Where the Light Falls

by Allison Pataki

  “Of victory, citizen,” Lazare answered.

  Jean-Luc couldn’t help but furrow his brow, confused at this morsel of vague philosophy. Hadn’t the American rebels won freedom for themselves and their nation?

  Lazare held his rapidly disappearing apple in his fingers, licking his lips before he spoke. “I think that, had the Americans been burdened by a noble, despotic class of their own, and had they been gifted with the tools of Dr. Ignace Guillotin, they would not have failed to put his device to good work.”

  “Ah,” Jean-Luc said, his mind alive now with the stimulation of this debate. “But the wonder of the American Revolution—the fact at which we all must marvel—is that, even at the moment of their unforeseen victory, their foremost champion left the arena of government and politics to retire to his farm.”

  “George Washington,” Lazare said, his pale lips letting loose a sigh. “The ever exalted George Washington.”

  “They replaced the tyranny of a king with a true republic,” Jean-Luc added, surprised that the older man didn’t share his own enthusiasm. “Do you not think it wise to draw at least some lessons from their extraordinary success?”

  Lazare shrugged. “The saving grace for the revolution in America”—Lazare paused, taking a final bite of his apple—“was that they did not have foreign kings menacing their borders from every direction, threatening their very survival. Quite the contrary—our late ‘King Louis’ did half the work for them. For which we paid dearly, of course.”

  Jean-Luc thought about this. “Well, they had one foreign king crossing their borders and threatening their revolution—King George. Surely you think that the might of imperial Britain posed a sufficient threat?”

  “King George, very well. I count the armies of Prussia, Austria, Spain, and the accursed English among the growing list of those clamoring to invade us and end our Revolution. With such enemies outside our door, the most important thing we can do is make certain to eliminate the threat of the enemies already inside our home, hidden within our midst.” Leaning forward, Lazare spoke so quietly that his voice was little more than a thin whisper. In another context he might have been breathing some comforting bedtime tale to a group of rapt children. “The wolf prowling outside your door ought to be considered much less dangerous than the one who sleeps beneath your bed.”

  The room was silent for several moments before Lazare continued. “For that reason, this country must be cleansed of all traitors—noble or otherwise. Now that we have been enlightened, we cannot allow any of their kind to linger on, willing and eager as they are to pull us all back into the darkness. That was why we had to kill Louis and Antoinette—you know that, yes? So long as they lived, they were a symbol to inspire our enemies, both within the nation and outside of it. They incited those dark figures who would seek to put a tyrant and his Austrian spy back on the throne.” Lazare lifted his thin fingers, as if shooing a fly. “Be rid of them. Kill them all. Only their blood can wipe clean the sins of all of those centuries of robbery, abuse, and debasement—only their blood can provide for the harvest of the modern age. The era of reason over idolatry, of progress over primogeniture, of enlightenment over feudal darkness.”

  Several men around the table rapped their knuckles on its wooden surface in support. Meanwhile, Jean-Luc prepared his response, forcing his voice to remain steady. “You are a man of the law, Citizen Lazare.” He was impassioned now, the magnitude of this discussion quickening his pulse. “Surely you would assert that, prior to capital punishment being meted, a fair and impartial trial must be pursued?”

  “Perhaps we might—” Merignac interjected for the first time, but Lazare cut him off, raising a finger in the direction of the chastened secretary.

  “No, Merignac. I am enjoying this.” And then, turning his eyes back on Jean-Luc, Lazare smiled. “Rarely do any of these men challenge me so openly. I am so glad that you will.”

  Jean-Luc found this odd. Was this not a Committee appointed by the National Convention, their very purpose to debate politics and arrive at compromises that would best suit the new nation? Lazare seized on Jean-Luc’s momentary distraction and said: “I already told you that I was from the south, Citizen St. Clair.” Lazare leaned back in his chair, placing the used apple core on the table before him.

  Jean-Luc nodded. “You did.”

  “Toulon, as I said. My mother was a maid. A foolish young girl who had the twin misfortunes of being both pretty and powerless. Then add to that the unfortunate fact that she attracted the attention of her employer, a viscount.”

  Jean-Luc creased his brow, finding it curious that he should hear such a frank confession from a man such as Guillaume Lazare.

  “Perhaps you have heard, Citizen St. Clair, that I am a bastard?” Lazare’s watery eyes were unblinking as he stared across the table at Jean-Luc.

  “I…I believe I might have…but I don’t see why that should—”

  “Don’t redden so, citizen. I feel no shame in giving the confession, and as such, you should feel no shame in hearing it. It was not my poor mother’s fault that she was seduced at the age of fifteen and made to give birth to a nobleman’s bastard child. Just as it was not my fault that my father, the esteemed viscount, sent me away—first to a hired nursemaid and then to a parish school, refusing to ever once see me. Refusing to allow me to ever see my poor mother, whom, I am sure, he continued to use as a broodmare when his own frail wife would not welcome him into her bed. Who knows how many bastard sisters and brothers I have populating the south of France?”

  The flame in front of them sputtered and then expired, the last inch of pale candle dripping onto the table in a pool of molten wax. Jean-Luc was grateful for the brief period of darkness, as it allowed him to lower his eyes and absorb the heavy news he’d just heard.

  Merignac summoned the footman, who appeared as if from out of the shadows, to replenish the spent candle and refill the company’s wineglasses.

  Lazare, taking a full cup of wine and raising the drink to his lips, still held Jean-Luc in his gaze. “What do you make of my brief account?”

  Jean-Luc sighed, weighing his next words. “I am sorry for your mother’s misfortune. And yours.”

  Lazare nodded, still expectant, wanting more.

  “And I do believe that the nobility committed crimes against the people.” Jean-Luc paused, remembering the account of the Marquis de Montnoir in the case of the Widow Poitier. “But I think that the nobility, just like the common population, comprised a wide and varied body. There are evil men among their number just as there are good men among them. And doubtless everything in between. And so—”

  “Wrong!” Lazare landed his palm firmly on the oak table between them, his voice rising above a hushed tone for the first time that evening. Jean-Luc couldn’t help but start slightly, and he kept quiet, allowing the older man to continue.

  “The nobles of this country have been inbred for centuries, and now all virtue and humanity have been drained from their ranks.” Lazare paused a moment, blinking, regaining his composure, bridling the volume of his voice. But his eyes still burned with the intensity behind his words. “Any man, Citizen St. Clair, who is born into a castle full of servants from the time he is a babe…who is told that he will never once have to put in an honest day of work in his entire life…who is made to believe that any skirt that passes before his powdered nose may be lifted at his request…Why, any man in an environment such as this would lose his ability to care for his common brother. The very institution of a hereditary nobility predisposes, no, guarantees, that a nation’s leadership will sink into profligacy, abuse, and licentiousness.”

  “But look at Lafayette, himself a marquis,” Jean-Luc said. “He eschewed the wealth of his noble birth and sped to America to fight for their rebellion, nearly paying with his life in the process. Why, we owe our esteemed Declaration of the Rights of Man to himself and Monsieur Jefferson, drawing much of it from the Virginian’s own pen.”

  Lazare’s v
oice was tight as a bowstring as he retorted: “A vain, self-serving dandy who showed his true treachery when he attempted to save the lives of Louis and Antoinette. If he had remained in France, we would have sent Lafayette to the guillotine as well. He was right to flee, like the rat he is.”

  Jean-Luc swallowed hard, feeling it wiser not to speak too strongly on behalf of a denounced marquis declared an enemy of the nation. He sat motionless and offered no reply.

  Lazare continued. “You say that these aristocrats deserve fair trials. Did my mother have a fair trial before being damned to a life of shameful bodily enslavement?” Lazare asked, still looking only at Jean-Luc. “Did I have a fair trial before all of the beatings I received at that horrid school in which my father, the viscount, enrolled me?” And now, inexplicably, Lazare smiled. “No. A fair trial is only a right for a free man. But these nobles…their rights are forfeit. They are criminals, all. Complicit and culpable, stewards of a criminal system that we, as free men, have finally undone.” Lazare took a long, slow sip of wine, the red liquid blindingly bright against his colorless skin. The table was, once more, quiet.

  It was Lazare who again broke the silence. “But now it grows late, and I fear that I have filled our time with such heavy matters. What is the hour?” Lazare looked to Merignac. Jean-Luc could not have guessed the time—whether an hour or ten hours had passed since he’d entered this strange, dimly lit study with these pale, wordless men he did not know.

  “It approaches ten o’clock, Citizen Lazare,” Merignac answered.

  “Ah! The time has gone so quickly with our spirited discussion.” Lazare looked around the table, his tone suddenly light, even cheery, as his eyebrows moved up and down on his chalky white face. “And now I must go, or else Maximilien will be kept waiting.”

  It was Robespierre to whom Lazare referred, Jean-Luc realized.

  “Citizen St. Clair.” Lazare fixed his eyes across the table. “I hope I have not overwhelmed you with this frank discussion. I am always eager to acquire a proper sense of a man’s character, as well as his ideals, should he have any. It was a trial by fire, you might say, but you held up quite well. Quite well indeed.”

  Jean-Luc nodded, lowering his gaze. What did one say in such an instance?

  “I quite enjoy a good debate, and I’ve enjoyed ours immensely.”

  Jean-Luc offered a slight smile in reply.

  “Maurice and the rest of my protégés are constantly trying to introduce me to bright young minds. Trying to find my next petit projet. I always say: ‘I’ll meet anyone once. But a second time? That is up to the man himself.’ ”

  Jean-Luc nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Not ‘sir.’ ” Lazare shook his head. “ ‘Brother.’ ”

  “Indeed,” Jean-Luc answered, his voice quiet, his throat dry.

  Lazare spread his thin lips in a smile. “Maurice told me that you live across the Seine, on the Left Bank.”

  “I do, Citizen Lazare.”

  “And how do you intend to get home?”

  “I thought I’d walk, citizen.”

  “No.” The old man shook his head. “I am going that way to meet Citizen Robespierre. Won’t you please join me in my coach?”

  “I would not wish to trouble you.”

  Lazare waved a bony hand. “It is no trouble. It’s the least I can do for such an idealistic young clerk who counts furniture and silver plates so diligently for our Republic.”

  Jean-Luc swallowed hard as his cheeks flushed shades darker than his pale companion’s. “If you are certain that it is no trouble, then I thank you.”

  Lazare rose from his chair, smoothing the front of his coat with his long, thin fingers. “The rest of you, carry on with your work. I need not remind you that our soldiers are fighting, our people are hungry, and our enemies dwell amongst us. The world is watching.”

  Inside the carriage, Lazare looked out the window, his narrow frame bouncing and jostling as the horses pulled them over snow-slicked cobblestones. He did not speak, so neither did Jean-Luc.

  Lazare fixed his gaze on his guest as they turned the corner, approaching Jean-Luc’s street. In the dark shadows of the carriage, Jean-Luc could just barely see pale lips and blond eyebrows against an unnaturally white face. The older man broke the silence. “I meant what I said.”

  “Oh?” Jean-Luc met his stare.

  “That I appreciated your spirited debate. None of them”—Lazare waved his hand—“none of them will ever engage with me. It’s as if…” He paused, sighing. “As if they are bridled by fear, or something else….” His voice trailed off.

  Jean-Luc could have gasped in laughter—finding it fairly obvious that of course they were frightened of their leader, and understandably so. But he let Lazare continue.

  “I commend you for engaging with me. I hope that we can do it again. I relish a challenge.” The carriage slowed and rolled to a halt in front of Jean-Luc’s building. “I relish a challenge indeed,” Lazare repeated, turning toward the window again.

  “This is my stop, citizen.” Jean-Luc leaned forward in the carriage, glancing up at the window of his garret. The light from inside spilled out onto the street, a gentle glow, and he could see a woman’s shadow moving within. Marie was probably chasing Mathieu around in an attempt to lure him to bed.

  The footman opened the carriage door and, to Jean-Luc’s surprise, Lazare stepped out first. Jean-Luc followed him. Standing opposite each other on the cold, snow-lined street, the two men were silent for several moments.

  Lazare, his face now illuminated by the nearby streetlamp, smiled. “I hope you’ve benefited from our company tonight, citizen.” His words came out with a visible mist of warm breath.

  “Very much so, Citizen Lazare. It was an honor to meet you.”

  “I hope that you will return, and soon. I should very much like to see your talents utilized to the fullest extent. For your sake, and for the sake of our nation. I could arrange to have you work a more prominent role.”

  Jean-Luc’s eyes widened ever so slightly, and he suppressed the smile that such frank praise from a man like Guillaume Lazare elicited. “You’re too generous, citizen.”

  “A man is unworthy of admiration until he earns it. One must embrace the chaos of this world and shape it according to his own will.” Lazare paused, oblivious of the snowflake that had landed on his nose, the stark white crystal disappearing against the pallor of his face. “I believe you desire to achieve more than you let on, St. Clair.”

  “Oh, well,” Jean-Luc stammered, shuffling from one foot to the other. “I thank you for the interest you’ve shown in my future.” Of course he wished to move up and out of a department that had him cataloging furniture. He wished to move Marie out of this dingy neighborhood. And this man certainly seemed capable of helping him with all of that.

  But Lazare’s mind seemed to have drifted toward other thoughts, and his eyes reflected that as he stared down the street. “As for me, I might have my greatest conquest yet.” At this cryptic statement, another one of his characteristic riddles, Lazare’s voice trailed off, his breath filing out of his nostrils in two thin clouds of vapor. “Yes, my greatest conquest yet. If I can take this one down, I will know I could have crucified Christ himself.”

  Jean-Luc tensed involuntarily, his brow creasing at this odd declaration. This sudden change in topic. “But…Citizen Lazare…would you have wanted to take down the Christ?”

  Lazare glanced up now, meeting Jean-Luc’s gaze with his eyes. They were expressionless when he next spoke: “I would tear down any man guilty of the people’s false worship. Our late king was but the first.” He leaned in closer to Jean-Luc and spoke in a hushed tone: “There will be more to come.” His eyes seemed to glow with a zeal that Jean-Luc had rarely seen in other men.

  Just then, Mathieu leaned out the window, the light spilling into the street as his voice called out. “Papa!”

  Both Jean-Luc and Lazare lifted their stares to the sound issuing fro
m the window above. “Mathieu!” Jean-Luc frowned, seeing his tiny son’s face bathed in the warm glow of their rooms. “Step back away from that window! And do not lean out of it again.”

  “Yes, Papa!” The little boy, despite his father’s stern voice, remained at the opened window.

  “I will be right up,” Jean-Luc insisted, before hollering even louder: “Marie?”

  From within, Marie’s calm voice was barely audible. “Come here, my darling. What have I told you about the window?” And the little boy’s face disappeared from sight, leaving Jean-Luc and Lazare standing in silence on the cobblestones below.

  “A beautiful boy.” Lazare’s gaze still rested on the brightly lit window, now vacant of Mathieu’s frame. The sound of Marie’s playful tones, mixed with the little boy’s joyful laughter, just barely reached the street, and Jean-Luc longed to be upstairs, in that warm room with his family.

  “Your son?”

  Jean-Luc nodded. “He has his mother’s looks; for that I am grateful.”

  “In that case, your wife must be quite a beauty,” Lazare said, turning his eyes back on Jean-Luc. There, in the cold night, Jean-Luc shivered, tucking his hands deeper into the pockets of his overcoat and wondering if his sudden chill was due entirely to the frigid December air.

  February 1794

  Remy lay on his back, sprawled across André’s bed in the boardinghouse in the Saint-Paul quarter. Together, the two brothers were crafting a letter for their mother, though they had little idea of whether it might actually reach her. They had not heard from her in well over a year, a fact that gave André grave concerns, though he did his best to conceal them from his younger brother.

  “I’m not going to mention that we’re being sent back to the front,” André said, concluding his letter with the promise of their continued love and devotion.

  “Probably for the best,” Remy agreed.