by Anne Perry
Then early in the morning of Sunday, 2 September, the news had come that the Duke of Brunswick had broken through the French defending forces at Verdun and was marching on Paris. The Commune had sounded the tocsin, and salvos of gunfire had added to the general panic. Notices had been posted around the city reading ‘The people themselves must execute justice. Before we hasten to the frontiers, let us put bad citizens to death.’
What followed then had drenched Georges’ waking thoughts and made nightmares of his dreams. The streets were teeming with people crushed together, sweating in the heat. Georges had been within a quarter of a mile of the prison at the old Abbey of St-Germain-des-Prés. A group of men had been singing that tune which was now more terrible than any words. Even a few bars of it still knotted his stomach.
Then in his mind he was back in the prison of the Carmes again, the smell of dust, closed air, the sweat of terror. Like a tide the rabble had swept in, shouting, bursting open the cells, and gone through and down the fine, curved steps that descended on the other side of the shallow railing into the garden. He saw the marbles above the graves. Even in the stifling heat the white statues were like cold flesh.
It was there, inside the Carmes, that he had seen Bernave for the first time. He must have been caught up by the crowd as well, because he was obviously also a prisoner. He was sitting on the bench opposite, but unlike those to either side of him, he did not betray his fear. He sat upright, hands by his sides, and stared impassively straight ahead, although he appeared to see nothing. His mind was turned totally inward.
Two of the Marseillais had come and hauled away one of the priests. One of those left had crossed himself, his hand shaking.
A moment later another priest had been taken away.
Bernave had turned to Georges, his thick, black hair, unmarked by a tonsure.
‘Are you a Catholic?’ he had asked.
Georges had been startled. ‘No,’ he had said honestly. He was born Catholic, of course, but had long since ceased to believe. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you. If you want absolution, or someone to pray with you, ask one of the others.’ He had jerked his arm to indicate the dozen or so priests still left.
‘It’s a little late for that,’ Bernave had answered. ‘What I want is to get out of here alive, and not be executed for something I didn’t do.’ There had been a curious bitterness in his voice as he’d said that, as if it had some dreadful double meaning. ‘I will swear for you as a loyal supporter of the Commune, if you will do the same for me?’ He had made it a question, spoken under his breath—not that the priests with closed eyes and prayers on their lips had been taking any notice of either of them.
Georges had seized the opportunity. He had had no idea who Bernave was, and didn’t care.
‘Of course. My name is Georges Coigny. What’s yours?’
‘Victor Bernave.’
They had exchanged more information hastily, whispering so low it was beyond the ears of the others in the room. More priests had been taken out. None had come back.
Eventually it had been Bernave’s turn. He’d been led away.
Georges had sat waiting, his mouth dry, his body shaking.
Then the soldiers had come for him. He’d been led into a passageway where a fat man had been sitting behind a table, his belly resting against the edge. His sleeves had been rolled up and his arms stained with blood.
‘Who are you?’ he had demanded.
‘Georges Coigny,’ Georges had stammered.
‘What do you do?’
‘I work for Citizen Bernave, of the Commune,’ he had lied instantly. If Bernave was as good as his word, he might be allowed to live; if not, he had nothing to lose anyway.
‘And what does Citizen Bernave do?’ the man had asked with a sneer.
‘Keep the good citizens of the Commune informed on the actions of their enemies, the enemies of the people and of the revolution and the liberty we are all fighting for,’ Georges had said boldly.
The man had looked sceptical.
Georges had waited, his heart pounding so violently he’d felt as though his whole body were jerking with it.
The man had relaxed at last. ‘So he says. Told me he was a friend of Citizen Marat! Is that true?’
‘Of course,’ Georges had lied again, despising himself for it. How could anyone willingly claim friendship with Marat?
The man had turned to one of the guards. ‘Take him out through the garden ... and let him go. I mean it! He may be a friend of Citizen Marat. Let him go into the street, you hear me?’
‘Yes, Citizen!’
Wordlessly Georges had followed the guard out and down the flight of steps into the garden. The sight that had met his eyes was beyond imagination. Bodies had been lying in heaps, mangled, beaten to death, the dead and the dying together. Some had literally been torn apart. Dismembered limbs had soaked the grass with blood. Entrails had lay on the steps. Already in the heat the flies had begun to gather.
Georges had floundered through it.
He had found Bernave outside in the street, waiting for him. Together they had walked back dazed, in a silent companionship of horror. Near the river they had met a young man, elegantly dressed but his jacket slightly awry, his hair ruffled, his cravat a little to the left. In the strange evening light he had looked like a bedraggled bird. He had regarded them curiously, two men walking side by side, staring ahead, not speaking and yet in some way very much together.
‘Have you had an accident?’ he had asked. ‘There’s blood all over you!’ Then he had looked beyond them at the sky. ‘What’s that?’
Bernave had turned towards the glare, his features lit by it for a moment, showing his clear, almost brilliant eyes. ‘The light?’ he’d asked. ‘Bonfires. They have lit them to see what they are doing, I suppose.’
‘Doing?’ The young man had had an innocent, pleasant face. He’d probably been about twenty-four. ‘At this hour? I say, are you sure you are all right? You look terrible!’
‘Where in God’s name have you been?’ Georges had said hoarsely.
The young man had blushed. ‘Me? To the theatre, and then a party. Why?’
‘To the theatre ...’ Georges had repeated vacuously, hysteria welling up inside him. He had started to laugh and had felt Bernave’s hand like a vice on his arm. He’d stopped suddenly, the pain making him wince.
‘Why? What are they doing?’ The young man had still seemed undisturbed.
‘Do you see that?’ Bernave had pointed downwards. ‘There, running in the gutter?’
The young man had bent forward, his eyes following Bernave’s finger.
‘They are killing all the prisoners,’ Bernave had said, his voice shaking with anger and pain. ‘That is blood you can see. The gutters of Paris are running with human blood.’
From that night had begun the friendship between Georges and Bernave. They had gone back to Bernave’s house in the Boulevard St-Germain and drunk wine together in silence until they’d fallen asleep. The following day they had eaten the last decent food Bernave had in the kitchen, and talked of all manner of things that were good and sane and beautiful, it did not matter from where or when. Gradually they had mentioned other things, regret for the loss of loveliness.
Georges had spoken instinctively of his land and his home, always swift to his mind, the loss raw. They had both mourned that ease of friendship was gone—trust in the passing stranger or the turn of good fortune. Bernave had said something of the quiet certainties of faith no longer being there, in the eye or in the heart. Georges had thought from the shadow of laughter in his eyes that he meant faith of others, but from the sorrow in him, perhaps it was for himself also.
Lastly they had spoken of the King: what a fool he was, and what greater fools were those who would destroy him without the least idea of who or what would take his place.
At the kitchen table, with the sunlight streaming in through the long windows, had been born their determination to try to avert t
he disasters they’d seen ahead for France.
Now Georges was sitting in the grey daylight, shivering and wretched, and all that certainly was shattered, and Bernave himself was dead, whoever, whatever he had been.
He might not be back again. He took the last of his bread and wine and went out into the winter day to check for a last time on the crowd for storming the King’s carriage tomorrow. Then he must get the travel passes. Célie had said St Felix had them. If he waited she would almost certainly come out—she always did, to queue for bread. He would see her and ask her. There might be no other chance. He wanted to see her. It mattered with a breathtaking sharpness he was unprepared for. It was worth the risk, even in daylight, even with Menou’s men in the streets.
He did not say so in words, even to himself, but since they had not found Briard, for whom the fourth pass was intended, it would be the last time. That hurt more than the knowledge of what the crowd would do to him, which would be violent, terrible, but quick, all over in a minute. But he would never be able to say to Célie all the things he wanted to, needed to. They had shared so much that was hard, but the laughter and the gentleness would be denied them, the time to learn the little things that make pleasure unique, to explore joy and pain together, to grow old.
And that was what he wanted, time with Célie, to share anything and everything.
He must not think of it. It was the one regret which would break him. He forced it out of his mind and walked faster.
When he was in the Rue de Seine almost opposite the Bernave house on the Boulevard St-Germain, he saw a man climb out of the window of the front room on to the street. Very carefully peering both ways as if to make sure he was unobserved, he then hurried east, as fast as he could go without actually running.
For a moment Georges had seen his face in the light: a fine, sensitive, intelligent face, about Bernave’s age. Neither his look nor his manner were those of an artisan. There was an innate elegance in him in spite of his very ordinary brown and grey clothes. It must be St Felix. Georges saw instantly why Amandine would be drawn to him.
As St Felix turned into the Rue des Tours, Georges broke into a run himself and went after him. What had happened to panic him into leaving the house? Surely he must realise it would instantly mark him as guilty?
Even as he saw St Felix disappear, Georges heard a voice behind him, sharp with anger. A moment later a shot rang out. However, no bullet passed him. The shot was an alarm rather than an intention to hit anyone.
St Felix was going towards the river and the Île de la Cité. He was crazy. He was going right into the open. He must have lost his head completely to do something so utterly stupid. In the Cordeliers at least he would have a chance.
Georges could see him ahead, moving with a swifter pace now. He could not keep that up for long. From what Célie had said, St Felix was unused to much exercise, a scholar rather than a man of action. He was racing down the Rue Dauphine towards the Pont Neuf and the open river.
There was more shouting behind and the clatter of running feet.
Just before the road end, St Felix dashed across between two carts, was yelled at by drivers, and disappeared into a gateway.
Georges slowed down. Following him would only give away his direction. He looked around quickly. There were half a dozen other people on the pavement but all seemed busy with their own affairs.
A National Guardsman in a torn uniform came up to Georges, panting and clasping his side.
‘Seen a man in a brown coat running, Citizen?’ he asked between gasps.
‘Yes,’ Georges answered unhesitatingly. ‘He went down towards the river, the Île de la Cité.’
The guard raised his hand in thanks and then increased his speed, calling over his shoulder to his men to follow him. Half a dozen others set off at a run, fanning out to cover both sides of the street.
Georges turned back as if going to the Boulevard St-Germain again, still holding his wine and loaf of bread. He cut across the Rue Christine, in the same direction as St Felix had gone. If St Felix had continued moving, he should come out somewhere near the Rue Seguier. If he didn’t, then he had gone to ground. Perhaps he knew someone who would hide him. After dark it would be easier. He might get out of the district altogether.
Georges walked quite slowly down towards the river. The street was quiet. An old man lounged in a doorway. A woman sold coffee, her head wrapped up in a shawl which almost hid her face. Two children quarrelled over who had won a game, and a young man with black hair read a copy of L’Ami du Peuple.
Georges waited ten minutes and was just about to leave, satisfied that St Felix had found a place to hide, when he saw him step out of an alley entrance, glance up and down the street, and then come towards him, walking too quickly.
The young man with the paper looked up at him curiously. Both children stopped their argument and stared.
Georges stepped forward. ‘Oh! There you are!’ he, said boldly. ‘Thought I’d missed you!’
St Felix stopped abruptly, his face white, eyes wide.
Georges pushed the bread into his pocket and strode the last few paces to him and clasped his hand, putting his free arm around his shoulders.
‘Good to see you, my friend,’ he said loudly, then added under his breath, ‘For heaven’s sake pretend to recognise me. It’s your only chance!’
‘Hello!’ St Felix gulped. ‘Yes ... sorry. I went the wrong way. How are you?’ He looked terrible; his body was shaking and his breath rasped in his throat.
‘I’ve been on the run since September,’ Georges said softly. ‘I’m a hell of a lot better at this than you are. Come with me.’ As he said it he started forward, linking his arm in St Felix’s and half pulling him along. ‘We’ve got to get back into the alleys of the Cordeliers. They couldn’t find Marat there, even with three thousand soldiers. We might be just as lucky.’
St Felix kept up with him. ‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘You don’t know me. Why should you care if they catch me or not?’
‘St Felix,’ Georges replied. ‘They want you for killing Bernave.’
St Felix snatched his arm away, his face ashen, the fine lines around his eyes deep-etched. ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘Georges Coigny, Amandine’s cousin,’ Georges replied. ‘For heaven’s sake don’t draw attention to us! Keep your head down.’
St Felix obeyed, but more from alarm than compliance. Together, almost in step, they hurried across the Boulevard St-Germain and into the alley behind the Rue Monsieur le Prince.
‘We’ve got to go west,’ Georges said urgently, ‘otherwise we’ll end up in the Luxembourg Gardens. They won’t be looking for two men.’
‘Why do you bother?’ St Felix asked, but he kept up with him, his head forward, eyes down on the rough stones of the pavement.
A cart rumbled by them, followed swiftly by a high-wheeled single-seated carriage driven at considerable speed. An old woman swore as a spurt of mud sloshed against her. There was a National Guardsman standing at the far corner where Georges and St Felix had passed a few minutes before.
‘Hey you! Stop!’ he bellowed. ‘You in the brown coat!’ He turned sideways to someone out of sight. ‘Michelet! Up here!’
Georges grasped St Felix again and half-dragged him under the archway into a courtyard.
‘We can’t get out of here!’ St Felix accused him, his eyes wide with fear. ‘We’ll be trapped!’
‘Up the steps,’ Georges ordered, waving at the flight of stone stairs that led to a door in the second storey. ‘Come on—hurry!’
‘Where to?’ St Felix demanded desperately, pulling away. ‘We can’t get in!’
‘Yes we can ... get on with it!’ Georges slapped his back hard. ‘Run!’
There was nowhere else to go. They lurched forward and all but collided, stumbling up the steps to the door. Georges beat on it with his fist, still clutching the bottle in the other, and then threw his weight against it. The catch burst and they overbalanced inward
s just as a large woman in a grey dress came out of the room beyond.
‘We mean you no harm, Citizeness,’ Georges said, forcing himself to smile at her dazzlingly. ‘Some drunken louts abused my friend here, and when he answered back they set on us. Flight is the better part of valour.’
The woman looked at St Felix’s pale face with its poet’s mouth and terrified eyes. He seemed to be holding his arms over his chest as if he had been hurt. Actually he was a little winded, but she was not to know that.
‘Please?’ Georges urged, offering her the bottle of wine and the bread.
She closed her eyes and waved an arm in the general direction of the room behind her.
Georges took it for permission, and put the bread and wine on the table. He yanked St Felix forward through the doorway, past a couple of chairs and a table set out in quiet domesticity, into the next room, up a short flight of stairs and threw open the window.
‘Out!’ he ordered.
St Felix swung around, eyes wide. ‘What?’
‘Out!’ Georges repeated sharply. ‘On to the roof. We’ll be out of their sight. They won’t know where we’ll come down. Don’t stand there! Do you want to be shot?’
There was shouting in the street below.
St Felix scrambled through the window and slid down the roof slates awkwardly, only regaining his footing when he was almost at the bottom of the valley. He straightened up and started along towards the nearest divide, quite quickly gaining some skill.
Georges went after him, feeling his feet slip on the wet slates and banging his elbow as he tried to get his balance.
St Felix was already disappearing around the corner of the valley into the angle of the next row of houses. There were more shouts from the street below and half a dozen bullets shot into the air.
Georges let go and half rolled down into the guttering. He landed on hands and knees, then went forward as fast as he could, on all fours, keeping as low as possible. At the corner he saw St Felix ahead of him, crouched, undecided which way to go next.