A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

by Hilary Mantel

  Robespierre smiled, shook his head. But he turned away from her: no time for this little girl now. “Camille, remember what I say. Go carefully. We can’t take any power from the Tribunal. If we do, and there are any reverses in the war, it will be like September again. The people will take the law into their own hands, and we’ve seen that, and it’s not pleasant. The government must be strong, it can’t be tentative—otherwise, what are the patriots at the front to think? A strong army deserves a strong government behind it. We must aim at unity. Force can overturn a throne, but only prudence can maintain a republic.”

  Camille nodded, recognizing the unclothed bones of a speech to come. He felt guilty, about laughing at Max and saying he wanted to be God; he wasn’t God, God’s not so vulnerable.

  Max left. Camille said, “I feel like an egg in a dog’s mouth.” He looked up at Louise. “I hope you are sufficiently reproved? Otherwise, please go home to your husband, and tell him to beat you.”

  “Oh dear,” Louise said. “I thought it was all in the past.”

  “One doesn’t really forget. Not that kind of thing.”

  Danton came in a few minutes later. “Ah, the Old Cordelier himself,” Lucile said.

  “There you are,” he said to his wife. “Have I just missed our friend?”

  “You know damn well you have,” Camille said. “You must have skulked in a doorway till you saw him go.”

  “We work together better when we’re apart.” He collapsed into a chair, stretched his legs, regarded Camille. “What’s so worrying?” he asked him abruptly.

  “Oh … he keeps telling me to go carefully, as if—as if, I mustn’t do anything he wouldn’t do himself, but he won’t tell me what it is he would do.”

  Camille was still sitting on the floor, and now Lucile was kneeling beside him: their flattering, wide-eyed attention fixed on Georges-Jacques, and the baby rolling about between them. Really, Louise thought, hating them, it’s as if they’re always waiting for somebody to come along with a crayon and a sketching block. When you think of her with her string of lovers … It’s sickening, how easy they find it to put on their act. Camille was saying, “Max doesn’t like to be cornered with an untried opinion. But there you are—some risks have to be taken. I don’t mind if I’m the first to take them. Would that count as a heroic sentiment, Louise?”

  She spoke sharply: “Hero’s your vocation, isn’t it?”

  So everybody laughed, at Camille.

  December 5: “To the Old Cordeliers.” Fabre raised his glass. His face was hollow and flushed. “May the second issue prosper like the first.”

  “Thank you.” Camille actually looked modest; at least he lowered his head and dropped his eyes, which is the outward sign of the inward grace. “I didn’t expect it to be so successful. As if people were waiting for it … I feel quite overwhelmed by the public support.”

  Deputy Phillippeaux—one of these mystery deputies who are always on mission, whom he hardly knew until last week—leaned forward and patted his hand. “It’s wonderful, that’s why! It—well, you know, I’ve written my own pamphlet, but I feel that if you’d seen the things I’ve seen, you’d have done it so much better. You can”—the deputy touched his elegant cravat—“you can move the heart, I can only appeal to the conscience. Slaughter is what I’ve seen, you know?” Strong language didn’t come easily to him. He’d sat with the Plain, not the Mountain, and carefully trimmed his opinions, until now.

  “Oh, slaughter,” Fabre said. “Our boy couldn’t stand it. One Brissotin with a small dagger hidden in his defense papers, that’s enough for him. He couldn’t take an atrocity, I’m afraid. Faints, I fear. Gracefully, mind.”

  Amazing, how resilient Fabre is. Camille too. A small part of him feels like lead; the rest of him is ready for the fray, making the most of his capacity to drive people to a finger-twitching fury, or into a long, swooning, sentimental decline from sense. He feels light, very young. The artist Hubert Robert (whose specialty, unfortunately, is picturesque ruins) is always on his heels these days; the artist Boze is constantly giving him hard looks, and occasionally walks over to him and with unfeeling artist hands pulls his hair about. In his worse moods he thinks—get ready to be immortalized.

  The main thing is, the constraints have come off style. What we are saying now is that the Revolution does not proceed in a pitiless, forward direction, its politics and its language becoming ever more gross and simplistic: the Revolution is always flexible, subtle, elegant. Mirabeau said: “Liberty’s a bitch who likes to be fucked on a mattress of corpses.” He knows this is true: but he will find some gentler way of presenting it to his reader.

  He could be himself now … that is to say, as different from Hébert as one could imagine. He need make no concession to street language, he need not rant, he need not present himself as Marat’s heir; though still he thought of Simone’s plump body slumped in his arms, and of the fashion plate who killed his friend. Forget Marat, and the black distress he bred; he’s going to create a new, Ultima Thule atmosphere, very plain, very bright, every word translucent, smooth. The air of Paris is like dried blood; he will (with Robespierre’s permission and approval) make us feel that we breathe ice, silk and wine.

  “By the way,” Deputy Philippeaux said, “did you know that de Sade has been arrested?”

  “Deputy Philippeaux, Deputy Philipeaux,” Robespierre said. “Returning from mission, he attacks the conduct of the war. The commanders in the Vendée,” he flicked open Philippeaux’s little publication, “are the commanders who Hébert has in his pocket, and legitimate objects of suspicion. If we except Westermann, who is Danton’s friend. Unfortunately,” he reached for his pen, “Deputy Philippeaux doesn’t stop there.” He bent his head, began to underline certain phrases. “He levels accusations at the Committee, as the Committee has ultimate responsibility for the war. He seems to say that it would have been over a lot sooner, if it hadn’t been kept going to line people’s pockets.”

  “Philippeaux has been a great deal with Danton and Camille,” the committeeman said. “I only mention it.”

  “It’s the kind of thesis that would appeal to Camille,” Robespierre said. “Do you believe it? Oh, I don’t know.”

  “You question the good faith of your colleagues on the Committee?”

  “Yes, actually,” Robespierre said. “Yet I’m quite persuaded of the need to keep the Committee functioning. Stories are coming back from Lyon about the doings of our friend Collot. They say that he has taken his orders to punish rebels as meaning he should massacre the populace.”

  “Oh, they say.”

  Robespierre put his fingertips together. “Collot is an actor, isn’t he, a theatrical producer? Once he would have had to satisfy himself by putting on plays about earthquakes and multiple murders. Now he can enact what he dreams. Four years of Revolution, Citizen … and everywhere the same greed, pettiness and egoism, the same brutal indifference to the suffering of others and the same diabolic thirst for blood. I simply can’t fathom the depth of people.” He rested his forehead on his hand. His colleague stared at him, stunned. “Meanwhile,” he said, “what is Danton doing? Can he be encouraging Deputy Philippeaux?”

  “He would do it—if he saw some temporary advantage. The Committee must silence Philippeaux.”

  “No need.” He stabbed his pen at the printed page. “You see he attacks Hébert? Hébert will do it for us. Let him make himself useful, for once.”

  “But you allow Camille to attack Hébert, here in his second issue. Oh,” the committeeman said. “Both ends against the middle? You are clever, aren’t you?”

  Decree of the National Convention:

  The Executive Council, the ministers, generals and all constituted bodies, are placed under the supervision of the Committee of Public Safety.

  CAMILLE: I don’t see why I should expect any plaudits for the third issue. Anyone could have done it. It’s a kind of translation. I was reading Tacitus, on the reign of the Emperor Tiberi
us. I said to de Sade that it was the same, and I checked it, and it was. Our lives now are what the annalist describes: whole families wiped out by the executioner, men committing suicide to save themselves from being dragged through the streets like common criminals; men denouncing their friends to save their own skins; the corruption of all human feeling, the degradation of pity to a crime. I remember when I first read it, years and years ago; and Robespierre will remember when he first read it too.

  There didn’t seem much to add—it was enough to bring the text to the public’s attention. Take out the names of these Romans, and substitute instead—in your own mind—the names of Frenchmen and women, the names of people you know, people who live on your street, people whose fate you have seen and whose fate you may soon share.

  Of course I have had to rearrange the text a bit—bugger about with it, as Hébert would say. I didn’t show it to Robespierre. Yes, I imagine it will be a shock to him. But a salutary one, don’t you think? I mean, if he recognizes this state of affairs, he will have to think of his own part in creating it. It seems ridiculous to say that Robespierre is a Tiberius, and of course that isn’t what I’m saying; but with a certain sort of man about him—yes indeed, I do mean Saint-Just—I don’t know what he might become.

  There is a description in Tacitus of the Emperor “without pity, without anger, resolutely closing himself against the inroad of emotion.”

  This seemed familiar.

  The “Old Cordelier,” No. 3:

  As soon as words had become crimes against the state, it was only a small step to transform into offenses mere glances, sorrow, compassion, sighs, even silence … .

  It was a crime against the state that Libonius Drusus asked the fortune tellers if he would ever be rich … . It was a crime against the state that one of Cassius’ descendants had a portrait of his ancestor in his house. Mamercus Scaurus committed a crime by writing a tragedy in which certain verses were capable of a double meaning. It was a crime against the state that the mother of the consul Furius Geminus mourned for the death of her son … . It was necessary to rejoice at the death of a friend or relative, if one wished to escape death oneself.

  Was a citizen popular? He might start a faction. Suspect.

  Did he try instead to retreat from public life? Suspect.

  Are you rich? Suspect.

  Are you—to all appearances—poor? You must be hiding something. Suspect.

  Are you melancholy? The state of the nation must upset you. Suspect.

  Are you cheerful? You must be rejoicing at national calamities. Suspect.

  Are you a philosopher, an orator or a poet? Suspect.

  “You didn’t show me this,” Robespierre said. His voice was toneless. The breeze whipped the last of the year’s dead leaves past his face. He caught one, and held it up between finger and thumb so that its veins were sharply exposed against the afternoon light. It had been a fine day; sunset was liquid and crimson; the last rays touched the river in a manner more sinister than picturesque.

  “Like blood,” Camille said. “Well, that is what it would suggest. I didn’t keep anything from you. You probably have Tacitus on your bookshelves.”

  “You are being disingenuous.”

  “You must admit it is very apt. If it were not apt it would not have caught the public imagination. Yes, it is a portrait of the way we live now.”

  “And you hold it up to Europe? Could you not restrain yourself? Do you want to make yourself the Emperor’s favorite reading? Do you expect a message of congratulation from Mr. Pitt? Fireworks in Moscow, and your health drunk in the émigré camps across the Rhine?” He spoke with a flat calm, as if the questions were reasonable ones. “Well, tell me.” He put his hands, palms down, on the stonework of the bridge and turned to look into Camille’s face; he waited.

  “What are we doing out here?” Camille said. “It’s getting cold.”

  “I’d rather talk outside. Inside, you can’t keep secrets.”

  “You see—you admit it. You’re eaten away with the thought of conspiracy. Will you guillotine brick walls and doorposts?”

  “I’m not eaten away with anything—except perhaps the desire to do what’s best for the country.”

  “Then stop the Terror.” Camille shivered a little. “You have the moral leadership. You’re the one who can do it.”

  “And have the government fall apart around us? Bring the Committee down?” His voice now was a rapid, urgent whisper. “I can’t do it. I can’t take that risk.”

  “Let’s walk on a little way.” They walked. “Change the Committee,” Camille said. “That’s all I ask. Collot and Billaud-Varennes are not fit for you to associate yourself with.”

  “You know why they’re there. They’re our sop to the Left.”

  “I keep forgetting that we’re not the Left.”

  “Do you want us to have insurrection on our hands?”

  Camille halted again, looked across the river. “Yes, if necessary. Yes.” He was trying to stop the panic bubbling up inside him, stop the racing of his heart; Robespierre was not used to opposition now, and he was not used to opposing him. “Let’s fight it out once and for all.”

  “Is that Danton’s wish? More violence?”

  “Max, what do you think is being done every day in the Place de la Révolution?”

  I’d rather sacrifice aristocrats than sacrifice each other. I have a loyalty to the Revolution and the men who made it. But you are defaming it in the face of all Europe.”

  “Do you think that loyalty is covering up, pretending that reason and justice prevail?” The light had faded into the river, and now a night wind was getting up; it pulled at their clothes with cold insistent hands. “What did we have the Revolution for? I thought it was so that we could speak out against oppression. I thought it was to free us from tyranny. But this is tyranny. Show me a worse one in the history of the world. People have killed for power and greed and delight in blood, but show me another dictatorship that kills with efficiency and delight in virtue and flourishes its abstractions over open graves. We say that everything we do is to preserve the Revolution, but the Revolution is no more than an animated corpse.”

  Robespierre would not look at him; but without doing so, he reached out for his arm. “Everything you say is true,” he whispered, “but I don’t know how to proceed.” A pause. “Come, let’s go home.”

  “You said we couldn’t talk inside.”

  “There’s no need to talk, is there? You’ve said it all.”

  Hébert, Le Père Duchesne:

  Here, my brave sansculottes, here is a brave man you’ve forgotten. It is really ungrateful of you, for he declares that without him there would never have been a Revolution. Formerly he was known as My Lord Prosecutor to the Lanteme. You think I am speaking of that famous cutthroat who put the aristocrats to flight—but no, the man we’re speaking of claims to be the most pacific of persons. To believe him, he has no more gall than a pigeon; he is so sensitive, that he never hears the word “guillotine” without shivering to his very bones. It is a great pity that he is no orator, or he would prove to the Committee of Public Safety that it has no idea how to manage things; but if he cannot speak, M. Camille can make up for it by writing, to the great satisfaction of the moderates, aristocrats and royalists.

  Proceedings of the Jacobin Club:

  CITIZEN NICOLAS [intervening]: Camille, you are very close to the guillotine!

  CITIZEN DESMOULINS: Nicolas, you are very close to making a fortune!

  A year ago you dined on a baked apple, and now you’re the government printer.

  [Laughter.]

  Hérault de Séchelles came back from Alsace in the middle of December. The job was done. The Austrians were in retreat and the frontier was secure; Saint-Just would be following in a week or two, trailing glory.

  He called on Danton, and Danton was not at home. He left him a message, arranging a meeting, and Danton did not come. He went to Robespierre’s house, and was t
urned away by the Duplays.

  He stood at a window of the Tuileries, to watch the death carts on their route, and sometimes he followed them to the end of the journey and mingled with the crowds. He heard of wives who denounced their husbands to the Tribunal, and husbands wives; mothers who offered their sons to National Justice and children who betrayed their parents. He saw women hustled from their lying-in, suckling their babies till the tumbrel arrived. He saw men and women slip and fall facedown in the spilt blood of their friends, and the executioners haul them up by their pinioned arms. He saw dripping heads held up for the crowds to bay at. “Why do you force yourself to watch these things?” someone asked him.

  “I am learning how to die.”

  29 Frimaire, Toulon fell to the Republican armies. The hero of the hour was a young artillery officer called Buonaparte. “If things go on as they are with the officers,” Fabre said, “I give Buonaparte three months before he gets his head cut off.”

  Three days later, 2 Nivôse, government forces smashed the remains of the rebel army of the Vendee. Peasants taken under arms were outlaws to be shot out of hand; nothing remained except the bloody manhunt through fields and woods and marshes.

  In the green room with the silver mirrors, the disparate and factious members of the Committee of Public Safety were settling their differences. They were winning the war, and keeping the precarious peace on the Paris streets. “Under this Committee,” said the people, “the Revolution is on the march.”

  It had grown dark. Eléonore thought that the room was empty. When Robespierre turned his head, the movement startled her. His face was white in the shadows. “Are you not going to the Committee?” she said softly. He turned his head away, so that he was looking at the wall again. “Shall I light the lamp?” she said. “Please speak to me. Nothing can be so bad.”