Authors: Hilary Mantel

A Place of Greater Safety (116 page)

BOOK: A Place of Greater Safety

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The Times
, April 8, 1794:

When the late reconciliation took place, between Robespierre and Danton, we remarked that it proceeded rather from the fear which these two famous revolutionists entertained of each other, than from mutual affection;
we added, that it should last only until the more dexterous of the two should find an opportunity to destroy his rival. The time, fatal to Danton, is at length arrived … . We do not comprehend why Camille Desmoulins, who was so openly protected by Robespierre, is crushed in the triumph of this dictator.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

PART ONE

In Guise:
Jean-Nicolas Desmoulins, a lawyer
Madeleine, his wife
Camille, his eldest son (b. 1760)
Elisabeth, his daughter
Henriette, his daughter (died aged nine)
Armand, his son
Anne-Clothilde, his daughter
Clement, his youngest son

The Prince de Condé, premier nobleman of the
district and a client of Jean-Nicolas Desmoulins

In Arcis-sur-Aube
:
Marie-Madeleine Danton, a widow, who marries
Jean Recordain, an inventor
Georges-Jacques, her son (b.1759)
Anne-Madeleine, her daughter
Pierrette, her daughter
Marie-Cécile, her daughter who becomes a nun

In Arras:
François de Robespierre, a lawyer
Maximilien, his son (b. 1758)
Charlotte, his daughter
Henriette, his daughter (died aged nineteen)
Augustin, his younger son
Jacqueline, his wife, née Carraut, who dies
after giving birth to a fifth child
Grandfather Carraut, a brewer

In Paris, at Louis-le-Grand:
Father Poignard, the principal—a liberal-minded man
Father Proyart, the deputy principal—not at all a liberal-minded man
Father Herivaux, a teacher of classical languages
Louis Suleau, a student
Stanislas Fréron, a very well-connected student, known as “Rabbit”

In Troyes:
Fabre d’Églantine, an unemployed genius

PART TWO

In Paris:
Maitre Vinot, a lawyer in whose chambers
Georges-Jacques Danton is a pupil
Maître Perrin, a lawyer in whose chambers
Camille Desmoulins is a pupil
Jean-Marie Hérault de Séchelles, a young
nobleman and legal dignitary
François-Jérôme Charpentier, a café owner and Inspector of Taxes
Angélique (Angelica), his Italian wife
Gabrielle, his daughter
Françoise-Julie Duhauttoir, George-Jacques Danton’s mistress

At the rue Condé:
Claude Duplessis, a senior civil servant
Annette, his wife

Abbé Laudréville, Annette’s confessor, a go-between

In Guise:
Rose-Fleur Godard, Camille Desmoulins’s fiancée
In Arras:
Joseph Fouché, a teacher, Charlotte de Robespierre’s beau
Lazare Carnot, a military engineer, a friend of
Maximilien de Robespierre
Anaïs Deshorties, a nice girl whose relatives want
her to marry Maximilien de Robespierre
Louise de Kéralio, a novelist, who goes to Paris, marries
François Robert and edits a newspaper
Hermann, a lawyer, a friend of Maximilien de Robespierre

The
Orléanists:
Philippe, Duke of Orléans, cousin of King Louis XVI
Félicité de Genlis, an author—his ex-mistress,
now Governor of his children
Charles-Alexis Brulard de Sillery, Comte de Genlis-Félicité’s
husband, a former naval officer, a gambler
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, a novelist, the Duke’s secretary
Agnès de Buffon, the Duke’s mistress
Grace Elliot, the Duke’s mistress, a spy for
the British Foreign Office
Axel von Fersen, the Queen’s lover

At Danton’s chambers:
Jules Pare, his clerk
François Deforgues, his clerk
Billaud-Varennes, his part-time clerk, a man of sour temperament

At the Cour du Commerce:
Mme. Gély, who lives upstairs from Georges-Jacques and
Gabrielle Danton
Antoine, her husband
Louise, her daughter

Legendre, a master butcher, a neighbor of the Dantons
François Robert, a lecturer in law: marries Louise de Kéralio,
opens a delicatessen and later becomes a radical journalist
René Hébert, a theater box-office clerk
Anne Théroigne, a singer

In the National Assembly:
Antoine Bamave, a deputy: at first a radical, later a royalist
Jérôme Pétion, a radical deputy, later called a “Brissotin”
Dr. Guillotin, an expert on public health
Jean-Sylvain Bailly, an astronomer, later Mayor of Paris
Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, a renegade
aristocrat sitting for the Commons, or Third Estate
Teutch, Mirabeau’s valet

Jean-Pierre Brissot, a journalist
Momoro, a printer
Réveillon, owner of a wallpaper factory
Hanriot, owner of a saltpeter works
De Launay, Governor of the Bastille

PART THREE

M. Soulès, temporary Governor of the Bastille
The Marquis de Lafayette, Commander of the National Guard
Jean-Paul Marat, a journalist, editor of the
People’s Friend
Arthur Dillon, Governor of Tobago and a general in
the French army: a friend of Camille Desmoulins
Louis-Sébastien Mercier, a well-known author
Collot d’Herbois, a playwright
Father Pancemont, a truculent priest
Father Bérardier, a gullible priest
Caroline Rémy, an actress
Père Duchesne, a furnace maker: fictitious alter
ego
of René Hébert, box-office clerk turned journalist
Antoine Saint-Just, a disaffected poet, acquainted with or
related to Camille Desmoulins
Jean-Marie Roland, an elderly ex-civil servant
Manon Roland, his young wife, a writer
François-Léonard Buzot, a deputy, member of the
Jacobin Club and a friend of the Rolands
Jean-Baptiste Louvet, a novelist, Jacobin, friend of the Rolands

PART FOUR

Charles Dumouriez, a general, sometime Foreign Minister
Antoine Fouquier-Tinville, a lawyer; Camille Desmoulins’s cousin
Jeanette, the Desmoulins’s housekeeper

At the rue
Saint-Honoré:
Maurice Duplay, a master carpenter
Françoise, his wife
Eléonore, an art student, his eldest daughter
Victoire, his daughter
Elisabeth (Babette), his youngest daughter

PART FIVE

Politicans described as
“
Brissotins
” or “
Girondins
”:
Jean-Pierre Brissot, a journalist
Jean-Marie and Manon Roland
Pierre Vergniaud, member of the National Convention,
famous as an orator
Jérôme Pétion
François-Léonard Buzot
Jean-Baptiste Louvet
Charles Barbaroux, a lawyer from Marseille
and many others

Albertine Marat, Marat’s sister
Simone Evrard, Marat’s common-law wife
Defermon, a deputy, sometime President of the National Convention
Jean-François Lacroix, a moderate deputy: goes “on mission”
to Belgium with Danton in 1792 and 1793
David, painter
Charlotte Corday, an assassin
Claude Dupin, a young bureaucrat who proposes marriage
to Louise Gély, Danton’s neighbor
Souberbielle, Robespierre’s doctor
Renaudin, a violin maker, prone to violence
Father Kéravenen, an outlaw priest
Chaveau-Lagarde, a lawyer: defense council for Marie-Antoinette
Philippe Lebas, a left-wing deputy: later a member of the Committee
of General Security, or Police Committee: marries Babette Duplay
Vadier, known as “the Inquisitor,” a member of the Police Committee

Implicated
in the
East India
Company fraud
:
Chabot, a deputy, ex-Capuchin friar
Julien, a deputy, former Protestant pastor
Proli, secretary to Hérault de Séchelles,
and said to be an Austrian spy
Emmanuel Dobruska and Siegmund Gotleb, known as
Emmanuel and Junius Frei: speculators
Guzman, a minor politician, Spanish-born
Diedrichsen, a Danish “businessman”
Abbé d’Espanac, a crooked army contractor

Citizen de Sade, a writer, formerly a marquis
Pierre Philippeaux, a deputy: writes a pamphlet against the
government during the Terror

Some members of the Committee of Public Safety:
Saint-André
Barère
Couthon, a paraplegic, friend of Robespierre
Robert Lindet, a lawyer from Normany, a friend of Danton
Etienne Panis, a left-wing deputy, a friend of Danton

At the trial of the Dantonists:
Hermann (once of Arras), President of the Revolutionary
Tribunal
Dumas, his deputy
Fouquier-Tinville, now Public Prosecutor