Where the Light Falls

by Allison Pataki

  “Good God,” André uttered, turning toward Sophie. The man had gone mad. Had it been the imprisonment? Or had he arrived at prison already spent? Whatever the case, he was still conversing with himself as he was tied into position. The guards, who had in small ways reacted and responded to the behaviors of the previous victims, were blank-faced and wordless with this man. They looked to one another, exchanging glances that André guessed—hoped—betrayed some unspoken shame.

  The man was laughing as his head was fastened down. He cackled, oblivious, in the second before the blade met his neck.

  Now it was Kellermann’s turn. The crowd, perhaps thrown off by the previous execution, was slightly less feverish now. They seemed more intrigued than excited as Kellermann was beckoned forward. With two guards at each side, the general walked himself up the steps.

  On top of the platform, one of the executioners put a rough arm on his victim, as he had done with the five before. But as he did so, the general turned toward him with a look of such force that the executioner immediately withdrew his hand, as if Kellermann’s body had been hot to the touch.

  The crowd grew even quieter, still enough that André and Sophie could hear Sanson when he said, with a nod of his chin: “All right, then. This way, General Kellermann.” But the executioner’s tone was more beseeching than authoritative.

  Kellermann took a few steps forward and looked out over the crowd. André beheld his face one last time—the broad brow, the graying hair, the wide-set blue eyes. Eyes that showed not a trace of fear. Nor did they show anger. Or anguish. They showed, André realized, absolutely nothing. Was it resignation?

  The quiet crowd seemed entranced now, hundreds of eyes fixed on the face of a doomed man. Without moving his body, the general’s glance passed over the mob and glided beyond them, into the distance. Perhaps he caught the glimpse of a place beyond this world, a place into which he hoped to be welcomed.

  And then he looked back into his present surroundings. The red-stained platform. The waiting executioner, his face still blank, workmanlike. André saw Kellermann make the sign of the cross.

  The crowd was so silent now that André could hear the groaning of the wooden beams, the click of the leather straps as the general’s body was fastened into place.

  They stayed quiet as Sanson lifted his arm and tugged the lever. And still, the crowd was silent when the guillotine blade fell on General Christophe Kellermann, marking with collective breathlessness what Guillaume Lazare had declared “the necessary sacrifice and glory of our illustrious Revolution.”

  Summer 1794

  André did not leave Sophie’s rooms the following day, lest he encounter anyone in a revolutionary spirit. If he were to witness someone making a celebration of Christophe Kellermann’s death, André did not trust himself to restrain his anger.

  Sophie, having received a summons from her uncle, thought it best to answer at once rather than risk Murat visiting her apartment to seek her out. “I’ll return as quickly as I can.” Sophie slid into her cloak, her eyes still fixed on André. “Are you certain you will be all right?”

  “Yes,” André lied. “But the sooner you return, the sooner I’ll feel that much better.”

  Sophie kissed him and then asked Parsy to call for the carriage to take her across the Seine. Her uncle had sent a vague message inquiring after Sophie’s health, but she and André had both wondered what Murat really wanted with her.

  André waited in her rooms as the hour approached three o’clock. The mobs on the island had thinned as most people had made their way, en masse, across the Seine toward the Right Bank and La Place de la Révolution. The plan was that as soon as Sophie returned, she and André would take advantage of the distraction to hurry to the Palais de Justice to be married.

  André felt besieged by warring emotions as he waited for Sophie on that sweltering afternoon. At the fore, he felt anger, but it went beyond that. Rage was what he felt—rage consuming his spirit, roiling within. As he replayed the scenes from the trial, he felt the overwhelming desire to throttle Murat, Lazare, and all of the others who had turned their sinister designs on Kellermann.

  His rage was rivaled in its intensity only by a heavy sadness: a sense of profound and bottomless grief over losing a mentor like Kellermann, even a friend. Over the French army losing such a leader. Over the entire French nation losing such a man. But as he plumbed this grief, he found something else—something inescapable and even more unnerving: guilt. Guilt because of the part he himself had played, however unintentionally, in the man’s conviction. He hadn’t been able to save his hero, just as he hadn’t been able to save his own father. And yet here he was, still living. Why did he get to continue on?

  “You’ll drive yourself mad. You must stop this, André.” Jean-Luc, his own soul haggard following the court’s verdict, had pulled André aside to tell him not to blame himself.

  “But it was my testimony—”

  “His guilt had been determined before you spoke a word. You did your best.”

  André looked at the lawyer, knowing that the man would certainly not heed his own advice; Jean-Luc would blame himself, even though it was he who had done everything he could. And had nearly succeeded. No, André thought, it was nobody’s fault but his own. He, who had been unable to prevent his own father’s execution, now had had to look on uselessly as a hero was marched to his death. And this time, he had been in some position, however small, to prevent it. But he had spoiled even that opportunity.

  He sat alone in Sophie’s empty apartment, running his hand through his already disheveled hair, his stomach in a tangle of grief and anguish.

  And yet, in spite of everything, a part of André would not give itself wholly over to despair; there remained an inner recess in which lurked the vague yet inextinguishable embers of joy. Today was, after all, the day that he was to marry Sophie de Vincennes. In any other set of circumstances, such an event would surely overpower every other consideration, and some part of him still clung now to that happiness, to the hope of what she meant to him. It was she, after all, who had insisted that today be the day they follow through on their plan to join their lives together.

  But now it was nearly three o’clock, the hour of the day’s execution, and Sophie had not returned. And so another emotion entered into his mood: unease. What was taking her so long? André began to pace the room, his sense of dread growing heavier with each minute that passed.

  “Parsy?” André called for the maid. He listened, and, hearing no response, opened the door and glanced into the corridor, but there was no sign of the older woman.

  Several minutes later, a flurry of footsteps sounded from the hall outside the apartment and in flew Sophie, her eyes wild and her breath coming in ragged, uneven gasps. She still wore her cloak, which she did not shed as she ran toward him, but she had lost a glove. “André!”

  “What is it?” He stood up, alarmed by her entrance and the shrill tone of her voice.

  “He knows! He knows about us!” Sophie panted so violently that André wasn’t certain he had heard her correctly.

  “Who knows? Your uncle?”

  Sophie nodded. “He knows you’re here. That we are planning to be married today. Everything.”

  “But how?”

  Sophie glanced around the room as if to ensure that they were alone. “Parsy,” she whispered.

  “Parsy?” André repeated the name, incredulous. He’d barely heard the woman speak five words in all of his visits to Sophie’s apartment.

  “We must leave at once! He’s coming!” Sophie turned, running to a trunk in the corner of the room into which she began to throw gowns, scarves, and shoes with reckless haste.

  “Where is he now?” André approached her.

  “At the executions. But he’ll know that I’ve run home to warn you. We can’t lose any time; we must go at once.”

  “Sophie.” André put a hand to her arm.

  “What? Why are you just standing there? Fetch yo
ur things; we must go!” Sensing something in his immobility, she ceased her packing and turned to him. “What is it?”

  “Sophie, you must go.”

  “And you as well.”

  “No.”

  “What is it? Gather your things; we must leave at once!”

  André shook his head. “He expects me to run. He wants me to run. He hopes to chase me.”

  Now she stopped, a frown tightening her features. “What?”

  “Of course he knows you will warn me. He expects us to flee together. I won’t allow him to chase us down, as if we were animals to be hunted for sport.”

  “But we can’t stay here. We can’t just give in.”

  “It’s me he wants, Sophie. I must stay back. That will give you time to escape.”

  “That’s madness. Of course I’m not going to leave without—”

  “Sophie, I want you to get out.”

  “But I’m not leaving without you.”

  “I’ll meet you,” André said.

  But she looked at him, unbelieving. “I couldn’t get out even if I wanted. I don’t have papers to pass the barriers.”

  André had an idea. “Remy will take you. In a military baggage train. Anything. We’ll find a way to hide you and get you past the wall.”

  “Why can’t you take me?” Sophie clung to him now, her hands trembling in his.

  “If I take you, your uncle will hunt us both. He’d accuse me of desertion and he would be correct in doing so. No, our best chance is for you to get out while you still can.”

  —

  They wove through the crowds on the island. Even though he had been dead for a day, the ghost of Kellermann lingered over Paris, and the men and women seethed now as various factions began to face off in the streets. Crossing the bridge at a run, André and Sophie arrived at Remy’s rooms on the Left Bank and found him sitting alone. His hair was disheveled and his eyes were drawn from lack of sleep, or tears. Probably both.

  “What happened to your hand?” André asked, when he hugged his brother and noticed a bruise. But then he saw the hole in the wall of the room. “Never mind,” André said. “Remy, thank God you are here.”

  “Why? What’s happened? You two look like hell.”

  André’s chest ached from the run across town. “Remy, can you clear the barrier tonight?”

  “Tonight?” Remy thought about this, his brow creasing. “Well, I don’t have the papers to do it on my own. But I suppose I could make up some reason, try my luck, if I needed to. Why?”

  “You must take Sophie out of the city.” André’s voice left no room for Remy’s typical humor. The younger brother looked from André to Sophie.

  “Why?” Remy’s entire frame went stiff, his facial features locking into stern focus. “What’s happened?”

  They acquainted Remy with the events of the past hour, and their decision that André stay back to give Sophie a chance to shake off her uncle.

  “Can you hide her in one of the artillery wagons?”

  “I’ve heard of it being done, to be sure.” Remy leaned on his desk, folding his arms before his chest. “I’ve never tried.” Snapping his fingers, he looked up, determination lighting his features. “But you know, now that you mention it, I imagine the federal guard units garrisoned out at Versailles might need a resupply of powder. My division is responsible for getting it to them from the city. I’ll need to load up one of our transport carts and move it this very night. You’re a captain.” Remy’s face broke out in a wry smile. “I’ll write up the orders; you can sign them.”

  “LaSalle will sign it; within a few hours Murat will have my name on a watch list for arrest. I’m in trouble,” André said, resting a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

  Remy noticed the pleading looks coming from his brother and Sophie, finally grasping the true urgency that drove them. “Dear God, brother, what have you done?” Remy looked at Sophie, then back toward his brother. “Never mind that. We’ll go right now.”

  André nodded. “Where are these carts?”

  “The carts are loaded with the stores from the Montgolfier factory and taken out via the western gate.”

  “I had better get back to the apartment,” André said. “When he comes, I should be there. Otherwise he’ll guess that we’ve both fled, and he’ll race you to the barrier.”

  Sophie’s eyes were wide with terror but dry of tears. With a deep exhale, she nodded, resolved.

  “Thank you, brother.” André pulled Remy into a hug, whispering into his ear. “We were supposed to be married today. I was going to come and ask you to stand up as our witness.”

  Remy pulled back, looking into his brother’s face, the light blue of his own eyes brightening at André’s news. “If I’d have known that I’d be carrying the ring, I would have taken better care of my hand.”

  They shared a brief, sorrowful laugh, and the three of them stood in silence for a moment. Remy whispered into his brother’s ear: “I’ll send word as soon as we’ve found a place in the country for her to hide. I promise that I will do my best.”

  “You’re a good man.”

  “Not half the man you are, André. I think it was she who once told me that.” Turning back toward Sophie, Remy tried to interject some levity into his tone. “Am I remembering that correctly?”

  “That was not quite what I said.” Sophie sighed, stepping forward toward André. Remy turned away and busied himself with packing a small satchel while Sophie and André stood together, clinging to each other. After a hug that felt too short by a lifetime, they separated.

  “What will happen to you?” she asked.

  “I will be all right.”

  “No, really. If this is our last chance to speak for a while, I want the truth.”

  “I will be arrested,” André answered. “But I should be allowed a trial. I am an officer in the Army of the Republic, after all. They will grant me that.”

  “What good is a trial?” Sophie asked, her voice drained of hope; she knew what a trial most likely meant.

  “Sophie, my love, I’ve done nothing wrong. On what charges can they convict me?”

  “But who will make them see that? If you’re denounced by my uncle, who would be willing to defend you in a trial?”

  André paused, trying to think of something to ease her mind, and then it occurred to him. “Jean-Luc St. Clair. I will ask him to represent me.”

  Sophie nodded, lowering her eyes.

  “Sophie?” André tucked his fingers under her chin and tilted her face upward toward his own. “I still intend to marry you, you know.”

  “Good,” Sophie answered. Her blue eyes glowed with an intense fire, but she blinked her lashes, keeping the tears at bay. “Don’t keep me waiting too long.”

  The sun set over the city, and Remy made his way to the western barrier, with Sophie tucked out of sight under four half-empty bags of gunpowder. Across the city, General Nicolai Murat and a handful of guardsmen marched into Sophie’s courtyard. Their boots thumped loudly as they climbed the steps to the second floor. Two of them carried torches. No one answered the door when they banged, so Murat ordered them to pound through the lock. They found André dressed in his uniform, his pistol holstered and unloaded. Parsy stepped with them into the drawing room, her eyes puffy and apologetic as André beheld her.

  “There he is.” Murat ordered the men to bind André in irons, and he did not protest. “You are under arrest, André de Valière.” Murat stared André squarely in the face, the words sliding from his thin lips like a vengeful serpent.

  “On what charges?” André tried not to wince as the men clawed and pinched the skin of his wrists into the manacles.

  “I denounce you as an enemy of the Republic. You have no right to ask me any questions.”

  Murat crossed the room in two strides, his cavalry saber lifted, and André thought, with a brief flash of incredulity, that the man might run him through right where he stood. But then the hilt of the sword swung down
swiftly across the side of André’s head, and his vision went dark.

  Fall 1794

  Jean-Luc St. Clair sat in his Right Bank office late into the night, preparing his opening statement for the case of André Valière, when a knock on the door pulled his focus upward. “Yes?”

  The office errand boy peeked his face in. “Sorry to interrupt, sir. Late evening papers.”

  “Bring them here.” Jean-Luc waved the boy in. “I need a break from this damned trial, anyway. Though, of course, reading the news is hardly the medicine to lift one’s spirits these days.”

  The office boy nodded agreeably, though Jean-Luc suspected that he had little idea of what Jean-Luc spoke about. “Thank you, little lad. Now, go home to your family. And be careful on the streets—no side alleys, you hear?” Jean-Luc tossed the boy a coin and turned to the papers, scanning the sprawl of calamitous headlines.

  Paris was burning, the city turned into a war front. With Robespierre dead and the Convention now unleashing a fresh Terror on a ravaged populace, thousands of irate, hungry Parisians ran amok over the city, with no one at the helm to harness the sails of discontent, to steer the ship of vengeance into a sound harbor. Winter was coming with its promise of further starvation and fuel shortages. Their hero, Kellermann, had died to expiate their misery and fear. And yet, still they suffered. Who, then, was left to pay for the mass suffering?

  Sensing the void of leadership, and the pliable anger of the mob, thousands of Old Guard royalists had now risen up in open rebellion against the Republican government. The royalists declared themselves at war with the National Convention and planned to take back the Tuileries Palace.

  Rumors flew throughout the city now with an effect more powerful than the sporadic volleys of musket fire. And so the Convention decided to throttle the opposition before they could gain more power. They’d called in the army to thwart the insurrection; now the city of Paris waited, wondering if the army would answer the summons.