A Place of Greater Safety

  It took time for the message to get through. It was five days later, February 16, when Georges-Jacques turned up at home. His wife was buried, but there had not been time to tidy her away; and besides, they had waited on his wishes, as if they knew not to preempt him, as if they could predict the violence of his anger and guilt and grief.

  Her dresses hung limp in a closet, like victims of torture. Under the old regime, women had been burned alive, and men broken on the wheel; had they suffered more than she had? He didn’t know. No one would tell him. No one wanted him to have any details. In this death house, drawers and chests exhaled a light flower scent. Cupboards were in order. She had kept an inventory of the china, he found. Two days before her death, she’d dropped a cup. At Sèvres just now they were designing a new demitasse. As you sip your mocha you may admire the dripping head of Capet—scattering golden drops of blood, and held in Sanson’s golden hand.

  The maid found a handkerchief of hers, under the bed in which she had died. A ring that had been missing turned up in his own writing desk. A tradesman arrived with fabric she had ordered three weeks ago. Each day, some further evidence of a task half-finished, a scheme incomplete. He found a novel, with her place marked.

  And this is it.

  CHAPTER 6

  A Secret History

  The baby was still alive, but he didn’t want to see it. He made no comment on the arrangements that had been made. Letters of condolence lay heaped on his desk. As he opened them, he thought, each of these writers is a decent hypocrite: each of them knows what I did to her. They write as if they did not. They write to bring themselves to my attention, to make their names stick in my mind.

  Robespierre’s letter was long and emotional. It would slide from the personal to the political—this being Max—and then—this being Max—it would slide back. I am more than ever your friend, it said, and I will be your friend till death. “From this moment you and I are one …” it said. Even in his present condition, Danton thought it an overstatement of the case. He wondered at its distraught tone.

  Camille did not write him a letter. He sat without speaking, his head bowed, and let Danton talk about the past, and shed tears, and rant on at him for one dereliction or another. He did not know why he was in the line of fire, why his whole career and character were suddenly under review, but it seemed to do Danton good to shout at him. Danton grew exhausted by the business. He slept at last. He’d wondered if sleep would ever be possible again. Gabrielle seemed to haunt the red-walled study, haunt the octagonal dining room where his clerks had once toiled; she haunted the alcove in the bedroom where they had lain in their separate beds, the distance widening between them month by month.

  He turned up her journal, kept sporadically in a bold hand. He read each page, and the mechanics of his past were laid bare for him. Unwilling that anyone else should see the book, he burned it, putting it on the fire a leaf at a time, watching it curl and char. Louise sat in a corner of the apartment, her eyes puffy and her features coarsened and blurred. He did not send her away; he hardly seemed to notice her. On March 3 he left for Belgium again.

  March was near-disaster. In Holland the depleted armies crashed to defeat. In the Vendee insurrection became civil war. In Paris mobs looted shops and smashed Girondin printing presses. Hébert demanded the heads of all the ministers, all the generals.

  On March 8 Danton mounted the tribune of the Convention. The patriots never forgot the shock of his sudden appearance, nor his face, harrowed by sleepless nights and the exhaustion of traveling, pallid with strain and suffering. Complex griefs caught sometimes at his voice, as he spoke of treason and humiliation; once he stopped and looked at his audience, self-conscious for a moment, and touched the scar on his cheek. With the armies, he has seen malice, incompetence, negligence. Reinforcements must be massive and immediate. The rich of France must pay for the liberation of Europe. A new tax must be voted today and collected tomorrow. To deal with conspirators against the Republic there must be a new court, a Revolutionary Tribunal: from that, no right of appeal.

  From the body of the hall someone called “Who killed the prisoners?” The Convention erupted: chants of septembriseur rocked the walls. The deputies of the Mountain rose as one to their feet. The president screamed for order; his bell clanged. Danton stood with his face turned to the public galleries. His fists were clenched at his side. As soon as the noise passed its climax, he threw his voice against it: “If there had been such a tribunal in September, the men who have so often and so savagely been reproached for those events would never have stained their reputations with one drop of blood. But I do not care about reputation or good name. Call me a drinker of blood, if you will. I will drink the blood of humanity’s enemies, if it means Europe will be free.”

  A voice from the Gironde: “You talk like a king.”

  He threw up his chin. “You talk like a coward.”

  He had spoken for almost four hours. Outside a mob was gathering, chanting his name. The deputies stood in their massed ranks and applauded. Even Roland, even Brissot were on their feet; they wanted to escape. Beside himself, Fabre shouted, “This was your supreme performance, supreme.” The Mountain came down to him. He was surrounded by the press of his supporters; the applause rang in his ears. Threading through the solid-packed bodies, like a coffin-worm at a wedding feast, came Dr. Marat, plucking at his sleeve. He looked down into the bloodshot eyes.

  “Now is your moment, Danton.”

  “For what?” he said dispassionately.

  “For the dictatorship. All power is yours.”

  He turned away. At that moment a magnetic ripple of deference swept the deputies aside. Robespierre walked towards him. Every time I come home, Danton thought, I find you a greater man. Robespierre’s face was taut with strain; he looked older, the muscles bunched at the sides of his jaw. But when he spoke it was in a low voice, with a hesitant gentleness: “I wanted to see you, but I didn’t want to intrude. I’m not the best person at thinking of things to say, and we’ve never been so close that nothing needs to be said. That’s my fault, I suppose. And I regret it.”

  Danton put a hand on his shoulder. “My good friend, thank you.”

  “I wrote—I thought, you know, these letters don’t do any good. But I wanted you to know you can count on me.”

  “I will.”

  “There is no rivalry between us. We have no difference of policy.”

  “Look at this,” Danton said. “Listen to them cheering me. It’s only weeks since they were spitting in my face because I couldn’t produce the ministry’s accounts.”

  Fabre elbowed his way up. Already he had been taking soundings. “The Gironde will split over the Tribunal. Brissot will back you, so will Vergniaud. Roland and his friends are opposed.”

  “They have defected from republicanism,” Danton said. “They spend their energies trying to destroy me.”

  Still the deputies surged and jostled around him, hemming him in. Fabre was bowing to left and right, as if he took the credit. Collot, the actor, was shouting, “Bravo, Danton, bravo!” his bilious face congested by emotion. Robespierre had retreated. Still the applause went on. Outside, a crowd was shouting for him. He stood still, and passed a hand over his face. Camille had struggled through to him. Danton flung an arm across his shoulders. “Camille, let’s just go home,” he said.

  Louise kept her ears open now. As soon as she heard that he was back in Paris, she went downstairs and set Marie and Catherine to work. The children were at Victor Charpentier’s house, and perhaps it was as well if he did not see them yet. She would have supper ready for him, at whatever hour he came home; he must not come to a house empty except for servants. Her mother came down five times to fetch her. “What do you mean,” she said, “by entangling yourself with that brute? You have no duty to him!”

  “He may be a brute. But I know what Gabrielle would have wanted. She would have wanted everything to be done for his comfort.”

  She sat in Ga
brielle’s chair, as if to balk her ghost. From here, she thought, Gabrielle had seen governments broken. From here she had seen the throne totter and fall. She had been plain, unaffected in her manners; her habits were those of a quiet housewife. She had lived with these sanguinary men.

  Midnight struck. “He’ll not come home now,” Catherine said. “We want to get to bed, even if you don’t. He’ll be round the corner, we reckon. He’ll not come home tonight.”

  At six o’clock the next morning, Citizen Danton let himself in quietly, in search of a change of clothes. She gave him a shock, the pale child, slumped without grace into Gabrielle’s chair. He picked her up in his arms and transferred her to the sofa. He threw a rug over her. She didn’t wake. He took what he needed and left the house.

  Around the corner Lucile was up and dressed and making coffee. Camille was writing, making the outline of the speech Danton would deliver to the Convention later that day. “An air of quiet industry prevails,” Danton said. “That’s what I like to see.” He put his arms around Lucile’s waist and kissed the back of her neck.

  “Glad to see you back in your routine,” Camille said.

  “Do you know, the little girl was waiting for me. Gély’s daughter. She’d gone to sleep in a chair.”

  “Really?” Lucile and her husband flicked their dark eyes at each other. They don’t really need to speak, these days. They have perfected communication by other means.

  March 10: it was bitterly cold, the kind of weather that makes breathing painful. Claude Dupin called, made her his formal proposal. Her father told him that although she was so young they were disposed to allow the marriage to go ahead within the year; things have been difficult round here, he said, and he told Claude Dupin (in confidence), “We’d like to get her into a different atmosphere. She sees and hears too much for a girl of her age. She’s lost her friend, of course, she’s had a bad shock. Wedding arrangements will take her mind off it.”

  She said to Claude Dupin, “I’m really really sorry, but I can’t marry you. Not yet, anyway. Would you be prepared to wait a year? I made a promise, to my friend who is dead, that I would look after her children. If I were your wife I’d have other duties and I’d have to go and live in another street. I think that, Citizen Danton being what he is, he will very soon find himself a new wife. When they have a stepmother, I shall be happy to leave here, but not until then.”

  Claude Dupin looked stunned. He’d thought everything was settled. “I can’t take this in,” he said. “Gabrielle Danton seemed a sensible woman to me. How could she let you make such a promise?”

  “I don’t know how it came about,” Louise said. “But it did.”

  Dupin nodded. “Fine,” he said. “I can’t say that I understand you, or that I like this, but if you say wait, I’ll wait. A promise is a promise, however unfortunate. But my dear, do one thing for me—so far as you can, stay away from Georges Danton.”

  She braced herself for the row. After Claude Dupin had left, her mother burst into tears; her father sat looking solemn, as if very very sorry for all concerned. Her mother called her a fool; she took her by the shoulders and shook her, and said don’t tell me you made a promise, it’s not that at all; admit it, spit it out, you must be besotted with one of these people. Who is it, come on—it’s that journalist, isn’t it? You can say his name, Louise said. It won’t call up the devil. She had a sudden, hideously painful vision of Gabrielle laughing, sitting on her sofa and giggling at Claude Dupin, Gabrielle warm, alive, her swollen hand trailing on Camille’s shoulder. Scalding tears flooded down her cheeks. You little tart, her mother said; and slapped her hard across the face.

  This was the second time in a month. Up here, she thought, is getting just like down there.

  “You’re going to Belgium again?” she asks Danton.

  “This will be the last time, I hope. I am needed in the Convention, these days.”

  “And the children, are they to come home?”

  “Yes. The servants can take care of them.”

  “I won’t leave them to servants.”

  “You’ve done too much. You shouldn’t be playing nursemaid. You should be out enjoying yourself.”

  He wonders, vaguely, what a respectable girl-child of fifteen does for enjoyment.

  “They’re used to me,” she says. “I like taking care of them. Can you explain what you’ll be doing while you’re away?”

  “I’m going to see General Dumouriez.”

  “Why do you have to keep going to see him?”

  “Well, it’s complicated. Some of the things he’s doing recently don’t seem to be very revolutionary. For instance, we had Jacobin clubs set up all over Belgium, and he’s closing them down. The Convention wants to know why. They think he may have to be arrested, if he isn’t a patriot.”

  “Not a patriot? What is he then? A supporter of the Austrians? Of of the King?”

  “There is no King.”

  “Yes, there is. He’s shut up in prison. The Dauphin is the King now.”

  “No, he’s not anything—he’s just an ordinary little boy.”

  “If that’s true, why do you keep him shut up?”

  “What an argumentative child you are! Do you follow events? Do you read the newspapers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you will know that the French have decided not to have a King.”

  “No, Paris has decided. That’s quite different. That’s why we have a civil war.”

  “But child—deputies from all over France voted for the end of the monarchy.”

  “They wouldn’t allow a referendum, though. They didn’t dare.”

  Danton doesn’t seem pleased. “Are these your parents’ views?”

  “My mother’s. Mine too. My father doesn’t have views. He would like to, but he can’t take the risk.”

  “You must be very careful, because clearly your parents are royalists, and that is not a safe thing to be nowadays. You must be careful what you say.”

  “Are people not allowed to say what they like? I thought it was in the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Free speech.”

  “You are allowed to express your opinion—but we are at war, and so your opinion must not be treasonable or seditious. Do you understand what they mean, those words?”

  She nods.

  “You must remember who I am.”

  “You don’t let a person forget, Citizen Danton.”

  “Come here,” he says. “Let me try to explain.”

  “No.”

  “Why won’t you?”

  “My parents have forbidden me to be alone with you.”

  “But you are. What’s the matter, do they think I might make you a little Jacobin?”

  “No, it’s not my politics they worry about. It’s my virginity.”

  He grinned. “So that’s what they think of me?”

  “They think you’re in the habit of taking what you want.”

  “They think I’m not to be trusted alone with a little girl?”

  “Yes, they think that.”

  “I wish you would go and tell them,” he said, “that I have never in my life forced my attentions on a woman. Despite some dire provocation from a pretty creature around the corner—tell your mother that, she’ll know just what I mean. Tell me, have they singled me out for this? Have they warned you about Camille? Because, I can assure you, if you were alone in an empty house with Camille he would consider it his positive duty to deflower you. His positive patriotic duty.”

  “Deflower? What an expression!” she said. “I thought Camille had been having an affair with his mother-in-law?”

  “Where the hell do you get these stories from?” Suddenly she has touched the anger that is never far below the surface. “To tell you the truth, it disgusts me that your parents think so badly of me. My wife has been dead a month—do they think I’m a monster?”

  That is exactly what they do think, she says to herself. “Have you given up women, then?”

&nb
sp; “Probably not forever. For now, yes.”

  “Do you think that very moral?”

  “I think it shows respect for my wife, who is dead.”

  “It would have shown more respect if you had done it while she was alive.”

  “We ought not to continue this conversation.”

  “Oh, I think we ought. When you come home from Belgium.”

  He left Paris on March 17, with Deputy Lacroix at his side. By now they knew each other quite well; he could have told Gabrielle everything she wanted to know.

  On March 19 he was in Brussels; but by the time they caught up with Dumouriez, he had lost a battle at Neerwinden. They found him in the thick of a rearguard action: “Meet me in Louvain,” he said.

  “What is the Convention anyway?” he asked angrily, that same night. “Three hundred fools, led by two hundred scoundrels.”

  “You will at least observe the decencies,” Danton suggested.

  The general stared at him. For a moment he saw himself spitted on his sword; but without a toga, it didn’t look quite right.

  “I mean,” Danton said, “that you should at least write a letter to the Convention, promising a detailed explanation of your conduct, of your closure of the Jacobins clubs, of your refusal to work with the Convention’s representatives. Oh, and of your defeat.”

  “God dammit,” Dumouriez said. “I was promised thirty thousand men. Let the Convention write a letter to me, and explain why they’ve got lost on the way!”

  “Do you know there is a move to have you arrested? They are fireeaters, on the Committee of General Security. Deputy Lebas has spoken against you—and I hear he’s a young fellow for whom Robespierre has a high regard. And David too.”

  “Committees?” the general said. “Let them try it! In the midst of my armies? What’s David going to do, hit me with his paintbrush?”

  “It would be wise not to be flippant, General. Think about the Revolutionary Tribunal. I do not think it will make much distinction between failure and treason, and you are the man who has just lost France a battle. You had better be careful what you say to me, because I am here to judge your attitude and report on it to the Convention and the General Defense Committee.”