the queen herself, all of which came in the months that followed Marat’s assassination. But since Corday had been attempting to exorcise the very same radical Jacobinism now using the Terror to kill my countrymen in the tens of thousands—to kill us this very day—I couldn’t help but think that she’d been right and her actions just.
Because as much as they killed my countrymen, they seemed to take a sick, perverted glee in killing my countrywomen.
They killed us for being too political, too intelligent, too opinionated, too daring, too pretty.
At long last, as the church bells marked the four o’clock hour, we were loaded into carts for the procession to the scaffold. Under the hot June sun, spectators lined the rue de la Vieille-Draperie, with women in bright dresses carrying gaily-colored parasols. Everywhere there was laughter and merriment intermixed with jeers and shouts, giving the whole affair an almost festive air. And it was a fresh wound to see the people enjoying the imminent death of innocents as if it were mere entertainment.
Louis had been permitted to ride with us on account of his age, and between Maman and me, we tried to support and encourage him despite our bound hands. As we turned on rue de la Lanterne toward the Pont Notre-Dame, I sat as straight and proud upon the cart’s hard bench as I had upon the accused’s armchair. I met the gazes of those I could, wanting them to see me as a person, and not an object for their entertainment. And with my eyes, I willed them to see something else. It was me today, but it could very well be them tomorrow.
Something curious began to happen then—instead of celebrating or jeering as our cart trundled by, the crowds began to hush.
“There she is, there’s Émilie!” someone shouted.
“Adieu, beautiful madame!” someone else cried out, doffing his bonnet rouge. The gesture lit an ember of hope in my breast—not for myself, nor for my family. But for the future of France.
“So many victims to avenge Robespierre!” a third voice dared say.
“Some are too young to die!” came another bold cry. The bravery behind these subtle criticisms sparked that ember brighter inside me. Perhaps, one day, enough people of compassion and courage would come forward and say, It is enough.
Hours passed as we made our sad, slow procession across the city, over the bridge, passed the quays, and through neighborhoods, where people hung from the windows and parapets and lined the streets so densely that sometimes our carts could barely move. Finally, we approached the place du Trône-Renversé, which was when I noticed a woman at the edge of the crowd, her head bent over a drawing canvas. Just then, she looked up, as if the weight of my gaze had called to her.
She looked so broken. So grief-stricken. But I knew her.
Oh, Grouchette!
She held up her hand in a small sympathetic wave of recognition before pressing her trembling fingers to her mouth. And then she gathered up her belongings and rushed into the crowd.
I was at once overwhelmed and utterly heartened to know our old friend had come to witness our parting. I tried to watch her as she made her way toward the street, but I lost sight of her as the crowd pushed and the carts rolled. Finally, she reappeared, closer now, and I cried out, “Oh, please, let the citizeness pass.”
The people closest to the cart relayed my wishes from one person to the next, until a gap opened through which Madame Condorcet passed until she was walking alongside us. “My dear girl,” she whispered, her eyes filled with tears. “How has it come to this? It should be me, not you.”
It might well be you next, I thought, leaning toward her. She’d aged in the years since we’d last met, and her hair was shot through with gray. Maybe that was just an impression created by the drab workaday dress she wore, or maybe it was the result of all she’d lost. “Promise me, Grouchette, that you will survive this madness.”
“I will try,” she said.
“And promise me you’ll remember us,” I pleaded.
She reached up and squeezed my shoulder. “I will never forget.”
It was seven o’clock before the cart jolted to a halt, and what I saw before me was so terrifying that, for a moment, my legs wouldn’t work.
Eight guillotines sat in a line. The wood of the machines was stained red with the blood of countless other victims, the blades gleaming darkly in the sun as they were loaded into the killing position. Beneath the platforms sat blood-soaked baskets that would soon hold the heads of everyone I loved.
It was a thing too despicable to contemplate.
Shouted commands directed us to alight from the carts and sit upon rows of wooden benches around the guillotines. I found myself seated between Maman, who trembled violently as Louis cried into her neck, and the Vicomte de Pons, who pressed his shoulder to mine and said, “You are a dear girl, Émilie.”
I blinked against the sudden rush of tears, and then couldn’t hold them back when Charles stopped before me, smiled, and recited a line from the opera:
“La mort même est une faveur,
Puisque le tombeau nous rassemble.”
Even death is a favor, since the tomb brings us together. He kissed my forehead before being pushed toward a bench.
And then it began.
Upon the guillotine beside our own, the young woman who had been so brave before the tribunal matter-of-factly ascended the steps and dropped herself upon the plank. The blade fell, and I flinched away as the crowds gathered closest to the machines reacted, some with cheers and others with disapproval. But Maman did watch, and the sight of the girl’s decapitation left her shrieking and crying. “Take me first, please. Please let me die before my children!”
I wanted to scream, to wail, to tell my mother that it would soon be all right, but I could do none of those because the executioner grabbed a now sobbing Louis. Breathless with fright, I cried out for him. “Louis! Louis, I love you!” Everything inside me raged against what would transpire within the very next seconds. And then it did. Maman slumped to the ground in a dead swoon. I knew not whether she was even alive.
The executioner came for me.
I didn’t make him grab me, but rose on my own and held my head high. The breeze caught the edge of my red shawl, sending it fluttering off one shoulder as I climbed the steps. And then I stood upon the platform and looked out at the faces surrounding me. Beloved Charles, who managed a heartbreaking smile, as if he wished to offer strength until the very last. Dear Grouchette, who had made her way boldly close to the guillotine. And then there were the thousands of strangers besides.
How would I be remembered by them, or would I be remembered at all? For memories were soon all that was to be left of me. And the sole, final hope I had was that somehow the memory of me would matter—to my friends, to my lovers, to my country.
The wind kicked up, pulling the shawl free of my shoulders, and I met Sophie’s tear-filled gaze as it sailed on the breeze toward her, a ribbon of scarlet upon the wind.
The executioner urged me toward the plank, and I lay upon the sun-warmed wood. The weight of a yoke held me in place. I hadn’t the time to react to the gore beneath me nor to succumb to the grief inside me. Instead, I found Charles’s face again and returned his smile.
The crowd around my guillotine hushed and cried, but around others the people cheered and celebrated. Beautiful, terrible humanity. Capable of the most inspiring and creative genius and the greatest and most unimaginable abominations.
And as the blade fell, I knew France’s revolution was both.
Epilogue
Ten years later . . .
You never forget, do you?” my young lover asks from his side of my rumpled bed. He’s a natural politician with unruly dark hair and a pe
rfectly proportioned nose. He’s nothing like Condorcet, which is, I suppose, why I chose him. “You let me make love to you, Sophie, but in your head . . . you’re with a dead man!”
“And you are jealous of one,” I accuse, snapping the bedsheet back to go in search of my robe.
This is not the first time we have had this argument; he is not entirely wrong. After all these years, now that the Revolution is over, there is very little of me still in this world. Mostly, I reside with my ghosts. With my husband, my love, the father of my child.
And the rest of them . . .
The royal family, all dead now, with many of our friends. Our enemies too. Even Robespierre was eventually dragged to the guillotine. They say it was Émilie’s death that turned people against him and the Terror—the tragic act that finally sated the worst of the blood lust in France.
Maybe it was her beauty. Maybe it was something else. Certainly, of all the people I have seen murdered, my thoughts always return to that sweet girl who once saved me from the silly embarrassments of youth. That sweet girl who died for love. I keep her crimson scarf hidden in my dressing table and finger it each morning, like a talisman from a religion in which I never believed.
I wonder if my lover would understand if I told him.
I don’t think so. He is too young. He does not live for the past or the future. He lives for today. He lives in this world we built upon enlightened ideals and the fading memory of blood-drenched scaffolds. A world in which there will soon be an election to make Napoleon Bonaparte the new emperor of the French.
Which doesn’t sound nearly as new as so many of us had hoped.
But my lover isn’t thinking about that farce now; instead, he angrily gestures to the stacks of Condorcet’s papers that I’m assembling for publication. “You make me sound like an unreasonable child to be jealous, as if the great philosopher were not right here in the bedroom, mocking my love for you morning and night, and I cannot even call him out for a duel!”