Where the Light Falls

by Allison Pataki

  Perhaps that was correct, André mused, but his expression was one of grave determination. André took a liking to him immediately.

  Together, the two men discussed André’s statement for the following day. André was under no circumstances to get into a political debate with the opposing lawyers. Especially, Jean-Luc pointed out, given the fact that he himself had noble blood. “Nothing we can do about that, if it comes up,” Jean-Luc said with a sigh.

  “Believe me, I know.” André nodded, sharing the story of his father’s fate. The menace of his noble lineage was like a serpent he wore around his neck each day. Calm for now, but André would have been a fool not to wonder if and when it might stir to bite him. Particularly as he faced off against a legal team headed by the same attorney who had convicted his father.

  Jean-Luc listened to André’s story, his eyes earnest and attentive. Pausing briefly at the end of André’s account, Jean-Luc sighed. “We must assume, since it’s Lazare, that your noble lineage will come up. He will come at you with everything he can muster.”

  André rubbed his brow and nodded slowly.

  “Just remember that you were present at Valmy; you witnessed what General Kellermann has done for this country. You denounced your own noble birth and you faced the enemies of the Republic and, with the general, you saved it. I would not say that he is above reproach, not these days, but if any man can show that he has sacrificed and risked more for the Republic, then I would like to hear from him. Keep returning to these points: Valmy. Prussians. Imminent defeat. Rallying cry for the army.”

  André nodded, trying to absorb each of these pieces of counsel.

  After a long pause, both men seemingly lost in their own thoughts, Jean-Luc looked up. “You’re going to be excellent.” The lawyer stared at him with an intensity that the young captain found somewhat unsettling, yet André felt confident all the same. This was a competent man, a passionate man. Even if every fact of fate and fortune were conspiring to work against him.

  “All I can recommend now, sir, is to get a good night’s sleep. Wear your uniform. Oh, and if I may suggest, be sure to wear a tricolor cockade prominently on your coat.”

  “Yes.” André nodded. He supposed that this lawyer was just a few years older than he himself, but there was a shrewdness about him that André respected. Perhaps this was a man who took himself a bit too seriously; then again, these were not times for the lighthearted. It was undoubtedly encouraging that Jean-Luc seemed to possess a fire within. André hoped it would reveal itself during tomorrow’s trial.

  “Very good.” Jean-Luc had already risen and was riffling through a stack of papers on his desk. Sensing the attorney’s urgent need to work, André rose from his chair.

  “I would say to you, St. Clair, to get a good night’s sleep as well, but I very much doubt that you would heed my advice,” André said, offering a wry smile.

  “I’ll sleep after tomorrow, when, God willing, justice has been served and a good man is set free.” Jean-Luc reached forward to place a palm on André’s shoulder. “Captain Valière.” Jean-Luc paused, looking into André’s eyes. “Thank you. Truly, thank you. On behalf of General Kellermann, and all those who still hold out hope for a tattered nation. God bless you.”

  André swallowed, hoping his trembling voice would not betray the true depths of his feeling as he answered: “The man saved my life.”

  Jean-Luc nodded wearily. “And perhaps, tomorrow, you will save his.”

  Darkness hovered over the narrow streets by the time André reached Sophie’s apartment. It was his first time back in the capital since the death of Robespierre, and the city was now under the control of the new legislature. In a backlash against Robespierre’s gang, now out of favor, the Jacobins were being hunted down or driven from the city. Membership in the club was banned, on punishment of death, and an eerie, tenuous calm had descended over the city.

  Bread was still unaffordable for many, and the foreign wars had bled the coffers even drier. With the monarchs dead, the nobility ravaged or fled, and half the leading political party butchered, it remained to be seen who might next pay with their own blood for the grievances of the masses. Not a person in the city, André felt, could take tomorrow’s sunrise for granted.

  Sophie stood by the window, awaiting his arrival, when Parsy announced André’s name. “André!” Sophie ran to him, folding herself into his arms in a prolonged hug.

  “My darling.” He lifted her chin for a kiss. He hadn’t seen her since his departure for the front in February. Despite his bleak mood, his heart raced, remembering their last night together, so many months earlier—the night they had celebrated his birthday and then returned, the two of them, to his room in the boardinghouse. The memory—along with the hope that they would be together again soon—had sustained him throughout their long separation, when he’d slept outside in the cold, nights so bitter he lost the feeling in his limbs. Mornings when he awoke to musket fire from an unseen enemy. Every day had felt like a week, and every month was a year. Now it seemed almost impossible that he was back, looking into her eyes again.

  She clung to him. So much time had passed, but she looked even lovelier than the memory he had held. Her hair framed her face, loose and undone, and she wore a simple dress of lilac silk. “What kept you so long? I had begun to worry.”

  “I had to take care of something. No need to worry, my darling.” He kissed her again, but he sensed the hesitancy in her embrace. Sophie tilted her gaze, looking toward the maid whose presence André had completely forgotten about.

  “Thank you, Parsy. You may leave us,” she said. The maid fidgeted in the corner before reluctantly turning to leave.

  When Parsy had shut the door, Sophie turned back to André, her eyes suddenly beguiling and full of desire. “We have a lot of time to make up for.”

  —

  Later, they lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the Parisian evening that rose up from outside Sophie’s bedroom window. A café across the street was crowded, its patrons spilling out onto the lane in various states of intoxication. A pipe player was alternating between offering his melodies to the passersby and imploring the crowds to drop a bit of change into his threadbare cap. From a nearby alley, a dog barked.

  Their bodies intertwined, a fire warming the room, André and Sophie did their best not to think of the coming day. They filled the hours telling each other about the past six months. Sophie told André that her uncle had stayed in the city, tormenting her with his surprise visits and stern curfew. André told Sophie about his campaign outside Saorgio and their constant expectation for the orders to cross the Alps into Italy. He also told her of his meeting, hours earlier, with Jean-Luc St. Clair and his positive impressions of the passionate young lawyer.

  “He’s a good man. His outward appearance might not betray it, but I think he has some fight in him.”

  “Certainly brave if he’ll take on Lazare and his Committee,” Sophie said.

  André traced a line with his finger down the soft creamy skin of her back. They lay still in silence for several moments before Sophie shifted, propping herself up on her elbows. She brought her palm to André’s cheek, grazing the raised scar tissue.

  “You’ve never told me.”

  “About what?” André asked.

  “This scar. How did you get it?”

  André sighed, quickly removing her hand and holding her fingers gently in his own palm. After a pause, he answered: “This one came from Valmy.”

  “An Austrian?”

  “Or Prussian. Whoever he was, the tip of his bayonet sliced the side of my face. He would have killed me, in fact. If not for…” He paused.

  “If not for?”

  “If not for General Kellermann. He saved my life.” André blinked, his vision suddenly blurry as he recalled that day at Valmy.

  Sophie, sensing his difficulty, spoke before he had to. “And now you’re back here. And hopefully you shall do the same for him.”

 
; André nodded. “You know Remy is back in Paris for the trial as well?”

  “Hmm?” She seemed to be distracted now, her head resting on his chest.

  “Remy is here. He is going to come to the trial tomorrow.”

  “How is dear old Remy?” she asked, propping herself up on her elbows again.

  “The same as ever. Frustrated that he didn’t see any action while in Italy, but more than making up for it now that he’s back in Paris. He tells me he plans to propose to Celine.”

  “Celine the ballerina?” she asked.

  “Celine the ballerina. I think she’s done the impossible: it appears that she’s tamed my brother’s restless heart.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” André said, his voice shifting to a serious tone. Sophie looked at him more intently now, her loose curls tumbling forward to frame her face. He tugged a strand of her blond hair away from her face, holding it gently in his fingers. “Sophie, what if you and I got married?”

  She cocked her head to the side as if to say: This again?

  “No, I mean it. Listen to me.”

  “André, I told you—”

  “Just listen.”

  “My uncle would kill you first.”

  “What if he didn’t know?”

  This silenced Sophie’s protests. She considered what André had said, her brow crinkling in thought. Eventually, she spoke: “You mean a secret marriage?”

  “Precisely. We could do it before I left for the front again. Remy could be our witness.”

  The words hung between them for a while, Sophie’s eyes distant as she considered the proposition. When she looked back at him, a smile tugged her rose-colored lips upward. “You wish to marry me?”

  André nodded, pulling her toward him. “I wish for nothing more in this entire world than to marry you.”

  She slid on top of him now, her body pressing onto his. The bed was warm and her cheeks were rosy. Surely she felt how much he desired her. She tilted her head down and kissed his neck. “Tell me yes,” he said, closing his eyes as her lips touched his skin.

  “But do I wish to marry you, André Valière?”

  “Yes, you do,” he said, pulling her face back toward his so that he could kiss her. “Regardless of what happens tomorrow, whatever the outcome may be, I am going to marry you before I leave the city.”

  “I think I need a little more time to decide,” she teased.

  “Nonsense. It’s decided. Now be quiet and let me make love to my fiancée.”

  Summer 1794

  André had hoped to arrive early, but the courtroom he walked into was filled beyond capacity. He gave his name to the nearest bailiff. The man, considering André’s military uniform and declaration that he was to serve as a witness, directed him to a bench one row behind where the defense would sit. One other person already sat there.

  “Madame Kellermann.” André tucked his chin and nodded toward the elegant woman he had met at the Christmas ball. He was about to reintroduce himself when she spoke.

  “Captain Valière, how good to see you.” Christianne Kellermann, to André’s surprise, recognized him. She extended a gloved hand. “Thank goodness you’ve come.” Her hair was laced with quite a few more strands of gray than the last time they’d met, and her features bore the drawn, pinched quality of sleepless nights and perpetual anxiety, but she offered him an attempt at a smile. “Please, won’t you sit beside me?”

  “It would be my honor, madame.” André took the seat and surveyed the room, every inch of it buzzing with bodies, whispers, and roving eyes. The crowds were especially thick in the gallery above, where row after row spilled with curious spectators who vied and jockeyed for seats. It was a swarm of dirty faces, red caps, and tricolor cockades. Many of the women sat knitting while the men exchanged the latest news, and the children pulled one another’s hair, avoiding their mothers’ slaps and giggling as they leaned over the balcony. Also mixed in with this lot were soldiers. André recognized some of the enlisted men, their bodies packed tight in the rafters. He saw the round face of Leroux and several of his companions. It filled André with a small measure of pride: these men were here, like he was, to support the general who had led them to victory at Valmy.

  Also in the crowded gallery appeared several chalky white faces: a cluster of men from the various legislative committees, André guessed. These men, like Lazare, had skillfully ridden the wave of growing dissatisfaction from ruling party to ruling party, surviving while so many of their colleagues had been condemned to the guillotine. Now they sat in silence in the gallery of this crowded courtroom, their postures tilting away from the hordes, though there was not sufficient room on the benches for them to distance themselves much. In contrast to those surrounding them, these stern men did not exchange gossip or even speak to one another.

  On the lower level, several soldiers and uniformed officers sat on Kellermann’s side. A few rows back André spotted LaSalle, and beside him Remy. André nodded at them. Another group of National Guard soldiers stood toward the front, holding muskets with their backs to the wall, casting unpleasant glares at the men on Kellermann’s side of the aisle. Though they had fought under the same flag, one could not help but feel the mutual hatred that cast a chill over the chamber. One of the soldiers standing toward the front lowered his musket, leered in Remy’s direction, and cast a wad of brown spit onto the wooden floor. LaSalle threw an arm across Remy’s chest and shook his head as Remy muttered a stifled curse.

  At the back of the court hung a massive flag, the new republic’s tricolor. Along the wall a large white banner brandished the words “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” scrawled in blood-red paint. The main aisle cut through the middle of the courtroom, not unlike a church or cathedral. Indeed, for many, these courts had taken on a solemn, even religious function in the new Republic.

  Sophie sat across the aisle on the prosecution’s side; André had made her promise that she would do so, when she had insisted on attending the morning’s proceedings. Seeing André enter, her eyes rested on him for just a moment, a flicker of acknowledgment and support, before she returned her gaze to the front of the room. All around her sat the supporters of Lazare and Murat: surviving Jacobin lawyers, a half dozen members of the Committee, ambitious advocates hoping to make a name for themselves in the new government. A man in an unnaturally orange wig sat right behind the table where the barristers would take their seats.

  At the front of the hall rested a long table draped in red cloth, its surface bare save for a cluster of papers, a quill and inkwell, and a haphazard arrangement of dripping white candles. Five judges sat at this table, facing the room and the prosecution and defense. They wore the traditional black robes, two of them with red caps atop their heads. The judge in the center, appearing senior in both age and authority, wore a large black hat with a red plume jutting out. But, in reality, there was only one true authority in this proceeding; the people would serve as the arbiters, swaying the judges to choose either life or death.

  A door at the side of the room opened and in walked Jean-Luc St. Clair, his eyes cast directly in front and his arms full of papers. A loud murmur arose from the hall as he made his entrance. The central judge, who had been writing with his quill, barely looked up to acknowledge the appearance of the defendant’s attorney. The other judges leaned back in their chairs, their eyes tracking the path of the young lawyer.

  A few moments later, the whispers of the crowd buzzed louder as the prosecution—Guillaume Lazare and his chief witness, Nicolai Murat—entered from the other side. André’s heart lurched in his chest. He noted that Lazare had two disciples with him, trailing behind the old lawyer into the courtroom. Murat, with his general’s uniform starched and immaculate, took his seat with a loud exhale, casting a glance across the room at the defense’s table. André clenched his fists and couldn’t help but cast a sideways glance toward Sophie, who offered a barely perceptible nod by way of answer.

  Several minutes later, the door on th
e defense’s side of the room opened and General Kellermann appeared, escorted by two thick guards in army uniforms. He looked thinner than the last time André had seen him, but his overall bearing remained strong and commanding. He, too, was dressed in uniform. As Kellermann strode into the courtroom, the whispers and murmurs grew to full-fledged cheers and jeers as the crowds, buzzing with an anticipatory hum a minute earlier, surrendered any final shreds of composure. All five judges looked up at the gallery where the soldiers were on their feet, pounding their fists and cheering. Beside the soldiers, the crowd of red-capped revolutionaries jeered even louder, hissing with narrowed eyes as several children began to cry. Only the Committee members sat quietly, their features pale and unmoving.

  “Order! Order, I say!” the central judge barked as guards in the gallery separated a half dozen soldiers and civilians who seemed poised to brawl.

  André fidgeted in his seat, turning back to the front of the room to see Kellermann settling into his chair. Beside André, Kellermann’s wife clutched her handkerchief in her hands, twisting it between clenched fingers. André offered her a sideways glance, an encouraging nod, but her eyes were fixed forward on the broad, uniformed back of her husband.

  Kellermann, for his part, appeared unmoved by the commotion, even calm. As he turned to glance over his shoulder, André saw on the general’s features a hint of defiance. His eyes lingered for several minutes on his wife’s face before turning briefly to André and then to the rest of the men and women who sat on his side. André gritted his teeth, heartened by Kellermann’s show of composure—whether it was genuine or not. This should not come as a surprise, André realized. A man with General Kellermann’s experience, who had spent his years fighting on the bloody battlefields of Europe, would surely not be cowed by this rabble of red-faced revolutionaries and their shouted threats.

  The central judge rang his bell ever louder and continued to call the crowd to order. The guards escorted several of the more vociferous audience members out of the gallery and, after a prolonged attempt, the judge managed to wrangle the packed hall into a manageable quiet.