by Celia Rees
The man began to protest that customs were his jurisdiction, but faltered under the guardsman’s menacing stare. The customs officers looked at each other. None seemed inclined to argue further with the big guardsman and his armed soldiers and they left the boat without more ado.
‘Let’s go below, shall we?’ The guardsman looked from one to the other. ‘You can give me an account of yourselves there.’
As soon as they were in the cabin, Virgil and the guardsman clasped each other like brothers.
‘Citizen Barrett,’ the soldier exclaimed, his fierce face lightening. ‘Virgil! It is good to see you safely returned.’ Then he looked towards Hugh and Sovay, his frown returning. ‘And who do you bring with you?’
‘Hugo Valette,’ Virgil replied. ‘Nephew to Citizen Fernand who is a member of the Convention. And this is my cousin, Sophie Weston,’ he added smoothly. ‘My, ah, fiancée.’
The guardsman looked Sovay up and down and whistled through the slight gap in his front teeth.
‘Veinard!’ he said.
‘What does that mean?’ Sovay whispered to Hugh.
‘Roughly translated?’ Hugh whispered back. ‘Lucky dog!’
Sovay felt herself blush. The Frenchman had a scar on his upper lip, and his heavy features could not be ranked as handsome in the strictest sense, but there was something compelling about his countenance that disturbed her deeply. She wanted to look away from him immediately, but his dark green eyes held her. She could not help but stare at him, and his strong, frank gaze, just this side of insolence, disturbed her even more.
He broke the look first, removing his wide, plumed hat.
‘Citizen. Citizeness.’ He bowed slightly to each of them, although any displays of deference were now frowned upon as belonging to the old regime. ‘Captain Théodore Léon, at your service. I am here to escort you to Paris.’ He looked at Sovay again as though he found her presence troubling. Then he turned to the American. ‘Virgil. A word with you.’
They drew away and Hugh and Sovay stood in awkward silence as a fierce argument ensued. The two men spoke in French, but Sovay had enough of the language to know that they were speaking about her.
‘Are you mad? To bring her here? The way things are? You must be ruled by your –’ then came a word that Sovay did not catch and Hugh showed no willingness to translate.
‘No, you don’t understand.’ Virgil dragged him further away.
‘Even more madness!’ Léon came striding back. ‘Do you realise what you do? Her presence here is a clear danger. I should report it. She is enough to get us all arrested and condemned.’
Sovay drew herself up to her full height. She was tired, worried, and not a little apprehensive, but she would not be spoken of in that way, by this man, or any other.
‘I am not a fool, Captain,’ she said in careful French. ‘I’m not here to seek adventure. I have no choice in this matter, but others do. Including you. I do not ask for your protection. I only ask that you let us get on our way.’
Her response was clearly not what he expected. He regarded her for a moment or two, rubbing at the dark stubble that peppered his chin.
‘I regret, that is not possible, mademoiselle,’ he replied with elaborate courtesy. ‘I am required to escort you to prevent any interference with the supplies Citizen Barrett brings with him. Some of the countryside grows lawless and we do not want any local officials thinking they can commandeer goods destined for the Republican Army and the people of Paris. My mission is to see that you arrive safely. Do not jeopardise it. Before you leave the ship, make sure you are wearing these.’ He gave them each a tricolour rosette. ‘From now on, you must never be seen in public without it.’
They were only able to go as fast as the baggage train, so progress was slow. The villages they passed through were shuttered against them and each showed signs of poverty, or worse. The land was rich and fertile, but the fields lay uncultivated and the few animals grazing looked diseased and neglected. The only people they saw were haggard women, hollow-eyed children and decrepit old men. They all looked close to starvation.
Occasionally, through the trees, they saw chateaux, great houses, shuttered and boarded, some in ruins, burnt-out shells, deserted by their owners who had fled the country as émigrés. They passed through villages where the churches also lay empty, the fronts defaced, angels and patriarchs mutilated and smashed to rubble, the plate taken for the Republic’s treasury, the bells carted off to foundries to make cannon. In some places the cracked and broken remnants of wooden and plaster saints stood blackened on bonfires like so many Joans of Arc. Church doors hung off their hinges and scrawny animals wandered in and out as if these former places of worship were being used as barns or sties. In some places, the cemeteries had been similarly desecrated, the graves stripped of their crosses, the gates daubed with slogans: Death is but an eternal sleep.
‘The people have paid a high price,’ Léon said when Virgil remarked that conditions seemed worse than he’d ever seen them. The National Guardsman seemed devoid of sentiment. All his opinions were shot through with a soldier’s pragmatism. ‘The men are serving in the Revolutionary Army, the levée en masse has taken them from their fields and farms, but how else are we to prevent invasion with every nation in Europe ranged against us? The Duke of Brunswick has promised to raze Paris to the ground and kill everyone there – men, women and children. In the face of that, what are we to do? And soldiers must be fed. The people’s army have been out, gathering supplies for them and for Paris, but there is never enough and the city is close to starvation. The farmers here have little left for themselves, but they cannot refuse to contribute. The price of hoarding is death.’
They encountered little trouble. The troop of National Guardsmen in their distinctive blue and white uniforms, hardened soldiers, carrying arms, proved a suitable deterrent. In a few places they were challenged by groups of men with pikes, brave and defiant in their red bonnets, but many of them were old and half-starving.
‘I do not like to fight my own countrymen,’ Léon said, halting the train with a wave of his hand and ordering a sack or two of grain or flour to be distributed to ease their passage.
He ignored Sovay, for the most part, preferring to talk to Hugh or Virgil. When she expressed shock at what she was seeing, he seemed surprised that she should hold any opinion at all.
‘The people know what you do not,’ he said in a tone that implied that she would not understand. ‘Freedom comes at a cost. They are prepared to make the sacrifice. We are forced to fight for our very survival as a nation and few would want to go back to the old regime, even if such a thing were possible. We have come so very far. These people have lived under such oppression for so long, from the landowners, from the church. Each year, they had to pay taxes out of the little they had, to the King, to the Seigneur, to pay dues and banalities, while the King and the nobles grew fat and paid nothing. Is it not understandable that they would take revenge? That they would want to take a little back after being robbed for so many centuries?’
Sovay found it hard to understand Léon’s passionate and immovable support of the Republic, especially when she learnt that his full title had been Théodore de Léon, Écuyer, Marquis de Verand, but he had given up his noble rank to become part of the Revolution. He had been among the first to join the Third Estate and had taken part in the storming of the Bastille. Now, anyone of noble birth, or who had any aristocratic connection, was automatically suspect and subject to arrest. So far, his bravery in the field of battle and his Revolutionary credentials had kept him safe. For how long? The question remained unspoken, but Sovay was aware of increasing tension as they travelled nearer to the capital. Danger awaited them all.
The first real trouble came on the afternoon of the third day. They were rumbling across a bleak stretch of land when their way was blocked by an improvised barrier. It was manned by a group of men in the striped trousers and rough jackets of the sans-culottes. They all sported red liberty
caps over their shaggy locks, and were heavily bewhiskered, with quantities of facial hair and long moustaches. They were well fed and well armed, not at all like the scarecrow bands that they had met before.
Léon called a halt.
‘Armée révolutionnaire. Les Bons Patriotes,’ he said, looking up ahead. ‘They could be trouble. They live off the people hereabouts. Scavengers and parasites. I thought that they had all been recalled to Paris.’
He ordered the passengers down from the carts and onto horseback. He put his own men up with the drivers, guns at the ready.
‘Whatever happens, the supplies must get through. I will go and see what they want.’ He looked over to Virgil. ‘Any trouble and drive your wagon straight through them. Look to your weapons, gentlemen.’
‘I don’t have a weapon,’ Sovay protested.
‘Why would you need one?’
‘To defend myself.’
He looked at her sceptically. ‘Can you shoot?’
‘Of course!’
‘Here.’ He gave her one of his own pistols. ‘It is loaded, so be careful.’
As Léon rode towards them, a man in a different uniform strutted out from the rest of the mob. He was dressed in dark blue, his high-collared coat swathed in a tricolour sash and he wore a matching plumed cockade in his tall hat.
‘Halt!’ he shouted. ‘State your business.’
‘I escort supplies for Paris.’
‘Passengers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bring them to me, with their papers. Tell your men to stay back.’
Léon returned.
‘I know him. Gernaud. He’s représentant-en-mission, a Deputy sent out from the National Convention to meddle in the provinces,’ he explained to Hugh and Sovay. ‘He is a terroriste, also a prick. Come with me. But stay back and let me do the talking. Any trouble . . .’ He inclined his head to Virgil who gripped the reins in his hands and nodded back.
‘Citizen Léon.’ The official held out a gloved hand for the papers.
‘Gernaud.’
‘Deputy Gernaud, if you don’t mind.’
‘Deputy . . .’ Léon handed over the papers with exaggerated courtesy.
Gernaud spent a long time examining them, and then squinted up at Léon.
‘I declare you spies and enemies of the Republic. Consider yourself under arrest and your shipment impounded.’
Léon laughed down at him. It was what Gernaud had been after all along. God only knew what he would get for such a cargo. A fortune at a time of such scarcity. Sovay kept her eyes on the men as Léon turned in his saddle, his arm raised in signal to Virgil. Gernaud’s eyes flicked sideways. The man next to him eased back the hammer on his rifle and raised the weapon, ready to shoot from the hip. There was no time to warn Léon. At such close quarters, the shot would surely kill him. Sovay cocked the pistol she was holding down by her side, aimed and fired.
The man uttered a yelp as the bullet took him in the shoulder, the impact spinning him round before he fell to the ground. Léon’s horse reared and he drew his own pistol and called his soldiers forward. Gernaud’s men retreated behind their barricade, pulling their wounded comrade with them. Gernaud himself stood his ground, as if his authority alone could stop Virgil’s horses thundering towards him. He leapt aside just in time and the others threw themselves into the ditches as the heavy wagon smashed through the flimsy barrier, breaking the long poles into kindling. The other wagons followed, their horses whipped to a gallop, as formidable as a battery of artillery. Sovay and Hugh spurred after them, Léon and his men covering their retreat.
‘I underestimated you,’ he said to Sovay when they stopped for the night. ‘I was wrong.’
This was as near as he would come to an apology. Sovay accepted his gruff statement with a gracious nod of the head to hide her slight smile. She sensed that apologies did not come easily to this big, rumbustious Frenchman, who seemed a stranger to both doubt and physical fear. She had never met any man like him.
‘To fortune and bonne chance.’ Léon raised his glass. ‘We all live with our dangers. By rights I should be dead many times over. Let us have more wine. I still don’t understand,’ he said when their glasses had been replenished. ‘You are a girl of considerable spirit, I can see your concern for your father, but why come here anyway, put your life in jeopardy?’
‘We are both wanted for treason,’ Sovay answered. ‘We have no choice but to come to France.’
Hugh explained about Dysart and the accusations against them. Léon listened with careful attention.
‘I have heard the name before, I’m sure,’ he said when Hugh had finished. ‘In the Ministry of War when Roland was there. Find this man.’ He scribbled the name on a piece of paper. ‘He collected the evidence against Fabre and Danton. He might be able to help. He’s old-fashioned. Only works for money. Gold. Not assignats. Now, it is time to retire.’
He drained his glass and they all rose.
‘We will reach Paris tomorrow,’ he said to Virgil as they climbed the stairs.‘I will see you through the gates and then I have to report to my headquarters. She’s a very pretty girl,’ he added as they reached their rooms. ‘Such a noble gesture on your part, Barrett, to make her your fiancée.’
‘You misunderstand me,’ Virgil said, quick to deny any underhand motive. ‘It is for convenience only. I fear she has no feelings for me, in that way.’
Léon smiled. ‘Does she have feelings for anyone, in that way?’
Virgil shook his head. ‘Not that I know of.’
‘What a waste!’ The Frenchman laughed. ‘If I was you, my friend, I’d marry her anyway. Before someone else does.’
CHAPTER 31
The elegant, imposing custom house that marked the entrance to Paris had been partially demolished, its function replaced by a rough wooden barrier hauled across the roadway. Everyone wishing to enter the city was stopped by a set of fierce-looking men, bristling with arms. They looked like Gernaud’s men, dressed in striped trousers and short jackets with faded tricolour rosettes on their tattered and grimy red bonnets.
‘What have you got there, Citizen?’
Their leader leaned on the side of the cart, looking up at Virgil in a belligerent, challenging manner, his scowling face made more ferocious by his long, trailing mustachios.
Léon stood back and let the man and his fellows go about their business. These were men of the Paris Commune, puffed up by the authority invested in them. Any interference could spark a major incident.
They insisted on everyone getting down and examined the papers Virgil gave to them with great care, although it was doubtful whether any of them could read. They were dangerous and volatile but also open to bribery. Léon waited until they’d had time to scrutinise the various documents and then he ordered sacks of flour to be taken off the wagon, along with boxes of soap and candles.
‘For the people of your Section, Citizens,’ he announced. ‘With our compliments.’
Eventually, they were allowed to pass. Sovay had thought that Léon would stay with them and was surprised when he said that he must leave them.
‘I have other duties to attend to, I’m afraid, and you might be better without me,’ he said as he bade them farewell. ‘There is no love lost between us and some of the committees that control different areas of the city. Our presence might impede your progress, or stop it altogether. Until we meet again!’
He gave no indication of when that might be. Sovay found that she was unwilling to see him go, and her reluctance was not altogether to do with fear for her safety.
Their wagon made slow progress. Each area of the city had its own committees and every one had to be bribed, convinced and placated. Everywhere they went, there was evidence of poverty and want, far more so than in London. There was an air of exhaustion about the hot, dusty streets; most doors and windows were closed and shuttered, just like in the villages.
Their route took them past the Place de la Révolution. The guillo
tine had been removed and the vast space seemed empty and desolate, ominous despite its openness. In the hot sun, the blood-drenched stones stank like a charnel house.
As the wagons trundled on, Hugh pointed out the landmarks: the garden of the Tuileries, full of trees, with people taking shade under their drooping leaves and walking down paths formerly reserved for the King and his court; the huge, sprawling palace, empty now of its royal occupants; the arches of the Palais- Royal; the café where Camille Desmoulins leapt upon a table and incited the Paris mob to storm the Bastille. Every building, every name, it seemed, carried significance. It was as if they journeyed through the landscape of the Revolution and therefore history, and yet people sat in cafés, gossiped on corners, formed queues outside shops. Life went on, Revolution or not.
They were heading for the Rue Duval on the edge of the Marais district. Their way took them past the most famous monument of all, but there was nothing left to see of the Bastille. The huge prison had been reduced to so much rubble. The citizens had torn it down, stone by stone. Nothing that Sovay had so far heard or seen better attested to the power of the many than the complete and systematic destruction of that symbol of oppression, or was better testimony to the people’s determination that they would never be so oppressed again.
The people had imposed their will in small ways as well as large. Statues had been toppled or defaced. Streets renamed, churches turned into stables and storehouses. There is no going back, these acts declared, the only way is forward, whatever the consequences.
Eventually, the wagons turned into a narrow street between tall walls of peeling yellow stucco. They stopped in front of the closed gates of a hôtel, the grand town house of some long-departed noble family, with a crumbling coat of arms on the arch above the entrance. Virgil got down from the wagon and rapped on the door. A grate slid open and shut again and the gates swung wide. The wagons were driven into a wide, cobbled courtyard and the gates clanged shut behind them. Sovay felt safe at last.