He muttered an oath and rose from his chair, which screeched against the stone floor. For what seemed a long time, he stood glaring at me.
“As if one could forget the likes of you! How could I fail to recall the name of Labro? The very first lie you told me. And those amazing disclosures of yours are nothing but lies too, are they not?” He raised his voice. “Answer me, Citizen. You come here under an assumed name and false pretenses, and then you stand here stupidly staring at me. You are still the same, imagining that you can lie with impunity. But times have changed, if you have not. Answer me, or I will call the gendarme to have you arrested.”
I mustered all of my resolve and fixed my eyes on his face. “Yes, Citizen Judge, I lied. It was the only way to see you.”
“You wanted to see me! At last! After you have ignored me all these years! It must not have been worth your while to call on me after I rescued you at the Champ de Mars. That was after all only a minor service. I guess your situation feels a bit more unsettled these days, and this gives you a higher regard for my society. There is nothing I find so heart-warming as a disinterested visit from an old friend. So tell me what brings you here. Be brief. I have not all night to chat with you.”
“I was arrested at the end of August and imprisoned at La Force.”
“Ah, yes. Hébert and the people’s court at La Force let you go. Not for long. We keep an eye on characters like you. You will find that real judges are not so easily mollified by your charms and your tears. Now let us come to the point. Why are you here? In one sentence.”
“I need a Civic Certificate under the name of Labro, and my Section refuses to give it to me.”
“What do you imagine?” he asked, sneering. “That the purpose of the Civic Certificates is to allow aristocrats to hide under a false identity? And what has it to do with me?”
“I thought that you might help me obtain mine.”
“No less! How so?”
“By telling my Section that you can vouch for me. They will listen to you.”
He stared at me. “You are asking me to lie to your Section? Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“You rescued me last year, Pierre-André. I thought that you might be so generous as to help me again.”
I reached for his hand. He drew back. “I do not recall allowing you to use my given name.”
“I am sorry, Citizen Judge.”
“Spare me your apologies. Here is what I will do for you, and I hope that you will be grateful, for a change: I will let you go this time.” He pointed towards the door. “Leave before I change my mind.”
I looked straight at him. “No. Have me arrested if you want, but at least hear me before calling the gendarme. In any event, if I do not receive my Civic Certificate, it is only a matter of days before I go back to jail.” I took a deep breath. “For years I have wished to tell you these things. I wanted to marry you. Oh, I wanted it so. I wanted to elope with you. I did not hesitate for a moment when I received your letter. I was on my way to join you at the crossroads of Escalmels that night when my brother caught me.”
“I know. I knew the next morning. Your brother summoned Jean-Baptiste to Fontfreyde to tell him that you had tried to elope, that it aggravated my case because it established my seduction of you, a crime punishable by the gallows or the wheel.” Pierre-André stared in the distance. “I waited all night for you at the crossroads. I kept hearing your step, your voice in the rustle of the wind. I thought I saw your figure in every wisp of fog, in every shadow. I waited for you until dawn. Only then did I abandon hope.” He shook his head in anger. “What a fool I was! Two weeks later, I heard that you had married Peyre.”
“But I was forced to do it. I remained locked in a cellar until the very day of my wedding. Even so, I would not have married the Baron, but my brother threatened to have you sentenced to death. I wanted to save you.”
“At the time it drove me insane to think of you in that man’s bed. But it does not matter now.” A pulse was throbbing at his temple. “What matters is that, after your widowhood, when you were free, you became a whore.”
I smarted under the insult. “I had but one lover,” I said. “I became his mistress to support myself and my daughter.”
“Let us not quarrel about my choice of words. Financial inducement is as good a reason as any for a woman to prostitute herself. I believe that it is even the most common.”
“My husband had left me penniless. I had no other choice except entering a convent.”
“No choice? You knew that I was in Paris, you knew of my profession. Nothing would have been easier than to find me. I lived less than a mile from you, but for all you cared, I might just as well have been in Persia.”
“So you wanted to see me again?”
“Did I want it? I might even have been enough of an idiot to marry you.”
Startled, I looked up at him. “You still loved me then?”
“Oh, I was cured of my illusions when I heard that you had become Villers’s kept woman. That was better than marrying a lowly attorney, was it not?”
“I would never have guessed that you still cared for me.” Tears came to my eyes. “If only I had known…. I too wanted to see you, but I was ashamed to seek you.”
Pierre-André was gripping the back of his chair with both hands, his knuckles white. “But now you are not ashamed to seek me?”
“I am, but there is more than my life at stake. What would happen to my daughter if I died? I hesitated a long time before coming here. I knew that you would despise me all the more for it. Yet even if there were only one chance in a thousand that you would help me, I could not afford to let that chance pass.”
“I see. Now, My Lady, you are desperate enough to humble yourself before the vile commoner you used to scorn. The stuff of tragedy. This brings us back to an earlier question of mine to which you have not responded. What made you believe that I would help you?” His eyes narrowed. “What do you imagine? That I have treasured your memory to this day? That I have hoped all these years for this moment? That I still love you?”
For a moment I caught myself wishing it were true. I shook my head sadly. “I only hoped that, even if you had stopped caring for me long ago, you might feel pity for my plight.”
“Your plight! I feel exactly the same pity for your plight as for that of all other aristocrats, which is to say that it does not keep me awake at night.” He walked from behind his desk and stood in front of me. “Now let us forget about pity, and love, and old times. Let us have a serious talk, Citizen. What have you to offer that could tempt me?”
“I have diamonds of great value.”
“I take no bribes. I find it repulsive, as well as extremely dangerous, in my situation. Anything else?”
I hesitated.
“There has to be something else,” he added, frowning. “What is it? It must be interesting, or you would not have so much trouble saying it. I am impatient to hear it. Come, Citizen.”
I closed my eyes. “You may have me,” I said under my breath.
“Louder, please. I am not hard of hearing, but when you mumble, I cannot understand you.”
“You may have me,” I repeated.
He raised his eyebrow. “Have you? I have not the advantage of understanding the jargon of the nobility. We live in a Republic now. Nobody owns anyone else. What do you mean?”
I bit my lip and kept silent.
“I might have some idea of what you propose,” he continued, “but in matters of such delicacy, I would not want to be presumptuous and assume too much. Be more clear.”
“You may…” I could go no further.
“All right, Citizen, I will help you of your little difficulty. Are you by any chance offering to have intimate relations with me?”
In spite of the humiliation, I was relieved. “Yes.”
He paused. “Is your offer valid for one time only, or an entire night, or several occasions?”
“As you like.”
&n
bsp; “Excellent. And you would, I suppose, leave to my discretion the manner, or manners, in which I would have the pleasure to enjoy your person.”
My cheeks were burning. “Yes.”
“Really I am flattered by the improvement of my standing in your eyes. Last year, I did not deserve a simple visit, and now you find me worthy of…”
I drew a deep breath.
“My apologies,” he continued. “I did not mean to shock you by the coarseness of my language. Let me rephrase in a genteel manner. You are offering me something of immense value, something more precious than your diamonds: the leftovers of the great lords of the Court. I should be grateful, I suppose, like a lackey who is presented with the scraps from his master’s table. Truth be told, Citizen, I was beginning to worry whether such a proposal would be forthcoming in the course of our conversation.”
He looked at me from head to toe. “I have not failed to observe the manner in which you are dressed. In itself, it did not seem likely to lead to anything. Then I thought again. A person of your experience would know that some men are aroused by modest attire in an attractive female. It does leave more to the imagination. There is still another possibility: you may have thought that your widow’s costume would set forth your woeful situation and mollify me without any recourse to indecent offers. You know from past experience my delicacy of behaviour and may have hoped that I would help you without expecting a return. You were saving your interesting proposition for the very end, in case everything else failed. This must mean that you have played all of your cards.”
“You have put more thought into this than I. This is the only gown I have.”
“My mistake then. Forgive me. But how rude of me! Lost as I was in the meanders of your motives, I was forgetting to respond to your offers. Let me correct this omission. In addition to overestimating the effect of your charms, which are somewhat dulled right now, you seem to have forgotten that there is a great deal of competition in your field. What you propose, I can buy for five francs in any of the brothels of the Palais-Royal, excuse me, the Palais-Egalité. The ladies there are always happy to entertain me and they at least do not labour under the illusion that they are doing me the greatest favour in the world by spreading their thighs. I must decline. Anything else?”
His bitterness broke me at last. I burst into tears.
“No, nothing else then?” he continued. “Now that you have appealed in vain to my higher impulses, greed and lust, we have reached the unfortunate conclusion that I have no reason to help you. You were wrong not to accept my earlier offer to let you go. You are now guilty of an attempt to bribe a judge. It will add nicely to the other charges against you. You are going back to jail, Citizen Peyre.”
I fell to my knees and rested my forehead on his thigh. “If you ever felt anything for me, Pierre-André, have mercy on me.”
“Rise. Nothing disgusts me more than this abject servility inherited from the Old Regime. Look at me when you speak to me.”
I was unable to move. He seized me by the arm to draw me to my feet.
“I am no brute after all,” he continued, still holding me. “I will give you one last chance if you answer the following question to my satisfaction: would you ever have come to me if it were not to save your life? Think well. If you say yes, it might be one lie too many. If you say no, I might not find the truth palatable. Candor might not be a wise choice in your situation. A difficult decision, and you have so much at stake.”
“Please help me. You cannot imagine what it was to be in jail during the massacres. I heard the cries of the other prisoners being slaughtered. I had to wait for days before my fate was decided. I do not want to go back there. Now you are telling me that you might help me if I give you the right answer. Is it true, or are you only tormenting me?”
“Why not humour me by giving me your response?”
“You will be angry whether I say yes or no.”
“Perhaps. You will not find out until you answer. What is sure to make me angry, however, is the lack of a response.”
“I cannot think right now. You are so harsh that I do not know what to say.”
“Ah no, it would be too easy. You shed a few tears, you throw yourself at my feet, and you think you may dispense with any explanations. It will not do. I want an answer, not because I am harsh, but because I wish to know whether you take me for an imbecile, a fair query under the circumstances. Let me repeat one last time before I lose my temper: would you ever have come here if it were not to save your life? I want to hear it. What is it? Yes? Or no?”
“No.”
He slowly raised his open hand. It came down so fast that I saw only a blur. My mother had often slapped me, and I remember to this day the stinging sensation on my cheek, but this was of a different order. The force of the blow stunned me and sent me tumbling across the room. I fell. Blinded for a moment, I heard Pierre-André walk briskly towards me. The correction would now begin in earnest. I raised my arm to protect my face.
He was content to raise me by the elbow and lead me to one of the chairs, where I collapsed. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, poured onto it water from a carafe on his desk and applied it to my face. I recoiled from his hand.
“I am not going to hit you again, Gabrielle,” he said. “As a rule, I do not strike women. I made this one exception in your favour because I had wanted to do it for many years and you gave me ample provocation tonight. Keep this on your cheek for a while. The cold will prevent it from swelling. And stop weeping. You look awful.”
I still could not see clearly. Tears were rolling down my cheeks in a steady stream, not from pain because I was too dazed to feel any, but from the shock of the blow.
“It was a mistake to come here,” he continued. “I will not help you. Now before you go, I want to know your address.”
I raised my eyes to him.
“Yes,” he said, “out of the goodness of my heart, I will let you go. Do you still live on Rue Dominique?”
“No. I cannot afford it anymore and I am afraid of being arrested there.”
“Where then?”
“Why? Are you going to have me arrested later?”
He dipped a quill in the inkwell on his desk. “Write it down. And do not ever lie to me again.”
He handed me the pen and pushed a sheet of paper towards me. In a shaky hand, I wrote my new address. It did not enter my mind to give him a false one. He was sitting sideways on his desk, his arms folded, watching me while I struggled to regain my composure. I was reluctant to leave, to acknowledge my defeat. I cast one last look at him, the man I had loved many years before, the man I had bartered my innocence to protect.
He walked to the door, opened it and shouted the name of the gendarme, whom I heard running up the stairs as if all the hounds of hell were at his heels. I had no choice but to return Pierre-André’s handkerchief. He picked up my widow’s headdress, which had fallen to the floor. The gendarme appeared as I was trying to rearrange my hair.
“See Citizen Labro out,” said Pierre-André. “She feels unwell.”
The gendarme made a movement to offer me his arm, but after a glance at Pierre-André, thought better of it. He led me downstairs. Once we were out of earshot of the chambers, he began to talk to me.
“You look mightily shaken, but then Citizen Coffinhal has this effect on people. He’s the judge they pick to examine witnesses in chambers. In the courtroom too, the accused are afraid of him, much more so than of Citizen Osselin, the President. It’s that voice of his, and he’s so tall and fierce. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen when I told you to see Citizen Fouquier instead. From where I sit down here, I could hear Citizen Coffinhal shout at you. The way things were going, I thought he was calling me to have you arrested. You’re lucky he let you go.” He paused to look at me. “Citizen, you do look unwell. Let me call a hackney.”
“You are very kind, but I live close by. Walking will do me good.”
67
It was cool outside, and dark, which was a comfort. Once alone, I lost my way. The main courthouse is located on the Island of the City, and I lived on the Left Bank of the Seine. I had only to follow Rue de la Barillerie southwards, cross the Saint-Michel Bridge and turn right on the tiny Rue de l’Hirondelle to return to my garret. In spite of my familiarity with the streets of Paris, I no longer knew where my steps were taking me. The events of the evening kept recurring in my mind and erased any other thought. I walked for a while in the direction of the north. The stench of the Châtelet district brought me to my senses. I retraced my steps. My head was hurting and I was trying not to think of what the future held.
I reached my lodgings at last. I thought for a minute of going farther down the street to fetch Aimée, but I had not the courage to acknowledge my failure. Also, I did not wish to inflict upon my daughter, now that we slept in the same bed, the sight of a second arrest should it take place that night. I removed only my shoes, my cap and my kerchief and kept the rest of my clothes on. I lay on the bed, blew out the candle and remained in the dark, my eyes wide open, alert to any noises from the stairwell.
It was not long before I heard footsteps. There was a knock at my door. My hands were shaking so much that I had trouble lighting the candle. I did not ask who was there before turning the key into the lock. Pierre-André’s figure filled the entire doorway. He was alone, wearing boots and civilian clothes. I stared at him in silence for a moment.
“Are you going to slam the door in my face?” he asked.
“I am sorry. Please enter.”
He looked around. “Your circumstances, Citizen, seem less prosperous than in the past. Where is your daughter?”
“I left her with a friend. I thought that you would have me arrested.”
“Not tonight. I am here because I have decided to save five francs after all.”
I looked at him. “You are still angry.”
“Have I not good cause to be?”
“Not anymore. I may be dead in a few weeks. At least, I will be in jail. I escaped twice, at the Palace on the 10th of August and then at La Force, but the end is near, I feel it. You will have your revenge without having to do anything. You can see me squirm before you in the accused’s chair. You can watch my face as my sentence is read. So why be angry with me any longer? I know that you will not help me. It was stupid of me to expect otherwise. I was clinging to any hope, and you were the last one.”
Mistress of the Revolution: A Novel Page 43