Where the Light Falls

by Allison Pataki

  André blotted the ink and allowed the words to dry before folding the note and sealing it with wax. He would send it to London, to the one address from which he had received a letter, so many months prior.

  “So, do you think we’ll get to see this boy general when we get down there?” Remy asked, propping himself on his elbows on the bed.

  “Bonaparte?” The room around them darkened with the coming evening, and André lit a second candle as he considered his brother’s question.

  “Yes. They say he’s unlike any of the other generals. He’s the only one who’s defeated the English, and on our own soil. They say he’s better than all the rest,” Remy said, a tinge of awe apparent in his voice. “It would be something to catch a glimpse of him.”

  “I’m certain we will see him at some point, even if we are not encamped with him. You might be more likely to, since he comes from the artillery.”

  “How far away is Saorgio from Nice?” Remy asked, referring to the two different camps to which the brothers were to be assigned.

  “I’m not sure,” André said. “Nice is near the Piedmont border, that much I know. So I shouldn’t be too far from you.”

  “I wonder what Italian women are like.”

  “You’ll know soon enough—of that I have no doubt.”

  Just then, there was a hurried knock on the door. Remy sat up.

  “Come in.” André rose from his chair in time to see a cloaked figure glide into the room. “Sophie?” He was surprised, even if delighted, to see her. And then he looked around, embarrassed; she had never been to his room before, and it was far from tidy.

  But Sophie did not seem concerned with her surroundings. She stood for a moment and looked at him, a heavy cape of dark blue wool around her shoulders, a hood pulled close around her blond curls to ward off the winter chill. Her cheeks were flushed from the weather, and her face bore a troubled expression. “André.” Her voice was hoarse as she panted, striding to him and collapsing into his arms.

  “What is the matter?” He brought his hand to her face, sliding the cape back so that he might see her more clearly. When she looked up at him, he noted that her eyes were dry of tears but full of fear. “My darling, what is it? We weren’t supposed to meet until later.”

  “I had to tell you.” Her breath was ragged, and it was clear that she had run here. “News has not yet reached the streets.”

  “What is it?” André asked, his own pulse quickening.

  “It’s General Kellermann,” Sophie said. “My uncle has denounced him to the National Convention. He has been formally charged.”

  André’s hands fell to his sides, and he faintly noticed Remy standing beside him now. “Kellermann denounced?” Remy repeated the statement, incredulous. “But that’s absurd. No one would ever dare question his loyalty to—”

  “He’s been arrested, thrown in jail,” Sophie continued, shaking her head from side to side in small, tight gestures. “He’s being held at Le Temple prison. Robespierre himself signed the orders.”

  “On what charges?” André asked.

  Sophie bit her lower lip. “My uncle has reported the details of several conversations, going back as far as a year ago. Apparently Kellermann has, on occasion, referred to the deceased…er, monarch…by his former title rather than the correct one of ‘Citizen Capet.’ ”

  “Please, Sophie, you know you can trust us. You don’t have to watch your words in here.” André put a hand on her arm.

  “My uncle referred to Kellermann by his full title in the charges.”

  “As a count,” Remy said. “Made guilty by his noble birth.”

  “But your uncle is noble himself. What a hypocritical—” André choked off his insult to Sophie’s uncle, instead mumbling: “This is madness.”

  Sophie nodded. “He’s drawn up a full list of charges. Apparently Kellermann was critical of some of the Committee members for their decisions on the battle plans in the Rhineland. He accused one member of interfering with the army and called him a foolish Jacobin schoolboy.”

  André paced the room, running his hands through his hair. “I’m sure he said it in the heat of the battle, when his men’s lives were being sacrificed by incompetent, meddling fools. Any general ought to be able to assert his own military expertise when making battle plans, rather than taking the orders of a few self-righteous lawyers who sit safely in Paris, surrounded by books.”

  “Lawyers are some of the worst scum I’ve ever met,” Remy mused. “And now they run this country.”

  “It’s not just the Committee’s military mistakes,” Sophie replied. “Apparently, on a number of occasions, he has expressed disapproval of their other decisions.”

  “Such as?” Remy asked.

  Sophie paused, as if afraid to repeat the damning words. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet that André barely heard her. “He did not agree with the decision to behead the king and queen. He told my uncle as much.”

  “A conversation spoken in confidence to a friend.”

  “But now repeated to the Committee,” Sophie said, shaking her head.

  André clenched his fists, feeling as though he would strangle Murat, if he could only find him. “But that’s absurd! Even if Kellermann did say that, Murat can’t prove it.”

  Sophie sighed. “What proof is required these days? You’ve seen what the Law of Suspects has led to. Do you suppose that each man and woman paraded to the guillotine today was convicted on proof?”

  “But this all seems completely fabricated. Kellermann will be able to clear his name.”

  But Sophie did not seem to share André’s optimism, and she put a hand on his shoulder. “I am sorry. I know how you admire him.”

  “He’ll find a lawyer and will be back with his men before the spring campaign resumes,” André said, his tone carrying perhaps more conviction than he truly felt.

  “That’s just it.” Sophie edged closer to André. “That’s what I’ve come running to tell you. I fear that Kellermann might not be able to find a defense counsel.”

  “Why not?” André asked.

  “Because my uncle has arranged for the best legal team in Paris to convict Kellermann.”

  “Who? Who would possibly build a case against General Kellermann? He’s a hero, for God’s sake,” André said.

  Sophie’s face dropped, her eyes growing hopeless, as she pronounced the name: “Guillaume Lazare.”

  André absorbed the news, his shoulders growing heavier as understanding seeped in. Guillaume Lazare. The man who had tried and convicted his own father, the Marquis de Valière. And the king. Lazare was the most feared statesman in France. After his recent consolidation of the Committee, no one would go up against Guillaume Lazare; not even Danton or Robespierre himself could challenge him at this point.

  André’s birthday dinner was meant to be a festive occasion, a final evening with Sophie before he, LaSalle, and Remy were sent to the Italian front. She had snuck out after Parsy retired to sleep for the night. LaSalle had invited Henriette, with whom he claimed to be enamored, and Remy had invited Celine, the ballerina who had seemed to hold his interest longer than any previous lover. The group had taken a table toward the front of Le Pont Blanc, the same café where André had first dined with Sophie. But news of the Kellermann imprisonment had darkened all of their spirits, and no one felt much like celebrating that evening.

  Remy did his best to remain cheerful throughout dinner, ordering what the tavern keeper swore was champagne for his brother. “A toast to you, big brother. Cheer up; there is no way a tribunal would condemn General Kellermann, the hero of Valmy.”

  André shrugged, gulping his drink. If indeed it was champagne, it had been so diluted that it tasted like a distant relative of the drink.

  “The mob would storm the Bastille again, this time taking arms against the Convention itself, if the Committee convicted our man,” Remy predicted, his speech slowed after several bottles of wine.

  But the journal re
ports and street gossip in recent days showed a clear and disarming bias toward the Murat and Lazare faction.

  It was troublingly clear to André, as he read the countless articles pronouncing le Comte de Kellermann a “traitor to the Revolution,” that public sentiment had shifted. The old hero, the brave officer with gregarious manners and unimpeachable integrity, was no longer the darling of the people. Paris, these days, venerated a different sort of man. The angry mob looked for men who offered decisive judgment and quick punishment for the enemies of the people. Men who accused their fellow men of dark and treacherous motives, men who understood how hungry the people were—not just for bread but for blood as well.

  Everywhere, so-called enemies of the Republic were being sniffed out and summarily denounced. Paris was all too quick—even eager—to see evil anywhere it was suggested. Proof, as Sophie had pointed out, no longer carried much weight in the courts of the dreaded Revolutionary Tribunal.

  The group separated shortly after dinner. André, who had sipped far too much wine at dinner as a tonic against his gloom, felt unsteady on his feet as he offered to escort Sophie home.

  “I think it’s I who shall need to see you safely home tonight,” Sophie remarked. They had just wished farewell to Remy and LaSalle.

  “Perhaps I was a bit too generous with the wine.” André nodded, trying to shake off his oppressive drowsiness as they paused before the glistening Seine, its surface shivering like the cold passersby. “But I remember my honor, and I shall still see you safely home, Madame Vincennes. Shall we?”

  “No,” Sophie replied, hooking her arm through his. “No, I don’t want to go home tonight.” She looked up at him eagerly, expectantly.

  “Well, where do you want to go?” André asked, his mouth suddenly dry, his fuzzy mind sharpening into focus; did she mean what he hoped she meant?

  Sophie looked up at him. “Take me to your house.”

  “Are…are you certain?” André stammered. Sophie nodded, a wordless reply.

  His heart racing, André guided them in the direction of the Marais and his boardinghouse. After a few minutes, feeling suddenly playful as he walked beside her, he asked: “What will poor old Parsy do if she discovers that you are not in bed?”

  Sophie laughed, nuzzling up against André for warmth against the whipping wind of late February. “Perhaps sweet old Parsy is not as innocent as she appears. She was young once, after all.”

  When they reached his lodgings, André shut the door and locked it. He noted with fresh embarrassment that he had not tidied up, hardly expecting that Sophie would be in his room. But there was nothing to be done about that now. He hurried to build a small fire and then lit two candles. When the room had warmed, Sophie slid out of her cloak, tossing it over the back of his desk chair. He liked that; seeing her items among his. It felt undeniably right.

  “Here we are,” she said.

  “Here we are,” André repeated. “I wish I had some wine to offer you.”

  “I think we’ve both had enough wine tonight.”

  “Perhaps you are right.”

  Sophie stepped closer to him, lacing her fingers through his. André lifted her hand to his lips and placed a kiss on its soft surface. And then he kissed the top of her head, catching a whiff of the sweet fragrance of her hair. He shut his eyes, overwhelmed by her presence. By the fact of her, here, in his room.

  Glancing up at him, she asked: “So, what would you like for your birthday?”

  André laughed, bringing his hands to the small of her back. Making an exaggerated show of considering the question, he looked down at her. “I have an idea.”

  “Oh?” Her head fell to the side, her face angling up at him with an expression that André found enthralling.

  André looked into her eyes, feeling as though he could never grow tired of the clear, light blue of them. When he leaned forward, she met his kiss, eagerly. Their lips pressed into one another, and their bodies followed. Her hands so much surer than his own, she pulled him free of his coat and began to unbutton his shirt. André thought he would go mad when he felt her soft hands on his bare skin, and he drew her in even closer, craving closeness now with every inch of her body. She pulled him down onto the bed, and he forced himself to stop for a moment. “Wait,” he said, his voice raspy between his even breaths. “You know, I would marry you, Sophie, if you would have me. I would marry you tomorrow. I would have married you yesterday.”

  “I know you would have,” she said, breaking from his gaze. She remained still, silent. Eventually, she sighed. “But we can’t. At least, not while my uncle is around.”

  “Sophie.” André took her chin in his fingers and lifted her eyes once more to meet his. He wanted her to understand how truly and entirely he meant his next statement: “Know that I am devoted to you, as devoted as ever a husband could be.”

  “I know.” She looked at him now through a thin veil of tears. “I’ve been married before, you remember. I know how little it can mean.” She took his hand, using his fingers to wipe her tears.

  “Why are you crying, my love?” André asked.

  “I finally know,” she sighed, pressing her face into his shoulder, moistening it with her tears. “I finally know how I should have felt on my wedding night.”

  April 1794

  The news pulsed through the city that day like the drumbeat of execution.

  Haven’t you heard?

  But can you believe it?

  How can it be?

  —

  Christophe Kellermann had found himself a defense counsel.

  The journals printed the story on the first page, devoting paragraphs to speculation as to who might have been the man foolish enough to go up against Guillaume Lazare. Whoever it was, he had accepted the job willingly, the papers knew, and so it was clear he was not a man of particularly good judgment; as such, the papers wrote, events were already progressing poorly for the general.

  Though many of the papers seemed firmly behind Lazare and Murat, the city itself seemed more evenly divided. Half of Paris still recalled that Kellermann had saved the city and the very Revolution in its early days, when the Prussians had been encamped mere miles from the capital. Kellermann had been the man to fight for the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity when they were still only words, a nascent rallying cry of the Revolution.

  And so, while public sentiment split on the question of Kellermann’s guilt, all of Paris united with the same confusion, fixating on a singular question: who was the man who had signed on to argue against Guillaume Lazare?

  “Have you gone absolutely mad?” Gavreau stood over Jean-Luc’s desk, his face red and the veins of his neck swollen. He let out a loud grunt as he threw the front page of Le Vieux Cordelier, the popular paper penned by Camille Desmoulins, down on the desk. “Defending the man against Guillaume Lazare? Do you hope to make Marie a widow and Mathieu an orphan?”

  Jean-Luc pushed himself from his desk, leaning back in his chair as he folded his hands together in his lap. A position of perfect ease. After a pause, he answered the question with a question of his own: “To what, citizen, do you refer?”

  “Don’t feed me bullshit, St. Clair, I know it’s you. Who else would be mad enough to gamble his professional reputation—hell, his very life—against the likes of Lazare? I just wish to know if you’re trying to take our whole damned department down with you.”

  Jean-Luc looked down at the news journal that his boss had hurled in front of him. On the front page, the latest report indicated that the lawyer who had taken up Kellermann’s case was a young man—a man who had never spoken before either the National Convention or the Revolutionary Tribunal. An unknown amateur, whose only experience thus far had been the work of a midlevel clerk buried in one of the many overcrowded administrative buildings on the Right Bank.

  “I know it’s you,” Gavreau said, raising a finger to Jean-Luc’s face. “I could call in some favors. I could get you out of it. But we don’t have much time.�
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  Jean-Luc sighed, perusing the rest of the article. “I have no intention of taking you up on that offer, generous as it is.”

  “So you admit it! It is you?”

  Jean-Luc looked up at his boss, tilting his head to one side as if to admit his guilt.

  “I always knew you were a damned fool.”

  “Why is it so terrible that General Kellermann have someone to defend him?” Jean-Luc asked, his voice remaining calm.

  “He’ll have someone to defend him. I just don’t want it to be you.”

  “Why not? Have you so little faith in my abilities?”

  “Faith? Ha! I could have all the faith of heaven and earth in your abilities, but faith doesn’t mean a damned thing. ’Specially not in times like these, or with people of this sort. What I know is that you’re about to make a very powerful enemy.”

  “Of course I believe in the Revolution, and in justice. I just don’t see why you need to thrust yourself onto such a dangerous stage.” Marie was irate that night. She had given Jean-Luc her reluctant approval—if not her blessing—days earlier, when he had confessed to her his desire to represent Kellermann. However, having seen the explosion with which the news broke across the city, and having read the copious articles and pamphlets outlining the many reasons why this young lawyer stood no chance in court, her opinion had shifted dramatically.

  “I’m terrified that they’re going to label you an enemy of the Revolution. You know how easy it is to denounce someone these days. And how quick the mob is to heed that denunciation. All it takes is one person to sniff you the wrong way and they can send you to the guillotine.”

  Jean-Luc sat with her at the table. Their dinner had long grown cold, neither of them touching their food. Mathieu was, for once, allowing them the peace to discuss this in private, as he played in the corner, happily preoccupied with a new wooden figurine.

  “Guillaume Lazare respects men who challenge him. He told me so the first time we met.”

  “Fine.” Marie shrugged. “But even if he respects you for taking the case, what about the hundreds of other rabid Jacobins who will now focus on you as the man defending an accused royalist?” Marie’s dark eyes smoldered. “You know better than anyone, Jean, how dangerous it is to draw attention to yourself, especially as a champion of a perceived traitor.”