“It would be wise not to be flippant, General. Think about the Revolutionary Tribunal. I do not think it will make much distinction between failure and treason, and you are the man who has just lost France a battle. You had better be careful what you say to me, because I am here to judge your attitude and report on it to the Convention and the General Defense Committee.”
He was taken aback. “But Danton—haven’t we been good friends? We’ve worked together—in God’s name, I hardly recognize you. What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the effect of prolonged sexual abstinence.”
The general looked up into Danton’s face. It yielded nothing. Again, turning away, he muttered, “Committees.”
“Committees are effective, General. So we are beginning to find. If the members work together, and work hard, then it is surprising how much can be achieved. Committees will soon be running the Revolution. The ministers already act under their surveillance. It is not so important to be a minister, these days.”
“Yes—what did I hear—about the ministers being prevented from going to the Convention?”
“A temporary detention only. The mob barricaded them into the Foreign Ministry to prevent them interfering with the debate. The Minister of War, you may be glad to know, showed a bold martial character, and escaped by vaulting over a wall.”
“This is no joke,” the general said. “This is anarchy.”
“I wanted my measures passed,” Danton said.
Dumouriez allowed himself to fold into a chair. He rested his forehead on a clenched fist. “Christ,” he said, “I’m done for. At my age a man should be thinking of retirement. Tell me, Danton, how is it in Paris? How are all my devoted friends? Marat, for instance?”
“The doctor is the same. A little yellower, perhaps, rather more shrunken. He takes special baths now, to soothe his pains.”
“Any baths would be an improvement,” the general muttered. “Quite ordinary ones.”
“They keep him at home sometimes, the special baths. I’m afraid they don’t improve his temper.”
“Camille can still talk to him?”
“Oh yes. We have a line of communication. It is necessary—his influence over the people has no rival. Hébert dreams that one day he may have as much. But, when you come down to it, people aren’t fools.”
“And young Citizen Robespierre?”
“Looking older. Working hard.”
“Not married that gawky girl yet?”
“No. He’s sleeping with her, though.”
“Is he now?” The general raised his eyebrows. “It’s an advance, I suppose. But when you think of the good time he could have, if he wanted … it’s a tragedy, Danton, a tragedy. I suppose he is not sitting on any of these committees?”
“No. They keep electing him, and he refuses to serve.”
“It’s strange, isn’t it? He wasn’t meant for politics. I’ve never known anyone fight shy of power like he does.”
“He has plenty of power. He prefers it unofficial, that’s all.”
“He baffles me. He baffles you, too, I would suppose. Still, leave that alone—tell me, how’s the beauteous Manon?”
“Still in love, they say. Women in love are supposed to be soft little creatures, aren’t they? You should hear the speeches she writes for her friends in the Convention.”
“Did your baby live?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.” The general looked up. “Listen, Danton. There’s something I want to tell you. But you will have to reciprocate.”
“I love you too.”
“Now it’s you who are flippant. Listen. Pay attention. Roland wrote me a letter. He asked me to turn the armies and march them on Paris. To restore order there. Also, to—as he put it—crush a certain faction. The Jacobins, he meant. Crush Robespierre. And you.”
“I see. You have this letter?”
“Yes. But I won’t give it you. I didn’t tell you this so that you could hale Roland before your Revolutionary Tribunal. I told you to show what you owe to my forbearance.”
“You were tempted to try it?”
“Well, Citizen—how are your friends in Brittany?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come, Danton, you’re too intelligent to waste time like this. You have contacts with the émigré rebels in Brittany. You’re keeping in with them in case they’re successful. You have friends on the Girondist benches and in the House of Commons. You have men with the armies and in every ministry, and you’ve had money from every Court in Europe.” He looked up, propping his chin on his knuckles. “There hasn’t been a pie baked in Europe these last three years that you haven’t had a finger in. How old are you Danton?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Lord. Well, I suppose revolution is a young man’s business.”
“Is there some point to all this, General?”
“Yes. Go back to Paris, and prepare the city for the entry of my armies. Prepare them for a monarchy, a monarchy which will of course be subject entirely to the constitution. The little Dauphin on the throne, Orléans as regent. Best for France, best for me and best for you.”
“No.”
“What will you do, then?”
“I shall go back and indict Roland—and Brissot, too, more to the point. I shall throw them out of the Convention. Robespierre and I will put together our talents and our influence and we will fight our way to a peace settlement. But if Europe won’t make peace—then count on it, I’ll put the whole nation in arms.”
“You believe that? That you can throw the Girondists out of the Convention?”
“Of course I can do it. It may take months, rather than weeks. But I have the resources for it. The ground is prepared for me.”
“Don’t you ever get tired?”
“I’m always tired now. I’ve been trying to struggle out of this bloody business ever since I got into it.”
“I don’t believe you,” Dumouriez said.
“As you please.”
“The Republic is six months old, and it’s flying apart. It has no cohesive force—only a monarchy has that. Surely you can see? We need the monarchy to pull the country together—then we can win the war.”
Danton shook his head.
“Winners make money,” Dumouriez said. “I thought you went where the pickings were richest?”
“I shall maintain the Republic,” Danton said.
“Why?”
“Because it is the only honest thing there is.”
“Honest? With your people in it?”
“It may be that all its parts are corrupted, vicious, but take it altogether, yes, the Republic is an honest endeavor. Yes, it has me, it has Fabre, it has Hebert—but it also has Camille. Camille would have died for it in ’89.”
“In ’89, Camille had no stake in life. Ask him now—now he’s got money and power, now he’s famous. Ask him now if he’s willing to die.”
“It has Robespierre.”
“Oh yes—Robespierre would die to get away from the carpenter’s daughter, I don’t doubt.”
“You are determined to be the complete cynic, General. There is nothing I can do about that. But watch us—we are going to make a new constitution. It will be different from anything the world has ever seen before. It will provide for everyone to be educated, and for everyone to have work.”
“You will never put it into practice.”
“No—but even hope is a virtue. And still, it will add to the glory of our names.”
“We have arrived at the core of you, Danton. You are an idealist.”
“I must sleep, General, I have a journey ahead.”
“You will arrive in Paris and go straight to the Convention, to denounce me. Or to one of your Committees.”
“Don’t you know me better than that? I’m not a denouncer. Though don’t delude yourself—there will be others to do it.”
“But the Convention will expect yo
ur report.”
“It can savor its expectations till I’m ready.”
The general stood up suddenly, trim and alert in the flickering light. “Good night, Citizen Danton.”
“Good night, General.”
“Change your mind?”
“Good night.”
Paris, March 23: “Shh,” Danton said.
“You’re here,” Louise said. “At last.”
“Yes. Shh. What were you doing?”
“Watching from the window.”
“Why?”
“I just had a feeling that you might come home.”
“Have your father and mother seen me?”
“No.”
Marie said, “Oh, Monsieur.” She put her hand over her mouth. “No one told us to expect you.”
“What is all this?” Louise said. She was whispering.
“It’s a secret. You like secrets, don’t you? Are the babies asleep?”
“Of course they’re asleep. It’s past nine o’clock. You mean the secret is just that you’re here?”
“Yes. You’ve got to help me hide.”
He had the satisfaction of seeing her pretty mouth, drop open.
“Are you in trouble?”
“No. But if people know I’m back I’ll have to report straight to the Convention. I want to sleep for twenty-four hours—no Riding School, no committees, no politics at all.”
“It’s what you need, I’m sure. But General Dumouriez—aren’t they expecting to hear what he said?”
“They’ll know soon enough. So you’ll help me to hide, will you?”
“I don’t see how one can hide such a large man as you.”
“Let’s try, shall we?”
“All right. Are you hungry?”
“We seem to be falling into a spurious domesticity,” he said. Abruptly he turned away from her and dropped into a chair, plaiting his fingers over his eyes. “I just can’t think, now, of any way to go on … of how to carry on my life. The only way I can honor her is by sticking to ideas she didn’t share … to say to myself, we didn’t see eye-to-eye, but she valued the truth. By pursuing that truth I move further from anything she believed or would have found acceptable … .” She saw that he was crying. “Forgive me for this,” he said.
She moved forward to stand behind his chair, a hand resting on the back of it.
“I suppose you loved her,” she said. “According to your lights.”
“I loved her,” he said. “I loved her by anyone’s lights. By anyone’s measure. Perhaps there was a time I thought I didn’t, but I know different now.”
“If you loved her, Citizen Danton, why did you spend your nights in other women’s beds?”
He looked up at her for a second. “Why? Lust. Policy. Self-aggrandizement. I suppose you think I’m blunt, insensible? I suppose you think I can tolerate this sort of inquisition?”
“I don’t say it to be cruel. I only say it because you mustn’t start regretting something that didn’t exist. You were dead to each other—”
“No.”
“Yes. You don’t understand what you are. Remember, she talked to me. She felt lonely, she felt under threat; she thought, you know, that you were planning to divorce her.”
He was aghast. “It hadn’t entered my head! Why should I divorce her?”
“Yes, why should you? You had all the convenience of marriage, and none of its obligations.”
“I would never have divorced her. If I’d known she was thinking that … I could have reassured her.”
“You couldn’t even see that she was afraid?”
“How could I? She never told me.”
“You were never here.”
“Anyway, I have never understood women.”
“Damn you,” she said. “You make that a point of pride, don’t you? Listen, I am familiar with you great men, in all your manifestations, and I’m sure I don’t know the words for how you disgust me. I have sometimes sat with your wife while you were saving the country.”
“We have to discharge our public duties.”
“Most of you discharge your public duties by beginning to drink at nine o’clock in the morning and spend your day plotting how you can stab each other in the back and make off with each other’s wives.”
“There is an exception to that.” He smiled. “His name’s Robespierre. You wouldn’t like him. Of course, it never struck me before how we must appear to you—a set of drunken, middle-aged lechers. Well, Louise—what do you think I should do?”
“If you want to save yourself as a human being, you should get out of politics.”
“As a human being?” he queried gently. “What are the other possibilities?”
“I think you know what I mean. You haven’t lived like a proper human being these last few years. You have to get back to the man you were before—” She gestured.
“Yes, I know. Before the folly. Before the blasphemy.”
“Don’t. Just don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing. But your judgements are very harsh, aren’t they? I’m not sure there is much hope for me. If I wanted to abandon my career, I don’t know how I’d begin to do it.”
“We could find a way, if you made up your mind.”
“We could? You think so?”
He is laughing, she thought. “If I had only heard of you, from the newspapers, I should think you were a devil. I should be afraid to breathe the same air as you. But I know you.”
“I see that you have set yourself a task. You mean to save me from myself, don’t you?”
“I was told to. I promised.”
When she thinks about it now she cannot be sure what the terms of the promise were. Gabrielle had bequeathed her children, but had she also bequeathed her husband?
The next morning she instructed the servants strictly. They were to mention to no one that Monsieur was home. She had come down early, before seven. He was already up and dressed, reading his letters. “So you are going out after all, Citizen Danton?”
He glanced up, and saw that she was disappointed. “No, I’m staying. But I couldn’t sleep … too much on my mind.”
“What if people come, and ask if you are back yet?”
“Tell lies.”
“You mean it?”
“Yes. I need time to think.”
“I suppose it would not be any great sin.”
“You are grown very liberal, since last night.”
“Don’t keep laughing at me. If anyone comes, I shall not let them in, and if I meet anyone when I go to do the shopping—”
“Send Marie.”
“I’m keeping her in. She might give you away. I shall say, I haven’t seen you, and you’re not expected.”
“That’s the spirit.” He turned back to his letters. He spoke kindly enough, but there was, too, a hint of weariness and boredom. I have no idea how to talk to him, she thought. I wish I were Lucile Desmoulins.
At nine o’clock, she was back, out of breath. He was sitting with a blank sheet of paper before him, his eyes closed. “Can’t write,” he said, opening them. “Oh, words go down, but they’re hardly soul-searing stuff. Good thing I own a journalist.”
“When are you planning to emerge?”
“Tomorrow, I think. Why?”
“I don’t think you can hide any longer. I saw your journalist. He knows you’re here.”
“How?”
“Well, he doesn’t know, but he thinks you are. I denied it, of course. I’m lucky to be in one piece, I can tell you. He didn’t believe a word I said.”
“Then you’d better go and give him your apologies, and tell him—in confidence—that he is right. Appeal to him to protect me from marauding committeemen—tell him I haven’t decided yet what I ought to do about Dumouriez. And tell him to drop anything he’s doing tonight and come and get drunk with me.”
“I’m not sure I ought to convey that message. It’s dissolute.”
“If you think that’s what people d
o for debauchery,” he said, “you’ve got a lot to learn.”
Next morning, Louise was up even earlier. Her mother came blundering out of her bedroom, fastening her wrap. “At this hour!” she said. She knew very well that Danton’s servants sleep, not in the apartment, but on the mezzanine floor. “You will be alone with him,” she said. “Anyway, how will you get in?”
Louise showed her the key in the palm of her hand.
She let herself in very quietly, opening and closing doors to the study, where Danton would be if he were up; but she doubted he would be. Camille was standing by the window: shirt, breeches, boots, hair not brushed. There were papers all over Danton’s desk, covered in someone else’s handwriting. “Good morning,” she said. “Are you drunk?”
She noticed what a split second it took for him to flare into aggression. “Do I look it?”
“No. Where is Citizen Danton?”
“I’ve done away with him. I’ve been busy dismembering him for the last three hours. Would you like to help me carry his remnants down to the concierge? Oh really, Louise! He’s in bed and asleep, where do you think he is?”
“And is he drunk?”
“Very. What is all this harping on intoxication?”
“He said that was what you were going to do. Get drunk.”
“Oh, I see. Were you shocked?”
“Very. What have you been writing?”
He drifted over to Danton’s desk, where he could sit down in the chair and look up full into her face. “A polemic.”
“I have been reading some of your work.”
“Good, isn’t it?”
“I think that it’s incredibly cruel and destructive.”
“If nice little girls like you thought well of it I wouldn’t be achieving much, would I?”
“I don’t think you can have kept your part of the bargain,” she said. “I don’t think you can have been very drunk, if you wrote all that.”
“I can write in any condition.”
“Perhaps that explains some of it.” She turned the pages over. She was conscious of his solemn black eyes fixed on her face. Around his neck there was a silver chain; what depended from it was hidden in the folds of his shirt. Did he perhaps wear a crucifix? Were things perhaps not as bad as they seemed? She wanted to touch him, very badly, feeling under the pious necessity of finding out; she recognized at once a point of crisis, what her confessor would call the very instant of temptation. He felt the direction of her gaze; he took from inside his shirt a chased-silver disc, a locket. Inside—without speaking, he showed her—was a fine curled strand of hair.
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