Minuet

by Joan Smith

  They were back on the road very soon, and still all continued quiet. In an hour and a half the west barricade loomed before them, heavily guarded, bristling with gardes and pikes, but not closed. With so few people, they were given a good questioning. Along the way, a story had been agreed upon, and the spokesman, of course, was Henri.

  “My man, Le Taureau de Limoges, was badly hurt in a fight yesterday,” Henri said, pointing inside the carriage, where Degan lay back with his eyes closed. “The Butcher had a go at him. A wild man, the Butcher of Lozère. You know him?”

  The guard knew him well, and had to have a look at a man who had survived a match with him. It had been decided not to say Degan had won. That might strain credulity too far. “He dies?” the guard asked perfunctorily. What was one more death in a place like this?

  Henri hunched his shoulders. “I’m taking him to my own doctor in Paris. I hope he can be patched up. He is a good bruiser, this one. I’ve made a thousand assignats the last month with him.”

  “A pretty little piece he has,” the guard said, with a bold look at Minou, who gave him a coquettish wink. Henri stayed chatting a few moments, to give an air of ease to their passing the barrier.

  “How are things in Paris since Robespierre’s fall?”

  “Interesting. Hurry and you’ll be in time for the execution,” he was told. “They’ve moved the guillotine back to the Place de la Révolution for the grand occasion. I wish I could be there to see it. They say every window along the rue St.-Honoré has been hired out at a terrific price to watch the charrettes taking him and his comrades to their execution.”

  “It is definite he is to be executed?” Henri asked.

  “The little window has taken the king and queen and Madame Du Barry—that old whore, howling like a baby. I saw her go. No class. The queen now, there was a citoyenne who knew how to die with style. No tears, no fuss. They wouldn’t let her ride in a carriage to the guillotine, but made her take the common charrette, but still she performed with distinction. She wore a white gown, and had her hair all cropped off.” He sounded as though he were discussing the performance of a star at the Comedie Française. “I’d like to see how the Incorruptible goes. He is lying wounded at the Tuileries.”

  “I’d like to see it myself. We’ll be off, if that is all, citoyen?” Henri asked, finding this an auspicious moment to leave, and the man hadn’t even asked to see the cartes civiles.

  “Bonne chance avec le pugiliste!” the guard called, waving his hand in a comradely way.

  The occupants of the carriage breathed a vast collective sigh of relief. They had made it into Paris. Now if they could get safely out, with the prisoners.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Henri tooled the carriage along Champs-Élysées to the rue St.-Honore. There were not so many carriages in the street, but considerable groups of soldiers and curious citizens, snatching up newspapers, which already had the story of yesterday’s events, and a preview of what was to come today. “Buy a journal from that old hag,” Minou called to Henri. “Use assignats—we don’t want any trouble at this late date.”

  “Trust me, chérie. I didn’t come down in the last rain.”

  She read the news aloud, but it was not much more than the guard at the barricade had told them. Robespierre’s having been shot was not mentioned, but it was spoken of in the streets. Some said it was an attempted suicide; others that it was an assassination attempt. As they approached the Tuileries, the crowds became more dense.

  “I’d like to stop in and have a look at Robespierre,” Henri said, looking to the others for approval.

  “Shouldn’t we be getting to the asylum?” Degan asked, having some vague feeling he would like to linger just a little, to have a better view of this fabled Paris, where on all sides impressive buildings loomed.

  “Visiting hours for the afternoon will be over before we can get there. We can’t go till this evening,” Sally told him. There is nothing about the Maison Belhomme in the papers, thank God. They haven’t got around to it yet.”

  “That’s good,” Henri said. “Come, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, to see the Incorruptible. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  He parked the carriage, not without some misgivings that it would disappear, and with Minou stationed between the two men, they all approached the rounded doorway that was the main approach to the edifice.

  The Tuileries had greatly changed from the last time either Sally or Mérigot had seen it. The domed center and endless facade were recognized, but inside, the elegant gold-painted furnishings, the fleurs-de-lis, the satins and brocades had been replaced by pedestrian banners in the ubiquitous tricolor, and the furnishings were of plain wood. Crowds milled about, mostly heading in one direction, the meeting room of the Committee of Public Safety, but it was an anteroom that held the interest today.

  Robespierre’s wounded body was stretched out on an uncovered wooden table, his head propped on a small wooden box. The man was already nearly dead. He lay pale, with a bandage of some sort held to his wounded jaw. He had on a light-blue suit, with bloodstains down the front of the jacket. The crowd eyed him, like vultures waiting for the animal to perish, that they might get on with consuming the corpse. The hatred, the wish for his death, was almost palpable in the room, mixed in with the stench of sweat and blood. The crowd jeered and rallied, making jibes to this menace who had sent their loved ones to the guillotine, yet it was hard not to feel pity for what he had come to.

  “Let us go,” Sally said, clutching Mérigot’s arm. “This is disgusting.”.

  Watching Henri, Degan wondered at the expression on his face. There was hatred there, and satisfaction, perhaps a trace of pity as well. For himself, he felt physically ill, and it was not only the aftereffects of the Butcher’s work. He took Sally’s arm and turned to leave.

  With a last look at Robespierre, Henri joined them. They found their carriage unmolested. As they drove away, Henri said, “Let’s hire a room. Or do you think we’ll be leaving tonight, Minou?”

  “Not with these nags,” Degan pointed out. “We ought to hire either a room or a fresh team.”

  “I’d like to leave at once, tonight,” Sally said.

  “We’ll take a room to wait in till visiting hours at the asylum,” Henri decided. He drove east past the Louvre and Les Halles, north up the rue St.-Denis till he was out of the heart of the city, and took a room at a largish place with a stable where he had some hopes of hiring a team. He soon learned this to be an impossibility, however.

  “We won’t be leaving tonight,” he told them when he joined them in the room. “Better to go at once to the asylum and see how affairs are. We’ll go tomorrow—from Paris, I mean.”

  Henri was restless, pacing the room, glancing occasionally at the newspapers purchased earlier. “Sit down. You’re driving me crazy,” Sally told him.

  “What time is Robespierre’s execution?” he asked.

  “Evening. They mention seven o’clock—it may be later, of course.”

  “We would have time to see it,” he said, with a doubtful look at the others.

  “I don’t want to see it!” Sally said at once. Degan had the conflicting emotions of disgust and curiosity. He rather wanted to see the guillotine in action, knowing perfectly well he would take no pleasure from the sight. “I have seen Madame la Guillotine perform before now, and it is not a sight I wish to see again.”

  “Not even with Robespierre the victim?” Mérigot tempted.

  “Not if the Devil himself were to provide the meal!” she stated firmly.

  “Degan?” Henri asked hopefully.

  “We can’t leave Sally alone. I’ll stay here with her.”

  “There is not time!” Sally began objecting. “Heaven only knows when it will take place. If someone decides to start speechmaking, you could be there till ten o’clock. We must get to the asylum.”

  “We don’t all have to go to Maison Belhomme,” Henri pointed out. “We aren’t actually l
eaving tonight. Just to talk and make plans, you and Degan could do it.”

  “Henri!” she pleaded, worried. “Don’t go to the execution. It could be dangerous.”

  “I want to see it!” he said, becoming angry. “This is one of the great events of history—it will be written of in books forever. We are here, a mile away, and it is foolish not to go.”

  Sally looked at him sadly. “That is not why you want to go, Henri. Confess it is revenge you want to see.”

  “Yes, that too. I want to tell my son I saw Robespierre executed—saw his head leave his shoulders, as he took the head from my relatives. I feel it to be a duty.”

  Degan knew that when Mérigot had turned his desire into a duty there was little chance of changing his mind. “Sally and I will go to Belhomme’s.”

  “I can’t go in. I might be recognized by the servants, who were told I am dead and buried,” she said.

  “Degan can do it,” Mérigot said quickly. “Only to ask for Lady Harlock—he can manage that much in French, and she speaks English well enough. Find out from her what hour tomorrow is the best for her and Édouard to slip away, and we will be there waiting with the carriage.”

  “Very well,” Sally agreed, unhappily. Better than Degan did she know the futility of trying to change Henri’s mind once it was made up. “I’ll go and wait in the carriage—it is a quiet part of town. You don’t mind going in alone, Degan?”

  “No, I don’t mind. I think Henry wants to make sure Robespierre really takes his last sneeze.”

  “I have been waiting five years for it,” Henri said grimly.

  “It’s settled then. Minou and I go. You’d better give me some gold, Henri. If getting them out is impossible, we can at least see they can pay another month’s charge.”

  “Don’t let them pay if they are to leave,” Henri said, the habit of thrift having been necessary for so long, it was second nature to him. He gave enough for another month’s charge for the two, just in case. “I’ll meet you and Minou back here later. I’ll likely be here long before you. Well, I’d better be off. I’ll have to walk, as you two will require the carriage. You can handle the horses, Degan?”

  “Yes, certainly.”

  Sally was looking unhappy, frightened. It was obvious she didn’t want Henri to go. Just as he was about to leave, she ran after him and put her arms around him, urging him to caution. “Come back to me,” Degan heard her say in a low tone. He felt a recrudescence of the old jealousy to see them looking deeply into each other’s eyes.

  Henri looked up and caught him out in his observation. “Take good care of her, Degan. By the way, what is your name? It is time we were on a first-name basis, you and I.”

  The irrelevancy of the question coming at such a time surprised Degan. “My friends call me Rob,” he answered.

  “I may call you so?”

  “Certainly.”

  “À bientôt, Rob,” he said, and left with a little salute, and a last chuck under the chin for Minou.

  Mérigot made his way quickly on foot to the Place de la Révolution, seeing for the first time the ruins of the Bastille, the colossal statue of Liberty that had been erected to replace Louis XV on horseback. The general decay of the city saddened him. Like Minou, he was struck with a feeling that France was no longer home to him: unlike her, he had no other refuge waiting, or no comfortable one in any case. The charrettes arrived with him, causing a buzz of excitement. There were twenty-two persons to lose their heads in all, with Robespierre saved for the climax, the star of the show.

  He watched, first revolted, then finding the massacre had numbed his senses. After half a dozen, the procedure was much like beheading chickens. He had often seen that done at home. To pass the time he indulged in a whimsical thought of inventing a miniature guillotine for beheading chickens.

  Not till twenty-one heads had rolled did he come to attention. Sanson, the executioner, reached out and pulled off Robespierre’s bandage from his face at the last moment, and the blood shot forth from the gaping wound in his jaw. This gratuitous cruelty disgusted Mérigot. Soon the blood was coming in greater quantity from the severed head. Sanson held it up for the mob to admire. A roaring shout of approval went up, almost an inhuman sound.

  “It is done,” he said to an old hag, who was cackling gleefully beside him.

  There was a demonic bloodlust in her eyes. She was one of those who never missed an execution. “He died well,” she said approvingly.

  “Yes, he died like a gentleman; a pity he hadn’t lived like one,” Henri answered, then turned and fought his way free from the awful place. The crowd was slow in dispersing, but one man detached himself with alacrity and began dogging Mérigot’s steps. He was not noticed in the milling throng, but he was careful not to lose sight of his quarry. When Mérigot entered the door of the Hôtel des Hosiers, where he was staying, the man dashed off to report to officialdom what he had seen.

  * * * *

  “Six o’clock. We should have something to eat before we leave,” Sally said, as she sat in the room with Degan, waiting for the proper hour for them to go to the asylum.

  “If you like,” Degan answered, but really neither of them felt the least bit hungry. The tight knot of apprehension as a result of what they had seen already, and were likely to see, robbed them of the more mundane sensations. “How about some wine?”

  “That would be better. I’ll ring for it. I see there is a bell pull, not that it necessarily works.”

  It worked—slowly, but eventually a bottle of rather inferior wine sat on the table between them, and they drank a glass.

  “Why was Henri so anxious to see Robespierre die?” Degan asked. “I should think the spectacle he witnessed at the Tuileries would be enough revenge, if that is his motive in going.”

  “That is his motive, but when so many of your family and friends have been killed, apparently it is not enough revenge. He was foolish to go.”

  They drank and chatted listlessly for the better part of an hour, waiting for darkness before going to the rue de Charonne. Twilight was falling as they began their trip to the little-traveled quarter. It would be dark before they arrived.

  Beautiful Paris showed the scars of her recent history. Filth and garbage in the streets, houses uncared for, and everywhere the revolutionary slogan, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Degan drove the team, with Sally sitting beside him on the bench. “What an idea this gives you of Paris,” she apologized. “It used to be beautiful, a happy place. That big building on your left is—used to be—a Benedictine monastery, Bon Secours.”

  “We aren’t sightseeing, as you so often remind us,” he answered.

  “Mon Dieu, non. Maybe one day when the troubles are over you will come back and see the sights.” He wondered that she said “you,” and not “we.”

  “Finding the way is difficult, with every second street name changed, and soon they will be changed again, to be rid of the Hanriots and St.-Justs. First the saints’ names and all references to the monarchy had to go.”

  A few wrong turns were taken, but they continued in the general right direction, and found themselves at last in the rue de Charonne, in front of a small establishment where lights shone, and music was dimly heard from behind the windows. There were a few visitors entering, as the hour for guests was now at hand.

  “You get inside the carriage and wait. I’ll be as fast as I can,” Degan told her, not liking to leave her alone, and wondering that Mérigot would desert them at this critical time. They rehearsed Degan’s speech, and he was off.

  It was an elderly, genteel-seeming woman who answered the knock at the door. “I would like to see Lady Harlock,” Degan said, in his best imitation of Minou’s accent.

  “Lady Harlock? But she is no longer here,” he was told. No speech had been rehearsed to meet this shocking bulletin.

  “What? Where is she? What happened to her?” he asked.

  The woman looked at him sharply at the accent. “You come from England?”
she inquired with a knowing look.

  “No! No, I am a friend from—from the country,” he replied with a guilty start.

  “She has need of friends,” the woman replied. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Madame Belhomme. My husband, you must know, has been imprisoned—sentenced to six years in chains. But I continue with the work of the Maison.”

  “What of Madame Harlock and her son?” he asked, panic robbing him of caution.

  “They are next door—the Hôtel Chabanais. I have been required to expand my operation, with all the souls requiring treatment. Not quite so elegant, next door, but cheaper, and they are safe enough. The son, of course, is not at all well. I have not heard that he is dead, however. You will help them, monsieur?”

  Degan, his head reeling, answered, “Yes, I will help.” Then he went in a daze back to the carriage and told his news. “Minou, I can’t understand. I suspect it’s a trap,” he said. “They say Belhomme is arrested, and a woman claiming to be his wife is running the place. Surely the officials wouldn’t permit such a thing. What do you think?”

  “I must have a peek in the window and see if it is really Madame Belhomme. It seems irregular, but Belhomme might have been arrested for political reasons with no real wish to do him harm or lose out on the business. He pays plenty. The lightness of the sentence—not executed—suggests it. There are many irregular things going on at this time. Come, we take a look in at the windows.”

  Together they crept through the darkness, to stand behind a bush, peering into an elegant saloon, well lit, where several card tables were filled with lively, well-dressed players. The woman who had answered the door sat with one man talking in a corner.

  “That’s Madame Belhomme,” Sally said at once. “The old rogue. It is as I thought. She continues with the work. Probably having an affair with one of the officials to keep the place going. You see that small lady with the large white puff cap on her head? That is the duchesse d’Orléans, and her partner is Rouzet, the former deputy. What a pair, hein? A princess of the royal blood and a deputy. Look, they are having champagne. I wonder where madame gets it at such a time.” As they looked, a wildly staring man in a gray nightshirt roamed into the room, pointing, gesticulating, in a menacing way.