THIS IS A NOVEL about the French Revolution. Almost all the characters in it are real people and it is closely tied to historical facts—as far as those facts are agreed, which isn’t really very far. It is not an overview or a complete account of the Revolution. The story centers on Paris; what happens in the provinces is outside its scope, and so for the most part are military events.
My main characters were not famous until the Revolution made them so, and not much is known about their early lives. I have used what there is, and made educated guesses about the rest.
This is not, either, an impartial account. I have tried to see the world as my people saw it, and they had their own prejudices and opinions. Where I can, I have used their real words—from recorded speeches or preserved writings—and woven them into my own dialogue. I have been guided by a belief that what goes onto the record is often tried out earlier, off the record.
There is one character who may puzzle the reader, because he has a tangential, peculiar role in this book. Everyone knows this about Jean-Paul Marat: he was stabbed to death in his bath by a pretty girl. His death we can be sure of, but almost everything in his life is open to interpretation. Dr. Marat was twenty years older than my main characters, and had a long and interesting pre-revolutionary career. I did not feel that I could deal with it without unbalancing the book, so I have made him the guest star, his appearances few but piquant. I hope to write about Dr. Marat at some future date. Any such novel would subvert the view of history which I offer here. In the course of writing this book I have had many arguments with myself, about what history really is. But you must state a case, I think, before you can plead against it.
The events of the book are complicated, so the need to dramatize and the need to explain must be set against each other. Anyone who writes a novel of this type is vulnerable to the complaints of pedants. Three small points will illustrate how, without falsifying, I have tried to make life easier.
When I am describing pre-revolutionary Paris, I talk about “the police.” This is a simplification. There were several bodies charged with law enforcement. It would be tedious, though, to hold up the story every time there is a riot, to tell the reader which one is on the scene.
Again, why do I call the Hotel de Ville “City Hall”? In Britain, the term “Town Hall” conjures up a picture of comfortable aldermen patting their paunches and talking about Christmas decorations or litter bins. I wanted to convey a more vital, American idea;
power
resides at City Hall.
A smaller point still: my characters have their dinner and their supper at variable times. The fashionable Parisian dined between three and five in the afternoon, and took supper at ten or eleven o‘clock. But if the latter meal is attended with a degree of formality, I’ve called it “dinner.” On the whole, the people in this book keep late hours. If they’re doing something at three o’clock, it’s usually three in the morning.
I am very conscious that a novel is a cooperative effort, a joint venture between writer and reader. I purvey my own version of events, but facts change according to your viewpoint. Of course, my characters did not have the blessing of hindsight; they lived from day to day, as best they could. I am not trying to persuade my reader to view events in a particular way, or to draw any particular lessons from them. I have tried to write a novel that gives the reader scope to change opinions, change sympathies: a book that one can think and live inside. The reader may ask how to tell fact from fiction. A rough guide: anything that seems particularly unlikely is probably true.
ALSO BY HILARY MANTEL
Every Day Is
Mother’s Day
Eight Months on Ghazzah Street
Fludd
A Change of Climate
An Experiment in Love
The Giant, O’
Brien
Vacant Possession
Giving Up the Ghost
Beyond Black
Hilary Mantel has written nine novels, including
Beyond Black
, and a highly acclaimed memoir,
Giving Up the Ghost.
She lives with her husband in England.
L
ucile Desmoulins and General Dillon were tried for conspiracy and executed on 24 Germinal. Maximilien Robespierre was executed without trial on 10 Thermidor, July 28 old-style. So was his brother Augustin, so was Antoine Saint-Just, so was Couthon. Philippe Lebas shot himself.
Louise Danton married Claude Dupin, and became a baroness under the Empire.
Anne Théroigne died in 1817, in the prison-asylum of La Salpêtrière.
Charlotte Robespierre, who never married, was given a small pension by Napoleon. Eléonore remained “the widow Robespierre.” Maximilien’s father—as it turned out—had died in Munich in 1777.
Legendre died in 1795. Robert Lindet survived and prospered. Danton’s sons returned to his province and farmed their land.
Stanislas Fréron deserted the cause. After Robespierre’s fall, he persecuted Jacobins, leading gangs of vandals and gallants through the streets. He died in Haiti, in 1802.
Both Jean-Nicholas Desmoulins and Claude Duplessis died within a few months of Robespierre’s fall. Camille’s child was brought up by Annette and Adèle Duplessis. He attended the former Collège Louis-le-Grand, and was called to the Paris Bar. He died, also in Haiti, at the same age as his father. Adèle Duplessis died in Vervins, Picardy, in 1854.
A PLACE OF GREATER SAFETY. Copyright © 1992 by Hilary Mantel. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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First published in the United States by Atheneum
eISBN 9781429922807
First eBook Edition : August 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mantel, Hilary.
A place of greater safety / Hilary Mantel.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-42639-2
ISBN-10: 0-312-42639-9
1. France—History—Revolution, 1789-1799—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6063.A438P5 1998
98-26688
823’.914—dc21
CIP
First Picador Edition: December 2006
Also by
Hilary Mantel
The Bestselling Author of
Wolf Hall,
Winner of the Man Booker Prize
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Wolf Hall
www.picadorusa.com/wolfhall
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power.
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.
Bring Up the Bodies
www.henryholt.com/bringupthebodies
The sequel to Hilary Mantel’s 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and
New
York
Times
bestseller
Wolf
Hall
delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn.
Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice.
At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's
Bring Up the Bodies
follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head?
