A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

by Hilary Mantel

  Robespierre searched his face for some evidence of malice or levity; saw none. “When we were children,” he said, “life wasn’t particularly easy for either of us, was it? But we kept each other going, didn’t we? The years in Arras were the worst, the years in between. I’m not so lonely, now.”

  “Mm.” Camille was looking for a formula, a formula to contain what his instinct rejected. “The Revolution is your bride,” he said. “As the Church is the Bride of Christ.”

  “Oh well,” Adèle said. “Now I shall have Jérôme Pétion looking down the front of my dress and breathing sentimental slogans in my ear. Look, Camille, I’ve understood the situation for weeks. Let this be a lesson to you not to scheme.”

  He was amazed, that she was taking it so well. “Will you go away and cry?”

  “No, I’ll just—do a bit of rethinking.”

  “There are lots of men, Adèle.”

  “Don’t I just know it?” she said.

  “Will you not feel able to see him now?”

  “Of course I’ll feel able to see him. People can be friends, can’t they? I presume that’s what he wants?”

  “Ye, of course. I’m so glad. Because it would be difficult for me, otherwise.”

  She looked at him fondly. “You’re a self-centered little bastard, aren’t you, Camille?”

  Danton began to laugh. “Eunuch,” he said. “The girl should be glad he didn’t carry the farce any further. Oh, I should have guessed.”

  “No need for such unholy jubilation.” Camille was gloomy. “Try to understand.”

  “Understand? I understand perfectly. It’s easy.”

  He went to hold forth at the Café des Arts. He had it on good authority, he told everyone, that Deputy Robespierre was sexually impotent. He told his cronies at City Hall, and a few score deputies of his acquaintance; he told the actresses backstage at the Theatre Montansier, and almost the entire membership of the Cordeliers Club.

  April 1791, Deputy Robespierre opposed a property qualification for future deputies, defended freedom of speech. May, he upheld press freedom, spoke against slavery and asked for civil rights for the mulattos in the colonies. When the organization of a new legislature was discussed, he proposed that members of the existing Assembly should not be eligible for re-election; they must give way to new men. He was heard for two hours in a respectful silence, and his motion was carried. In the third week of May, he fell ill from nervous strain and overwork.

  Late May, he demanded without success the abolition of the death penalty.

  June 10, he was elected Public Prosecutor. The city’s Chief Magistrate resigned rather than work with him. Pétion took the vacant place. Gradually, you see, our people are coming into the power they have always thought is their due.

  CHAPTER 4

  More Acts of the Apostles

  It is the end of Lent. The King decides that he does not wish, on Easter Sunday, to take holy communion from a “constitutional” priest. Nor does he wish to cause protest and outrage the patriots.

  He decides therefore to spend Easter quietly at Saint-Cloud, away from the censorious eye of the city.

  His plans become known.

  Palm Sunday: City Hall.

  “Lafayette.”

  This was the voice the general now associated with calamity. Danton stood close when he spoke to him, forcing him to look up into the battered face.

  “Lafayette, this morning a refractory priest, a Jesuit, said Mass at the Tuileries.”

  “You are better informed than I,” Lafayette said. His mouth felt dry.

  “We won’t have it,” Danton said. “The King has accepted the changes in the church. He has put his signature to them. If he cheats, there will be reprisals.”

  “When the royal family leave for Saint-Cloud,” Lafayette said, “the National Guard will cordon off the area for their departure, and if necessary I shall give them an escort. Don’t get in the way, Danton.”

  Danton took out of his coat—not a firearm, as Lafayette had half-feared—but a rolled piece of paper. “This is a wall poster drafted by the Cordeliers Battalion. Would you like to read it?”

  Lafayette held out his hand. “Some of M. Desmoulins’s instant invective?”

  Lafayette’s eyes swept over the paper. “You call upon the National Guard to prevent the King’s departure from the Tuileries.” His eyes now searched Danton’s face. “I shall order otherwise. Therefore, it is a kind of mutiny you are urging.”

  “You could say that.”

  Danton watched him steadily, waiting for a slight flush along the cheekbones to tell him that the general’s inner forces were in disarray. In a moment, the capillaries obliged. “I shouldn’t have thought religious intolerance was amongst your vices, Danton. What is it to you who ministers to the King’s spiritual needs? As he conceives of it, he has a soul to save. What is it to you?”

  “It is something to me when the King breaks his promises and flouts the law. It is something that he leaves Paris for Saint-Cloud, and Saint-Cloud for the border, where he can put himself at the head of the émigrés.”

  “Who told you that was his intention?”

  “I can divine it.”

  “You sound like Marat.”

  “I am sorry if you think so.”

  “I shall ask for an emergency meeting of the Commune. I shall ask for martial law to be declared.”

  “Go ahead,” Danton said contemptuously. “Do you know what Camille Desmoulins calls you? The Don Quixote of the Capets.”

  Emergency session. M. Danton obtained a majority against martial law, working on the peaceable and the pliable. Lafayette, in a passion, offered Mayor Bailly his resignation. M. Danton pointed out that the mayor was not competent to accept it; if the general wanted to resign, he would have to visit each of the forty-eight Sections in turn and tell them.

  Further, M. Danton called General Lafayette a coward.

  The Tuileries, Monday of Holy Week, 11:30 a.m.

  “It is a piece of folly,” Mayor Bailly said, “to have the Cordeliers Battalion here.”

  “You mean Battalion No. 3,” said Lafayette. He closed his eyes. He had a small tight pain behind them.

  The royal family were allowed to enter their coach, and there they stayed. The National Guard were disobeying orders. They would not allow the gates to be opened. The crowd would not allow the carriage to proceed. The National Guard would not disperse the crowd. The “C Ira” was sung. The First Gentleman of the Bedchamber was assaulted. The Dauphin burst into tears. Last year, or the year before, it might have aroused some compunction. But if they didn’t want to subject the child to the ordeal, they should have taken him back into the palace.

  Lafayette swore at his men. He was quivering with fury as he sat on his white horse, and the animal twitched restively and shifted its feet.

  The Mayor appealed for order. He was shouted down. Inside the carriage, the royal couple gazed into each other’s faces.

  “You pig,” a man shouted at the King. “We pay you twenty-five million a year, so do what we tell you.”

  “Proclaim martial law,” Lafayette told Bailly.

  Bailly did not look him in the face.

  “Do it.”

  “I cannot.”

  Now patience was required. An hour and three-quarters, and the King and Queen had had enough. As they re-entered the Tuileries, the Queen turned to speak to Lafayette above the jeers of the mob. “At least you must admit that we are no longer free.”

  It was 1:15 p.m.

  Ephraim, an agent in the service of Frederick William of Prussia, to Laclos, in the service of the Duke of Orleans:

  For some hours our position was brilliant. I even thought your dear employer was about to replace his cousin on the throne; but now my expectations have altered. The only thing that gives me pleasure in all this is that we have ruined Lafayette, which is a great deal achieved. Our 500,000 livres have been spent more or less for nothing, which is what I find so unfortunate; we sha
ll not have such sums at our disposal every day, and the King of Prussia will get tired of paying out.

  On a fine day in June, Philippe was on the Vincennes road, driving Agnès de Buffon in his English dog cart. Bearing down on him pretty fast was a smart, very large, very new equipage of the type known as a “berlin.”

  The Duke flagged it down with a flourish of his whip. “Hallo there, Fersen. Trying to break your neck, old chap?”

  The Queen’s lover, the thin-faced, supple Swedish count: “Trying out my new traveling carriage, my lord.”

  “Really?” Philippe noted the elegant lemon wheels, the dark-green coachwork and the walnut fittings. “Going on a trip, are you? Bit big, isn’t it? Are you taking all the girls from the Opera chorus?”

  “No, my lord.” Fersen inclined his head respectfully. “I leave them all for you.”

  The Duke looked after the carriage as it gathered speed along the road. “I wonder,” he said to Agnès. “It would be just like Louis to choose a getup like that for a quick sprint to the border.”

  Agnès turned away with an uncomfortable half-smile; it made her afraid to think that Philippe might soon be King.

  “And you can keep that damned pious expression off your face, Fersen,” the Duke announced to the dust on the road. “We all know how you spend your time when you’re not at the Tuileries. His latest woman is a circus acrobat, if you please. Not that I’d wish that Austrian scrag-end to be any man’s sole consolation.” He gathered up the reins.

  The baby, Antoine, woke up at six o’clock and lay watching the sunlight filter through the shutters. When this bored him, he yelled for his mother.

  In a few moments Gabrielle stood over him. Her face was soft with sleep. “Tyrant child,” she whispered. He put up his arms to be lifted. Shushing him, a finger over his lips, she carried him to the big bedroom. A curtained alcove sheltered twin beds, marked off their private territory from the patriotic circus that their bedroom had become. Lucile had this problem, she said. Perhaps we should move, get somewhere bigger? But no, everybody knows Danton’s house, he’ll not want to move. And such an upheaval it would be.

  She climbed into her bed, settled down with the warm little body against hers. In the other bed, his father slept with his face pushed into the pillow.

  Seven o’clock, the doorbell jangled. Her heart jolted with apprehension. It’s too early for it to be anything good. She heard Catherine, protesting; then the bedroom door was flung open. “Fabre!” she said. “My God, what’s happened? Are the Austrians here?”

  Fabre pounced on her husband, pummeled him into life. “Danton, they’ve gone in the night. The King, his wife, his sister, the Dauphin, the whole bloody bunch.”

  Danton stirred, sat up. Immediately, he was wide awake; perhaps he had never been asleep? “Lafayette was in charge of security. Either he’s sold out to the Court, betrayed us, or he’s an incompetent dolt.” He punched Fabre’s shoulder. “I’ve got him where I want him. Organize me some clothes, girl, would you?”

  “Where to?”

  “The Cordeliers first—find Legendre, tell him to get people together. Then City Hall, then the Riding School.”

  “What if they’re not caught?” Fabre said.

  Danton drew his hand across his chin. “Does it matter? As long as enough people see them running away.”

  Very ready, his answers; very neat. Fabre said, “Did you know this was going to happen? Did you want it to happen?”

  “Anyway, they will be caught. They’ll be dragged back within the week. Louis messes everything up. Poor devil,” he said ruminatively. “I feel sorry for him at times.”

  Grace Elliot: “I have no doubt that Lafayette was privy to the attempt, and afterwards, through fear, betrayed them.”

  Georges-Jacques Danton, to the Cordeliers Club: “By upholding a hereditary monarchy, the National Assembly has reduced France to slavery. Let us abolish, once and for all, the name and function of King; let us turn this kingdom into a republic.”

  Alexandre de Beauhamais, President of the Assembly: “Gentlemen, the King has fled in the night. Let us proceed to the Order of the Day.”

  When Danton arrived at the Riding School, with a small military escort, the packed, rumor-ridden crowd cheered him. “Long live our father, Danton,” someone called. He was momentarily astonished.

  Later that day, M. Laclos arrived at the rue des Cordeliers. He looked Gabrielle over carefully—not with lecherous intent, but as if he were assessing her suitability for something. She flushed slightly, and twitched away from his gaze. She thought, these days, that everyone was noticing that she had put on weight. A small sigh escaped Laclos. “Warm weather we’re having, Mme. Danton.” He stood in the drawing room and removed his gloves, easing them off finger by finger, raising his eyes to Danton’s. “There are things we must discuss,” he said pleasantly.

  Three hours later he replaced his gloves by a similar careful process, and left.

  Paris without the King. Some wit hung a placard on the railing of the Tuileries: PREMISES TO LET. All over town, Danton talked about the republic. At the Jacobins, Robespierre rose to reply to him, adjusting his cravat minutely with his small fingers with the bitten nails. “What is a republic?” he asked.

  Danton must define his terms, he sees. Maximilien Robespierre takes nothing on trust.

  The Duke brought his fist down hard on a fragile table, inlaid with a pattern of roses, ribbons and violins.

  “Don’t talk to me as if I were a three-year-old,” he snarled.

  Felicite de Genlis was a patient woman. She smiled faintly. She was prepared to argue, if necessary, all day.

  “The Assembly have asked you to accept the throne, should it become vacant,” she said.

  “There you are,” the Duke bellowed. “You’re doing it again. We’ve established that, haven’t we? We all know that. You are a tiresome woman.”

  “Don’t bluster, dear. Firstly, may I point out that it is unlikely that the throne will become vacant? I hear that your cousin’s journey has been interrupted. He is on his way back to Paris.”

  “Yes,” the Duke said with relish. “The booby. Let himself get caught. They’ve sent Barnave and Pétion to fetch them back. I hope Deputy Pétion is bloody rude to them all the way.”

  Félicité did not doubt that he would be. “You know,” she went on, “that now the Assembly has the new constitution framed and ready for the King’s signature, it—I mean the Assembly—is most anxious for stability. Change has gone so far and so fast, and I believe people are aching for a return to good order. It is possible that a month from now Louis will be replaced firmly on the throne. It will be as if all this had never happened.”

  “But dammit, he ran away. He’s supposed to be King of this country, and he was running away from it.”

  “The Assembly may not put that construction on his actions.”

  “What other is there? Forgive me, I’m a simple man—”

  “They aren’t. They’re really quite ingenious. Lawyers, mostly.”

  “Don’t trust ’em,” Philippe said. “As a breed.”

  “Think then, my dear—if Louis is restored—think how it will antagonize him if you appear so anxious to step into his shoes.”

  “But I am, aren’t I?” Philippe gaped at her. What was she trying to do to him? Wasn’t this what all the fuss was about, over the last three years and more? Wasn’t it to be King that he had endured the company of people who weren’t gentlemen, who didn’t hunt, who didn’t know the nose of a racehorse from its tail? Wasn’t it in order to be King that he had allowed himself to be patronized by that fish-eyed Laclos? Wasn’t it to be King that he had endured that scar-faced thug Danton at his own dinner table, quite blatantly eyeing up his mistress Agnès and his ex-mistress Grace? Wasn’t it to be King that he had paid, paid, paid?

  Félicité closed her eyes. Carefully, she thought. Speak carefully, but do speak: for the nation, for this man’s children, whom I have brought up. And for o
ur lives.

  “Think,” she said.

  “Think!” The Duke exploded. “Very well, you don’t trust my supporters. Neither do I. I have their measure, I tell you.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You think I’d let those low types push me around?”

  “Philippe, you’re not the man to set limits to their ambition. They’ll swallow you up, you and your children—and everything, everybody that is close to your heart. Don’t you realize that the men who can destroy one King can destroy another? Do you think they’d have any scruple, if you didn’t do everything exactly as they wished? And you’d only be, at best, a stop gap for them—until they felt they could get along without you, till they felt they didn’t need any King at all.” She took a breath. “Think back, Philippe—think back to before the Bastille fell. Louis used to tell you, go here, go there—come back to Versailles, keep away from Versailles—you know how it was? Your life wasn’t your own, you used to say. You had no freedom. Now, from the moment you say, ‘Yes, I want to be King,’ you give your freedom away again. From that day on, you will be in prison. Oh, not a prison with bars and chains—but a pleasant gaol that M. Danton will make for you. A gaol with a civil list and protocol and precedent and the most charming social occasions, ballets and masked balls and, yes, even horse-racing.”