The Archbishop of Aix came to the Third Estate carrying a piece of stony black bread and weeping crocodile tears. He exhorted the deputies to waste no more time in futile debate. People were starving, and this was the sort of thing they were being given to eat. He held up the bread delicately, between finger and thumb, for inspection; he took out a handkerchief, embroidered with his coat of arms, and dusted from his hands the blue-and-white mold. Deputies said, disgusting. The best thing they could do, the Archbishop said, was to forget the procedural wrangles and form a joint committee with the other two Estates, to discuss famine relief.
Robespierre stood up. He began to move towards the rostrum. He fancied that someone might try to stop him, saw them rising in their seats to be there first, so he put his small, neat head down like a bull’s and walked as if he meant to shake them off. If they join with the other Estates for one committee session, for one vote, the Third Estate has lost its case. This was a trick, and the archbishop had come to play it. Those few steps seemed like a field, and he was walking uphill in the mud, shouting “No, no,” his voice carried off by the wind. His heart seemed to have jumped up and hardened into his throat, the exact size of the piece of black bread the archbishop held in his hand. He turned, saw below him hundreds of white, blank, upturned faces, and heard his voice in the sudden hush, blistering and coherent:
“Let them sell their carriages, and give the money to the poor … .”
There is a moment of incomprehension. There is no applause, but a mutter, sharp and curious. People stand up to get a better view. He blushes faintly under their attention. Here everything begins: June 6, 1789, 3 p.m.
June 6, 7 p.m., Lucile Duplessis’s diary:
Must we crawl forever? When shall we find the happiness we all seek? Man is easily dazzled—when he forgets himself he thinks he is happy. No, there is no happiness on the earth, it is only a chimera. When the world no longer exists—but how can it be wiped out? They say there will be nothing anymore. Nothing. The sun to lose its brightness, to shine no more. What will become of it? How will it set about becoming nothing?
Her pen hovers, about to underline nothing. But it doesn’t really need underlining, does it?
Her father says, “You’re not eating, Lucile. You’re fading away. What’s happening to my pretty girl?”
She’s fining down, Father. The angles of her body emerge, shoulder and wrist. There are shadows under her eyes. She refuses to put her hair up. Her eyes were once of the sharp, lively kind; but now she looks at people with a concentrated dark stare.
Her mother says, “Lucile, I wish you would stop fiddling with your hair. It reminds me—I mean, it irritates me.”
Go out of the room then, Mother: turn your eyes away.
Her heart must be stony, for it seems that it won’t break. Every morning she finds herself living, breathing, bodily present, and begins her day in the iron ring of their faces. Looking into her father’s eyes she sees the reflection of a happy young woman in her mid-twenties, with two or three pretty children gathered at her knee; in the background is a stalwart, honorable man with a well-pressed coat, a nebulous area where the face should be. She’ll not give them that satisfaction. She thinks of means of suicide. But that would be to make an end; and true passion, you know, is never consummated. Better to find a cloister, skewer that metaphysical lust under a starched coif. Or to walk out of the front door one day on a casual errand, into poverty and love and chance.
Miss Languish, d’Anton calls her. It is something to do with the English plays he reads.
On June 12, three country cures come over to the Third Estate. By the 17th, sixteen more have joined them. The Third Estate now calls itself the “National Assembly.” On June 20, the National Assembly finds itself locked out of its hall. Closed for refurbishment, they are told.
M. Bailly is solemn amid the sardonic laughter, summer rain running down his hat. Dr. Guillotin, his fellow academician, is at his elbow. “What about that tennis court down the road?”
Those within earshot stared at him. “It’s not locked—I know it wouldn’t give us a lot of room but … Well, anybody got a better suggestion?”
At the tennis court they stand President Bailly on a table. They swear an oath, not to separate until they have given France a constitution. Overcome by emotion, the scientist assumes an antique pose. It is, altogether, a Roman moment. “We’ll see how they stick together when the troops move in,” the Comte de Mirabeau says.
Three days later, when they are back in their own premises, the King turns up at their meeting. In an unsteady and hesitant voice he annuls their actions. He will give them a program of reform, he alone. In silence before him, black coats, bleached cravats, faces of stone: men sitting for their own monuments. He orders them to disperse, and, gathering his sorry majesty, exits in procession.
Mirabeau is at once on his feet. Scrupulously attentive to his own legend, he looks around for the shorthand writers and the press. The Master of Ceremonies interrupts: will they kindly break up the meeting, as the King has ordered?
Mirabeau: “If you have been told to clear us from this hall, you must ask for orders to use force. We shall leave our seats only at bayonet point. The King can cause us to be killed; tell him we all await death; but he need not hope that we shall separate until we have made the constitution.”
Audible only to his neighbor, he adds, “If they come, we bugger off, quick.”
For a moment all are silent—the cynics, the detractors, the rakers-up of the past. The deputies applaud him to the echo. Later they will drop back to let him pass, staring at the invisible wreath of laurels that crowns his unruly hair.
“The answer’s the same, Camille,” said Momoro the printer. “I publish this, and we both land in the Bastille. There’s no point in revising it, is there, if every version gets worse?”
Camille sighed and picked up his manuscript. “I’ll see you again. That is, I might.”
On the Pont-Neuf that morning a woman had called out to tell his fortune. She had said the usual: wealth, power, success in matters of the heart. But when he had asked her if he would have a long life, she had looked at his palm again and given him his money back.
D’Anton was in his office, a great pile of papers before him. “Come and watch me in court this afternoon,” he invited Camille. “I’m going to drive your friend Perrin into the ground.”
“Can’t you get up any malice, except against the people you meet in court?”
“Malice?” D’Anton was surprised. “It isn’t malice. I get on very well with Perrin. Though not so well as you.”
“I just can’t understand how you remain wrapped up in these petty concerns.”
“The fact is,” d‘Anton said slowly, “That I have a living to make. I’d like to take a trip to Versailles and see what’s going on, but there you are, I’ve got Maître Perrin and a snapping pack of litigants waiting for me at two o’clock sharp.”
“Georges-Jacques, what do you want?”
D’Anton grinned. “What do I ever want?”
“Money. All right. I’ll see you get some.”
Café du Foy. The Patriotic Society of the Palais-Royal in session. News from Versailles comes in every half hour. The clergy are going over en masse. Tomorrow, they say, it will be fifty of the nobles, led by Orléans.
It is established to the satisfaction of the Society that there is a Famine Plot. Hoarders in high places are starving the people to make them submissive. It must be so: the price of bread is going up every day.
The King is bringing troops from the frontier; they are on the march now, thousands upon thousands of German mercenaries. The immediate peril though is the brigands; that is what everyone calls them. They camp outside the city walls, and no matter what precautions are taken, some slip through each night. These are the refugees from the blighted provinces, from the fields stripped by the hailstorm and the winters before; hungry and violent, they stalk through the streets like prophets, knotty stick
s in their hands and their ribs showing through the rags of their clothing. Unescorted women now keep off the streets. Masters arm their apprentices with pick-axe handles. Shopkeepers get new locks fitted. Housemaids going out to queue for bread slip kitchen knives into their aprons. That the Brigands have their uses is a fact noted only by the percipient: the Patriotic Society of the Palais-Royal.
“So they have heard of your exploits in Guise?” Fréron said to Camille.
“Yes, my father sends me this fat package of admonition. This letter came too.” He proffered it to Fréron. It was from his maybe-relative, Antoine Saint-Just, the well-known juvenile delinquent from Noyon. “Read it,” he said. “You might read it out to everyone.”
Fréron took the letter. A minute, difficult hand. “Why don’t you do it?”
Camille shook his head. He’s not up to this: speaking in small rooms. (“Why not?” He saw Fabre’s face looming up, Fabre in the small hours getting beside himself with wrath. “How can it be harder than talking to a crowd? How can it possibly be?”)
“Very well,” Fréron said. It didn’t suit him personally, for Camille to get too competent about ordinary things.
The letter contained interesting sorts of news: trouble all over Picardy, mobs in the streets, buildings burning, millers and landlords under threat of death. Its tone was that of suppressed glee.
“Well,” Fabre said, “how I look forward to meeting your cousin! He sounds a most pleasant, pacific type of youth.”
“My father didn’t mention all this.” Camille took the letter back. “Do you think Antoine exaggerates?” He frowned at the letter. “Oh dear, his spelling doesn’t improve … . He so badly wants something to happen, you see, he’s not having much of a life … . Odd way he punctuates, too, and scatters capital letters around … . I think I shall go down to Les Halles and talk to the market men.”
“Another of your bad habits, Camille?” Fabre inquired.
“Oh, they are all Picards down there.” Fréron fingered the small pistol in the pocket of his coat. “Tell them Paris needs them. Tell them to come out on the streets.”
“But Antoine amazes me,” Camille said. “While you sit here, deploring undue violence in the conventional way, the blood of these tradesmen to him is like—”
“Like what it is to you,” Fabre said. “Milk and honey, Camille. July is your promised land.”
CHAPTER 7
Killing Time
July 3, 1789: De Launay, Governor of the Bastille, to Monsieur de Villedeuil, Minister of State:
I have the honor to inform you that being obliged by current circumstances to suspend taking exercise on the towers, which privilege you were kind enough to grant the Marquis de Sade, yesterday at noon he went to his window and at the top of his voice, so that he could be heard by passersby and the whole neighborhood, he yelled that he was being slaughtered, that the Bastille prisoners were being murdered, and would people come to their aid … . It is out of the question to allow him exercise on the towers, the cannon are loaded and it would be most dangerous. The whole staff would be obliged if you would accede to their wish to have the Marquis de Sade transferred elsewhere without delay.
(signed) De Launay
P.S. He threatens to shout again.
In the first week of July, Laclos went out on a foray. There were just a few names to be added to the payroll at this last minute.
On the very day he had heard Camille Desmoulins speak at the Palais-Royal, a copy of his unpublished pamphlet, circulating in manuscript, had come into the Duke’s hands. The Duke declared it made his eyes ache, but said, “This man, the one who wrote this, he might be useful to us, eh?”
“I know him,” Laclos said.
“Oh, good man. Look him up, will you?”
Laclos could not imagine why the Duke thought Desmoulins must be some old acquaintance of his.
At the Café du Foy, Fabre d’Églantine was reading aloud from his latest work. It didn’t sound promising. Laclos marked him down as a man who would soon need more money. He had a low opinion of Fabre, but then, he thought, there are some jobs for which you need a fool.
Camille came up to him inconspicuously, willing to be steered aside. “Will it be the 12th?” he asked.
Laclos was appalled by his directness: as if he did not see the infinite patience, the infinite complexity … “The 12th is no longer possible. We plan for the 15th.”
“Mirabeau says that by the 13th the Swiss and German troops will be here.”
“We must take a chance on that. Communications are what worry me. You could be massacring the entire population in one district, and half a mile away they wouldn’t know anything about it.” He took a sip of coffee. “There is talk, you know, of forming a citizen militia.”
“Mirabeau says the shopkeepers are more worried about the brigands than the troops, and that’s why they want a militia.”
“Will you stop,” Laclos said with a flash of irritation, “will you stop quoting Mirabeau at me? I don’t need his opinions secondhand when I can hear the man himself shouting his mouth off every day in the Assembly. The trouble with you is that you get these obsessions with people.”
Laclos has only known him a matter of a week or two; already he is launched on “the trouble with you …” Is there no end to it? “You’re only angry,” Camille said, “because you haven’t been able to buy Mirabeau for the Duke.”
“I’m sure we will soon agree on an amount. Anyway, there’s talk of asking Lafayette—Washington pot-au-feu, as you so aptly call him—to take charge of this citizen militia. I need hardly point out to you that this will not do at all.”
“No indeed. Lafayette is so rich that he could buy the Duke.”
“That is not for you to concern yourself with,” Laclos said coldly. “I want you to tell me about Robespierre.”
“Forget it,” Camille said.
“Oh, he may have his uses in the Assembly. I agree he’s not the most stylish performer as yet. They laugh at him, but he improves, he improves.”
“I’m not questioning that he’s of use. I’m saying you won’t be able to buy him. And he won’t come with you for love of the Duke. He’s not interested in factions.”
“Then what is he interested in? If you tell me, I will arrange it. What are the man’s weaknesses, that’s all I require to know. What are his vices?”
“He has no weaknesses, as far as I can see. And he certainly has no vices.”
Laclos was perturbed. “Everyone has some.”
“In your novel, perhaps.”
“Well, this is certainly stranger than fiction,” Laclos said. “Are you telling me the man is not in want of funds? Of a job? Of a woman?”
“I don’t know anything about his bank account. If he wants a woman, I should think he can get one for himself.”
“Or perhaps—well now, you’ve known each other for a long time, haven’t you? He isn’t perhaps otherwise inclined?”
“Oh no. Good God.” Camille put his cup down. “Absolutely not.”
“Yes, I agree it’s difficult to imagine,” Laclos said. He frowned. He was good at imagining what went on in other people’s beds—after all, it was his stock-in-trade. Yet the deputy from Artois had a curious innocence about him. Laclos could only imagine that when he was in bed, he slept. “Leave it for now,” he said. “It sounds as if M. Robespierre is more trouble than he’s worth. Tell me about Legendre, this butcher—they tell me the man will say anything, and has a formidable pair of lungs.”
“I wouldn’t have thought he was in the Duke’s class. He must be desperate.”
Laclos pictured the Duke’s bland, perpetually inattentive face. “Desperate times, my dear,” he said with a smile.
“If you want someone in the Cordeliers district, there is someone much much better than Legendre. Someone with a trained pair of lungs.”
“You mean Georges d’Anton. Yes, I have him on file. He is the King’s Councillor who refused a good post under Barentin last
year. Strange that you should recommend to me someone who recommends himself to Barentin. He turned down another offer later—oh, didn’t he tell you? You should be omniscient, like me. Well—what about him?”
“He knows everybody in the district. He is an extremely articulate man, he has a very forceful personality. His opinions are—not extreme. He could be persuaded to channel them.”
Laclos looked up. “You do think well of him, I see.”
Camille blushed as if he had been detected in a petty deception. Laclos looked at him with his knowing blue eyes, his head tilted to one side. “I recollect d’Anton. Great ugly brute of a man. A sort of poor man’s Mirabeau, isn’t he? Really, Camille, why do you have such peculiar taste?”
“I can’t answer all your questions at once, Laclos. Maître d’Anton is in debt.”
Laclos smiled a simple pleased smile, as if a weight had been taken off his mind. It was one of his operating principles that a man in debt could be seduced by quite small amounts, while a man who was comfortably off must be tempted by sums that gave his avarice a new dimension. The Duke’s coffers were well supplied, and indeed he had recently been offered a token of good will by the Prussian Ambassador, whose King was always anxious to upset a French reigning monarch. Still, his cash was not inexhaustible; it amused Laclos to make small economies. He considered d’Anton with guarded interest. “How much for his good will?”
“I’ll negotiate for you,” Camille said with alacrity. “Most people would want a commission, but in this case I’ll forgo it as a mark of my esteem for the Duke.”
“You’re very cocksure,” Laclos said, needled. “I’m not paying out unless I know he’s safe.”