I left mother a note, apologizing to her humbly, telling her I loved her and begged her not to worry and to care for the men, especially Henri. Of course, she suffered terribly, likely nearly mad with grief over her insane daughter, but I could not think about that, for I had a job to do.
PART V: THE REVENANT
‘It hurts you like hot coals, burning and scorching your very soul. It will hurt you until you die. However, it also grew you up into a man a woman can love. Truly, utterly, love. And I do love you, you fucking idiot. I am glad you did not die with her.’ (Jeanette to Henri.)
CHAPTER 19
Likely, we were the only soldiers travelling for Paris, instead to the other direction where the terrible war was being stubbornly waged. It would take two weeks of travel, and we crossed long lines of marching men, marching to start the long campaign of Italy, a thing of unforgettable horror, streams of blood, famous victories, horrible losses, near unending suffering for the common men and golden glory for Napoleon Bonaparte, who would take the war to the strong enemy, his tools a ragged, tired and dispirited army. We would be part of that, but first, I had to finish with Gilbert.
Approaching the city I had grown up in, passing towns and villages, I saw France had changed much. Nobles were still deeply despised and reviled by much of the population, but there were now many royalists clamoring for the restoration of the old kingdom, and these sometimes made a fine case for themselves, or died unlucky deaths. We passed many of a town square where both Jacobins and Royalists were being condemned; swiftly executed or taken away to rot in some horrible, damp dungeon, and villages where royalists hung those for the Republic. Some of the silent, hanged people were but children. It was hard to see what France would be like, when everything was over, and only one side left, and what that surviving side would stand for.
We arrived in Paris early September. We secured a housing near the City Hall, in a charming building that served as a seedy tavern, and Laroche, the thief, kept us stocked with decent amount of food that was still as scarce it had been earlier. I read the now torn letter I had taken from Didier. It was a simple one, in it; sprawling letters gave orders to bring me to the house addressed in the front of the letter. Rue Chantereine, number sixteen. I was to be alive. Well, I was and I knew I would have to be lucky to survive, for I had realized something about the letter. Yet, the house I was to be brought to was our only clue and I was determined to wait until it was used.
The evening we arrived, we walked to the street, where we eyed the forlorn lane, the wet and watery alleys and listened to the multitude of large frogs croaking. It was a sad street, smelly as gutter and dirty as a pigsty and the people were ill kempt. We idled under trees, eyeing the massive wooden doors of number sixteen. The house was sturdy, made of granite, the windows high, but there was nothing happening behind the windows, no lights, even. Laroche complained and waited around with me, flirting gamely with the local whores but we were not rewarded by our patience, for that night, nothing moved in the house. So, we slept, and came back the next day, where we bought strange testing coffee, some rancid, roasted meat and Laroche found an abandoned room on the third floor of the house across the way from number sixteen, where we moved.
This is how we spent a long week, and my patience was wearing so thin I even yelled at Laroche, who told me I was just like his wife. Which one, I did not ask. Finally, after day of mutual sulking, I hugged him, which he received carefully, proving he was married and knew a woman’s apology is not to be exploited. ‘It is not your fault,’ I told him, miserable. ‘What if he does not live there? Never did?’
‘Then we failed,’ he crumbled, and gave me some wine. We had only so much money, and I worried for even Laroche could only steal so much without getting caught.
While we waited, great things were happening.
‘Can you believe it?’ Laroche told me one morning as I stared out of the broken window at the stubbornly empty house.
‘What?’ I asked, absentmindedly.
‘That Buonaparte has been planning and taking charge of the war in Italy, says the paper, but yesterday, on 29th Fructidor, Year III of the Republic, or, September 15th, as we know it,’ he laughed, ‘the man was sacked by the Committee of Public Safety. They are crazy here.
‘I am going crazy here, Laroche,’ I told him sullenly.
‘I am mad I got us here. That house is dead,’ he said and dodged as I threw a cup at him.
But he was right, for France was seething. Parts of France had been rebelling against the Republic since the beginning of its birth, and in Vendée and Chouannerie, armies had been raised for the royalists, aided by British and émigrés. Tens of thousands had died, and the inability of the Convention to stamp out the internal enemies and the continuing wars and famine, were ripe grounds for opportunists to change things for their own benefit.
Laroche clambered into the room one afternoon in the early October and roused me with strong shakes. He had been guarding the house outside in the street, where there was also the constant stream of women with questionable reputations. I refused to wake up, groaning and he pulled me up to a sitting position. I felt like a marionette and I grabbed the sword, bewildered.
His eyes were round. ‘They have made a new constitution. The real power, the executive power, is at the hands on Directory of Seven.’
‘What? What the hell do I care about that? Why do you?’
He was waving his hands. ‘There is a rebellion on the make. Some twenty thousand Parisians are marching to Tuiliers, and they are mostly royalists. Perhaps we get our fine church, old calendar and moldy king back!’
I got up, groggy, holding my head. ‘Why do you care about the king? Besides, he is dead. Likely moldy indeed.’
‘There are others of the blood, waiting. Paul Barras is raising former Jacobin militia. Why did you not tell me Paris is this much fun? It’s all fucking crazy here. Let’s go and see what passes in Tuiliers, come! We have been ogling at the empty house for weeks, so let’s do something different.’
‘Fine,’ I told him, sulking, as he threw me a loaf of dry bread, a canteen full of sour milk and took a leak on a broken vase we used for the purpose. I grimaced as he did that and cursed him, for he always hit the rim but not the hole, and I had to wipe it clear. I realized he was much like a brother I never had and loved him dearly.
We hiked for the Tuiliers, and the streets were cluttered, people were yelling madly and running with apparent purpose. Scruffy National Guardsmen were rushing forward, some with flags, for they were fed up, and Laroche laughed, loving the chaos. ‘The comte d’Artois is marching on Paris with some sort of an army. They are really riled up.’ He giggled, but I just smiled. It had been some long six years I had been running around the city with a band of madmen, and things were quite the same, no matter for whom they killed today. We had to stop abruptly, dodging aside as some men were felling Liberty Trees. Others were burning once glorious cockades, and then, they all went to Tuiliers.
When we got there, we faced a massive, irascible crowd. Laroche was talking with a man, who was gesturing wildly. I kept walking and let him catch up to me. He was out of breath. ‘La Peletier section of the city had repulsed General Menou!’
‘Yes, yes,’ I told him, bored, thinking back on the taking of Bastille.
‘Let us all rise, let us have a king!’ shouted a drunken baker and they all screamed, caught up in the mood. It was all so bewildering, and I could not understand their motives, for my worries were simpler, but all of the clamor around us did have entertainment value and I thought Laroche had been right. We needed a change. We wondered at the people, at the terrible clamor and that night, sitting in a tavern near Tuiliers, surrounded by haphazard, indecisive mobs, we ate and cheered people who were mustering forces to charge the Convention the next day. Laroche nudged at me. ‘Should we go to bed?’
I shook my head. ‘Sorry, my friend Laroche, I don’t want a disease.’
He grinned. ‘I meant should we s
leep some? But I assure I have no diseases and can call witnesses to the fact. And you have seen me as I piss, it is one healthy piece of beauty, it is. Perhaps enough for you to forget the colonel?’ he joked, while raising a lecherous eyebrow.
‘No, its not enough for that. I’ll have a talk with your wives, Laroche, yes, I can write them and ask them to visit, and should I get pregnant for the colonel, I’ll claim you are the father.’ His mouth hung open, but I placed a hand on his. ‘To be honest, I rather enjoy this tumult. Let’s stay.’ I was chewing on a meat pie and nodded at a crippled soldier. ‘That man said Paul Barras commands the forces they call patriots, trying to stem this counter revolution.’
‘Barras? Colonel’s friend?’ Laroche asked while also munching on some surprisingly good, thick beef soup, apparently still horrified by my threat. The meat likely came from a dog or a rat, but we didn’t care. We were soldiers from a starving army.
‘You have been listening,’ I told him. So, we stayed up that night, merry and drunk and it reminded me of the fine night before Bastille or the one in Versailles, before the king moved to Paris. Next morning, we went towards Tuiliers, to see vast masses of men and women surrounding the palace and we both had a terrible headache.
‘Like five to one, I think,’ Laroche said, scanning the sights from a lamppost that was groaning under his weight. ‘The buggers in Tuiliers won’t stand a chance. Long live the king!’ he yelled and I climbed up with him. From there, we held on precariously to the twisted lamp and saw how the crowd was facing a ridiculously small number of desperate defenders entrenched in Tuiliers, the officers riding calmly behind the men. But there were cannon with the defenders and there was something about a general commanding them that made me uneasy. The man was but a spec, but even from far, he was professional and cool as ice, in control as a priest in charge of a sermon, and then, the crowds surged forward. Guns banged, grapeshot moved down rebellious citizens and drunken soldiers and so it was that we saw how Napoleon, on behalf of Paul Barras first repelled a small attack, and then, later, had his artillery and guards shoot down a veritable tide of royalists. Blood flowed and Paris, for the first time since the rebellion, saw an unsuccessful attack on Tuiliers, as Napoleon gave the Parisian’s a “whiff of grapeshot.”
‘It’s a worse bloodbath than we had in Dego!’ Laroche said, wondering. ‘Imagine that, at the capital.’
‘This was my home, can you believe it?’ I wondered, as I saw the cannons belch, and Napoleon mount a new horse, as the last one had been shot from under him.
‘Your father was from here?’ he asked, as we witnessed many chasseurs a cheval in their rather plain jackets charge their horses amidst fleeing royalists, sabers working hard. A pair of cannon belched terrible loads of canister and grape shot that gutted a last group of royalists trying to edge closer to the Tuiliers. ‘They won’t last. The idiots attacking those positions.’
I nodded, not really caring. ‘Long live the Republic then! Yes, my father was from here. All the people I knew were from here. I thought of dead Florian, and then everything changed.
For below us, an old man was running, a chinless man with a paunch, in a green jacket and I swore it was Florian’s father, Claude Antin. The man he told me had died.
CHAPTER 20
We shuffled forward, dodging angry and scared people, many of who were wounded. We pushed them like maniacs, cursed like old, grizzled soldiers and Laroche had to beat a man over the head after he was incited by our struggle. We were trying to reach a single man in chaos, and I was single-minded in my attempt to find him. Surely, it could not be him, I thought to myself, bewildered. Two National Guardsmen blocked my way, screaming at me to give up my sword, and I noticed I had pulled it, the bright blade shimmering. I growled at them and walked forward, and they ran, but I only later realized Laroche had aimed a weapon their way over my shoulder. Soon the crowds grew less thick, the cannonade and volleys less loud as Napoleon made sure no king would sit on the throne for a long time, at least until emperor tried it for a while. ‘Can you see the man?’
‘What man?’ Laroche said, loading his gun angrily. I had not realized he had killed someone. He shrugged. ‘A royalist thought I was on the other side. Young fellow, but now as old as he is ever going to get. What man?’
‘A man in a green jacket! An old one,’ I screamed, but we did not see him. In the end, I decided it did not matter.
That evening, order was being forced on the unruly Paris. Cockade became suddenly popular again, we saw as we hiked over the Seine. I was going to go and see the old man, and my old home.
By early night, I stood in front of it. Laroche was fidgeting as the neighborhood saw a strange soldier and a girl, but I was not worried. It was here it all started and somehow, it seemed proper to be here. I eyed Florian’s old house, and the house still had the familiar sign on the door, Claude still sold chocolate, and I wondered if he knew where Florian would be buried. I wanted to know if the old man knew of Gilbert. So, I went to the door and knocked resolutely. Soon, someone was coming slowly down the apparently rickety stairs. Finally, a man on the door yelled with a thin voice: ‘closed! Come back tomorrow!’
‘It is Jeanette Baxa,’ I said calmly. A stupefied silence followed, then a mad scrabbling at the locks and the door flew open.
‘Jeanette?’ Claude said, on his shirtsleeves. There was a bewildered look on his face, and he was clearly senile, for he had no pants on. Laroche was shaking his head in disgusted wonder as the old man hugged me fiercely. ‘I thought most all you Baxa’s dead.’
‘I am not, nor is mother, and Julie and Jean must be alive.’
‘Ah dear child. Who is this?’ he tried to ogle at Laroche. ‘A police?’
Laroche snorted and I shot a venomous look at the man, shutting him up. That the old man would confuse rouge like Laroche for a police was a clear sign of decay. ‘What were you doing in Tuiliers today?’ I asked, as he was weakly trying to pull me inside, but I resisted gently.
His eyes brightened. ‘Why, I was there to defend the Republic!’
I shoved Laroche away, as the bastard was giggling uncontrollably and smiled at the old man. ‘Claude Antin, what were you going to defend Republic with?’
‘I would have fought! I could not get to Florian, though.’
I felt a strange grasp of pain around my heart, doubt gnawing at me. ‘Florian is dead, sir,’ I said carefully. ‘Gilbert…’
His eyes rounded, as he looked terrified. ‘No! But I talked with him yesterday!’
The pain turned into anger, squeezing my chest, icy claws tearing at my innards and I had to lean on the windowsill. ‘Florian is alive?’
He looked genuinely astonished, the feeble look gone, and he noticed he was wearing no pants. ‘Sorry, my dear, old age. Yes, of course! He works for the government. He has ever since Gilbert hired him as a secretary. They…’ he started, and then looked embarrassed. ‘They are friends, as you are.’
I cannot remember what else he said, but he was smiling happily, chatting of this and that, tugging me inside, insisting he could offer me fine wine from Loire valley with delicious sweets and rare chocolates, but finally, I shook my hand off. ‘When did Gilbert hire him?’
‘Why, Gilbert was still working for Georges Danton? Yes. Florian is very useful in organizing things, and he is Gilbert’s secretary. All Gilbert’s paperwork, he does and he holds it and he knows most everything,’ Claude said proudly. ‘He has some hide for the stuff and a guard or two. He is important.’
‘Where does Gilbert live?’ I asked him sweetly. ‘I would like to see my old friend and cousin.’
‘Gilbert is in the Tuiliers, and he has a room and office there. Works for Barras, I think? Don’t tell anyone, but I think he is twisting Barra’s arm for I find Gilbert is a bit of a snake. He rarely leaves Tuiliers, as he is being closely watched for his past crimes, but Florian goes to him daily,’ Claude said, confidentially. ‘Florian tells me Barras has nasty secrets, smear all over his past
and present, and Gilbert has latched on to the vein of the great man and some others. Today, he will be even more powerful since that Barras won, happily!’
My heart fell. To get to Tuiliers to kill Gilbert? Impossible, but I would try. I kissed him on the cheeks and turned to go and he grasped my hand. ‘Go and see Florian though. He owes your house now and will be home later. He worries about me, you see and did not wish to move far. I will give you the key.’
That night, I sat in Colbert’s old garden. After Laroche had killed the unsuspecting man who was guarding the house, an old sans-culotte, quite drunk, I had checked the familiar rooms. Colbert’s apartment was where Florian lived and it was not as rich as it had been, but prosperous enough with serviceable oaken furniture, new and shiny. Upstairs had been abandoned, our former home, the room where I grew, and in Adam’s apartment there was food storage. I saw a blood smear on the floor, an old one, one from Sara, Gilbert’s mother, who had died there, and for some reason, I had cried for the poor woman and cursed Georges for that deed.
Under the stairs, behind the loose plank where we used to hide our ill-gotten pranking tools and treasures, I had found a heavy, locked box, and had Laroche carry it to the garden. That box had a slip of paper sticking out of the side, and it was apparently stuffed with other papers, likely very important ones. I had looked for a key, but it was surely with Florian, and so I waited. Laroche was sitting in the shadows of the stairway, waiting as well, though not as patiently as I did as he was thumping the stairs with the butt of his musket and I cursed him, for should not a damned poacher be calm as a stalking wolf?
Henri’s sword was in my hand, glittering in the pale moonlight as I turned it, and I knew people were looking down to the garden from the surrounding houses, wondering. The garden smelled the same, but this was no longer home, and I felt strangely unattached as I looked around the place I had run around in for most my life. I was here to do a deed, but I did not enjoy my past home or it’s past masters, and I had a hunch I did not love its current occupant. Love was far from here, and I would go to it, when I was done, if I could. Henri’s sword was there, and that gave me many kinds of comfort.
Reign of Fear: Story of French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars (Cantiniére Tales) Page 39