A Place of Greater Safety (109 page)

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Authors: Hilary Mantel

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“Yes.” Defeated, he sat at the head of the table, facing Elisabeth. Mme. Duplay moved, brushing lightly against him, to take her daughter in her arms. Elisabeth began to sob, with a sound that pierced him like steel.
Saint-Just cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to take you away now, but the Police Committee will be meeting our Committee in an hour. I have drawn up a preliminary report regarding Danton—but it needs supplementation.”
“Duplay,” Robespierre said, “you understand that this matter cannot come to court. There is no need, really—in the context of other charges, I’m afraid it’s trivial. You will not sit as a juror at Danton’s trial. I shall
tell Fouquier to exempt you. It would not be just.” He shook his head. “No, it would not be equitable.”
“Before we leave,” Saint-Just asked, “would you go upstairs and get those notebooks of yours?”
 
 
T
he Tuileries, 8 p.m.: “I am going to be very plain with you, Citizen,” the Inquisitor said. Robespierre transferred his attention from Vadier’s long sallow face to his hands, to his peculiar fingers obsessively re-sorting papers on the green-draped oval table. “I shall be plain with you, on behalf of your own colleagues, and my colleagues on the Police Committee.”
“Then please do proceed.” His mouth was tight. His chest hurt. There was blood in his mouth. He knew what they wanted.
“You will agree with me,” Vadier said, “that Danton is a powerful and resourceful man.”
“Yes.”
“And a traitor.”
“Why are you asking me? The Tribunal will determine what he is.”
“But the trial, in itself, is a dangerous business.”
“Yes.”
“So every precaution must be taken.”
“Yes.”
“And every circumstance that might unfavorably influence the course of the trial must be attended to.”
Vadier took his silence for consent. Slowly, like primitive animals, the Inquisitor’s fingers curled up. They formed a fist. It hit the table. “Then how do you expect us to leave this aristocrat journalist at large? If Danton’s course since ‘89 has been treasonable, how do you exonerate his closest associate? Before the Revolution, his friends were the traitor Brissot and the traitor d’Églantine. No, don’t interrupt me. He has no acquaintance with Mirabeau—yet suddenly, he moves in with him at Versailles. For months—the months when Mirabeau was plotting his treason—he was never out of his company. He is impecunious, unknown—then suddenly he appears nightly at Orléans’s supper table. He was Danton’s secretary during his treasonable tenure at the Ministry of Justice. He is a rich man, or he lives like one—and his private life does not bear discussion.”
“Yes.” Robespierre said. “And he led the people, on July 12. He raised revolt, and then the Bastille fell.”
“How can you exonerate this man?” Vadier bawled at him. “One
person to whom the misguided people may have some—some sentimental attachment?” He made a sound expressive of disgust. “You think you can leave him at liberty, while his friend Danton is on trial? Because once, five years ago, he was bribed to talk to a mob?”
“No, that is not why,” Saint-Just said smoothly. “The reason is that he himself has a sentimental attachment. He appears to put his personal feelings before the welfare of the Republic.”
“Camille has made a fool of you for too long,” Billaud said.
Robespierre looked up. “You slander me, Saint-Just. I put nothing before the welfare of the Republic. I do not have it in me to do so.”
“Let me just say this.” Vadier’s yellow fingers uncurled themselves again. “No one, not even your admirable and patriotic self, may stand out against the people’s will. We are all against you. You are on your own. You must bow to the majority, or else here and now, tonight and in this room, your career is finished.”
“Citizen Vadier,” Saint-Just said, “sign the order for arrest, then pass it around the table.”
Vadier reached out for a pen. But Billaud’s hand leapt out, like a snake from a hole; he snatched the document and signed his name with a flourish.
“He wanted to be first,” his friend Collot explained.
“Was Danton so tyrannical an employer?” Robert Lindet asked. Vadier took back the paper, signed it himself, and pushed it along the table. “Rühl?”
Rühl, of the Police Committee, shook his head.
“He is senile,” Collot suggested. “He should be turned out of govemment.”
“Perhaps he’s just deaf.” Billaud’s forefinger stabbed at the paper. “Sign, old man.”
“Because I am old, as you say, you can’t browbeat me by threatening to end my career. I do not believe that Danton is a traitor. Therefore I will not sign.”
“Your career may end sooner than you think, then.”
“No matter,” Rühl said.
“Then pass the paper on to me,” Lebas said savagely. “Stop wasting the Republic’s time.”
Carnot took it. He looked at it thoughtfully. “I sign for the sake of the unity of the committees. No other reason.” He did so, and laid the paper in front of Lebas. “A few weeks, gentlemen, three months at the outside, and you’ll be wishing you had Danton to rally the city for you.
If you proceed against him, you pass into a new phase of history, for which I think you are ill-prepared. I tell you, gentlemen—you will be consulting necromancers.”
“Quickly,” Collot said. He snatched the paper from a member of the Police Committee, and scribbled his name. “There you are, Saint-Just—quickly, quickly.”
Robert Lindet took the warrant. Without glancing at it, he passed it on to his neighbor. Saint-Just’s eyes narrowed. “No,” Lindet said shortly.
“Why not?”
“I am not obliged to give my reasons to you.”
“Then we are bound to put the worst construction on them,” Vadier said.
“I am sorry you feel so bound. You have put me in charge of supply. I am here to feed patriots, not to murder them.”
“There is no need for unanimity,” Saint-Just said. “It would have been desirable, but let’s get on. There are only two signatures wanting, I think, besides those who have refused. Citizen Lacoste, you next—then be so good as to put the paper in front of Citizen Robespierre, and move the ink a little nearer.”
The Committees of Public Safety and General Security hereby decree that Danton, Lacroix (of the Eure-et-Loire département), Camille Desmoulins and Philippeaux, all members of the National Convention, shall be arrested and taken to the Luxembourg, there to be kept in secret and solitary confinement. And they do command the Mayor of Paris to execute this present decree immediately on receipt thereof.
C
our du Commerce, 9 p.m.: “Just a moment,” Danton said. “Introductions.”
“Danton—”
“Introductions. My dear, this is Fabricius Paris, an old friend of mine, and the Clerk of the Court to the Tribunal.”
“Delighted to meet you,” Paris said hurriedly. “Your husband got me my job.”
“And that’s why you’re here. You see, Louise, I inspire loyalty. Now?”
Paris was agitated. “You know I go every evening to the Committee. I collect the orders for the following day.” He turned to Louise. “Orders for the Tribunal; I take them to Fouquier.” She nodded. “When I arrived the doors were locked. Such a thing had never happened before. I said to myself, it may be useful to a patriot to know what is going on in
there. I know the building, you see. I went by a back way, and I found—forgive me—a keyhole—”
“I forgive you,” Danton said. “And you put your eye to the keyhole, and then your ear, and you saw and heard Saint-Just denouncing me.”
“How do you know?”
“It is logical.”
“Danton, they were sitting in silence, listening to every lie he uttered.”
“What exactly has he in mind? Do you know? Was there a warrant?”
“I didn’t see one. He was talking about denouncing you before the Convention, in your presence.”
“Couldn’t be better,” Danton said. “He wants to match his oratory against mine, does he? And his experience? And his name in the Revolution?” He turned to his wife. “It’s perfect. It is exactly as I wanted. The imbecile has chosen to meet me on my own ground. Paris, it couldn’t be better.”
Paris looked incredulous. “You wanted it forced to this point?”
“I shall crucify that smug young bastard, and I shall take the greatest pleasure in driving in the nails.”
“You will sit up and write your speech, I suppose,” Louise said. Danton laughed. “My wife doesn’t know my methods yet. But you do, Paris? I don’t need a speech, my love. I get it all out of my head.”
“Well, at least go and get the report of it written in advance for the newspapers. Complete with ‘tumultuous applause,’ and so on.”
“You’re learning,” he said. “Pâris, did Saint-Just mention Camille?”
“I didn’t wait, as soon as I caught the drift I got around here. I suppose he’s not in danger.”
“I went to the Convention this afternoon. Didn’t stay. He and Robespierre were deep in conversation.”
“So I heard. I was told they appeared very friendly. Is it possible then …?” He hesitated. How to ask someone if his best friend has reneged on him?
“In the Convention tomorrow I shall put him up to confront Saint-Just. Imagine it. Our man the picture of starched rectitude, and looking as if he has just devoured a beefsteak; and Camille making a joke or two at our man’s expense and then talking about ’89. A cheap trick, but the galleries will cheer. This will make Saint-Just lose his temper-not easy, since he cultivates this Greek statue manner of his—but I
guarantee
that Camille can do it. As soon as our man begins to bawl and roar, Camille will fold up and look helpless. That will get Robespierre on his feet, and we will all generate one of these huge emotional scenes. I always win those. I shall go round now—no, I won’t, we’ll plan this in the morning.
I ought to leave Camille alone. Bad news from home. A death in the family.”
“Not the precious father?”
“His mother.”
“I’m sorry,” Paris said. “Bad timing. He may not be so keen to play games. Danton—I suppose you wouldn’t consider any less risky course of action?”
 
 
R
ue Marat, 9:30 p.m.: “I could have gone home,” Camille said. “Why didn’t he tell me she was ill? He was here. He sat in the chair where you sit now. He didn’t say a word.”
“Perhaps he wanted to spare your feelings. Perhaps they thought she’d get better.”
One day at the end of last year, a stranger had come to the door: a distinguished man of sixty or so, spare, remote, with an impressive head of iron-gray hair. It had taken her a long moment to work out who he was.
“My father has never spared my feelings,” Camille said. “He has never understood the concept of sparing feelings. In fact, he has never understood the concept of feelings at all.”
It had been a brief visit—a day or two. Jean-Nicolas came because he had seen the “Old Cordelier.” He wanted to tell his son how much he admired it, how much he felt that he had done the right thing at last; how much, perhaps, he missed him, and wanted him to come home sometimes.
But when he tried to do this, a kind of hideous embarrassment swept over him, like the socially disabling blush of a girl of thirteen. His voice had strangled in his throat, and he had confronted, speechless, the son who usually preferred not to speak anyway.
It had been, Lucile thought, one of the worst half-hours in her life. Fabre had been there, bemoaning his lot as usual; but at the sight of the elder Desmoulins in such straits, he had actually found tears in his eyes. She had seen him dab them away; Camille had seen it too. Better that they had cried, Fabre said later; haven’t they a lot to cry for? When Jean-Nicolas gave up the effort at speech, father and son had embraced, in a minimal and chilly fashion. The man has some defect, Fabre had said later: I think there’s something wrong with his heart.
There was, of course, another aspect to the visit. Even Fabre wouldn’t mention it. It was the
Will you survive this?
aspect. They couldn’t either, mention it tonight. Camille said, “When you think of Georges-Jacques
and his mother, it’s odd. She may be a tedious old witch, but they’re always on some sort of terms, they’re always connected. And you, and your mother.”
“Practically the same person,” Lucile said, acidly.
“Yes, but think of me—it’s hard to believe I’m related to my mother at all, perhaps Jean-Nicolas found me under a bush. I’ve spent my whole life trying to please him, and I’ve never succeeded, and I’ve never given up. Here I am, Father, I am ten years old, I can read Aristophanes as my sisters read nursery rhymes. Yes, but why did God give us a child with a speech impediment? Look, Father, I have passed every examination known to man—are you pleased? Yes, but when will you make some money? See, Father, you know that revolution you’ve been talking about for twenty years? I’ve just started it. Oh yes, very nice—but not quite what we had in mind for you, and what will the neighbors say?” Camille shook his head. “When I think, of the years of my life that I’ve spent, if you add it up, writing letters to that man. I could have learned Aramaic, instead. Done something useful. Put my head together with Marat, and worked on his roulette system.”

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