Mistress of the Revolution (48 page)

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 husband 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.”

Pierre-André shrugged. “If the defendant had the insolence to claim his innocence, a little torture session brought him to his senses. Pounding iron wedges into the wooden
boots
tied to the poor devil’s legs worked wonders. The bones were crushed without fail. Or, if the accused were deemed sturdy enough to survive the
water question
, he was tied, his limbs stretched out, a funnel was inserted into his mouth and he was forced to swallow over forty pints of liquid in a row. I need not tell you what damage this did to the internal organs. Once the investigation was deemed complete, the accused heard his sentence on his knees. If he were found guilty, he underwent a final, harsher torture session, again with the boots or the water question. This was allegedly necessary to obtain the names of any accomplices, or wrench a confession if one had not been secured earlier. Some defendants were by then too exhausted to speak. Others, after admitting to everything, were too weak to sign their confessions, or fainted outright. No matter: they were revived on a mattress by the fire and given a glass of wine before the torments resumed. I do not understand how anyone could condone such cruelty, but torture remained an official part of the procedure until ’88.”

Pierre-André shook his head in disgust. “When the time for the execution came, the accused, stripped to his shirt, a rope around his neck and a candle in his hand, climbed onto the executioner’s cart. It stopped at Notre-Dame. There, on the front steps, the man was made to kneel, or was held in that position if his legs could no longer support him. He had to repeat his confession aloud in front of the crowd and ask God and the King to forgive his crime. Only then was he led to the place of execution to face a slow agony on the gallows. That is, if he were fortunate enough not to have been sentenced to the wheel. All that, mind you, to punish offenses sometimes no more grievous than stealing a few francs or hitting someone during a drunken brawl. And the procedure, torture included, was exactly the same for women, except that they could not be sentenced to the wheel.”

I shuddered. “What you tell me is still worse than the hanging I witnessed as a child.”

“You saw only the execution itself. Now look at what is happening today. No one who stands trial before us has been as much as slapped. The proceedings are public and everyone is entitled to an attorney of his choice. We appoint one for those who cannot afford one. The accused make their appearances unshackled and the only sign of respect asked of them is to rise when we enter the courtroom. No one is required to kneel, to beg for forgiveness or to die stripped of his clothes anymore. Those who claim that we are a
tribunal de sang
, a “tribunal of blood,” and feign to regret the justice of the Old Regime are rogues. Most cases tried before us end in dismissals or acquittals.” He sighed. “If anything, under the current circumstances I find the jurors far too lenient. All too often, following a verdict of not guilty, I have to release dishonest army suppliers. Those scoundrels become rich supplying the brave men who sacrifice their lives for the Nation with flimsy shoes or faulty guns. To tell you the truth, acquitting that vermin breaks my heart much more than the fate of the Capet Widow.”

During the following months, the Revolutionary Tribunal tried many defendants, some famous and many obscure. Among the prominent characters sentenced to death were Madame Roland, the former queen of Parisian society under the reign of the Girondins, Philippe Egalité, the
ci-devant
Duke d’Orléans, accused of conspiring to restore the monarchy and make himself King, and Bailly, who had been Mayor of Paris during the massacre of the Champ de Mars. Pierre-André did not sit as a judge at his trial, for he was a witness for the prosecution.

All twenty-eight Farmers General, including Lavoisier, acknowledged the best scientist of the time, were also tried and sentenced to death. The Revolution had abolished their tax collection privileges; much of the hated wall that had choked the city for their greater profit had already been destroyed amidst general rejoicing. And there were the other enemies of the Republic, the merchants who refused to accept the Nation’s paper money as payment for their goods, the bakers who let their bread become moldy rather than to sell it at the official price, the farmers who hoarded their corn while famine was still a daily concern for the poor.

I read that even Osselin, former President of the 17th of August Tribunal and now a member of the National Convention, had been arrested for harbouring the
ci-devant
Marquise de Charry, an aristocrat suspected of emigration.

“Well,” said Pierre-André, “Osselin was an inept judge, especially in a presiding position, but he is not a bad man. He was caught. He had procured the Charry woman various hiding places under false identities throughout Paris and the suburbs. He finally hid her in his brother’s rectory.”

“Is it not what you have done for me?” I asked. “What if
you
were caught?”

“For one thing, you are not an émigrée like the
ci-devant
Marquise. In Osselin’s case, the Charry woman was arrested several months ago. She had him called to the rescue. He vouched for her and talked the police officers into releasing her. Yet he was unable to have the case against her dismissed. He then tried to convince her to surrender of her own accord, but when she declined, he reported her himself.”

“Was she his mistress?”

“What do you think?”

“Is she young? Pretty?”

“Both.”

“Would you have reported me if you had been in Osselin’s position?”

“Of course not.”

I took his hand in mine. “You should think first of your own safety. If I were arrested, I would not even mention your name. I am grateful for all you did already and would never compromise you.”

“I would try to save you till the end, Gabrielle, no matter what you say. I spoke to Robespierre on Osselin’s behalf, but he was not inclined to let the case slip into oblivion. There are things you do not know about this business. Osselin’s own brother, who is a sworn priest, also reported him. Finally, the Charry woman had a second, unrelated lover, whom she also entertained in Father Osselin’s hospitable rectory.” He shrugged. “Everyone betrayed everyone else in some way or other. The story, you see, is somewhat less romantic than it seems at first. Robespierre was not favourably impressed by any of the characters, and I cannot blame him for refusing to intervene. I still felt that I could not let Osselin go to the guillotine without trying to do something for him.”