by Anne Perry
She was a sharp-faced woman of almost fifty, her clothes drab, sagging over her thin body. Her eyes narrowed. ‘I know you ... I’ve seen yer somewhere!’ It was almost an accusation.
It was ridiculous to be afraid. There were a hundred reasonable explanations. He swallowed.
‘Probably. I come now and then. Good day, Citizeness.’ He took a step to continue.
‘Just a minute!’ she challenged him, her voice shrill.
Should he stop, or keep on as if he had not heard? No, that would look like running away. And yet why should he stop for her? She was a stranger to whom he owed nothing.
‘What is it, Citizeness?’ Better to placate her if possible. A few yards would make no difference anyway. His heart was pounding and he could feel the sweat on his skin.
‘Yer got a familiar look about yer.’ The woman screwed up her eyes, peering forward. ‘Summink about yer I seen on a poster.’
‘I’ll lay yer odds ’e’s wanted,’ the woman next to her said knowingly, glaring at Georges. ‘Think ’cos we got nothing, yer can come ’ere, live in our ’ouses, an’ eat our bread. Well, yer can’t!’ She stuck her chin out aggressively. ‘We’re just as loyal ter the revolution as anyone! Any o’ them fancy poets an’ lawyers in the Cordeliers! Your days is numbered, they is! Our day’ll come, you see! Marat’s for us. This is our revolution, an’ don’ yer forget it!’
They all moved a little closer to him, their attitude threatening, arms akimbo, faces set.
‘I know it is,’ he agreed, forcing himself to smile. He hoped it did not look as sickly as it felt. ‘Citizen Marat gains more power all the time. One day we’ll have a government truly of the people.’ He did not add that he hardly expected Marat to live to see it.
There was a rumble of assent.
He smiled very slightly and turned away again.
‘Coigny!’ One of the women said loudly. ‘I knew I seed that face somewhere! ’E’s wanted! Grab ’im!’
Georges took to his heels and ran, hearing them shouting after him, at least two of them yelling for the National Guard. He went wide round the corner of the Rue Cambon into a side alley. He shinned up a wall and over the top, dropping down the other side into a stonemason’s yard. He could hear feet in the alley behind him.
There was no time to hesitate. He ran forward again, dodging round the stones, startling a man with a hammer and chisel in his hand. He passed him without a word, and went out of the gates into a side street. Left or right? He did not know this area. There was a thread-work of narrow passages towards the Rue des Capucines. He had gone down one once with Romeuf. He must be sure not to lose his sense of direction and come out again where he went in.
He swivelled on his heel and started running, feet clattering and sliding on the last of the ice. There were more footsteps behind him. He had no idea whether they were anything to do with him or not, and no time to find out. He ducked in a narrow doorway and scrambled up a flight of stone stairs. He put his shoulder against the door at the top and forced it open. There were half a dozen people in the room.
‘Sorry!’ he shouted, half jumping over them and lurching against the wall, regaining his balance and going up another flight of stairs, this time inside. If he could get up and out over the roof he could come down anywhere, the Rue des Capucines, or the Place Vendôme. But he must be quick, or they would have the whole block surrounded and he would be trapped.
He stopped at the top; he could not hear anyone following, only his own breath rasping in his throat. That meant nothing.
He went up another flight and into the attic. Damn! It faced on to the Rue Cambon. He was not even certain he had not been seen. The street seemed to be full of people. Even in one short instant he saw half a dozen red, white and blue cockades.
He stepped back so quickly he almost fell. He burst open the door on the further side and ran to the window. Thank heaven! That looked out over crazily angled rooftops. There was no time to weigh a decision. He opened the casement and clambered out. The slates were wet and he slid several feet before finding his grip and beginning to move sideways along towards the east and the tanneries.
He was watching his handhold and looking towards the outline of dormers and gables beyond, when the first shot crashed on to a slate a couple of yards away. It ricocheted with a sharp whine and ended rattling down into the valley between the roofs.
Georges scrambled forward, up to the ridge as if the devil were behind him. He found strength he never knew he possessed. His fingers reached the ridge tiles and he hauled himself up as the second shot struck a chimneypot and the third splintered a tile on the dormer to his left.
He rolled over the ridge, lost his balance and glissaded down the other side, landing hard at the bottom of the valley, bruising his back and shoulders. But there was no time for thought of injury. He scrambled to his hands and knees, then up to a crouching position, and ran forward as fast as he could to the junction of the next two valleys, looked to see which was the larger, chose it and made his way along it as fast as he could.
He heard gunfire, but it seemed further away now. One more turn and he found a drainpipe. It gave him something to hold on to, to guide himself as far as another ledge, then a ten-foot drop down to the top of a stone stair and into a courtyard.
He landed with a jar which shook his bones. Which way now? His hands were skinned and bleeding. His trousers were soaked with rain. He had very little idea of where he was, or even how far he had come from the queue of women who had started the alarm. His heart was thumping so wildly he felt as if he must be shaking all over and he had to work hard to get enough breath. He was horrified to find his legs were weak.
He felt a sharp stab of guilt for having regarded Célie’s trip over the rooftops so lightly. He had been concerned for her, but had not realised just what risks she ran on his account.
Except, of course, it was not really for him, it was for the cause she believed in, and more than that, underlying everything, the guilt for having betrayed herself by being so much less than she wanted to be. He was incidental; she would have felt the same for whoever it was. That hurt more than he would have expected. He wished it had been for himself, that it was he who mattered to her.
He had had long enough to get his composure back. He could not wait here. Someone would see him and wonder who he was.
He walked past the well in the centre of the yard and out of the arched gateway into the street ahead. Thank God! It was the Rue des Capucines. Opposite was a basket-maker’s shop, then a harness-maker and saddlers, a cutlers, a button-maker on the near side, and a man standing selling copies of a political pamphlet.
The other way there was a currier, a grocer, and a little further along a pewterer. There was a queue outside the grocer. He should avoid that. He started the other way quickly.
He crossed over and headed back towards the Rue St-Honoré.
He kept to the alleys and passages parallel to the main street, fear tensing his body and making his gait stiff and tiring. Every time he heard a shout or saw a knot of people he felt a chill.
The women in the queue would move up as the goods were sold. They would not willingly lose their places. To the hungry, food is everything. In half an hour, or maybe an hour, they would be gone, replaced by others. He would return to the Rue Cambon, perhaps coming from the other direction.
It was nearly ten o’clock by the time he found Romeuf, working at the back of his small shop making candles. The smell of tallow was strong in the enclosed air, but it was at least warm over the vat. Everything seemed to be surrounded by hanging candles, running and dripping pale gobbets.
Georges told Romeuf the news of Bernave’s death. Romeuf was shaken, but it did not slacken his resolve to play his part in the plan, only to change it a little. He would still find a wagon, only a different one. His brother’s stable yard was still the best place to change clothes.
‘It shouldn’t surprise me,’ he said bitterly. ‘I heard whispers. What the hell
is one more disillusion?’ His agreeably ugly face with its broken nose was ghostly yellow in the reflected light. ‘Long ago I believed in the possibility of persuading the King to govern with a parliament, like the British King.’ He was working with the tallow as he spoke. ‘I thought we could institute reforms, get rid of the court at Versailles, the ridiculous privileges of the aristocracy and the financial stranglehold of the Church.’ He kept stirring the liquid. ‘I dreamed of a day free from corrupt taxation and the incessant delays of the law. France is an enlightened country, full of wit and imagination, art, science, literature, music and theatre. It should have a just government for the benefit of all the people.’
Georges made no reply. There was none to make. There had been so many promises, so many steps forward: the renunciation of feudal rights in the National Assembly back in August of ’89, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, Church property nationalised. The next year religious orders had been suppressed, except those engaged in teaching or charitable works. The titles of the hereditary nobility had been abolished. A decree had imposed the civic oath on the clergy.
In ’91 the King had fled to Varennes, and been brought back by force. In September he had accepted the Constitution.
Then it had started to go wrong. The King had gone back on his word, vetoing the decision against the emigrés, then against the non-juring priests.
It had been worse in 1792. In March the ministry had been replaced by the Girondins. In April war had been declared. In June the King had dismissed the new ministry.
In July the terrible Marseillais had marched into Paris. All the Paris sections but one had petitioned for the deposing of the King. An insurrectionary Commune had been formed. In August the mob had stormed the Tuileries and the King had been suspended from all functions. The ministers had all been reappointed.
That same month that Lafayette had defected to the Austrians, the Duke of Brunswick had led his armies across the frontier into France. Longwy had fallen to the Prussians. Verdun had surrendered.
Then had come September ... blood-soaked, nightmare September, never to be forgotten and perhaps not even forgiven either.
On the twentieth, the same day as the battle of Valmy, the Convention had been constituted. The day after, it had abolished the monarchy.
And now in two days’ time the King would go to the guillotine, and France would enter a new age of chaos.
Nature and violence had taken everyone from Georges, almost everyone he loved. The gentle, beautiful world in which he had grown up was lost. Of the past, its ignorance and its beauty, its tarnished understanding, only Amandine was left.
He talked with Romeuf a little longer, then thanked him and took his leave, going out into the alley with his collar turned up as far as possible and his hat pulled down.
He was hungry, but he had only a few sous left. He realised with a jolt just how much he had relied on Célie since September. It was a frightening knowledge. Unconsciously he increased his pace, retracing his steps back towards the Île de la Cité, not sure where he was heading. Dare he go back to the attic in the Cordeliers? Or might the whole area be alerted to watch for him?
But he must. He must check on the safe house at St-Sulpice.
He laughed, and it risked going out of control, hysteria more than humour. What delusions of importance! He was being absurd! The Commune was supreme. In two days they would send the King of France to the scaffold like any common criminal. On the battlefield they were prepared to defy Europe—hopelessly, perhaps, but they did not seem to realise that. What did one minor dissenter matter to them? Fun of the chase, perhaps, but little more, forgotten the moment it was no longer succeeding.
He had eight sous left. If he could find bread, it was usually about three sous a pound, but he was far too late in the day now. To stand in a queue for it was out of the question. Memory of queues pinched his stomach more than hunger.
He went into a café and sat in the corner. He bought a bowl of stew and a slice of bread for four sous, and was glad of the warmth.
He ate alone, careful to catch no one’s eye. Then outside in the cold night air again, he walked towards St-Sulpice. He made his way through alleys and up and down stone steps, through a deserted garden, to find Alphonse le Bon. A month ago, on what used to be Christmas when religion was legal, the two of them had shared half a chicken and a bottle of very good wine.
It began to rain. Was there any point in all their careful checking of details, the miles of walking, the finding of new people, a new wagon, searching Bernave’s room for the passes? Without the man who was prepared to replace the King in the carriage, and die for him when the crowd realised the substitution, there was no plan. Only Bernave had known who he was—that is, if he really existed. They had two days in which to find another.
Georges came across le Bon in the yard behind a hairdresser’s shop. He had a bundle of outdated newspapers and pamphlets in his arms, and looked surprisingly cheerful.
‘Still got your head, I see,’ he remarked with a smile. He was a thin, fair-haired man with a handsome nose. He was probably about thirty. He surveyed Georges up and down as if assessing him for a new suit. ‘You look wet. I might know where I can find a new pair of boots for you, if you like? Your feet are bigger than mine. Commune’s full of boots that should have gone to the army, poor sods!’ He sniffed. ‘But I suppose you know that! I don’t fancy their chances of fighting the Spanish barefoot!’
‘Thank you,’ Georges accepted, although he had no idea if either of them would survive, or meet again to give or take the gift.
Le Bon shrugged, almost dropping his papers. ‘I don’t know why I hang around Paris, except that I’m compulsive about hearing the news, and this is where everything is happening. Centre of the world—at the moment. God knows what it will be next year.’ He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Heap of ruins, I should think. “City of blood, lust and lies,” wasn’t that what Madame Roland called it? Or something like that. I must be mad.’ He smiled cheerfully, but Georges could see behind the mask of humour a deep despair.
He remembered how much he had liked le Bon, how they had laughed together over silly jokes, as if that were all that mattered. For a while they had pretended that the September Massacres and the war and the hunger and chaos did not exist. It had been a supreme act of will, because they both knew so much better.
Instinctively Georges put out his hands to take half the newspapers, and clasped le Bon’s arm.
‘I’ll help you carry them,’ he stated. ‘Wherever you’re going is good enough for me.’
‘Thanks,’ le Bon accepted, passing them over. ‘What the hell have you done to your hands?’ He surveyed the cuts from the slates.
‘Nothing that matters,’ Georges replied with a shrug.
Le Bon smiled, knowing not to pursue it. He gestured to the papers. ‘Roll them up tight, they’ll do a little while as fuel. More use than their original purpose. Did you know anybody talk or write as much drivel in your life?’ He started to walk towards the gate to the alley and Georges went with him. ‘The hot air put out by the Girondins could warm France, if it could only be directed!’
‘If you could face all the Girondins one way at the same time, then you could probably part the Red Sea as well,’ Georges said bitterly.
‘If you could face all the Girondins in one direction it would be a bigger bloody miracle than parting the Atlantic!’ le Bon responded.
Georges laughed; for a moment it rang of true humour.
‘It’s going badly,’ le Bon said. ‘Fellow I know, good man, not frightfully clever, just an ordinary chap, but decent, came back from the Austrian front the other day. Lost his arm. Nobody gives a damn. Said it’s chaos out there.’
They crossed a small courtyard and went under an arch into another alley.
‘No guns,’ le Bon went on. ‘Not much ammunition, short rations all the time. Coats that wouldn’t keep a dog warm.’ He glanced sideways. ‘What’s happened to us, Georges? We had such dr
eams ... but we haven’t made anything any better. It’s worse in some ways. I used to know who my enemies were. Now I don’t even know that.’
‘Marat!’ Georges said helpfully.
‘Robespierre!’ le Bon answered. ‘He doesn’t believe in us any more—hadn’t you heard? The Convention told him we didn’t exist.’ He sniffed. ‘Or perhaps they told us he didn’t? Either way, we don’t know each other any more.’
‘God help us!’ Georges sighed.
He hitched up the papers a little higher. They were heavy and slipping. He had no idea where he was going. He liked le Bon, but time was too short for indulgence of mere conversation.
Georges followed him across a swirling gutter and into the shelter of a vacant, rambling shed.
Le Bon dropped the papers and invited Georges to sit down. An old stove in the corner gave off a little heat.
‘Can’t stay here long,’ he said ruefully. ‘Owner’s away, so it’ll do for a few days. Everything could change by then anyway.’ He peered at Georges in the gloom, trying to read his expression. ‘What’s wrong? You look like hell!’
‘Victor Bernave was murdered last night,’ Georges answered. ‘I need to know if the place in St-Sulpice is still all right?’
‘Was he?’ Le Bon’s voice rose in surprise. ‘By whom, do you know?’
‘No, I don’t ... nor why. What about the house in St-Sulpice? Who else knows of it?’
‘No one. Listen to everything. Say nothing.’ Le Bon began rolling the damp papers up tightly and produced several lengths of string from his pockets to tie them into rough logs. ‘Duplicitous devil, Bernave. I thought he was clever, but looks as if he wasn’t so clever after all. Played them off against each other one time too many.’
‘Off against each other ...’ Georges repeated. ‘Who? Royalists against Commune? Danton against Robespierre? Girondins against each other?’
Le Bon grinned, looking up from his papers. ‘Probably all of that, but mostly royalists against the Commune. Right hand never knew what his left was doing. Pity ... I mean pity he’s dead. He was interesting. He had a sense of humour, of the absurd. Never trust a man who can’t laugh—and cry. And that’s most these days.’