A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

by Hilary Mantel

  DANTON: Because I know them, I suppose, Roland and Brissot. I don’t know the thousand. Call it a failure of imagination.

  ROBESPIERRE: If you couldn’t prove things in court, I suppose you could detain your suspects without trial.

  DANTON: Could you indeed? It’s you idealists who make the best tyrants.

  ROBESPIERRE: It seems a bit late to be having this conversation. I’ve had to take up violence now, and so much else. We should have discussed it last year.

  A few days later Robespierre was back at the Duplays’: his head throbbing from three sleepless nights in a row, a giant hand wringing his intestines. Chalk-white and shaky, he sat with Mme. Duplay in the small room filled with his portraits. He didn’t much resemble any of them; he didn’t think he’d ever look healthy again.

  “Everything is as you left it,” she said. “Dr. Souberbielle has been sent for. You are under a great strain, and you can’t tolerate any disturbance in your life.” She covered his hand with her own. “We have been like people bereaved. Eléonore has hardly eaten, and I’ve not been able to get two words out of her. You must never go away again.”

  Charlotte came, but they told her that he had taken a sleeping draught, and that she should please lower her voice. They would let her know, they said, when he was well enough for visitors.

  Sèvres, the last day of November: Gabrielle had lit the lamps. They were alone; the children at her mother’s house, the circus left behind in the rue des Cordeliers. “You’re going to Belgium?” she said. This is why he has turned up tonight; to give her this news, and then go.

  “You remember Westermann, don’t you? General Westermann?”

  “Yes. The man who Fabre says is a crook. You brought him home with you on August 10.”

  “I don’t know why he says that. Anyway, whatever Westermann has been, he’s an important man now, and he’s come back from the front himself as a messenger from Dumouriez. That will tell you how urgent it is.”

  “Wouldn’t a government courier have been as fast? Has he wings on his heels as a result of his promotion?”

  “He has come himself to impress on us the gravity of the situation. I think that Dumouriez would have come in person, if he could have been spared.”

  “That tells us something. Westermann can be spared.”

  “It’s like talking to Camille,” he grumbled.

  “Is it? Do you know you have collected some of his mannerisms yourself? When I knew you at first you never used to wave your hands around so much. They say that if you keep a pet dog, after a while you grow to look like it. It must be something the same.”

  She got up and moved to the window, looking out over the lawns crisp with frost; a small November moon showed to her a lost drifting face. “August, September, October, November,” she said. “It seems a lifetime.”

  “You like the new house? You are comfortable here?”

  “Oh, yes. But I didn’t think I’d be alone here so much.”

  “You’d prefer to go back to Paris? It’s warmer at the apartment. I’ll take you tonight.”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine here. I’ve got my parents.” She looked up at him. “I will miss you, though, Georges.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s unavoidable.”

  Darkness was gathering in the corners of the room. The fire blazed up; shadows leapt and plunged across his dark scarred face. Carefully he kept his hands still, left fist in right palm, his body hunched forward to the warmth, his elbows on his knees. “We’ve known for a long time that Dumouriez had problems. He can’t get supplies, and the English have flooded the country with counterfeit money. Dumouriez is quarreling with the War Office—he doesn’t like people safe in Paris querying what he does in the field. And the Convention doesn’t expect to see him propping up the existing order as he does—they expect the Revolution to be propagated. It is a complicated situation, Gabrielle.” He reached forward to put another log on the fire. “Beechwood,” he said. “It burns well.” An owl hooted from the copse. The watchdog grumbled under the window. “Not like Brount,” he said. “Brount just watches, he doesn’t make a noise.”

  “So there is an emergency? Dumouriez wants someone to come and see his problems on the spot?”

  “Two of the commission have set out already. Deputy Lacroix and I are to go tomorrow.”

  “Who is Lacroix?”

  “He’s … well … a lawyer.”

  “What’s his first name?”

  “Jean-François.”

  “How old is he?”

  “I don’t know—forty?”

  “Is he married?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “What does he look like?”

  Danton thought. “Nothing much. Look, he’ll probably tell me his life story on the journey. If he does, I’ll tell it to you when I get back.”

  She sat down, hitched her chair around, to protect her cheek from the heat of the blaze. Face half in shadow, she said, “How long will you be away?”

  “It’s hard to say. I might even be back in a week. You can be sure we’ll not waste any time, with Louis’s trial going forward here.”

  “Are you really so anxious to be in at the kill, Georges?”

  “Is that what you think of me?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” she said wearily. “I am sure that, like Belgium and General Dumouriez and everything else, it is much more complicated than I know. But I know it will end with the King’s death, unless someone with your influence takes his part. The whole Convention is to try him, you say—and I know you can sway the Convention. I understand your power.”

  “But what you don’t understand is the consequence of exercising it. Let’s drop the subject, shall we? I have only an hour.”

  “Is Robespierre better?”

  “He is—at least, he spoke in the Convention today.”

  “And he’s staying with the Duplays now?”

  “Yes.” Danton sat back in his chair. “They’re keeping Charlotte away from him. What I hear is, she sent her servant round with some jam, and Mme. Duplay wouldn’t let the girl in. She sent a message back that she didn’t want him poisoned.”

  “Poor old Charlotte.” Gabrielle half-smiled. His face showed relief. She was diverted to the trivial, the domestic: to where he preferred her.

  “It is only two months now. And perhaps a week.” To the birth of the child, she meant. She pushed herself from her chair, crossed the room; she drew the heavy curtains against the night. “You will at least be back to see the new year in with me?”

  “I’ll try my best.”

  When he had gone, she put her head back against a cushion and fell into a doze. The clock ticked on towards the small hours, and embers rustled into the grate. Outside the owl’s wings beat the cold air, and small animals screamed in the undergrowth. She dreamt she was a child again, at morning, in the sun. Then the sounds of the pursuit entered her dreams, and she became, by turns, the hunter and the prey.

  Robespierre to the Convention, January:

  There is no case to plead here. Louis is not a defendant, you are not judges. If Louis can be tried, Louis can be acquitted; he may be innocent. But if Louis can be acquitted, if Louis can be presumed innocent, what becomes of the Revolution? … You have no verdict to give for or against a man, but a measure of public safety to adopt, an act of Providence to carry out … . Louis must die so that the nation can live.

  CHAPTER 4

  Blackmail

  The rue des Cordeliers, January 13: “Do you think,” Fabre asked, “that Mr. Pitt will send us some money? For the New Year.”

  “Ah,” Camille said, “Mr. Pitt only ever sends his good wishes.”

  “The great days of William Augustus Miles are over.”

  “I think we’ll be at war with England soon.”

  “You’re not supposed to look like that about it, Camille. You’re supposed to burn with patriotic fervor.”

  “I can’t see how we can win. Suppose the Briti
sh populace doesn’t rise in revolt, and so on? They might prefer native oppression to liberation by Frenchmen. And now, of course”—he thought of recent decisions of the Convention—”it seems to be our policy to annex territories. Danton approves it, at least in the case of Belgium, but to me it just seems the way Europe has always been run. Imagine trying to annex England. People who bored the Convention would be sent as special commissioners to Newcastle-on-Tyne.”

  “You’re in no danger of boring them, my dear. All my years of careful training, and you never open your mouth.”

  “I spoke in the debate about attaching Savoy. I said that the republic should not behave like a king, grabbing territory. No one took the least notice. Fabre, do you think that Mr. Pitt really cares whether we have Louis executed?”

  “Personally? Oh no, no one gives a damn for Louis. But they think it is a bad precedent to cut off monarchs’ heads.”

  “It was the English who set the precedent.”

  “They try to forget that. And they will declare war on us, unless we do it first.”

  “Do you think Georges-Jacques has miscalculated? He had this idea that he could use Louis’s life as a bargaining point, keep him alive as long as England stays neutral.”

  “I don’t think they care about the man’s life, in Whitehall. They care about commerce. Shipping. Cash.”

  “Danton will be back tomorrow,” Camille said.

  “He must be aggrieved that the Convention has sent for him. Another week and Capet’s trial would have been over, he wouldn’t have needed to commit himself one way or the other. Besides, such a good time he’s been having! A pity the stories had to come to his wife’s ears. She should have stayed in Sèvres, away from the gossip.”

  “I suppose you have not been passing it on to her?”

  “What interest would I have, in adding to their difficulties?”

  “Just your normal day-to-day malice would suffice.”

  “I do no damage. This is damage, this.” He picked up a paper from Camille’s desk. “I can’t read your writing, but I take it the general tenor is that Brissot should go and hang himself.”

  “Ah well. As long as your conscience is clear.”

  “Quite clear. You can see that I am developing a paunch. It shows how comfortable I find myself.”

  “No you don’t. Your palms sweat. Your eyes flit from face to face. You are like a counterfeiter passing his first gold piece.”

  Fabre looked at Camille intently. “What do you mean by that?” Camille shrugged. “Come now.” Fabre stood over him. “Tell me what you mean.” There was a pause. “Ah well,” Fabre said, “I doubt you meant anything, did you?”

  “So,” Lucile said, coming in. “You have been at your meaningless prattle again, have you?” She held some letters, just arrived.

  “Fabre’s had a bad fright.”

  “It’s the old story. Camille has been heaping scorn on me. He thinks I am not fit to be Danton’s dog, let alone his political confidant.”

  “No, that is not it. Fabre has something to hide.”

  “More things than one, I imagine,” Lucile said. “And no doubt they had better remain hidden. Here is a letter from your father. I didn’t open it.”

  “I should hope not,” Fabre said.

  “And here is one from your cousin Rose-Fleur. I did.”

  “Lucile is jealous of my cousin. We were going to be married, at one time.”

  “How quaint of her,” Fabre said, “to be jealous of one woman, and that one so far away.”

  “You can guess what my father says.” Camille was reading the letter.

  “Yes, I can guess,” Lucile said. “Don’t vote for Louis’s death—abstain. You have so often spoken against him, and you have already published your opinion on the case. Thus you have prejudged him, which is excusable in a polemicist but not in a juror. Decline therefore to be part of the process. By declining you will also safeguard yourself.”

  “In case of counter-revolution. Yes, exactly. He means that I could not be charged with regicide then.”

  “The dear, whimsical old man,” Fabre said. “Really, your family are quaint altogether.”

  “Do you find Fouquier-Tinville quaint?”

  “No, I had forgotten him. He becomes a person of consequence. He makes himself useful. No doubt he will soon attain high office.”

  “As long as he remains grateful.” There was an edge to Lucile’s voice. “They can’t bear their subservience to the scapegrace, this family of yours.”

  “Rose-Fleur can bear me, and her mother has always been on my side. Her father, though …”

  “History repeats itself,” Fabre said.

  “Your father couldn’t imagine how we laugh at his scruples here,” Lucile said. “Tomorrow Danton will come back from Belgium and vote to condemn Louis the following day, without having heard a scrap of the evidence. What would your father say to that?”

  “He’d be appalled,” Camille said, seeing it in that light for the first time. “So would I. In fact, I am. But then, you know what Robespierre says. It isn’t a trial at all, in the usual meaning of the word. It’s a measure we have to take.”

  “For the public safety,” Lucile said. This was an expression that was coming up in the world; for the last few weeks it had been on everyone’s lips. “The public safety. But somehow, whatever measures are taken, one never feels any safer. I wonder why that is?”

  The Cour du Commerce, January 14: Gabrielle had been sitting quietly, waiting for Georges to finish sifting through the pile of letters that had come while he was away. He took her by surprise, appearing in the doorway, filling it with his bulk. His big face was deathly white.

  “When did this arrive?” He held the letter out to her, at arm’s length.

  Antoine looked up from the game he was playing on the carpet. “He’s worried,” the little boy informed her.

  “I don’t know,” she said. She looked away from the pulse hammering at his temple. She had seen him for a moment as a stranger might see him, and she was afraid of the violence contained by his massive body.

  “Can’t you remember?” He held it under her nose. Did he mean her to read it?

  “December 11. That’s more than a month ago, Georges.”

  “When did it arrive?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you. Someone has slandered me,” she said. “What is it, what have I done?”

  He crumpled the letter in his fist with a sound of sneering impatience. “This is nothing to do with you. Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

  She looked up warningly, indicating Antoine with a weak little gesture. The child pulled at her skirt, whispering into it: “Is he cross?”

  She put her finger to her lips.

  “Who is the president of the Convention?”

  She tried to think; the office revolved, it changed every fortnight. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, Georges.”

  “Where are my friends? Where are they when I need them? Robespierre would be informed, he only has to snap his fingers for anything he wants.”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous.” They hadn’t heard Camille come in. “I know I should be at the Riding School,” he said, “but I couldn’t bear the speeches about Louis. We’ll go together later. Why were you—” Antoine launched himself from the floor, trampling his soldiers. He ran to Camille, impending screams stiffening his face. Camille picked him up. “What’s happened, Georges? You were fine an hour ago.”

  Gabrielle’s lips parted. She looked from one to the other. “Oh, you were there first. You went to Lucile, before you came to me.”

  “Stop this,” Danton said ferociously. The child began a red-faced wail. His father bellowed for Catherine, and the servant came, clasping and unclasping her hands. “Take the baby.” Catherine made clucking noises, unthreading the child’s little fingers from Camille’s hair. “What a homecoming. You go away for a month and your sons have attached themselves to another man.”

  Catherine carried the child
away. Gabrielle wanted to cover her ears to shut out his panic-stricken screams, but she was afraid to move and make herself conspicuous. Rage seemed to be running from his pores. He took hold of Camille, and pushed him down on the sofa beside her. “Here.” He tossed the letter onto her lap. “From Bertrand de Molleville, the ex-minister, who is now ensconced in London. Read it together. You two can suffer for me for a bit.”

  She took it, smoothed it out on her knee, fumbling with it, then holding it up for Camille’s short-sighted eyes; but he had the gist of it while she was puzzling over the first sentence, and turned his face away, his thin, fine hands flying to his forehead, holding his skull poised as if it were disaster about to break out. “Very helpful, Camille,” her husband said. Slowly she looked away from Camille’s horrified face, and returned her eyes to the letter.

  I do not feel, Monsieur, that I should any longer keep you ignorant of the fact that, among a pile of papers which the late M. Montmorin left in my care towards the end of June last year—and which I brought abroad with me—I found a memorandum detailing various sums paid over to you from the British Foreign Office Secret Fund, complete with dates of payment, the circumstances in which you received them and the names of the persons through whom …

  “Oh yes,” he said, “I am precisely what you thought.”

  She ran her eye down the page: “‘I have a note in your own handwriting … . I hereby give you warning that both documents are attached to a letter I have written to the president of the National Convention …’ Georges, what does he want?” she whispered.

  “Read,” he said. “The letter and the two documents are sent to a friend of his here in Paris, to be forwarded to the president of the Convention, if I do not save the King.”

  Her eyes skimmed over the threat, and the terms: “ … if you do not comport yourself, in the matter of the King, as befits a man whom the King has paid so handsomely. If, however, you render the services in this matter of which you are well capable, be assured that they will not go unrecompensed.”