Where the Light Falls

by Allison Pataki

  His training forced him to remember the ninety men whose lives were in his hands. He stood tall, clearing his throat as he reached for the sword at his hip. Unsheathing it and raising it aloft, André was aware that every man in the company turned his focus on him now, awaiting the words that would take them forward into battle.

  September 1792

  “That looked like a sad heap sitting at your desk.” Gavreau approached Jean-Luc as soon as he had seen the Widow Poitier out.

  “Indeed.” Jean-Luc nodded, sitting back down to his pile of papers. “Say, do you happen to know anything about the Montnoir family or estate?”

  Gavreau considered the question. “Doesn’t sound familiar. Where is it?”

  “Just over twenty miles to the south, near Massy.”

  “What do you care about an estate near Massy?”

  “The lands belonged to the esteemed Marquis de Montnoir, who happened to be the tormenter of that poor woman who just sat at my desk.”

  “The marquis wanted the likes of that woman?”

  “No, no, no.” Jean-Luc shook his head, his boss’s impertinence causing him to smile in spite of himself. “Nothing like that. Well, in fact, something like that. The marquis wanted the likes of her daughter. But he also happened to cause the death of her husband and evict the widow and her surviving children from their family’s home.”

  “Holy hellfire,” Gavreau said, groaning. “I give you the esteemed nobility of our ancient realm. No wonder she was bawling into your handkerchief.”

  Jean-Luc propped his elbows on his desk, frowning. “He’s now in prison.”

  “What’s to become of His Lordship?”

  “I must check. I do hope the only time he ever leaves his cell is to visit La Place de la Révolution.”

  “My my, St. Clair, calling for a man to be sent to the guillotine? I never thought I’d hear you speak that way.”

  “Only because he is, in fact, an egregious criminal—a rapist and a murderer, and God knows what else. His crimes strike me as far more serious than simply being born into a noble family.”

  “So I take it she’s another one of your charity cases?” Gavreau cocked an eyebrow. “Let me guess, she can’t afford to pay?”

  Jean-Luc sighed, looking up at his boss. “This is the work of our Revolution, is it not? Equality? Fraternity? Who are we fighting for if not people such as this poor innocent widow and her wretched children? Aren’t they entitled to a just society, same as the rest of us?”

  “You’re too clever to simply serve as a nursemaid, St. Clair.” The older lawyer smiled wryly at Jean-Luc before continuing. “But I must say your patriotism makes me hungry. Let me buy you dinner.”

  “No, thank you. I have too much work to do.” Jean-Luc looked over his pile of papers, sighing.

  “Come now, I insist. I am your supervisor, even if you never listen to a word I say.”

  “I do listen to you.”

  “Yet you keep taking these charity cases. And such jobs won’t pay for your rent, or your dinner. Come now, we’ll make it quick. And besides, I’ve got some exciting news I want to share with you.”

  “Oh, all right,” Jean-Luc agreed, noticing for the first time how empty his stomach felt. He hadn’t eaten anything since the morning’s meager serving of bread and cheese. “As long as we make it quick.”

  “Now that’s something I’ve heard once or twice,” Gavreau said, chuckling.

  Jean-Luc ignored the comment, rising from his desk. “Just don’t expect me to share a bottle of wine with you.”

  “Virtuous Citizen St. Clair, doing God’s work, even if God himself has been kicked out of our Republic,” Gavreau said, smirking. “Meet me downstairs. I need to stop for a piss.”

  Outside the evening was clear and warm. Jean-Luc and Gavreau detected the distant sounds of the crowd from the nearby Place, but they walked in the opposite direction.

  “What are you up for this evening—watered-down potato soup or watered-down carrot soup?” Gavreau smiled as they strolled away from their administrative building near the Palais de Justice. “What I wouldn’t give for a bit of meat.”

  Jean-Luc threw his jacket over his shoulders. “Someplace close.”

  “Fine, we’ll go to La Colombe. The new serving woman there might just have the largest tits I’ve ever seen.” The boss lifted his hands to reinforce his meaning.

  Jean-Luc ignored the lewd gesture. “So then, what’s this news you wanted to share?”

  “News? Oh yes, that’s right. I’ve got someone you will want to meet.”

  Jean-Luc tossed his head back, exasperated. “Gavreau, how many times have I tried to tell you? I am a happily married man. I don’t wish to meet any of your lady friends.”

  “No, not that.” The old bachelor chuckled. “I mean it this time. He arrives in Paris this weekend. Even Robespierre himself is trying to arrange a meeting with him.”

  Jean-Luc could tell from his manager’s shift in tone that this was no jest. “What’s his name?”

  “His name is Maurice Merignac. He happens to be the personal secretary to Guillaume Lazare.”

  Jean-Luc halted his step, looking at his boss in stunned silence. After a moment, he repeated the name, unsure he had heard correctly: “Guillaume Lazare?”

  Gavreau nodded, a proud smile blooming across his face.

  “How do you know the personal secretary to Guillaume Lazare?” Jean-Luc could not conceal the skepticism in his voice, and he instantly regretted it, fearing that he might have offended his friend.

  “Ah, so you know who he is, my virtuous young colleague?”

  “Of course I know who Guillaume Lazare is. He’s tried more cases for the new Republic than—”

  “He’s won more cases for the Republic than any other lawyer,” Gavreau corrected him. “I tell you, the corrupt clergymen and nobility of this country fear Guillaume Lazare more than they fear the devil himself.”

  Jean-Luc thought about this, remembering that Guillaume Lazare had previously worked for the king. Since the sacking of the Bastille, however, the legendary attorney had been hard at work sending his old friends from the royal court to the prisons.

  “St. Clair, I’m telling you, you must meet Maurice. You want to be a big lawyer someday—well, it just so happens that Maurice Merignac might be able to introduce you to Guillaume Lazare. The brightest legal mind in all of France.”

  “And you can arrange an introduction?” Jean-Luc did not attempt to mask his disbelief now as they walked on.

  “It just so happens, ye of little faith, that I can.” Gavreau rested his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest, defensive. “It helps to be a gregarious man-about-town. Believe it or not, I happen to know a few people.”

  Jean-Luc was about to inquire further when he noticed the crowd swelling in front of them. Voices were raised in competing hollers, and the windows overlooking the street sprouted clusters of eavesdroppers who leaned out over the crowd.

  “What’s all this?” Jean-Luc paused, Gavreau halting beside him.

  “Paper! Get your paper! News from the front!”

  “Hey, you!” Gavreau grabbed the shoulder of the little paperboy, probably eight years old, who was just then weaving his way through the crowd. Gavreau put a sou in the urchin’s grime-caked hand and took one of his papers.

  “What news?” Jean-Luc asked, leaning over Gavreau’s shoulder. “Has the battle begun?”

  “Looks like our boys have found the enemy in the woods at Valmy,” Gavreau said, scanning the page. “The Habsburgs have joined their armies with the Prussians. Seems they still fancy a trip to Paris.”

  Jean-Luc felt his pulse begin to race. If the Prussians were in fact marching on Paris, he had to get home to Marie. But would it be more dangerous in the city or on the roads leading out of it? “Have we been defeated?”

  “Not sure,” Gavreau said. “But Kellermann is there to stop the bastards. I fancy he’s got as good a chance as anyone to send those German-sp
eaking barbarians back across the Rhine.”

  Jean-Luc paused. “Say, I had better get home to Marie. To warn her of…all this.”

  Gavreau frowned. “No dinner?”

  Jean-Luc shrugged, apologetic. “She’s alone at home with Mathieu.”

  “Fine, fine. Run to your woman. I imagine she’s all afright.” Gavreau waved him away. “But if they ring the bells, you’re coming back here to fight alongside me. I’ll need someone to keep me from soiling myself up on the walls when I see those Prussians approach.”

  “Of course I would come back and take up arms, if it came to that.” Jean-Luc nodded, looking once more at his manager, before turning to take off at a trot toward the bridge.

  A nervous energy pulsed on the streets of the Left Bank as well, with people huddled on corners, eager to hear the latest news. Jean-Luc turned onto his street and entered his building, bounding up the stairs two at a time. “Marie?” He panted as he entered the garret apartment. It was empty. “Mathieu? Marie?” There was no sign of his family. Alarmed, he turned, climbing back down the stairs. The neighbors downstairs might have seen them.

  Grocque’s tavern was a hive of activity, and he instantly spotted Marie on the far side. She stood near the hearth, speaking to a small group of women who clustered around her, nodding attentively to whatever it was that she was saying. “Marie?” he called out and she turned, looking distracted. She wore Mathieu in a makeshift sling across her chest so that her hands were free. Beside her, Madame Grocque was piling kindling onto one of the long tavern tables.

  Marie waved him over and he crossed the room toward her. All throughout the space were neighborhood women, faces he recognized from the bakery and the butcher. “What is all this?” He kissed his wife on the cheek as she dismissed the small crowd around her and turned back to her task—ripping long strands of cloth into what appeared to be makeshift bandages.

  “What does it look like, my love?” she asked, patting Mathieu with one hand as he began to fuss at her breast.

  Nearby, women were stacking fire pokers and rolling pins and shovels on the long dining tables. Across the room, several women leaned over cauldrons filled with boiling water. An older woman with broad shoulders was disassembling chairs, as if she intended to use the legs as weapons.

  “Excuse me, Citizeness St. Clair?” A young woman approached, holding an armful of firewood. “Where would you like this?”

  “Over there, in the kindling pile,” Marie said, issuing the order with a comfortable authority. “Thank you.”

  Jean-Luc looked around once more, slightly amazed. “It looks as if you intend to turn this tavern into some sort of headquarters or hospital?” he said, confused.

  She eyed him, not at all frightened, as he had expected her to be. Simply busy. Determined. “We do.”

  “But…what do you mean to do?” he asked, glancing once more around the busy room, the women who worked and chatted with an orderly purposefulness.

  “Why, defend ourselves,” Marie said, her voice matter-of-fact. “If it comes to it.”

  She saw the shock on his face, and she smiled. “This thing was started by women who had had enough. Women who picked up their fish-knives and fire pokers and marched all the way to Versailles to demand food for their families. You think that, if the fight comes to Paris, we plan to sit in our apartments while the men take to the walls?”

  Jean-Luc’s mouth fell open. Then he glanced around the bustling room, heartened by this display, before looking back to his wife. “Well, Marie,” he said, leaning toward her, putting a hand on her arm. “I certainly am happy that you’re on our side.”

  September 1792

  All around André, French soldiers in companies and battalions of varying sizes were emerging from the woods. Their sergeants and officers shouted orders to maneuver them into neat, even columns, three lines deep. A flock of gray geese stood clustered between the two opposing forests, grazing among the tips of wheat as they had each summer day.

  The field before André sloped gently downward from the left to the right. On the left was the hillcrest, where French soldiers had begun to line the ridge, their silhouettes barely visible against a shroud of cannon smoke. Slightly behind and to their left, the lone windmill of which Kellermann had spoken pierced the horizon, its wheel barely turning in the hot, breezeless morning. The hill sloped down to André’s right, and soldiers had begun to fill into that low-ground space.

  The men had sensed a shift, André noted, seeing some begin to fidget and whisper, unable to suppress the nervous tension that stretched along the front line. Death could, and would, emerge from the distant tree line at any minute.

  And yet, though the French waited, no Prussians or Austrians emerged. For a brief moment, André wondered if perhaps the alliance forces had lost their stomach for a fight. Perhaps the French would hold the ground at Valmy without firing a single shot.

  But then André peered into the distance, wondering if his vision played a trick on him as he detected the glint of sunlight reflecting off something unnatural, a shimmering surface that did not belong in the forest copse opposite him—a rifle? A helmet? Fifty meters to his left, André saw three men on horseback making their way out in front of the French line. All three of them wore dark blue coats with scarlet piping and gold buttons, the plumes of their hats keeping time with their stallions’ steps. They checked their horses. It was the three French commanders.

  Kellermann sat in the center, peering through his looking glass toward the faraway tree line. To the right of Kellermann, Dumouriez’s horse pawed restlessly at the ground, and Dumouriez tightened his grip on the beast’s reins. Murat sat to the left, studying a map. Kellermann slammed his looking glass shut, turning back toward the line of French soldiers.

  He said something to his two colleagues, though his words were inaudible to André from such a distance. Dumouriez’s bright red sash and golden epaulets shone blindingly bright in the sunlight as he nodded at whatever Kellermann had said. Murat adjusted his hat, lifting it slightly to gain a better view of the far forest.

  On André’s far right stood a cluster of National Guard companies, recognizable by their tattered blue coats and patchwork leggings. They began to shout and cheer, goaded to a fever pitch by their unseasoned leaders.

  “Damned inexperienced whelps,” one of André’s men grumbled under his breath, but he sounded more anxious than angry.

  “Leave it to the grown-ups, lads!” Leroux yelled in their direction, and several of André’s men began to chuckle.

  André threw Leroux a barbed look. “Steady,” he said. “Don’t bother with that.” He knew that before battle, men often masked their fear with shouts and insults, crutches to fortify their nerves. But his men were trained better than to forget their discipline.

  And then André knew he hadn’t been imagining things, as there, from the distant tree line, several small figures emerged from behind the veil of the woods. A figure clothed in emerald green and a hat plumed with a single green feather glided out. And then another. And then another. One of the distant enemy held a looking glass, and its funnel caught a ray of sunlight, the reflection glinting off of its polished surface.

  “There! Look!” Farther down the French line, one of the bluecoats shouted, pointing. “In the trees!”

  André noted with small satisfaction that his men had all remained quiet, still, in their first sighting of the distant enemy.

  The Prussian with the looking glass paused for a moment before vanishing back behind the trees. Kellermann, Dumouriez, and Murat must have seen them, too, for they now turned their horses and trotted back from the center of the field toward the French line.

  Before his horse passed through the line, Kellermann paused a moment, turning once more in the direction of the Prussians. Almost a taunt, inviting the enemy to come and defy him. And then he lifted his reins and guided his horse back, a hearty grin on his face as he passed his men. “Give ’em hell, boys!” Kellermann lifted his plu
med cap from his head.

  “Vive la France!” a soldier near André shouted, and his voice mingled with the hoarse cries of the other men. All around him, soldiers were shouting the battle cry that had become familiar over the summer: “La patrie est en danger! The nation is in danger!”

  But this momentary burst of bravery was cut short, as the men realized that they now stood exposed before an enemy that had indeed arrived for battle. A lone Prussian stood on the edge of the wood-line, well out of musket range. He raised his right hand, as if to wave toward the French, and then dropped it as he began to trot forward into the meadow. Still out of range, he dropped to his knees and lifted his long rifle. André saw a puff of smoke and, a heartbeat later, heard a crack that ripped across the field, sending several birds upward toward the sky.

  Several other enemy skirmishers emerged, darting along the edge of the woods. They dropped to their knees, concealed partially by the high wheat. Now, intermittent pops of gunfire, followed by small clouds of smoke, rose up out of the wheat in which the Prussian skirmishers knelt. Their bullets were sporadic and shot from far away, their purpose to lure the French.

  Suddenly, appearing like woodland ghosts, figures in white and blue began to dart through and past the French line. André watched the French skirmishers run out to challenge the Prussians. They sped past in a crouch, zigzagging to render themselves difficult targets for the long-range enemy rifles.

  As the Prussian fire picked up, the French rifles barked in response. It was like watching a frenzied, illogical dance, André reflected—the first awkward moments at the start of a great ball, before partners had been matched and when only a few brave souls ventured out, inviting the other side to engage.

  André stole a glance down his line, where his men’s faces were rapt, one of them shouting out an encouragement as more of their fleet-footed countrymen joined the skirmishers’ dance. None had been hit yet, but the bursts of fire became more constant. On the left, several of the French skirmishers had stopped firing, taking a pause to reload their muskets. The foremost men on each side had now approached within two hundred meters of one another, and André knew that they had now moved into killing range. A lone cry rose up as a green figure, pausing to reload, snapped backward. This sight was met with a murderous cheer that rose up from the French line as the men celebrated the first death of the day—one that had been inflicted by one of their own. But the riflemen did not celebrate, did not pause in the job before them.