A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

by Hilary Mantel

  Camille made a gesture of irritation. “Of course it can be avoided. Go back to your apartment and burn anything you think might be incriminating. Be very careful, because you notice that as the Revolution goes on there are new crimes. Pack only what you need, you mustn’t look as if you’re going anywhere. Later you can give me your keys and I’ll see to everything after—I mean, next week. Don’t come back here, we have several of the Marseille men invited for an early supper. Go to Annette Duplessis, stay there till I come. When you get there sit down and prepare for me a very clear statement of how you want your financial affairs to be handled. But dictate it, it shouldn’t be in your own hand, my father-in-law will take it down for you and he will give you his advice. Don’t sign it, and don’t leave it lying around. Meanwhile I’ll get you a passport and some papers. You speak English, don’t you?”

  “You’ve really got into the habit of giving orders. One would suppose you were used to banishing people.”

  “For God’s sake, Louis.”

  “Thank you, but no.”

  “Then”—he was pleading—“if you won’t do that, just come back here at nine o’clock this evening, I’ll divert people tomorrow. You won’t be seen. At least you’ll have a chance.”

  “But Camille, the risk to you—you could get into trouble, terrible trouble.”

  “You won’t come, will you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why enlarge on the theme?”

  “Because I’m afraid of what may happen to you. You have no duty to me. We found ourselves—no, we put ourselves—on opposite sides. I never expected, I never dreamed, that our friendship could last so long with circumstances as they are.”

  “You didn’t think that once—you laughed, and said people were above politics.”

  “I know. ‘Liberty, Gaiety, Royal Democracy.’ I believed in my slogan, but I don’t anymore. There won’t be any royalty and personally I think precious little liberty and there’ll always be war and civil war, so I don’t give gaiety much of a chance either. You must see that from now on—after tomorrow, I mean—personal loyalty will count for very little in people’s lives.”

  “You are asking me to accept that because of the Revolution—because of what you suppose the Revolution to be—I must stand by while someone I love is destroyed by his own stupidity.”

  “I don’t want you to think about it, afterwards.”

  “I’ll stop you doing this. I’ll have you arrested tonight. I won’t let you kill yourself.”

  “You wouldn’t be doing me a favor. I’ve cheated the Lanterne so far, and I don’t want to be dragged out of prison and lynched. That’s not a death fit for a human being. I know that you could have me arrested. But it would be a betrayal.”

  “Of?”

  “Of principle.”

  “Am I a principle to you, and are you a principle to me?”

  “Ask Robespierre,” Louis said wearily. “Ask the man with the conscience which is more important, your friend or your country—ask him how he weighs an individual in the scheme of things. Ask him which comes first, his old pals or his new principles. You ask him, Camille.” He stood up. “I wondered whether I should come here at all—whether it might make difficulties for you.”

  “No one can make difficulties for me. There is no authority that can do it.”

  “No, I suppose it is coming to that. Camille, I’m sorry I never saw your little boy.”

  He held his hand out. Camille turned away from it. Louis said, “Father Bérardier is in prison, love. Will you see if you can get him out?”

  His face averted, Camille said, “This supper with the Marseille people will be over by 8:30, always assuming that they don’t sing. After that I’ll be with Danton, wherever he is. You could go to his apartment at any time. Neither he nor his wife would give you away.”

  “I don’t know Danton. I’ve seen him, of course, but I’ve never spoken with him.”

  “You don’t have to have spoken with him. Just tell him I want you safe. That you’re one of my whims.”

  “Would you look at me?”

  “No.”

  “Are you pretending to be Lot’s wife?”

  Camille smiled, turned. The door closed.

  “I don’t think I should try to get back to Fontenay,” Angélique said. “Victor will put me up. Would you like to go and see your uncle?”

  “No,” Antoine said.

  Danton laughed. “He’s a fighter, he wants to stay.”

  “Will they be safe at Victor’s?” Gabrielle looked ill, sallow with strain.

  “Yes, yes, yes. Would I let them go otherwise?” Ah, Lolotte, there you are.

  Lucile swirled across the room, put her hands on Danton’s shoulders. “Stop looking worried,” she said. “We’ll win. I know it.”

  “You’ve had too much champagne.”

  “I am indulged.”

  He dropped his head to whisper into her hair, “I wish you were mine to indulge.” She pulled away, laughing.

  “How can you?” Gabrielle demanded. “How can you laugh?”

  “Why not, Gabrielle? I’m sure we’ll all be crying soon enough. Perhaps tonight.”

  “What do you want to take?” Angélique asked the little boy loudly. “Do you want to take your spinning top? Yes, I think perhaps you do.”

  “Keep him warm,” Gabrielle said automatically.

  “My dear girl, it’s stifling, he’s more likely to suffocate than take cold.”

  “All right, Mother. I know.”

  “Walk a little way with her,” Danton said. “It’s still light.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Oh, come.” Lucile hauled her bodily from her chair. Angélique was faintly annoyed. All these years, and her daughter had still not learned when men wanted to get rid of women. Was it an incapacity, or a constantly stated objection to the situation? At the door Angélique turned. “I suppose it’s needless to say take care, Georges?” She nodded to Camille, and shepherded the younger women out.

  “What a way to put it,” Danton said. From the window they watched the child’s progress across the Cour du Commerce, great leaps sustained by the arms of his mother and grandmother. “He wants to get round the corner without his feet touching the ground.”

  “What a good idea,” Camille said.

  “You don’t look happy, Camille.”

  “Louis Suleau came.”

  “Ah.”

  “He intends to join the resistance at the palace.”

  “More fool him.”

  “I told him to come here if he changes his mind. Was that the right thing to do?”

  “Risky, but morally impeccable.”

  “Any problems?”

  “None so far. Seen Robespierre?”

  “No.”

  “If you do, keep him out of my way. I don’t want him at my elbow tonight. I may have to do things that will offend his delicate sense of propriety.” He paused. “We can count the hours now.”

  At the Tuileries the courtiers prepared for the ceremony of the King’s coucher. They greeted each other formally, in the time-honored way. Here was the blue blood who received the royal stockings, warm from the royal calf; here was the grandee whose task was to turn down the royal coverlet; here was the thoroughbred who handed—as his father did before him, his father before that—the royal nightshirt, and assisted Louis Capet to settle it about his blue-white, corpulent torso.

  They followed Louis’s slumped shoulders, arranging themselves to enter the bedchamber in the due order. But the King turned to them his pale, full, anxious face—and slammed the door on them.

  The aristocrats stood looking at each other. Only then did the enormity of events become plain. “There is no precedent for it,” they whispered.

  Lucile touched Gabrielle’s hand, for comfort. There were a dozen people in the apartment, and a stack of firearms on the floor. “Bring more lights,” Danton said, and Catherine brought them, dough-faced, eyes averted, so that
new shadows danced across the ceiling and walls.

  Louise Robert said, “Can I stay here, Gabrielle?” She wound her shawl about her, as if she were cold.

  Gabrielle nodded. “Must these guns stay here?”

  “Yes, they must. Don’t go tidying them up, woman.”

  Lucile threaded her way across the room to her husband. They spoke in low, small voices. Then she turned away, calling Georges, Georges; her head ached now, that fuzzy champagne kind of headache that you feel you could brush away, and there was a knot of tension in her throat. Without looking at her Danton broke off his conversation with Fréron, put an arm around her and pulled her close to him. “I know, I know,” he said. “But you must be strong, Lolotte, you are not a silly girl, you must look after the others.” His face was distant, and she wanted all his attention, to fix herself finally in his mind, her priority, her need. But he might have been down the street somewhere; his mind was at the Tuileries, at City Hall, and his mouth issued automatic words of comfort.

  “Please take care of Camille,” she said. “Please don’t let anything happen to him.”

  He looked down at her now, somber, giving her request consideration; he wanted to give her an honest answer.

  “Keep him with you,” she said. “I beg of you, Georges.”

  Fréron put a hand on her elbow, tentative; her arm shrank away from it. “Lolotte, we all look out for each other,” he said. “It’s the best we can do.”

  She said, “I want nothing from you, Rabbit. You just take care of yourself.”

  “Listen now.” Danton’s blue eyes fixed her, and she thought she heard those familiar words, I am going to speak to you as if you were grown up. But he did not say that. “Listen now, when you married Camille you knew what it meant. You have to choose, a safe life, or a life in the Revolution. But do you think I would ask him to take any unnecessary risk?” His eyes traveled to the clock, and she followed them. We shall measure our survival by that clock, she thought. It had been a wedding gift to Gabrielle; its hands were pointed, delicate fleur-de-lis—’86,’ 87. Georges had been King’s Councillor. Camille had been in love with her mother. She had been sixteen. Danton touched her forehead with his scarred lips. “Victory would be ashes,” he said. He could of course have driven a bargain with her. But he was not that sort of man.

  Fréron picked up a gun. “For my part,” he said, “I wouldn’t be sorry if it ended tonight.” He glanced at Lucile. “I see little point in my life as I live it now.”

  Camille’s voice across the room, acidly solicitous: “Rabbit, I didn’t realize you felt like that, is there anything I can do?”

  Someone sniggered. Lucile thought, I can’t help it if you’re in love with me, you should have more sense, you do not hear Hérault saying his life is over, you do not hear Arthur Dillon say it, they know when a game is a game. This is no game, now; this has nothing to do with love. She raised her hand to Camille. She felt she ought to salute. Then she turned away and walked into the bedroom. She left the door slightly ajar; a little light penetrated from other rooms, and the odd muted syllable of conversation. She sat down on a couch, leaned back and began to doze—a post-party doze, full of fragmentary dreams.

  “The Great Council Chamber, Monsieur.” Pétion was making for the royal apartments, sash of office round substantial chest. The aristocrats removed themselves from his path as he walked.

  He reached the outer galleries. “May I inquire why all you gentlemen are standing around?” His tone suggested that he was addressing performing apes, and did not expect an answer.

  The first ape who stepped forward was at least eighty years old—a quavering, paper-tissue ape, with orders of chivalry, which Pétion could not identify, gleaming on his breast. He made a courteous little bow. “M. Mayor, one does not sit in or near the royal apartments. Unless specifically commanded to do so. Did you not know this?”

  He cast a glance of distress at his companions. A small ceremonial sword hung at his withered shank. They all wore them, all the trained apes. Pétion snorted and strode on.

  The King looked dazed; he was accustomed to a long sleep, to his regular hours. Antoinette sat very upright, her Hapsburg jaw clenched; she looked precisely as Pétion had expected her to look. Pierre-Louis Roederer, a high official of the Seine département, was standing by her chair. He was holding three massive bound volumes and talking to the Marquis de Mandat, Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard.

  Pétion bowed, but not profoundly; not in any sense obsequiously.

  PÉTION: What’s that you have there, Roederer? You’re not going to need law books tonight.

  ROEDERER: I wondered, if it became necessary to declare martial law within the city boundaries, whether the département has the authority to do it.

  MME. ELISABETH: Has it?

  ROEDERER: I don’t think so, Madame.

  PÉTION: I have that authority.

  ROEDERER: Yes, but I thought I’d check in case you were—detained in some way.

  KING [heavily]: As on June 20.

  PÉTION: Forget your law books. Throw them away. Burn them. Eat them. Or you might like to keep them to hit people over the head with. Better than those toothpicks they’re all wearing.

  MANDAT: Pétion, you do grasp the fact that you’re legally responsible for the defense of the palace?

  PÉTION: Defense against what?

  QUEEN: The insurrection is being organized under your very eyes.

  MANDAT: We have no ammunition.

  PÉTION: What, none at all?

  MANDAT: Not nearly enough.

  PÉTION: How improvident.

  Gabrielle sat down with a rustle of skirts. Lucile woke with a gasp. “It’s only me,” Gabrielle said. “They’ve gone.”

  Louise Robert sank to the floor in front of her, took both her hands and squeezed them. “Will they ring the tocsin?” Lucile asked.

  “Yes. Very soon.”

  Anticipation tightened the back of her neck. She put up a hand to her face and tears spilled between her fingers.

  At midnight Danton came back. Gabrielle jumped up in alarm when they heard his footsteps, and they scurried after her into the drawing room.

  “Why are you back so soon?”

  “I told you I would be. If everything’s going smoothly, I said, I’ll be back for midnight. Why do you never believe anything I say?”

  “Then it is going smoothly?” Louise demanded. He looked at them, irritated. They were his problems.

  “Of course. Or would I be here?”

  “Where’s François? Where have you sent him?”

  “How the hell do I know where he is? If he’s where I left him, he’s at City Hall. And the place isn’t on fire, and there’s no shooting.”

  “But what are you doing?”

  He resigned himself. “There is a large body of patriots at City Hall. They are shortly going to take over from the existing Commune and call themselves the Insurrectionary Commune. Then the patriots will have de facto control of the city.”

  Gabrielle: “What does de facto mean?”

  “It means they’ll do it now and make it legal later,” Lucile said.

  Danton laughed. “Your turn of phrase, these days, Madame! We can tell what marriage has done for you.”

  Louise Robert said, “Don’t patronize us, Danton. We understand what the plan is, we just want to know whether it’s working or not.”

  “I’m going to get some sleep,” Danton said. He walked into the bedroom they had just left and slammed the door. Fully clothed, he lay down: staring at the ceiling, waiting for the tocsin to ring, waiting for the alarm signal that would bring the people surging out into the streets. The clock struck; it was August 10.

  Perhaps two hours later, they heard someone at the door; and Lucile shadowed Gabrielle as she answered it.

  There was a little group of men outside. They had been very quiet on the stairs. One stepped forward: “Antoine Fouquier-Tinville. For Danton, if you please.” His courtesy wa
s automatic and very brisk; courtroom politeness.

  Gabrielle stood aside. “Must I wake him?”

  “Yes, we need him now, my dear. It’s time.”

  She indicated the bedroom. Fouquier-Tinville inclined his head to Lucile. “Good morning, cousin.”

  She nodded nervously. Fouquier had Camille’s thick, dark hair and dark skin; but the hair was straight, the face was hard, the lips were thin and set for crises, for bad situations becoming worse. Possible, yes, to trace a family likeness. But when you saw Camille you wanted to touch him; when you saw his cousin, that was not your reaction.

  Gabrielle followed the men into the bedroom. Lucile turned to Louise Robert, opened her mouth to make some usual kind of remark: was shocked by the violence in her face. “If anything happens to François, I’ll put a knife in that pig myself.”

  Lucile’s eyes widened. The King? No: Danton was the pig she meant. She could not think of an answer.

  “Did you see that man? Fouquier-Tinville? Camille says all his relations are like that.”

  They heard Danton’s voice, intermittently, between the others: “Fouquier—first thing tomorrow—but wait—and getting to the Tuileries at the right time, Pétion should know—cannon on the bridges—tell him to hurry it up.”

  He came out, hauling his cravat into place, skimming his fingers over his bluish chin. “Georges-Jacques,” Lucile said, “What an unregarding tough you look. A proper man of the people, I do declare.”

  Danton grinned. He put a hand on her shoulder, squeezed it; so jovially, so painfully, that she almost cried out. “I’m going now. City Hall. Otherwise they’re going to keep running up here—”He paused at the door. He was not going to kiss his wife and have her start crying. “Lolotte, you look after things here. Try not to worry too much.” They heard him striding down the stairs.

  “All right, little man?”