French Passion (44 page)

“As a deputy, he'll receive a fair trial before the Assembly.”

“There aren't any fair trials!” I cried in anguish. “Goujon, we're friends. You, me, André. Please, please, you must help.” I closed my eyes and when I opened them, tears clung to my thick brown lashes. Goujon's lips softened. He took a sheet of paper that carried an official imprint and began to write. Left-handed, he held his massive forearm so I couldn't see the words.

Against all hope, I made a prayer for him to be writing a release for André. Even as I prayed, I knew it useless. Common sense told me that Goujon, powerful as he might have become, wouldn't countermand the Assembly.

I looked into his absorbed face. The wide, low forehead had a calm quality, the lips a sensuality. Yet hidden behind the red beard was an implacable jaw. Goujon never would succumb to a weakness that might endanger the policy he espoused. André's idealism was very human. André could be swayed by love, sympathy, even jealousy—as he'd been when I married the Comte. Never Goujon. Goujon would do whatever must be done to forge this new France. It was he rather than André who should have been nicknamed The Incorruptible.

Sanding the page, he reached it to me.

“‘Permit the bearer,'” I read aloud, “‘female, age twenty-three, blond hair, green eyes, to pass this barrier. By order of Denis Goujon, Chairman, Executive Council.'” I'd already known that Goujon wouldn't help André, yet the paper was cold to my hand as a cast-off snakeskin.

“Chairman, Executive Council, probably doesn't mean much to you, Manon. You've never noticed political matters. However, I head the most powerful committee in the Assembly. That letter will get you by every barrier. Once before I told you to leave France and never return. I tell you again. Be in England by the time Égalité's trial starts.”

“When is that?”

“You'll leave?”

“Tomorrow,” I lied.

Rising to show our interview had ended, he said, “February third.”

Chapter Nine

As February 3 dawned, Izette and I were waiting near the head of the interminable line that started at the Palais de Justice courtyard gates. The crowd had been gathering since long before midnight, stamping and snorting through the frostbitten night.

The sky lightened. Lanterns were extinguished. A crocodile of guards marched briskly across the cobbles. Arms were presented. The gates were flung open.

Izette and I clasped hands, racing across the courtyard, shouldering and shoving our way up the stone steps, joining in the packed crush of the hall, climbing to the public gallery. Jostling around us were sansculottes in the dress of their trade: coopers, smiths, millers, water carriers. Their wives carried knitting. Fishwives stank from their calling. Students with their usual exuberant bravado chanted the poems of Égalité.

We managed seats in the front of the gallery. The Grand Chamber, denuded of its tapestries and festooned with tawdry red-white-and-blue bunting, was as it had been two weeks earlier, for the trial of Louis XVI. Near the Bench a platform had been erected to make the King visible to everyone. The jurors, already in their box, wore red wool hats. Members of the Assembly strolled in to take their seats in front. The back of the hall had been converted into boxes, as in a theater, and ladies with special cards, wives or mistresses of the Assembly delegates, were shrugging off their warm wraps to settle in their assigned boxes. A plump vendor sold her fresh brioches up and down the aisles, a man moved slowly with a huge urn, waiting as his tiny cups of steaming coffee were drunk.

Here in the gallery, too, vendors hawked food. People ate breakfast, chattering. A roar of laughter came from our left, where a group of men were placing bets on the jury's decision.

It was the same as in the Place de la Révolution. This trial, for most people, made a pleasant break from the hunger and hard work. Trials and St. Guillotine were entertainment.

The bailiff rapped and with a deafening clatter the crowd rose. The Revolutionary Tribunal, in feathered hats, entered. The five of them would judge André. Following them came the public prosecutor, broad-shouldered and tiny-legged, and a thin brown wren of a man who was André's counsel. These two sat at a table below the raised platform.

A side door opened. André was led in.

From here I could see only the white oval of his face, the black of his clubbed hair, his easy grace of carriage. He climbed onto the platform and stood gazing down at the Assembly. He knew each deputy, and many were his friends.

The dwarf-built public prosecutor rose. “I accuse the prisoner Égalité of treason toward the Republic.” He had a strange, piercing lisp.

At his words a great roar went up. “To the guillotine! To the guillotine!” The gallery about me shook with the stamping of wooden sabots.

The President of the Tribunal shook his bell, but its ring couldn't be heard. After five minutes the gallery quieted.

The public prosecutor's words cut through the huge hall. “I will prove that the prisoner Égalité, for reasons of his birth, intended to overthrow the corrupt regime of Louis Capet, also known as Louis, King of France. I intend to show the prisoner plotted to overthrow the Republic to the same purpose. That he himself might assume power to rule over us.”

The accusation was insane. I almost laughed. Yet a hornet's nest of buzzing rose, as if there were truth in the charge. My God, I thought, they'll believe what they must in order to feed the guillotine. My skin crawled.

The trial began. The small brown man, André's counsel, never spoke, never shifted from his nervous perch behind the table. The exchanges were between André and the oddly proportioned public prosecutor.

Most of the time the public prosecutor's lisp rang with denunciations. After an hour the gallery grew restless. The public prosecutor moved to the base of the platform where André stood.

“Do you know, Prisoner, that the crime of being an émigré is punishable by death?”

“I'm not an émigré.”

“You went to the United States of America, did you not?”

“During the Old Regime.”

“There you achieved prosperity?”

“Yes.”

The public prosecutor, in his shrill, annoying voice, meandered through papers and witnesses establishing that André had, indeed, been a well-off citizen in the new republic across the seas.

Izette whispered in my ear, “This ain't leading noplace that I can see. So what if he farmed good? That ain't no crime.”

As mystified as she, I said, “He isn't even a real émigré. He returned before the Revolution.”

“Prisoner, inform the Tribunal, the Assembly, the people, why you came back to the land of your birth.”

“I desired the people of France to have the same benefits of liberty as enjoyed in the United States.” André's voice rang with the sincerity that once had bound the Assembly to reason.

“You have witnesses to this?”

“Many in the courtroom know it.”

“Do we? I, for one, have no proof more substantial than your self-serving poetry.”

“It cost me considerable to return.”

“That, we've already established.” The lisp turned insinuating. “But why? What made you so eager to leave a life so pleasant? Did you imagine to exchange humbler comfort for”—the ill-formed body turned to face the audience—“the wealth of kings?”

To André, the words seemed to carry far more weight than their obvious intent to discredit him. He grasped the waist-high rail of his platform as if he were at bay.

All he needs is one witness, I thought, one to prove his good intent. The Assembly, so recently his friends and associates, sat unmoving. Just one witness, I thought.

My body tensed, my chest expanded. Instinctively, without thought, I acted. A peculiar warmth seemed to fill me as I jumped to my feet.

“I can tell you why Égalité returned!” I cried. Below me, a sea of faces raised. The gallery boards shuddered as everyone rose, craning to see who had spoken.

André stared at me, shaking his head. Even from here I could see his anger.

Izette was tugging on my arm. “Sit down!”

She was far larger and stronger. I, however, was in one of those states like madness or intoxication when everything is possible. Shaking her off, I remained on my feet.

The President of the Tribunal lifted his plumed head toward me. “Only sworn witnesses,” he said, “are permitted to testify.”

In the gallery sabots stamped, voices roared. The din was unbelievable. “Let her speak! Let her speak!
Let her speak!
”

The President of the Tribunal glanced around, as if seeking advice from a few selected members of the Assembly. He's got masters, I thought. The plumed hat nodded. “I call the citizeness,” he announced.

My exaltation stayed with me as the bailiffs led me to the witness stand. Sitting, I was conscious of eyes, the men's filled with a kind of lust, the women's with curiosity.

André's well-shaped brows were drawn together. He was in one of his brief hot-blooded rages. In my peculiar state of consciousness, I didn't question his anger.

From this vantage point I saw that the President of the Tribunal had a wen over his left eye. “Your name, Citizeness?” he asked. As he spoke, the wen moved.

“Manon d'Epinay,” I said. Paused. In this brief moment it came to me that the courtroom was a drama, a kind of theater, and what the audience most desired was a good performance. My reward for such a performance would be André's life. Sweat broke out on my forehead. “I am a released prisoner of the Bastille! One of the seven!”

The response was more intense than I'd hoped. The gallery erupted into cheers, those in boxes rose to get a better look, and the Assembly, to a man, gazed at me. I saw Danton's scarred face, Robespierre's green-tinted skin, Goujon's flaming beard and hair. Otherwise I was not truly cognizant of my surroundings. The wild coursing through my veins might be what an actress feels when she becomes one with her role, but in my case I acted for the highest stake of all.

When he could be heard, the President of the Tribunal asked, “Have you proof of this?”

“Most assuredly.”

“Then let the court hear.”

“The Chairman of the Executive Council, Deputy Goujon,” I said, releasing the words lovingly, as if they were a string of South Sea pearls, “took me from my cell.”

The President of the Tribunal's head jerked violently. His plumed hat slid at an angle. “Deputy Goujon, speaks she the truth?”

Goujon rose slowly. The movement seemed reluctant. “I was with the patriots when they captured the stronghold of the Old Regime. Citizeness d'Epinay was among the prisoners released.”

There were cries of “Long live the released prisoner!”

The President of the Tribunal said, “Mr. Public Prosecutor, you may question the witness.”

The odd-shaped body moved slowly to the witness stand where I was seated. “So, Citizeness d'Epinay, you are friend”—his pause lasted so long that titters rose and were vehemently hushed—“of the accused?”

“I am.”

“When did you first meet?”

“In the month of September, 1785.”

“Where?”

“On the Rheims road.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“He was helping poor fanners … they took some small things from us. The farmers were from a village that had been destroyed. The crops of their land, by order of their masters, had been left for deer and boar. So the villagers had starved, all save these—but this court doesn't need me to remind it of the suffering before the Republic.” I threw out my hand in a gesture I'd seen at the Théâtre Française. “Citizen Égalité sought to alleviate those sufferings!”

This roar lasted the longest. I had never before felt the surge of power that comes from having a crowd on one's side. I gazed at André, trying to wordlessly convey what I was doing. He shook his head ever so slightly. His anger was gone, but shadows under his eyes were very dark. Why was he reluctant? This was the only possible way to save him.

“Now tell us why the prisoner returned to France, Citizeness.”

“He could not live one happy moment while his countrymen were oppressed.”

I spoke only the truth, but I picked my words for effect.

Effect I got. By the time my brief questioning was over, shouts echoed from the gallery. “Free Égalité! Free The Incorruptible!” I saw the glint of steel, heard threatening howls. The voice of the people. In these terrible times it was a voice to be listened to. Mobs had torn judges apart, literally.

“Free him!” I cried, my voice ringing above the others.

The President of the Tribunal looked to his masters in the Assembly.

“We have one more witness to testify,” he said, ringing his bell. “We'll hear him after we've adjourned for the dinner hour.”

Nobody left the gallery to eat. All of us feared losing our place. The people around me were shoving to touch me, and those farther away shouted approval. At each congratulation I would reply in a tone of ringing elation, “We must free Citizen Égalité!”

Possibly as an effect of my performance, I was starving. Izette had brought along rolls, one of the students cut off a large hunk of his sausage for me, another handed up a wedge of cheese from Münster. Two decent-looking old ladies, alike as twins, bobbed shy curtsies, passing a raisin cake. A nearby cooper stopped the vendor, buying me a cup of lemonade. And still I was ravenous.

In my hungry elation I went over the list of those few whom the Tribunal had released, from the Duc de Brissac on down. This afternoon André will be free, I'd tell myself. Every few minutes I would wipe my tears of joy and pat Izette's arm to convince myself I wasn't dreaming those victorious minutes on the witness stand.

Izette, too, commonsensical as she was, believed my testimony had swayed the judges and jury.