by Anne Perry
They were close to the Convention now and there was more noise in the street. Smoke was blowing in the wind from half a dozen torches, and there was a sharp, tarry smell that caught in the throat, but was not unpleasant.
Marat turned and went in through the doorway of the Convention. His two companions stayed close behind, although he was safe now. It was almost all deputies in here, arguing, drunk with the sound of their own voices, as usual, and absorbed in the struggle for power within their individual factions.
The man from the street had entered behind him, tentatively, uncertain if he should be here or not. That meant he was following Marat!
Why should he? But there was no reason to suspect anything amiss. He was probably just another citizen eager to hear the debate, and share in the moment of history.
A plump man with thinning hair approached Marat earnestly, his eyes glittering in the reflected torchlight.
‘Citizen Marat,’ he said earnestly, ‘I beg you, just a moment or two of your time, if you would be so gracious.’ The words were preposterous. Marat had never been gracious in his life. The rage inside him burned like lava, scorching everything it touched.
‘What do you want?’ he asked. His voice was hoarse, rasping, and held a peculiar mixture of accents. One remembered that his father was Sardinian and his mother Swiss. He could read and write in English, Italian, Dutch and German, as well, of course, as French.
‘Citizen Aulard,’ the man introduced himself.
Marat was impatient. He gestured sharply with his hands, fingers jabbing at the air, his weight shifting from foot to foot.
‘What do you want?’ he repeated.
‘Your advice, Citizen,’ Aulard replied. There was a certain ring of confidence in him. If he was frightened he hid it well. ‘So many of our more educated men have fled from Paris, as if they were guilty of something and had cause to fear.’ He shrugged. ‘And who knows, perhaps they have.’ He saw Marat’s temper rising. ‘But it has left us without men of certain skills, men who are widely read and have inventive and subtle minds in the sciences.’
Against his will Marat was caught.
Aulard must have seen it. He knew his flattery worked. Marat did not hunger any more for power—that was satisfied—but nothing would ever assuage his need for glory, for the recognition he felt he had been denied all his life. He had published volumes of work on all manner of subjects as varied as optics, electricity and the nature of the human soul. The Académie Française had steadfastly ignored them all. But he would be revenged. After tomorrow he could do anything.
‘What can I help you with?’ he asked Aulard, standing still at last.
The flicker of a smile touched Aulard’s mouth.
‘I have a plan to set up treatment for our soldiers who have suffered amputations in battle,’ he replied. ‘But I cannot persuade the doctors at the School of Medicine to listen to me. Their minds are closed ...’
Marat nodded.
Aulard knew he had his attention, even his sympathy. It was so easy. It was like offering sweets to a starved child. With all Marat’s power and his rage, he was still so vulnerable, the pain in him so naked.
Marat vulnerable?
He ruled the Commune by terror, and the Commune were the real rulers of Paris, and thus of France. Marat could raise his hand, and send anyone he wanted to the guillotine.
‘They haven’t learned anything or thought of anything new in twenty years,’ Aulard went on, knowing exactly what to say. He had probably studied Marat’s career. He knew of the endless works written, Marat labouring crouched over his desk by candlelight, eighteen and twenty hours a day, living on next to nothing, driven to exhaustion by the hunger for recognition, exploring every avenue of thought he could aspire to, and always being passed over. Volume after volume had poured from his pen, every one to be derided and turned away.
He had scraped a living as a doctor in places as diverse as the household of the Comte d’Artois, of all people, and the village of Pimlico on the edge of London. Always the passion for acknowledgement of his genius had impelled him on. Failure had embittered him, caused quarrels, dismissals, and in the end persecution, as he had allied himself with the desperate, the starving and the dispossessed. His towering, blazing anger for their misery was the pain of his own rejection.
But that was all over now. Nobody would ever reject him again.
Out of the corner of his vision Marat saw the man who had followed him in the street: he looked to be in his mid-thirties, a very ordinary man, with brown hair and well-worn, workman’s clothes.
‘Your medical opinion would carry more weight with them than mine,’ Aulard went on. ‘If you were to consider my plans, Citizen, and find yourself able to recommend them, then everyone else would take them seriously also.’
‘Let me see them,’ Marat agreed. ‘Bring them to my house tomorrow.’
‘Thank you, Citizen,’ Aulard said enthusiastically. ‘Your help will mean everything to me ... and to the poor men who have suffered in the cause of patriotism.’ His face was already gleaming with the prospect of victory. His smile widened; his shoulders relaxed.
The man with brown hair moved forward, almost to Marat’s elbow.
‘Will this be free to the good citizens who had offered their services in Paris as well?’ he asked.
Aulard stared at him. ‘And who are you?’ he demanded angrily. ‘I am speaking with Citizen Marat! How dare you interfere? Citizen Marat does not need your opinion.’
‘Fernand Lacoste. Why does it matter who I am?’
Aulard moved towards him.
‘Wait!’ Marat snapped, holding his hand up. He turned to Aulard. ‘Will it be free? Or will you make money from this, and fame?’
‘I seek only the wellbeing of my fellow citizens who have been injured in the cause of freedom,’ Aulard answered sententiously.
Marat was not fooled twice.
‘Good! Then take it to the Army. If they recommend it, then you don’t need me. Go and see Citizen Pache.’ He was not sure how it had happened, but he was aware that he had been used.
Aulard was fortunate to escape so lightly.
He swung round to Fernand. ‘I’ll not forget your interference, Citizen!’ he spat.
‘You’d be wise to forget you were ever here,’ Marat retorted. ‘I do not like to be used, Citizen Aulard.’
Aulard paled, stood his ground for a moment, then spun round and strode off, leaving Marat alone in the corridor with Fernand Lacoste.
The man seemed nervous, excited. He stared at Marat as if transfixed.
‘What is it, Citizen?’ Marat asked softly, his voice little more than a hiss. ‘You followed me all the way from the Cordeliers. What do you want?’
Lacoste paled, but he did not back away. He licked his lips. ‘There is something wrong,’ he said with a little shake of his head. He was frowning. ‘I don’t know what it is, but I believe it has to do with the King.’
‘Citizen Capet,’ Marat corrected him, but he was not listening. He knew one should never ignore whispers, gossip. People like this were the eyes and ears of the revolution.
‘Citizen Capet,’ Lacoste repeated obediently. ‘I live on the Boulevard St-Germain, in a big house. It used to belong to Citizen Victor Bernave.’ He was speaking too quickly, almost gabbling. He needed to say everything, but he was afraid of losing Marat’s attention.
Marat knew it, and waited. It was possibly nothing, but it might matter.
‘But he was murdered,’ Lacoste went on. ‘Now it belongs to my wife.’ He looked acutely uncomfortable. He had said something he did not mean to. Marat could see it in his eyes.
‘What has that to do with Citizen Capet?’ he asked.
In spite of his nervousness, Lacoste did not flinch or lower his gaze.
‘Something was going on in that house since long before Bernave was murdered. I thought it was all to do with money. His trade was in cloth and he did well. People were coming and going on errands at all
hours. Then today a man came to the back door with a story about being a tailor who had been asked by Bernave to do a job altering a coat for someone, but he still expected to do it even though Bernave is dead.’
Marat was losing patience. This was tedious and of no possible importance.
‘My daughter stared at him as if she could barely believe her eyes,’ Lacoste went on. ‘She is six years old. Afterwards I asked her why. Then I realised it!’
‘What? So far you have said nothing!’ Marat snapped.
‘The King! Citizen Capet!’ Lacoste replied urgently. ‘The man looked exactly like him! And he was offering to alter a coat for a man who intended to leave Paris within the next few days. I don’t know what it means, Citizen Marat, but I thought you should know.’
Ideas whirled in Marat’s head. So the man was not a fool after all. A middle-aged man who looked like Louis Capet, people making plots and plans, coming and going at all hours. Victor Bernave had been a clever, slippery man, not to be trusted. Good thing he was dead.
‘You have done well to bring this to me, Citizen,’ Marat said gently. ‘Who else have you told?’
‘No one!’ Lacoste said with feeling. ‘Who else could I know would do the right thing for the people?’
‘Nobody,’ Marat agreed. Excellent. If no one else knew, then if this was indeed some kind of plot, he would foil it himself. He could use men from the Commune, men he could trust. The Girondins were useless. They would argue with one another and end up achieving nothing, as always. They would be too busy trying to make personal gain out of it to reach a decision ... like a roomful of frightened old women running around tripping over each other when someone yells ‘Fire!’
Danton was no good. He was greedy and indecisive. He had actually wanted to save the King’s life in October! He was an oaf—a buffoon! He had revolution on his lips, but not in his heart.
And Robespierre had no heart, the frozen little worm. All he would do was get his own glory out of it, use it to climb one step higher up the ladder of power.
Marat would deal with this plot himself. Trust none of them.
‘What else have you seen?’ he asked Lacoste. ‘Who comes to the house? Who goes out? What have you overheard?’
Lacoste’s eyes widened. ‘You think it is real?’ There was awe in his voice.
‘Maybe!’ Marat was abrupt. He didn’t want Lacoste to think too much of himself. He could get exaggerated ideas of his importance. Marat fixed him with a sullen, smouldering look.
Lacoste told him everything he could think of or recall, reciting it obediently like a schoolboy repeating his lessons.
‘Thank you,’ Marat nodded when he was finished. ‘Say nothing to anyone! You have done the right thing. Now go home and keep silent.’
‘Yes, Citizen Marat,’ Fernand promised. Seeing that Marat had given him leave to go, he turned on his heel and escaped.
Marat went to the hall of the Convention, his mind whirling. He did not go to the seats of the deputies but to the front of the balcony above, where spectators crowded together to watch and listen to the proceedings.
Who would have the courage or the intelligence to plan a rescue of the King right from the jaws of the guillotine? Not the royalists. None of them had the nerve. They were all too busy taking care of their own skins—and fortunes, feathering their nests in England, in Austria, or wherever they thought they had the best chance of living out an exile in comfort.
Marat stared down at the circle of seats stretching wide in tiers, and the rostrum with its short wooden stairs up one side and down the other.
The people nudged each other and moved a little away from him, out of respect, or because of the smell.
So who was it then? His mind roved over all the possibilities, thinking of the ambitious, the dissatisfied, all those of whose loyalties he was uncertain.
It had to be more than one person. Only a group could accomplish such a thing. But there would be one leader, there always was, a sly, ruthless man with the audacity to think of rescuing the King almost from the scaffold’s edge.
A man like that conniving devil, Bernave! Never knew what he really thought, or meant.
Except that he was dead ... murdered, apparently. Now there was an interesting thought! He should learn more about that.
The deputies were divided not according to the region they represented, but from left to right depending upon the extremity of their political opinions. Those of the most conservative sat to the right, those of the most wild and revolutionary to the left. The large mass who were undecided dominated the centre, known as the Mountain.
Marat looked around for faces he might recognise, and saw Barbaroux. His handsome profile was unmistakable. He had once been told by someone that it was noble and very Roman. Now he was forever leaning back to display it the better. Fool! If he had spoken as well as he looked, he might have achieved something.
Brissot appeared harassed and uncertain, like a man who has been set on a horse he knew perfectly well he had not the strength to ride, and that he would eventually have no choice but to cling on to for dear life and be carried wherever it chose to take him. Marat despised him, as he despised them all. Idiots, poseurs, the whole lot of them.
He would show them, tomorrow, if there was a plan to rescue the King. He, Marat, would be the one to expose it.
He looked for Danton but did not see him. He would have been noticeable instantly, even in this crowd. It took him a moment to find Robespierre. The light caught the white of his powdered hair and the flickering movement of his little hands. He was whispering to someone. Effete little swine. He claimed to love the people, and yet his neat little nose wrinkled in disgust if one of them came anywhere near him! Hypocrite!
And there was Saint-Just, sitting like stone. He could have been a monument on a grave. Better he were! That was where he belonged.
The debate seemed desultory, and without emotion. Then suddenly there was a rustle of movement. People sat further upright. Some craned forward. They were staring up. They had seen him. He smiled. He did not know how grotesque the gesture was with his wide, sagging mouth.
This time tomorrow he would drop the bombshell that there had been a plot to rescue the King—which he had brilliantly foiled. That would make them all take notice—not just here but all over Paris—all over France! It would be the end of the Girondins. Smug little Robespierre could not be the hero of that! He would be ignored, and he would hate it! Marat’s smile widened.
Next to him a man moved a few feet further away. Another wrinkled his nose then instantly covered his face with a handkerchief.
A busy little deputy shot to his feet and scurried round to climb the rostrum. Almost before he was there he began to speak of a glorious new age born of blood. His eyes kept glancing towards Marat.
Marat nodded.
The deputy spoke of the imminent death of the King, and what a glorious day it would be: the birth of the Republic, of liberty and justice for everyone.
Marat watched the Girondins to see if any of them had the courage to argue what he knew they believed.
They looked wretched, embarrassed, fidgeting with their hands, but not one rose to speak. Cowards! Exactly what he expected.
Another deputy asked a question about the war with Prussia, and if there were any way to prevent it escalating. He showed a spark of courage, but no one responded.
Brissot turned to Vergniaud, the spokesman for the Girondins, beside him, and for an instant Marat wondered if he were going to rise, but he did not.
Marat stared down at the sea of faces; at the Girondins in whom so many hopes had been placed: their gravitas, their virtue, their noble ideals! They sat in little huddles. One could tell just by looking at them who had quarrelled with whom, who felt insulted or cheated of some honour. It would be amusing, if the fate of France did not hang on it! They aspired to the dignity of the senators of ancient Rome. They talked endlessly and wrote terrible treatises. Roland was the worst: a sour, unhapp
y man with literary pretensions infinitely beyond his ability to realise. It was said his memoranda were the most complete ever written. He took it as a compliment. It was not. They were dry enough to choke a horse.
They all had dreams of literary immortality, and their works were almost unreadable. They had exasperated Bernave. Marat remembered that now. He had been funny about them at times, and yet there was irony and tragedy beneath the laughter. He had cared too much.
Marat cared too. He knew what it was to be tired and poor, to be sneered at and excluded, to be hungry, cold and frightened and have no weapon with which to fight back. He remembered when the Marquis de Lafayette had sent three thousand soldiers into the Cordeliers to hunt him like a rat! And failed.
And where was Lafayette now? Gone over to the Austrians!
Tomorrow Marat would put the final seal on his glory and make irrevocable the steps forward into the new age. But it must be done his way: through the men of the Commune, not these ineffectual talkers in the Convention. He had no more patience with them. Whatever had been planned, by Victor Bernave or whoever else it was, it would happen between the prison of the Temple and the steps of the guillotine.
So that was why Bernave had told him of the royalists’ plan in the Temple! It made exquisite sense! It could not succeed. He did it to protect his own plan!
He turned and pushed his way through the crowds back to the corridor. He must hurry. The pain of his sores was crucifying, but there was no time to give in to it. He had borne everything in the past: hunger, cold, illness, persecution. Only a little longer and the fruits of it would be his. All the glory in the world.
He did not even see the men he passed who stepped back too hastily, making way for him, faces tight with fear, hands to their noses.
Chapter Fourteen
CÉLIE WOKE EARLY. LAST night after leaving Briard she had gone back to tell Georges. She had found him in the alley outside the house where he had lived, standing shivering in the dense shadow of the wall.
The National Guard were moving too close and it was time for him to go. He had waited only to tell her. Even as they’d stood under the eaves they had heard the sound of heavy feet and caught the red reflection of torch glare against a window above them.