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Authors: Hilary Mantel

BOOK: A Place of Greater Safety
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“That’s how it is,” Maître d’Anton said. “You’re just getting your life set to rights, then the wisdom of the bloody Almighty—” The woman
and the girl raised their shocked faces. He frowned. “This religion has no consolations for me anymore.”
After the baby was buried, Gabrielle’s parents came back to sit with her. “Look to the future,” Angélique prompted. “You might have another ten children.” Her son-in-law gazed miserably into space. M. Charpentier walked about sighing. He felt useless. He went to the window to look out into the street. Gabrielle was coaxed to eat.
Mid-afternoon, another mood got into the room: life must go on. “This is a poor situation for a man who used to know all the news,” M. Charpentier said. He tried to signal to his son-in-law that the women would like to be left alone.
Georges-Jacques got up reluctantly. They put on their hats, and walked through the crowded and noisy streets to the Palais-Royal and the Café du Foy. M. Charpentier attempted to draw the boy into conversation, failed. His son-in-law stared straight ahead of him. The slaughter in the city was no concern of his; he looked after his own.
As they pushed their way into the café, Charpentier said, “I don’t know these people.”
D’Anton looked around. He was surprised at how many of them he did know. “This is where the Patriotic Society of the Palais-Royal holds its meetings.”
“Who may they be?”
“The usual bunch of time wasters.”
Billaud-Varennes was threading his way towards them. It was some weeks since d’Anton had put any work his way; his yellow face had become an irritation, and you can’t keep going, his clerk Pare had told him, all the lazy malcontents in the district.
“What do you think of all this?” Billaud’s eyes, perpetually like small, sour fruits, showed signs of ripening into expectation. “Desmoulins has declared his interest at last, I see. Been with Orléans’s people. They’ve bought him” He looked over his shoulder. “Well, talk of the devil.”
Camille came in alone. He looked around warily. “Georges-Jacques, where have you been?” he said. “I haven’t seen you for a week. What do you make of Réveillon?”
“I’ll tell you what I make of it,” Charpentier said. “Lies and distortion. Réveillon is the best master in this city. He paid his men right through the layoffs last winter.”
“Oh, so you think he is a philanthropist?” Camille said. “Excuse me, I must speak to Brissot.”
D’Anton had not seen Brissot until now; unless he had seen him and overlooked him, which would have been easy enough. Brissot turned to
Camille, nodded, turned again to his group to say, “No, no, no, purely legislative.” He turned back, extended a hand to Camille. He was a thin man, meager, mousy, with narrow shoulders hunched to the point of deformity. III health and poverty made him look older than his thirty-five years, yet today his wan face and pale eyes were as hopeful as a child’s on its first day at school. “Camille,” he said, “I mean to start a newspaper.”
“You must be careful,” d’Anton told him. “The police haven’t entirely let the situation go. You may find you can’t distribute it.”
Brissot’s eyes traveled across d’Anton’s frame, and upwards, across his scarred face. He did not ask to be introduced.
“First I thought I’d begin on April 1 and publish twice weekly, then I thought, no, wait till April 20, make it four times weekly, then I thought, no, leave it till next week, when the Estates meet—that’s the time to make a splash. I want to get all the news from Versailles to Paris and out onto the streets—the police may pick me up, but what does it matter? I’ve been in the Bastille once, I can go again. I’ve not had a moment to spare, I’ve been helping with the elections in the Filles-Saint-Thomas district, they were desperate for my advice—”
“People always are,” Camille said. “Or so you tell me.”
“Don’t be snide,” Brissot said gently. There was impatience in the faint lines around his eyes. “I know you think I haven’t a chance of keeping a paper going, but we can’t spare ourselves now. Who would have thought, a month ago, that we’d have advanced this far?”
“This man calls three hundred dead an advance,” Charpentier said.
“I think—” Brissot broke off. “I’ll tell you in private all that I think. There might be police informers here.”
“There’s you,” a voice said behind him.
Brissot winced. He did not turn. He looked at Camille to see if he had caught the words. “Marat put that about,” he muttered. “After all I’ve done to further that man’s career and bolster his reputation, all I get is smears and innuendos—the people I’ve called comrades have treated me worse than the police have ever done.”
Camille said, “Your trouble is, you’re backtracking. I heard you, saying the Estates would save the country. Two years ago you said nothing was possible unless we got rid of the monarchy first. Which is it, which is it to be? No, don’t answer. And will there be an inquiry into the cause of these riots? No. A few people will be hanged, that’s all. Why? Because nobody dares to ask what happened—not Louis, not Necker, not even the Duke himself. But we all know that Réveillon’s chief crime was to stand for the Estates against the candidate put up by the Duke of Orléans.”
There was a hush. “One should have guessed,” Charpentier said.
“One never anticipated the scale of it,” Brissot whispered. “It was planned, yes, and people were paid—but not ten thousand people. Not even the Duke could pay ten thousand people. They acted for themselves.”
“And that upsets your plans?”
“They have to be directed.” Brissot shook his head. “We don’t want anarchy. I shudder when I find myself in the presence of some of the people we have to use … .” He made a gesture in d’Anton’s direction; with M. Charpentier, he had walked away. “Look at that fellow. The way he’s dressed he might be any respectable citizen. But you can see he’d be happiest with a pike in his hand.”
Camille’s eyes widened. “But that is Maitre d‘Anton, the King’s Councillor. You shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Let me tell you, Maitre d’Anton could be in government office. Except that he knows where his future lies. But anyway, Brissot—why so unnerved? Are you afraid of a man of the people?”
“I am at one with the people,” Brissot said reverently. “With their pure and elevated soul.”
“Not really you aren’t. You look down on them because they smell and can’t read Greek.” He slid across the room to d’Anton. “He took you for some cutthroat,” he said happily. “Brissot,” he told Charpentier, “married one Mlle. Dupont, who used to work for Félicité de Genlis in some menial capacity. That’s how he got involved with Orléans. I respect him really. He’s spent years abroad, writing and, you know, talking about it. He deserves a revolution. He’s only a pastry-cook’s son, but he’s very learned, and he gives himself airs because he’s suffered so much.”
M. Charpentier was puzzled, angry. “You, Camille—you who are taking the Duke’s money—you admit to us that Réveillon has been victimized—”
“Oh, Réveillon’s of no account now. If he didn’t say those things, he might have done. He might have been thinking them. The literal truth doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters is what they think on the streets.”
“God knows,” Charpentier said, “I like the present scheme of things very little, but I dread to think what will happen if the conduct of reform falls into hands like yours.”
“Reform?” Camille said. “I’m not talking about reform. The city will explode this summer.”
D‘Anton felt sick, shaken by a spasm of grief. He wanted to draw Camille aside, tell him about the baby. That would stop him in his
tracks. But he was so happy, arranging the forthcoming slaughter. D’Anton thought, who am I to spoil his week?
 
 
V
ersailles: a great deal of hard thinking has gone into this procession. It isn’t just a matter of getting up and walking, you know.
The nation is expectant and hopeful. The long-awaited day is here. Twelve hundred deputies of the Estates walk in solemn procession to the Church of Saint-Louis, where Monseigneur de la Fare, Bishop of Nancy, will address them in a sermon and put God’s blessing on their enterprise.
The Clergy, the First Estate: optimistic light of early May glints on congregated miters, coruscates over the jewel colors of their robes. The Nobility follows: the same light flashes on three hundred sword-hilts, slithers blithely down three hundred silk-clad backs. Three hundred white hat plumes wave cheerfully in the breeze.
But before them comes the Commons, the Third Estate, commanded by the Master of Ceremonies into plain black coats; six hundred strong, like an immense black marching slug. Why not put them into smocks and order them to suck straws? But as they march, the humiliating business takes on a new aspect. These mourning coats are a badge of solidarity. They are called, after all, to attend on the demise of the old order, not to be guests at a costume ball. Above the plain cravats a certain pride shows in their starched faces. We are the men of purpose: good-bye to frippery.
Maximilien de Robespierre walked with a contingent from his own part of the country, between two farmers; if he turned his head he could see the embattled jaws of the Breton deputies. Shoulders trapped him, walled him in. He kept his eyes straight ahead, suppressed his desire to scan the ranks of the cheering crowds that lined the routes. There was no one here who knew him; no one cheering, specifically, for him.
In the crowd Camille had met the Abbé de Bourville. “You don’t recognize me,” the abbé complained, pushing through. “We were at school together.”
“Yes, but in those days you had a blue tinge, from the cold.”
“I recognized you right away. You’ve not changed a bit, you look about nineteen.”
“Are you pious now, de Bourville?”
“Not noticeably. Do you ever see Louis Suleau?”
“Never. But I expect he’ll turn up.”
They turned back to the procession. For a moment he was swept by an irrational certainty that he, Desmoulins, had arranged all this, that
the Estates were marching at his behest, that all Paris and Versailles revolved around his own person.
“There’s Orléans.” De Bourville pulled at his arm. “Look, he’s insisting on walking with the Third Estate. Look at the Master of Ceremonies pleading with him. He’s broken out in a sweat. Look, that’s the Duc de Biron.”
“Yes, I know him. I’ve been to his house.”
“That’s Lafayette.” America’s hero stepped out briskly in his silver waistcoat, his pale young face serious and a little abstracted, his peculiarly pointed head hidden under a tricorne hat à
la
Henri Quatre. “Do you know him too?”
“Only by reputation,” Camille muttered. “Washington pot-au-feu.”
Bourville laughed. “You must write that down.”
“I have.”
At the Church of Saint-Louis, de Robespierre had a good seat by an aisle. A good seat, to fidget through the sermon, to be close to the procession of the great. So close; the billowing episcopal sea parted for a second, and between the violet robes and the lawn sleeves the King looked him full in the face without meaning to, the King, overweight in cloth-of-gold; and as the Queen turned her head (this close for the second time, Madame) the heron plumes in her hair seemed to beckon to him, civilly. The Holy Sacrament in its jeweled monstrance was a small sun, ablaze in a bishop’s hands; they took their seat on a dais, under a canopy of velvet embroidered with gold fleur-de-lis. Then the choir:
O salutaris hostia
If you could sell the Crown Jewels what could you buy for France
?
Quae coeli pandis ostium,
The King looks half-asleep.
Bella premunt hostilia,
The Queen looks proud
.
Da robur, fer auxilium.
She looks like a Hapsburg.
 
Uni trinoque domino,
Madame Deficit.
Sit sempitema gloria,
Outside, the women were shouting for Orléans.
Qui vitam sine termino,
There is no one here I know.
Nobis donet in patria.
Camille might be here somewhere. Somewhere.
Amen.
“L
ook, look,” Camille said to de Bourville. “Maximilien.”
“Well, so it is. Our dear Thing. I suppose one shouldn’t be surprised.”
“I should be there. In that procession. De Robespierre is my intellectual inferior.”
“What?” The abbé turned, amazed. Laughter engulfed him. “Louis XVI by the grace of God is your intellectual inferior. So no doubt is our Holy Father the Pope. What else would you like to be, besides a deputy?” Camille did not reply. “Dear, dear.” The abbé affected to wipe his eyes.
“There’s Mirabeau,” Camille said. “He’s starting a newspaper. I’m going to write for it.”
“How did you arrange that?”
“I haven’t. Tomorrow I will.”
De Bourville looked sideways at him. Camille is a liar, he thinks, always was. No, that’s too harsh; let’s say, he romances. “Well, good luck to you,” he said. “Did you see how the Queen was received? Nasty, wasn’t it? They cheered Orléans though. And Lafayette. And Mirabeau.”

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