The Citizeness Rochemaure did indeed prove tender-hearted; she was much moved to think of the sufferings of Évariste and his mother and began planning to alleviate them. She would get the rich men among her friends to buy the young artist’s paintings.
With a smile, she said, ‘There is still money in France, but it is playing hide and seek.’
An even better thought came to her: now that there was no future for artists, she would obtain a position for Évariste in Morhardt’s bank or with the brothers Perregaux, or a post as a clerk with one of the army contractors.
Then, on further reflection, she decided that such positions were not suitable for such a man; and she exclaimed that she had found the solution:
‘There are a number of magistrates* still to be appointed to sit on the Revolutionary Tribunal. A magistrate is just the position for your son. I have several friends on the Committee for Public Safety. I know the elder Robespierre; his brother frequently comes to supper at my house. I’ll speak to them. I’ll get them to have a word with Montane, Dumas and Fouquier.’
The Citizeness Gamelin, overwhelmed with gratitude, put a finger to her mouth: Évariste was coming back into the room.
Accompanied by the Citizeness Rochemaure, he descended the gloomy staircase, its wooden steps thick with the dirt of ages.
On the Pont-Neuf, where the sun, already low down, was lengthening the long shadow of the pedestal on which had stood the Cheval de Bronze but which was now gay with the National colours, a crowd of men and women was standing about in little groups listening to citizens who were speaking in low voices. The crowd, looking dismayed and appalled, stood in silence broken at intervals by groans and cries of anger. Many were beginning to hasten towards the Rue de Thionville, formerly the Rue Dauphine; Gamelin made his way into one of these groups, and heard that Marat had just been assassinated.
Little by little the news was confirmed in detail: he had been murdered in his bath, by a girl who had come on purpose from Caen to commit the crime.
Some believed she had escaped: but most said that she had been arrested.
There they all stood, like a flock of lost sheep. Sadly they were thinking: ‘Marat is no longer here to guide us, the sensitive, humane, kind-hearted Marat. Marat who was never mistaken, who saw through everything, who dared reveal everything!… What are we to do? What will become of us? We’ve lost our counsellor, our champion, our friend.’ They knew whence had come the blow, and who it was that had guided that girl’s arm.
‘Marat has been struck down by the hands of criminals,’ they groaned. ‘His death will be the signal for the slaughter of all true patriots.’
Differing reports were circulating about the circumstances of the tragedy and of the last words of the victim. Ceaseless questions were being asked about the murderess, but all anyone knew was that she was a young woman sent by those traitors, the Federalists. Uttering fearsome threats, the citizens had already condemned the culprit to fitting punishments: this monster of iniquity must be scourged, broken on the wheel, torn limb from limb. They racked their brains to think of fresh tortures.
An armed troop of National Guards appeared dragging a determined-looking man to the Section headquarters. His clothes were torn and blood was streaming down his colourless face. He had been heard saying that Marat had deserved his fate through continually provoking people to pillage and massacre, and the Guards had had the greatest difficulty in rescuing him from the fury of the people. Outstretched arms pointed their fingers at him as being the accomplice of the assassin and threats of death were hurled at him as he was led by.
Gamelin stood stupefied with grief. His eyes burned so that his tears dried on his eyelids. His sorrow was the sorrow of a son and mingled with it was concern for his country at the loss of this hero of the people. His heart ached and he thought:
‘First Le Peltier, then Bourdon, and now Marat!… Now I see the ordained fate of patriots: massacred on the Champ de Mars, at Nancy, in Paris, they will perish, everyone of them.’ And he thought of the traitor, Wimpfen, who only a short time ago had marched on Paris at the head of a horde of sixty thousand Royalists and who would have put that heroic city to fire and the sword if he had not been stopped at Vernon by the brave patriots.
And how many dangers lay ahead, how many acts of treason, which only Marat’s wisdom and vigilance could have revealed and foiled!
Who would know now how to denounce Custine idling time away and refusing to relieve Valenciennes, Biron dawdling in the Lower Vendée and letting Saumur be taken and Nantes besieged, Dillon betraying his country in the Argonne?…
Meanwhile, all around him, louder every moment, rose the sinister roar of many voices:
‘Marat is dead! Killed by the aristocrats!’
And as he turned, his heart heavy with grief, with hate and with love, to go to pay his last homage before the body of the martyr of liberty, an old peasant woman, wearing a Limousin coif, stopped him and asked if this Monsieur Marat who had been assassinated was not Monsieur le Curé Mara, from Saint-Pierre-de-Queyroix.
VIII
THE evening of the Festival was bright and calm, and Élodie, her arm in Évariste’s, was strolling with him around the Champ de la Fédération. Workmen were hastily completing the erection of columns, statues, temples, a ‘Mountain’, symbolic Altar of the Nation. Other huge symbolic figures, Hercules brandishing his club and representing the people, Nature suckling the Universe from her inexhaustible breasts, were rising up at a moment’s notice in this capital city as it lay, full of famine and fear, awaiting the dread sound of the Austrian cannon on the road from Meaux. La Vendée was making up for being checked at Nantes by a series of astounding victories. A ring of fire, flame and hate was encircling the great city of the Revolution.
And while she waited, she was preparing, as if she were the sovereign head of a vast empire, this superb welcome for the Deputies from the Primary Assemblies which had accepted the Constitution. Federalism was being rejected; the Republic, one and indivisible, would now inevitably conquer all its enemies.
Évariste gestured with his arm to the vast crowd:
‘It was here,’ he exclaimed, ‘that that scoundrel Bailly, on the 17th July, 1791, ordered the people to be shot down at the foot of the Altar of the Nation! Passavant, a grenadier, was a witness of the massacre. He returned to his house, tore his uniform off, and shouted: “I swore an oath to die for Liberty. Liberty is no more, and so I die.” And he blew his brains out.’
As the peaceful citizens were examining the preparations for the Festival, one could see that their faces revealed as complete a lack of joy in life as their lives were joyless: to them the greatest of events became as insignificant and as dull as they felt themselves to be. Couple after couple passed by, their children running in front, or held by the hand or carried, looking as unprepossessing as their parents and with as an unhappy a future before them: children who would in due time beget children as wretched in spirit and appearance as they themselves. Yet, every now and then, there would pass a young girl, slender, fair and desirable, arousing in young men a not ignoble desire to possess her, and stirring in old men regrets for ecstasy not seized and now forever past.
Near the École Militaire, Évariste pointed out to Élodie the Egyptian statues designed by David from Roman models of the Augustan age, and they overheard an old Parisian, with powdered hair, exclaiming to himself:
‘You’d think you were on the banks of the Nile!’
Élodie had not seen her lover for three days, and during that time serious things had been happening at the Amour Peintre. The Citizen Blaise had been denounced to the Committee of General Safety for defrauding the army of supplies. Fortunately for him, the print-dealer was well known in his Section. The Committee of Surveillance of the Section des Piques had stood guarantor of his patriotism to the Committee of General Safety and had fully justified his conduct.
After she had related all this with emotion, she added:
‘Everyt
hing is all right now, but for a moment I thought the worst might happen. It looked as if my father would be put in prison. A few hours more and I would have come to you, Évariste, to get your influential friends to intervene on his behalf.’
Évariste made no reply. Élodie far from realized the true meaning of his silence.
They walked on, hand in hand, along the banks of Seine. Their talk was the tender platitudes of the romantic Julie and Saint-Preux; for Rousseau had also given them the colours with which to paint and embellish their love.
The Government had miraculously caused abundance to reign for one day in the starving city. A fair had been set up beside the Seine in the Place des Invalides: stalls were busy selling sausages, saveloys, chitterlings, hams covered with laurel leaves, Nanterre cakes, gingerbread, pancakes, loaves weighing four pounds, lemonade and wine. There were also booths selling patriotic songs, cockades, tricolour ribands, purses, and all sorts of cheap trinkets. Stopping in front of the display of an inferior jeweller, Évariste picked out a silver ring with Marat’s head in relief on it. He put it on Élodie’s finger.
Gamelin arrived, that evening, at the house in the Rue de L’Arbre Sec, where the Citizeness Rochemaure lived, in response to an urgent summons. He was shown into her bedroom where he found her reclining on a chaise-longue in an alluring state of undress.
While the citizeness’s attitude revealed a voluptuous languor, all about her lay the evidence of her accomplishments, her diversions, her talents: a harp next to an open harpsichord;a guitar lying on an armchair, an embroidering frame with a square of satin stretched on it, a half-finished miniature, papers and books on a table; a library with books scattered as if by a beautiful hand as eager to know as to feel. She gave him that hand to kiss and said:
‘Welcome, Citizen Magistrate!… This very day Robespierre’s brother had given me an excellent letter to give to President Herman in your favour. It goes something like this: “I bring to your notice the Citizen Gamelin who is to be commended for his talents and his patriotism. I feel it my duty to make known to you a patriot of high principles, and a revolutionary of unswerving integrity. I trust you will not neglect this opportunity to be of use to a Republican…” I took the letter myself immediately to President Herman who received me with the most cordial politeness and signed your nomination without a moment’s delay. You are in.’
Gamelin stood silent, and then said:
‘Citizeness, although I have not a scrap of bread to give my mother, I swear on my honour that my only reasons for accepting the duty of a magistrate are to serve the Republic and exterminate her enemies.’
The citizeness considered his gratitude cold and his compliment frigid. She suspected Gamelin lacked manners. But she loved youth too much not to pardon him a little boorishness. Gamelin was handsome, and that was enough merit for her. ‘He can be moulded,’ she thought to herself. And she invited him to come along to the suppers she gave each evening after the theatre.
‘You will meet men of wit and talent at my house: Elleviou, Talma, the Citizen Vigée who turns out bouts-rimès with a marvellous facility. The Citizen François read us his Pamela, which is being rehearsed at the Théâtre de la Nation at the moment. Its style is elegant and pure, as is everything that comes from the Citizen François’ pen. It is a moving play: we were all in tears. The young Citizeness Lange is taking the part of Pamela.’
‘I agree with your judgement, Citizeness,’ Gamelin replied. ‘But there is little national about the Théâtre de la Nation. And it must be annoying to the Citizen François that his works should be performed on the stage degraded by the contemptible verses of Laya: people have not forgotten the scandal of his L’Ami des Lois…’
‘Citizen Gamelin, you can say what you like about Laya; he is no friend of mine.’
It was by no means out of the goodness of her heart that the citizeness had used her influence to get Gamelin appointed to a much sought-after position: after what she had done and might yet still do for him, she counted on binding him closely to her, and so securing for herself a friend at ‘court’ against the day when she might need one, for she was now sending many letters abroad as well as at home, and such a correspondence was always suspect.
‘Do you go to the theatre often, citizen?’
At that moment, the dragoon, Henry looking more attractive than the youthful Bathyllus, came into the room. Two enormous pistols hung from his belt.
He kissed the beautiful citizeness’s hand, as she said to him:
‘There, look at him: the Citizen Évariste Gamelin, on whose behalf I have just spent the entire day at the Committee of General Safety, and who does not even know how to thank me. Scold him!’
‘Oh, citizeness!’ exclaimed the soldier. ‘So you have just been seeing that disgraceful sight: our legislators at the Tuileries! Why must the representative of a free people have to sit beneath the panelled ceiling of a despot? Why should the same lights that once revealed the plot of the Capet* and the orgies of Antoinette shine today down upon the deliberations of our legislators? It is enough to make Nature herself shudder with disgust!’
‘Congratulate the Citizen Gamelin,’ she replied. ‘He has been appointed as a magistrate on the Revolutionary Tribunal.’
‘My compliments, citizen!’ Henry said. ‘I’m happy to see a man of your character invested with that power. To tell the truth, though, I haven’t much confidence in this mechanical justice created, by the moderates in the Convention in this happy-go-lucky Nemesis which spares conspirators, pardons traitors, hardly dares lay a finger on the Federalists and fears to put the Austrian woman on trial. No, it’s not the men on Revolutionary Tribunal who will save the Republic. It’s they who are the guilty ones. In the desperate situation we’re in, they’re the ones who have blocked up the torrent of popular justice!’
‘Henry,’ said the Citizeness Rochemaure, ‘hand me those smelling salts…’
When he arrived home, Gamelin found his mother and old Brotteaux playing piquet by the light of a smoky candle. The old citizeness was shamelessly calling a bid of ‘Kings’.
When she heard her son had been made a magistrate, she kissed him, overcome with happiness at the thought of the honour it was for both of them and that it would mean they would henceforth never lack food.
‘I am happy and proud to be the mother of a magistrate,’ she said. ‘Justice is the most beautiful and most necessary of things: without justice, the weak would be ceaselessly oppressed. And I know you will give good judgments, my Évariste: for ever since you were a child, I’ve never known you to be anything but just and kind-hearted. You could never abide wrongdoing and you were always most passionately against all forms of violence. You have always pitied the unfortunate and that’s the finest quality a magistrate can have… But, tell me, Évariste, how d’you have to dress for this great Tribunal?’
Gamelin told her that the judges wore a hat with black plumes, but that the magistrates had no special costume and simply wore their everyday clothes.
‘It would be better,’ the citizeness replied, ‘for them to wear a wig and gown: it would inspire more respect for them. Although you do dress yourself most carelessly, you are a fine-looking man and you give distinction to your clothes: but most men need to wear something special to make them look important: it would be better if the magistrates had wigs and gowns.’
The citizeness had heard it said that the duties of a magistrate carried a remuneration, and she did not refrain from asking whether it was enough to live comfortably on, for a magistrate in her opinion should cut a figure in the world.
She learnt with satisfaction that every magistrate received an allowance of eighteen livres for each sitting and that the enormous number of crimes against the safety of the State obliged them to sit very frequently.
Old Brotteaux gathered together the cards, stood up and said to Gamelin:
‘Citizen, you have been invested with a high and most formidable office. I congratulate you on giving your scrup
ulous integrity to a Tribunal more firm and less fallible perhaps than any other, because it searches out the good from the evil, not at all merely as absolute values in themselves, but only in their relation to objective interests and obvious emotional attitudes. You will have to weigh the balance between love and hate, which is something which can only be done intuitively, and not between truth and error, since to do that is an impossibility for the weak mind of man. If you give judgments from the intuitions of your heart, you will run no risk of making mistakes, since your verdict will be good in so far as it satisfies the high and sacred standards of your scrupulous respect for law. But, at the same time, if I were your President, I would do as Bridoie used to: I would submit everything to a throw of the dice. In matters of justice, that is still the surest method.’
IX
ÉVARISTE GAMELIN began his duties on September 14th, when the reorganization of the Tribunal had been completed. Henceforth it was to be divided into four sections, each consisting of fifteen magistrates. The prisons were overflowing and the Public Prosecutor was working eighteen hours a day. Defeat in the field, revolt in the provinces: the Convention intended to have one remedy for everything: Terror. Blood would have blood.
The first act of the new magistrate was to pay a formal visit to President Herman, and was charmed by his affable conversation and dignified courtesy. A friend and compatriot of Robespierre, whose sentiments he shared, he appeared to be a man of moderate views, governed by the humane outlook for which Dupaty and Beccaria will always be remembered and which the new judges conspicuously lacked. He approved of the greater leniency shown by the abolition of torture and of ignominious and cruel forms of punishment. He rejoiced to see the death-penalty, until recently so recklessly imposed for the most trifling offences, being inflicted less frequently and only for the worst of crimes. For his part, the President agreed with Robespierre and would gladly have had it abolished completely, except, of course, for cases endangering public safety. He would certainly regard any judge who did not impose the death penalty for crimes against national security as having committed treason against the State.
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