The winter was back with all its cruelty.
"So now I'm the last on your list," she said.
Chapter 20
As May surrendered to June, Paris was plagued by more than flies. Raoul, eating a hasty Sunday breakfast at Hérault's apartment before they left for the Convention, was too perturbed by his own unhappiness and his country's worsening circumstances to make idle conversation. Common sense was keeping him away from the Chat Rouge. Letting Fleur lick her wounds was all very well but he wasn't sure how long he could endure without her. The aching wasn't just lower down, it was in his heart and mind as well.
Immersing himself in his work helped. The constitution that he and Hérault had been labouring over was almost finished, but the immediate situation was grave and today's debate was likely to make supper in a silent order of monks attractive. Matters were reaching a head like a ripe abscess. He only hoped that Fleur would have the sense to stay at home.
The threats of the Girondin government to move its headquarters out of Paris, the sabre-rattling of the enemy armies still intent on rescuing Marie-Antoinette, the royalist uprisings in Brittany and Anjou, and yesterday, the devastating news that Lyons had rebelled against its Jacobin administrators, all these made the citizens irritable, worse than curs with summer itch. Paris's hungry belly was beginning to growl and Marat's vitriol was everywhere. Enragé papers screamed of conspiracies. Placards mushroomed each night and survived despite the government's efforts to rip them down before morning.
Armand and the other Girondin orators had been thundering back with their usual self-righteous rhetoric, making no decisions, demanding that the Convention organise armed protection for them, and the ministers were still clinging to the political cliff top with their fingernails. But the situation was almost at crisis point. Last Monday, having learned not a damn thing from their failure to indict Marat, the Girondins had ordered the arrest of some of the Commune officials. Max Robespierre had finally lost his patience and made a passionate, furious speech, accusing twenty-two Girondin deputies in front of the full assembly The Convention had merely shuffled its feet, muttered about the Commune usurping its role, and no action had been taken—yet. Raoul hoped to hell Armand would not be there this morning. He had warned him to get out of Paris while he still had his liberty.
"Shall we go?"Across the table, Hérault pushed his unfinished breakfast aside.
The tocsin bells were tolling, calling the citizens forth, as the two of them made their way through the Tuilleries gardens. They overtook swaggering packs of armed youths from the western sections, bleary eyed from Saturday drinking; farm labourers, brown and speckled as eggs, wearing their Sunday waistcoats; and the riffraff in grimy rags, with pinched mouths and bird's-nest hair. Giggling grisettes in flowered muslins, clustering around a coffee-seller, glanced speculatively over shoulders pink as roses from too much summer flaunting. Straw hats held by ribbons were tossed back between their shoulderblades, and save for cheap bracelets, their soft arms were bare.
"Flags, citizens? Cockades?" Striped skirts swished out of their brisk path, the vendeuses red-lipped mouth a fountain spout of disappointment, her jauntier wares sullenly withdrawn.
Some women carried children, a whole new generation of Brutuses and Fructidores come to wave their democratic rattles; and cheerful family groups from Cloud and Germam-en-Laye were trooping in with hampers as though fireworks were in the offing. In a sense they were.
"I spoke with Armand last night. He says that leaving would have made him look like a traitor. I suspect the other Girondins feel the same way. I hope he's changed his mind."
"Well, it's like sitting on a bloody volcano. If the silly bastards do turn up, we can't very well expel them bodily, not to this rabble."
"It's going to be ugly." Fear scraped an icy fingernail down Raoul's spine. "Merde! I'm beginning to recognise faces from last September." He hoped to heaven Fleur had stayed at home.
"We can't provide bread, but we can certainly do circuses," his friend answered scathingly. "Which do you prefer, Raoul? The broadsword or the trident?" He was nodding cheerfully left and right as though he was making a royal progress, but his smile was as tight as King Louis's when the women had brought the royal family from Versailles, and Raoul noticed him run his fingers inside the neck of his cravat. The hazy close warmth of the morning portended a searing heat by noon.
"I am glad I am not in your shoes today, Citizen President," Raoul replied with feeling.
True, Hérault's sangfroid was admirable but there were dark hammocks of fatigue above his cheekbones. The poor wretch was only halfway through his two-week term as President of the Convention and this morning was going to be the session from hell.
"If we vote for the Girondins' imprisonment, which is what this crowd want," muttered Hérault as if following Raoul's thoughts along the same furrow, "the rest of France will assume we are turning belly up, dead in the water."
"Surrendering to the dictates of louts and harpies!" agreed Raoul. One of the grisettes blew a kiss at him.
"Exactly! You and I didn't kill a lion to be ruled by sewer rats."
Raoul could feel the sweat already beginning between his shoulderblades. "The only answer left is to make one of the committees all-powerful, I suppose. You're still thinking along those lines?"
Hérault nodded. "What alternative is there to anarchy?" The aristocratic nose wrinkled. The ploy was not without risk.
"But it may mean sacrificing the democracy we bought with a king's blood."
"So we put in safeguards. If the committee personnel are renewed regularly, for instance?"
"But then you risk a loss of continuity," Raoul argued. "Members stepping on and off the board as though it's a carousel! Mon Dieu, we'd be giddy with changes of policy. Each man wanting to make his mark, do things his way."
"But if the goals are to wage the war efficiently, Raoul, and put a limit on the price of bread. Come on, as an interim measure it has merit, surely?"
"Of course it does, Hérault. It's just that I remember my Aristotle. Democracy can easily degenerate into a tyranny."
"I don't think we have anyone of dictatorship calibre." His friend shrugged dismissively. "Marat might be hopeful but he's about as acceptable as an old boot left out all winter, and that's what we're trying to prevent-mob rule with Marat kicking from the back. Listen, no one living today knows enough about democracy to argue with you, but the Americans seem to be managing."
"That revolution came from the top and it was against the British," Raoul argued. "Rome nearly crowned Julius Caesar and ended up with the Emperor Augustus and a dynasty of tyrants." His artist's imagination posed the murderous senators around a dying Julius with young Augustus watching from behind a pillar. "La gloire or la conviction," he said aloud. "Those are the motives that always bring forth a dictator."
"Well, there isn't a general left with brains for the task so we certainly aren't in danger of a Julius Caesar. Don't count Danton. He's as layered as a gateau. Too lazy to become a dictator anyway and I'd bet the crown jewels he'd put his head through the little window rather than see France back under a tyrant. Robespierre is single-minded enough. The Revolution's his religion but..." he curled his lip, "not quite your Emperor Augustus, is he? Though the spectacles would look magnificent beneath a laurel wreath. What about you?" he teased. "The delightful Fleur installed at Versailles. You could resurrect Louis Quinze's old flying chair—save you climbing the stairs to pleasure her."
"Now there's a thought." But Raoul's laugh was hollow.
An infant tottered across his path and he turned it gently back to its mama, suddenly regretful there would be no son or daughter to remember what Raoul de Villaret had fought for. An emptiness was growing inside him. Could he be losing his hard edge? Fleur was blurring a horizon that had always seemed so clear. She deserved a husband and children, but he had to resist. Take each day at a time. The Revolution was all that counted; the Revolution must come first, and yet...
/> He lifted his gaze from the path, staring at the people he had risked his life for.
"I see the Amazons are out to a man," he muttered dryly. And not just in skirts either—he glimpsed brawny women in breeches and jackets, with derrieres like broadside warships. It would need a volley of cannonballs to keel them over.
"Bonjour, Citizen President! De Villaret!" Marat, each arm waisting a pretty girl as though they were about to perform a folkdance, waylaid them. The great man looked his usual scruffy self, although the ermine cravat was gone because of the heat or maybe some grisette had stolen it as a keepsake. "Going to sacrifice your friend Gensonné, mon brave? Play safe, eh?"
"Give over, Marat," retorted Hérault briskly."It will be the decision of the Convention that prevails, not yours or mine."
"The will of the people is all that matters." Marat added emphasis—one of the girls squealed at being pinched.
"Decided by you, Jean-Paul?" It was risky to poke the great man in the ribs, even verbally, but Raoul could see the fellow was high as a happy drunk on the people's favour.
"Moi, de Villaret, moi?" Marat made a moué of protest. "I am the tool of the people, the mouthpiece, but to you I am a prophet crying vainly." His grin slackened to a scabby smirk. A flaky finger reached out to flick up Raoul's July '89 medal. "Maybe today will be worth painting. You should be wearing two Bastille medals, mon beau. Isn't La Bastille coquetting her dark skirts with you gentlemen today? Ah, I forgot, you are here on business."
"She doesn't like large crowds."
"Doesn't she? But I just saw her with Emilie Lemoine." He kissed his fingers loudly in farewell and swerved off, his arms each a scarlet torque about the milkmaid necks.
"Dirty cur," snorted Hérault beneath his breath. "I'd spit if I were not a gentleman. What's the matter?"
"Where is she?" Raoul halted, glowering, and scanned the crowd. Diable! Hadn't she the sense to stay at home? This wasn't Bastille Day and Quettehou's creatures could easily create a disturbance. "That fool of a Lemoine creature must have persuaded her."
"Or the other way round. Come on! If you think you'll find her in this press, you need a straitjacket. Let's get moving."
Side by side, like disciplined guards, they walked purposefully towards the convention hall, looking neither to left nor right, giving no one a chance to delay them further.
The familiar foyer seemed no longer friendly but spiky as a cluttered harbour, except the masts were pikes and bayonets and a squall of sans-culottes was already in full splash around Boissy d'Anglas who, noticing their arrival, pushed through to them looking ruffled. His usual expensive cravat was inexplicably missing.
"I cannot even go to the privy without being jostled. It's like running the gauntlet," he complained querulously, tugging his cuffs straight. "You are president, do something! As an elected deputy of the people, I expect—"
"All right," cut in Hérault. "De Villaret, if you please, pray inform the officer over there that if any of the deputies want to go to the privy, he's to send a guard with them."
"Two!" insisted Boissy.
"Very well, two!"
"And you'd better double it for the Girondins," Boissy added. "All twenty-two of them!"
"Double, of course, Boissy." Only the narrowing of Hérault's eyes betrayed his concern as he said lightly, "Do you think they will need cannon as well? Or balloons, perhaps?"
Boissy faced him down. The mockery was out of place. "Take it seriously, Hérault. They'll need a damned army by the time today is over."
Receiving his instructions, the officer of the national guard muttered a retort that might have made a roué blush but he did not argue. Matters were too serious for that.
Serious! An understatement! Raoul was livid that Fleur could be so reckless. If anything happened to her... Where the hell was she? With a window of time before the session began, he hastily overtook the long tail of people that hung down the staircase. If she were indeed here, he would dispatch her home with an escort. No argument!
His resolve strengthened as he passed two ox-like tricoteuses marching a frightened woman back to the stairs. By what authority he dreaded to think. Something evil was happening here, swelling like a broken vein beneath the skin. If his little aristocrat fell foul of such creatures...
Upstairs the press of people trying to get into the gallery was beyond belief. He elbowed his way through to the entrance where two other harridans had taken it on themselves to inspect passes.
"No pass, no entry!"
Beyond the officious pair, it looked as though the public gallery was crammed to capacity. He stepped past the women without a by-your-leave. Recognising his deputy's sash, they bit their tongues and glared at him viciously as he stood in the doorway and scanned the faces. Fleur was not there. He did not know whether he was glad or not. She might be safer up here than outdoors in that human ocean.
"On whose authority are you here?" he demanded of the doorkeepers in his best imperial tone and received an upturned finger for answer. Trying to move those two from their berth would be like trying to blow a pair of battleships upstream with a pair of bellows. Giving up with a snarl, he marched down the corridor and let himself through a small door to a back staircase which led to the top floor. The attic was dusty and crammed with the detritus of former reigns: old flags and bunting, broken chairs and ancient mattresses. Raoul shoved hard at one of the oeil de boeuf windows so he might see out across the courtyard, then he noticed one window was broken with a jagged eyehole.
The sight was terrifying—an ocean of heads all pushing towards the Convention. Upon it floated plank-like, a screeching woman in labour, passed hand over hand back towards the nearest street. Fighting his rising panic, Raoul angled open a window on the other side. It wasn't thousands surging across the Tuilleries gardens to the Cour de la Carousel; it was tens of thousands. All jammed as hell! Fleur could be trampled in such a press.
The lines of national guard, needling like fine threads of metal through the heaving fabric, were useless to hold back this mob if it surged up against the building. There were about fifty soldiers already ranked behind a man on horseback. Hanriot! He recognised the thin shoulders of the former customs clerk. Raoul could hear the military whistles blowing above the hubbub. The fellow must have detached his soldiers earlier and now, thinking better of it, was calling them back. An indecisive expert in charge of the Convention's safety! Oh Christ! Raoul's blood ran cold.
He could only watch in disbelief as the crowd parted in panic. Teams of horses hurtled through pulling cannon, with the gunners running behind, their muskets at the ready. Oh, bon Dieu, Hanriot! Whose side are you on? What's going to happen to Armand and his friends? It shouldn't have come to this! When the Bastille fell, we were all on the same side.
With a calm hand that belied his fear, he closed the window and made his way back down and into the Convention's smoky chamber. Hérault was already seated in the president's chair above the rostrum. Catching his questioning glance, Raoul hurried across and mounted the narrow stairs.
"There's at least seventy thousand surrounding us already and Hanriot's brought in cannon."
"Oh, Christ, Raoul. And look at the silly bloody fools!" Following Hérault's nod, Raoul stared at the twenty-two Girondins sitting in a row like men already on trial; in their midst was Armand Gensonné, reading a book and looking utterly detached. Raoul cursed. If Armand had had any sense, he'd be lying low in Normandy. The cream of intellect. Except that France couldn't live on cream.
Be heroic, lad! Go and sit with the Girondins, the rebel serpent in him hissed. Oh yes, put his own head up for a volley of shot? No, if the damned lunatics wanted to behave like sitting ducks...
"Which way, Raoul?"
"Which way?" he echoed dully, dragging his gaze back to today's president.
"Yes, Raoul, which way?" Hérault's golden hair was damp at the temples. Sweat shone on the deepening furrows. "Which way are the cannons pointing?"
"I don't know, ye
t." He left his scowling president, and, choosing the uncommitted, sat down gloomily between Boissy and Delacroix as the first speaker took the rostrum. Raoul shifted uneasily and swivelled in his seat; Quettehou was seated with Marat's cronies on the higher benches, watching him with a snakelike intensity. Quettehou! Christ, surely he wouldn't try something today? He searched the gallery again, his panic rising.
It wasn't just the heat; Raoul could almost smell the fear surrounding them. The ploy for a dull speaker to dampen down the tension was not working. Armed sans-culottes had infiltrated the floor of the debating chamber. A few were wandering disruptively, eyeing the Girondins with malevolence and fingering their muskets; others had pushed along onto the benches where their prey sat and were puffing pipe smoke in their faces. Hérault shouldn't be allowing it but the president's complexion was pale as unrolled pastry. He was estimating numbers, by the look of him. A waste of time, Hérault. Whatever decisions were taken indoors, it was the cannons outside that would decide matters. Hanriot was the key. The Convention needed something to keep Hanriot on side. Inspiration came suddenly.
"Boissy, Delacroix, listen, what do you reckon to this...?" Raoul's voice fell to a whisper.
Delacroix clapped his shoulder."It might just work, mon brave. Go ahead. We will support you."
"I'll be needing your sword for a prop, Boissy." Now or never! He strode up to the clerk and added his name to the list of speakers. To his surprise, he was summoned to the rostrum next. The other speakers, turning cowards as the sans-culotte tobacco fouled the air, were evidently convinced that silence might be safer.
It was necessary to gain attention. Raoul paused, watching them all, and then dramatically drew the dress sword and hurled it point first to the right of Hérault's ear. With no chance of purchase, it skittered ignominiously to the floor in front of one of the tall candelabra. Consternation erupted but Hérault, swallowing, nobly waved the soldiers back.
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