“What fine stitches you make, Citizen,” he would say. “And you have the prettiest hands I have ever seen in a seamstress.”
In the beginning, I would sew in an attic above the stage. I soon had to abandon that retreat because Granger posted himself under a small corkscrew staircase leading to it whenever I climbed there, no doubt to look under my skirts. I took to working in the wings, which afforded me both a view of the rehearsals and the protection of the actors against Granger’s attentions. Aimée, with her beloved Margaret in tow, always accompanied me. She was a quiet child, absorbed by her lessons, and friendly to everyone. After a while, I taught her to sew and she began to help me with the easier parts of my task. She became quite a favourite with Charlotte, who had no children of her own, and indeed with the rest of the troupe.
76
Whenever I speak to my English friends of my homesickness, they seem to imagine that it is a general feeling of loss. They are novices in terms of bereavement. To me, homesickness is the recurrence, without warning or apparent reason, of a precise image of my country. It changes from time to time. These days, the figure of Notre-Dame with its flying buttresses, both massive and graceful, keeps appearing.
The ancient cathedral, which stood no more than a hundred yards from our lodgings, dominated our part of the Island of the City. In the beginning of our stay there, Aimée and I had without incident attended Mass at Notre-Dame. It had seemed safe enough since it was served by sworn clergy. However, a few months later, I heard in the middle of the service the braying of a jackass. The congregation froze. The liturgy stopped. A group of sans-culottes was leading the poor animal, a bishop’s mitre on its head, priestly vestments on its back, down the aisle. My first impulse was to run, but I did not wish to attract attention by too hasty a retreat. The intruders reached the master altar, singing lewd songs at the top of their lungs. One of them, pushing the priest aside, drank the communion wine, unbuttoned his trousers and relieved himself in the chalice. I covered Aimée’s eyes and resolved to no longer attend Mass. In any event, the cathedral was soon closed to the Catholic faith and dedicated solely to the meetings of patriotic societies.
Certain members of the Municipality seemed intent on restoring some kind of religious activity to the venerable building. One afternoon, while I was walking home from the theatre, I heard cheers coming from Notre-Dame. I headed cautiously in that direction, ready to flee at the first sign of danger. The crowd, although loud, seemed in a friendly mood. I saw a man wearing the distinctive trousers, short jacket and red hat of the sans-culottes. He was leading a buxom young woman, crowned with artificial flowers and clad in a Greek drapery girded by a tricolour sash, towards the doors of the cathedral. Hébert, who had presided over my trial at La Force, walked next to them. Behind came a procession of equally comely girls, all attired in the same manner, followed by a large group of men.
“What is the meaning of this?” I asked a woman next to me. “I did not know they still had weddings at Notre-Dame. The bride is pretty.”
“You dullard,” she answered, shrugging, “it’s no wedding. The man there is Chaumette, the National Agent of the Municipality of Paris. And the citizen with him is no bride. She’s the Goddess Reason. She’s being installed in her Temple now that the blessed-asses have been expelled. And here’s Hébert walking behind them.”
I almost remarked that the Goddess looked like a regular mortal, maybe even like an actress or dancer, but did not wish to be accused of sacrilege towards the new divinity. Afraid that Hébert might recognize me, I left without witnessing the installation of the Goddess Reason in Notre-Dame.
I related the ceremony to Pierre-André the same night.
“I know,” he said. “As a member of the Municipality, I was asked to attend that farce. I excused myself on the grounds that I could not be spared at the Tribunal. Robespierre is utterly disgusted. He thinks, and rightly so, that Hébert’s Goddess Reason rubbish is nothing but thinly veiled atheism.”
“But how is Hébert to be stopped? Every sans-culotte reads the Père Duchesne, or hears it read aloud. Also, along with Chaumette, Hébert controls the Municipality.”
“Not for long. The scoundrel’s days are numbered. I have been asked to denounce atheism as an aristocratic doctrine at the Jacobins Club. I would be surprised if Hébert’s friends did not raise an uproar during that speech. Robespierre needs someone who can make himself heard in spite of the racket. He is a great man but, as you know, he has not much of a voice.”
The appearance of churches was to be further altered. The National Convention passed a law mandating the destruction of all tombs and funeral monuments located within churches. I remembered the crypt under the chapel of Cénac where my son’s coffin had been laid to rest. I could not chase from my mind the image of the tiny white box I had seen there during my husband’s funeral. Now the idea of the profanation of his resting place tore at me. I paced the room, unable to find any peace. Aimée was watching me with uncomprehending eyes. After I put her to bed, I was overcome by sorrow.
When Pierre-André joined me that night, I was lying on my bed, fully dressed, sobbing so hard that, in spite of my efforts, I could not utter a word. He looked at me in silence, went to the kitchen and returned with a wet towel, which he applied to my face. He sat next to me and stroked my hair. My breathing slowed down. I took his hand in both of mine.
“Will you please tell me what this is about?” he asked.
“Do you know about the new law?”
“Which one?”
“The one that orders the destruction of all the tombs in churches.”
“So this is what is upsetting you so. I thought that at least half of your family had been arrested. What is the matter?”
“The tombs of the Peyre family in Cénac will be desecrated. Your brother Jean-Baptiste, since he is Procureur-Syndic of the Département, could stop it if you asked him. Please.”
“There is no need to ask him. Jean-Baptiste is a reasonable man. He knows that this measure targets the royal burials at Saint-Denis.” Pierre-André frowned. “I did not imagine that the fate of your late husband’s remains bothered you so.”
I started crying again. “It is not about him,” I said. “I cannot bear the idea of my son’s bones, so little that they must already be reduced to dust, thrown away like rubbish.”
“Your son? I never knew that you had a son.”
I told Pierre-André of my second lying-in. His jaw tightened. “I should never have let you fall into the hands of that beast. I failed you. I should have prevented your marriage, if I had to crush Peyre’s skull with my bare hands.”
“But you would have died too. I know that, even now, you are still angry over my marriage. Yet all I wanted was to save you. You must believe me; you must forgive me at last.”
Still seated on the bed, he raised me from the pillow and took me in his arms. “I believe you, Gabrielle, and I have long forgiven you. I am not even sure that there was anything to forgive. What could you have done differently, my poor love, at fifteen? What I cannot fathom is your brother’s rage to separate us, when he knew that I adored you. And why? To condone the violation of his sister, of a girl barely out of childhood, by a drunken brute. All that misery because I had the misfortune to be a commoner.”
I found the courage to utter the question I had wanted to ask many times before. “What about Villers? Have you also forgiven me for Villers? I should have sought you when I came to Paris, but I thought you hated me.”
“I never hated you. Through my brothers, I had learned of your arrival in Paris and knew that you lived with the Duchess d’Arpajon. For months, I kept hoping for a visit, a letter, any sign that you still cared for me. Instead I heard that you had become a kept woman.” He shook his head. “It grieved me as if I had learned of your death. I could not reconcile it with the memory I had kept of you. You were delightful when I met you by the river, Gabrielle. At fifteen, you were unspoiled, fearless, sparkling with intelligence,
and also the prettiest girl I had ever seen. And a few years later, you let Villers turn you into a courtesan. How could you do such a thing?”
“I was no longer fearless when I met Villers. My marriage had robbed me of my innocence. I could not trust any man, not even you. I had not the courage to seek you.”
“And what about the night when I found you at the Champ de Mars? I expected you to call on me afterwards, and all I received was that note!”
“I too was hoping that you would call on me. Oh, Pierre-André, I wanted to see you again. I wanted it so.”
“Did you really expect me to visit you in the lodgings where that man kept you? Had you not noticed that the very sight of that place turned my stomach? And then what was I supposed to think of your little escapade to the Jacobins Club? Were you taunting me?”
“I never thought that I would see you that day. I did not mean to make you angry.”
“Truth be told, I was more puzzled than angry. I had given up making any sense of your actions. But then you came to my chambers, begging for my help after shunning me all these years. I was wondering whether you would proposition me. And you did! You had stooped so low as to peddle your favours.”
“You are right, Pierre-André,” I said, hanging my head. “You have no reason to forgive me.”
He raised my chin and looked into my eyes. “Listen, Gabrielle. I forgive you, and for good reason: I love you.”
“So you do forgive me?”
“Yes. And I will write Jean-Baptiste to ensure that the burials of the Peyre family remain untouched. Now will you please calm yourself ?” He gently pushed me down on the pillow and lay down next to me. “There,” he continued, smiling. “I even forgive you for propositioning me. In fact, I am glad you did.”
I huddled against him. His words had dissipated the misery of that day, of all those years spent apart.
The royal tombs in Saint-Denis were indeed opened and the bodies of the Kings since Dagobert in the 6th century thrown into a pit dug next to the Basilica. Many noble burials throughout the country met with the same fate. Yet my late husband and elder son still rest in the crypt of Cénac.
Some time later, attracted by unusual music, I noticed a gathering of hundreds of Negroes in front of Notre-Dame. By unanimous vote, the National Convention had just abolished slavery in all of the French colonies and territories. The Municipality had a stage built inside the cathedral to hold a celebration. I was watching from outside. Black women danced, to the sound of a kind of music I had never heard before, with both Black men and members of the Municipality. I saw the eyes of a Negress fixed on me. I looked back and, my heart beating, recognized the pretty face of Rosalie, whom I had not seen since the emigration of the Countess de Provence, almost two years earlier. Rosalie paused for a moment, considered Aimée and me, then resumed her dance. I shook my head in a brief sign of gratitude and turned around in haste. Doing or saying nothing was enough then to save another’s life.
77
There was a sort of urgency to discard all reminders of the past, even the traditional method of reckoning time. The Gregorian calendar was abolished. The 22nd of September 1792, the day when the Republic had been proclaimed, marked the beginning of Year One. The months were now broken into three décades, composed of ten days each. The remaining five or six days of the year were called sans-culottides. Much fun has been made of that scheme, but I liked the new names of the months, which I found rather poetic: Vendémiaire evoked the wine harvest; Brumaire, the fog; Frimaire, the cold; Nivôse, the snow; Pluviôse, the rain; Ventôse, the winds; Germinal, the germination; Floréal, the flowers; Prairial, the meadows; Messidor, the harvest; Thermidor, the heats of summer; Fructidor, the fruits of the earth. The Saints’ names associated with each day of the year had disappeared, along with the Sundays. From then on, one rested on Décadi, once in ten days instead of seven in the past.
The National Convention decreed that “terror would be the order of the day” against the enemies of the Nation. It voted a “law on suspects,” encompassing the priests, the counterrevolutionaries, the aristocrats and anyone who kept company with them. Of course, as a ci-devant noblewoman, I was targeted. The new law gave the Revolutionary Tribunal exclusive jurisdiction to try and punish said suspects. It would become the main instrument of the Terror. Pierre-André’s appointment to that court was confirmed on the same day.
Queen Marie-Antoinette, now called the Widow Capet, was transferred from the Temple to the prison of La Conciergerie within the main Courthouse. That step, for a regular prisoner, would have indicated that a trial was imminent. I could not help thinking of the sorrow she must have felt at being separated from her children, especially her son. She loved that little boy. If she had one quality, and she may not have had many more, she was a caring mother. In October, Pierre-André informed me that he would sit as one of the five judges at her trial. He had made it clear that he would not discuss any of his pending cases with me. I dared not ask any questions of him until the proceedings were over.
The former Queen’s trial lasted from the 14th of October until the early hours of the 16th. She was guillotined around noon that day. I saw Pierre-André in the evening.
“She must have been exhausted,” I said. “Fifteen hours on the first day of trial, and almost twenty-four on the second one.”
“She seemed tired from the beginning. She was pale and bony, with greying hair, droopy eyelids and a puffy face. She looked twenty years older than her age. You know that she was not yet forty. A lifetime of depravity will do that to a woman.”
“She must have been much altered since I last saw her at the Tuileries.”
“That I cannot tell, because I never had the honour of meeting her there. The first time I set eyes on her was when I attended her official questioning a few days ago. She was clearly taking us all for idiots and acted with the same arrogance as if she had been surrounded by her courtiers. She retained the same insolence throughout the trial.” He shrugged. “She called herself Marie-Antoinette de Lorraine d’Autriche. Herman, who was the presiding judge, let her use that name instead of Widow Capet. It was clever of him. What an imbecile she was to remind the jury that she was, had never ceased to be the Austrian woman. Herman addressed her formally and with courtesy during the entire trial. On many occasions, he let her respond evasively without pressing the point. She would have had a rougher time with Dumas or me presiding, but it is all for the better. Even the most hardened royalists will not be able to claim that she was not treated fairly.”
“How did she argue her case?”
“Her main line of defense was that she was not responsible for any of her actions! She claimed she had obeyed her husband’s orders when she prepared the flight to Varennes, or when she sent the French war plans to her brother, the tyrant of Austria. Her argument might have succeeded had she been any other woman. In her case, it was common knowledge that Capet had fallen entirely under her influence, that he was a hapless imbecile without any will of his own.” Pierre-André shook his head in disgust. “Of course, that jackass Hébert had to disgrace himself by testifying that she had taught her son to pleasure himself. You may trust that scoundrel to bring up something lewd at every opportunity. Herman, who is no fool, let it pass without questioning Antoinette on it. The rest of us judges also ignored it, but one of the jurors insisted that she respond. That gave her an opportunity to feign outrage and appeal to the public.”
“I am sure that this accusation was not true.”
“Probably not. Boys of little Capet’s age tend to do the same without needing much prompting. Robespierre was furious when he heard of Hébert’s testimony and Antoinette’s show of indignation. Of course, we decided not to include the accusation of incest in the questions put to the jury, which were limited to whether she had aided and conspired with the foreign and domestic enemies of France. Everyone knew the answers to that. Both of her attorneys limited themselves to repeating what she had been saying about obeying her husban
d and such rubbish. The jurors deliberated for over an hour. I was beginning to worry that they had been fooled by her lies.”
“But they did not acquit her.”
“No. The verdict was unanimous. As you know, the jurors always state their decision outside the presence of the accused. Herman warned the public to keep quiet before she was called back to the courtroom to hear the verdict. It was indeed read in complete silence.”
“How did she react?”
“She looked stunned. I wonder what she was expecting. Then we deliberated on the penalty, which did not take long, and Herman pronounced her death sentence. She seemed to leave the courtroom in a trance. Around ten this morning, all five of us went with the clerk to her cell to read her the sentence again, as required by law. She did not want to hear it, but Herman made her listen all the same.” He shook his head with contempt. “Who did she think she was? She must have imagined that she was still the Queen and could give us orders. To Herman, to me, to all reasonable men, she is a traitress, a vulgar felon like any other. Sanson, the executioner, arrived and tied her hands behind her back. Again she had to protest and make a fuss. Then she was off to the guillotine. I cannot think of anyone who had done more to deserve this fate.”
“I know for a fact that she wished for the defeat of France’s armies. She may have been guilty of high treason. Yet I was acquainted with her. Although she did not like me much, I cannot help feeling sorrow on her account. Imagine going from being the Queen of France to being treated like a common criminal.”
“Everyone is equal before the law. I know that it is a principle she could never bring herself to accept, but it is the basis, along with liberty, of the Revolution.”
“Do you ever feel any pity for the accused?”
“Of course, sometimes. What you forget, Gabrielle, is how the business of justice used to be conducted under the Old Regime. I was already a lawyer before the Revolution and I remember it well. The judges then, those judges who despise us for having been appointed by the National Convention, purchased or inherited their functions. There was no jury. Many defendants, especially the poor, had no attorney. Criminal proceedings were secret and even the accused or his lawyer had no right to know the charges against him. It would not have done much good in any case.”
Mistress of the Revolution: A Novel Page 48