David of the Police Committee called, with another deputy, and demanded to see Danton on business. Angélique showed them the door. As they departed, with certain ungallant threats, squawking about their authorization, Angélique said something dark in Italian. They don’t, she said, plan that he should have an easy time when he recovers.
At the Desmoulins’s apartment, Fabre sat and worked himself into a panic. “If we are to have fixed prices,” he said, “then we must have fixed wages. What I want to know is, what’s the official daily rate for a spy? How, please, are we going to win any battles when so much of the able-bodied population is employed in spying for the Committee?”
“Are they spying on you?”
“Of course they are.”
“Have you told Robespierre?”
Fabre looked at him wildly. “Tell him how? Tell him what? My affairs are so complicated that I lie awake at night trying to explain them to myself. I am being harassed. I am being forced into difficulties. Do you think that officious chit will let me see Georges?”
“No. Anyway, why should he listen? If you can’t tell Robespierre, why should Georges concern himself?”
“There are reasons.”
“You mean you’ve already dragged his name into it.”
“No. I mean he is under certain obligations to me.”
“I should have thought it was the other way around, and I should have thought that one of your obligations would have been to keep him out of any consequences of your inept fumbling with the stock market.”
“There’s more to it than that, it’s—”
“Fabre, don’t tell me. I’d rather not know.”
“It won’t be any use your saying that to the police.”
Camille put his finger to his lips. Lucile came in. “I heard,” she said.
“Just Fabre’s shock tactics. He loses his head.”
“That is an unfortunate phrase,” Lucile said.
Fabre jumped up. “You’re persecuting me. Your hands aren’t so clean. My God,” he said. He drew his finger across his throat. “When you fall between two stools, Camille, nobody’s going to help you up. They’re just going to stand and laugh.”
“He waxes metaphorical,” Lucile said.
“The whole thing—” Fabre made a shape with his hands, and then exploded it—“the whole thing is splitting apart like rotten fruit.” Suddenly he was beside himself. “For God’s sake, Camille, put in a good word for me with Robespierre.”
“Yes, all right,” Camille said hurriedly. He wanted to placate him, stop him continuing the scene in front of Lucile. “Do keep your voice down, the servants can hear you. What do you want me to say to Robespierre?”
“If my name should come up,” Fabre said, breathing hard, “just drop into the conversation that I’ve—that I’ve always been a patriot.”
“Sit down and calm yourself,” Lucile suggested.
Fabre looked round, distractedly. He seized his hat. “Got to go. Beg your pardon, Lucile. See myself out.”
Camille followed him. “Philippe,” he whispered, “there are a lot of what Robespierre calls small fry who have to be landed before you need worry. Try to ride this out.”
Fabre’s mouth opened a fraction. “Why did you call me that? Why did you call me by my first name?”
Camille smiled. “Take care,” he said.
He returned to Lucile. “What were you whispering?” she asked.
“Consolation.”
“You are not to keep things from me, please. What has he done?”
“In August—you have heard of the East India Company? Good, because we have made quite a lot of money out of it. You remember the share prices fell, then they went up again—it was just a matter of buying and selling at the right time.”
“My father mentioned it. He said he expected you did very well out of it. My father has some respect for your inside information, but he says, in my day, of course, they would simply have been called crooks, but in my day the august and virtuous members of the National Convention didn’t exist to set these things up for each other.”
“Yes, I can imagine your father saying that. Does he know how it was managed?”
“Probably. But don’t try and explain it to me. Just tell me the consequences.”
“The company was to be liquidated. There was a discussion in the Convention about how it was to be done. Perhaps the liquidation was not carried out in quite the way the Convention intended. I don’t know.”
“But you do know, really?”
“Not the details. It does seem that Fabre may have broken the law—which we didn’t do in our earlier dealings—or he may be about to break it.”
“But he spoke as if you were threatened, and Danton.”
“Danton might be implicated. Fabre is saying, you understand, that investigation into Danton’s affairs might not be a good thing.”
“Surely,” she struggled for some tactful way of putting it, “wouldn’t Danton evade—I mean, he’s adept at shifting the blame?”
“Fabre is his friend, you see. When we were at the ministry I tried to warn him that Fabre was exceeding what were more or less agreed limits. He said, ‘Fabre is my friend and we’ve been through a lot together. We know a lot about each other too.’”
“So Georges will protect him?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want either of them to tell me anything about it. If they do I will feel bound to tell Robespierre, who will feel bound to tell the Committee.”
“Perhaps you should. Tell Robespierre. If there’s any danger you could be dragged into it, it might be better if you were the one to uncover it.”
“But that would be helping the Committee. And I don’t feel like helping the Committee.”
“If the Committee is our only chance of firm government, isn’t it irresponsible not to help it?”
“I loathe firm government.”
“When will the big trials begin?”
“Soon. Danton won’t be able to hold things up now, he’s too ill. And Robespierre won’t, not on his own.”
“I suppose we still welcome the trials?”
“How not? Royalists, Brissotins …”
Law of Suspects. Suspects are those: who have in any way aided tyranny (royal tyranny, Brissotin tyranny …); who cannot show that they have performed their civic duties; who do not starve, and yet have no visible means of support; who have been refused certificates of citizenship by their Sections; who have been removed from public office by the Convention or its representatives; who belong to an aristocratic family, and have not given proof of constant and extraordinary revolutionary fervor; or who have emigrated.
It will be alleged later (by Citizen Desmoulins) that 200,000 people are detained under this law. The Watch Committee in each Section is to draw up lists of suspects, take away their papers and detain them in a secure place. These places will be called “National Buildings”—convents, vacated châteaux, empty warehouses. Collot d’Herbois has a better idea. He suggests that suspects be herded into mined houses, which can then be blown up.
Since he became a member, Collot no longer criticizes the Committee of Public Safety. When he enters the Committee’s chambers, Citizen Robespierre leaves, if he can, by another door.
Decree of the National Convention: “The government of France is revolutionary until the peace … . Terror is the order of the day.”
Antoine Saint-Just: “You must punish anyone who is passive in the affairs of the Revolution and who does nothing for it.”
“So they’ve changed the calendar,” Danton said. “It’s too much for an invalid.”
“Yes,” Camille said. “The week now has ten days. It is tidier, and very good for the war effort. Our dates now run from the foundation of the Republic, so we are in Month I, Year II. But Fabre has been asked to think up some ridiculous poetic names for the months. He plans that the first should be Vendémiaire. Then today,” Camille frowned, “yes, today would be 19 Vendémiaire.”
/>
“In my household, it remains October 10.”
“You had better learn it. We are supposed to put it on official letters.”
“I have no plans,” Danton said, “for writing official letters.”
He was out of bed, but he spoke and moved slowly; occasionally he let his head fall against the back of his chair, and closed his eyes for a moment.
“Tell me about the battle near Dunkirk,” he said. “When I left the world, it was being hailed as a great victory for the Republic. Now I hear that General Houchard is under arrest.”
“The Committee and the War Office put their heads together. They decided he could have inflicted more damage on the enemy. They are charging him with treason.”
“And yet it was the Committee who appointed him. There were scenes in the Convention, I suppose.”
“Yes, but Robespierre had the best of it.”
“He has become a very good committeeman.”
“He undertook it, and he does everything well.”
“I must leave him to it. They say I am fit to travel now. Will you come out to Arcis, as soon as you have a few spare days?”
“There are no spare days.”
“I know that dire turn of phrase. You have been seeing too much of Robespierre.”
“Georges, do you know about Deputy Julien?”
“No.”
“Does Louise let you have no news?”
“I don’t think that anything that Julien did would seem of the least importance to her. I don’t think she knows he exists.”
“The police have raided his apartment. They’ve impounded his papers.”
He opened his eyes. “And?”
“Chabot took me aside. He said, ‘I’ve burned everything, you know.’ I imagine that was a message I was meant to pass on to you.”
Danton hunched his body forward. Attention broke into his eyes: like the shattering of glass. “Fabre?”
“Fabre has been panicking.”
“Fabre has an excitable temperament.”
“So have I, Georges-Jacques, so have 1. What am I expected to do? I think Fabre has committed a forgery. When the East India Company was liquidated, I think certain documents were falsified in the company’s interests. These documents were decrees of the Convention, and only a deputy would be able to do it. Chabot is involved, perhaps half a dozen other people. They themselves don’t know, I think, who did the actual falsification. Julien might blame Chabot, Chabot might blame Julien. They have secrets, one from the other.”
“But Fabre has confessed to you?”
“He’s tried. I won’t let him. I tell him I mustn’t know. What I am telling you is just what I have been able to work out. It will take longer for the police to come to their conclusions. And to collect evidence, that will take longer still.”
Danton closed his eyes. “The harvest will be in,” he said. “We have nothing to do but to keep ourselves warm for the winter.”
“There are other things you should know.”
“Get them over with.”
“François Robert is in trouble. Does she tell you nothing?”
“She wouldn’t know that was important, either. He isn’t involved in this?”
“No—it’s the most ridiculous thing—he’s been accused of dealing on the black market. Eight barrels of rum. For his shop.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Danton said. He hit the arm of his chair. “You offer them a chance to make history, and they prefer to remain grocers.”
Louise ran in. “You were not to upset him!”
“I line their pockets. I don’t ask them to exert themselves. I raise them to office and I accede to their little whims. All I ask is their vote, an occasional speech—and that if they choose to become petty criminals they leave me out of it.”
“The rum is petty. The East India Company is not. But still, François Robert is our associate. It reflects on us. Will you send your wife away, please?”
“You were told to keep calm,” she said mutinously.
“You can leave us, Louise. I’ll be calm. I promise. I’m quite calm now.”
“What are you trying to keep from me?”
“No one is keeping anything from you,” Camille said. “It is not worth the trouble.”
“She’s a child. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know who these people are.”
“It was our own Section, the Cordeliers, who denounced François. The Convention agreed with you that it was petty. They refused to lift his immunity. Otherwise—the penalties are severe. He and Louise will have to creep away now and try to be forgotten.”
“What a way to end up,” Danton said. His expression was morose. “I think back to those days after the Bastille fell, the Mercure Nationale run from the back of the shop, that little Louise sticking her well-bred nose in the air and flouncing off to bawl out their printer—and you know, he was a good lad, François. I’d say, ‘Go and do this, this, this, go and tie some bricks to your boots and jump in the Seine,’ and he‘d”—Danton touched an imaginary forelock—‘right away, Georges-Jacques, and do you need any shopping while I’m out?’ Jesus, what a way to end up. When you see him, tell him I’d be obliged if he forgets he knows me.
“I don’t see him,” Camille said.
“Our own Section, Camille. Oh, I should have left the Jacobins to Robespierre, and stayed on my own side of the river. I should have hung on to power in my own district. Who runs it now? Hébert. We old Cordeliers should have stuck together.”
They were silent for a moment. We old Cordeliers … It’s four years since the Bastille fell, four years and three months. It feels like twenty. Danton sits here, overweight, his brow permanently furrowed, God knows what going on amid his internal organs. Robespierre’s asthma is worse, and one can’t help noticing that his hairline is receding. Hérault’s fresh complexion is not so fresh as it used to be, and the double chin on which Lucile passed a damning judgement promises a jowly, disappointing middle age. Fabre has developed breathing difficulties; as for Camille, his headaches are worse, and he can hardly keep any flesh on his small bones. He looks up at Danton now: “Georges-Jacques, do you know a man called Comte? Just tell me yes or no.”
“Yes. I employed him as an agent in Normandy, on government business. Why?”
“Because he has turned up here in Paris and made a certain allegation. That you were in league with Brissot’s people, to put the Duke of York on our throne.”
“The Duke of York? Lord,” Danton said bitterly, “I thought only Robespierre could dream up anything so wholly fantastic as the Duke of York.”
“Robespierre was deeply disturbed.”
Danton looked up slowly. “He gave it credence?”
“No, of course not. He said it was a conspiracy to discredit a patriot. It is a good thing that we still have Hérault on the Committee, though. He had Comte arrested before he could do anymore damage. It was because of this that David called on you, on behalf of the Police Committee. Just a formality.”
“I see. ‘Morning, Danton—are you a traitor?’ ‘Certainly not, David—do run away back to your easel.’ ‘I’ll do that—left a daub half-finished. Get well soon!’ That sort of formality? And I suppose that for Robespierre, it’s fuel to his flames? It feeds his notions of gigantic conspiracies?”
“Yes. We suppose Comte must be a British agent. After all, we reason with ourselves—we stretch our imaginations to suppose that it might be true—and then we reason with ourselves, how would this nonentity Comte, this servant, this menial, know anything of the plans of a man like Danton? That is how we reason, Robespierre and I.”
“I know what you mean, Camille,” Louise said warningly. “Why don’t you ask him straight out if there is anything in it?”
“Because it is absurd.” Camille lost his temper. “Because I have other loyalties, and if it is true, they will kill him.”
Louise stepped back. Her hand fluttered to her throat. Camille saw her difficulty at once: she wante
d and didn’t want him dead.
“Louise, take no notice,” Danton said. “Go now and make sure our packing is done.” Tiredness crept back into his voice. “You must learn a little better to distinguish—it is a ridiculous story. It is as Robespierre says. It is a slander.”
She hesitated. “We’re still going to Arcis?”
“Of course. I have written to them to expect us.”
She left the room.
“I have to go,” Danton said. “I must recover my health. Without that, nothing.”
“Yes, of course you must go.” Camille averted his face. “You are avoiding the big trials, are you not?”
“Come here.” Danton put out a hand to him. Camille pretended not to see it. “I’m sick of the city,” Danton said. “I’m sick of people. Why don’t you come with me, get a change of air?” He thought, I’ve lost him, I’ve lost him to Robespierre and that rarefied climate of perpetual chill.
“I’ll write to you,” Camille said. He crossed the room, touched his lips to Danton’s cheekbone. It felt like the least that could be done.
It was late when they reached Arcis, and growing cold. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he felt the power draining from the sun, the soil losing its summer warmth. He put out an arm for Louise. “Here,” he said. “Here is where I was born.”
Pulling her traveling cape about her, she looked up wonderingly at the manor house, at the milky darkness rolling in from the river. “No, not here,” he said. “Not in this very house. But close by. Come now,” he said to the children. “You’ve come to your grandmother. You remember?”
Silly question. Somehow Georges always thinks his children are older than they are, he expects them to have long memories. François-Georges was a year old when his mother died; now, a big tough baby, he clung to his stepmother and lashed his heels about her fragile rib cage. Antoine, limp and exhausted by the excitement, hung around his father’s neck like a child fetched up from a shipwreck.
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