A Place of Greater Safety

  “What are you looking so worried for?” Danton asked him.

  “I’m worried about preserving this accord between you.” He made a small gesture, to show how he was preserving it; it seemed to be the size of a hen’s egg, and as fragile.

  Late August, conscription came in, and General Custine (ci-devant Comte de Custine) lost his head; it encouraged the others. On the 26th Elisabeth Duplay married Deputy Philippe Lebas: a young man who was decidedly not handsome, but who was a good republican, and who had a pleasant, loyal, steadfast nature. “At last!” Camille said. “What a relief!” Robespierre was surprised. He approved of the match, true; but she’s only seventeen, he said.

  The queues outside the bakers’ shops grew restive. Bread was cheap, but there wasn’t much of it, and it was poor stuff. The Montagnard deputy Chabot took issue with Robespierre about the new constitution; he waved documents in his face. “It fails to abolish beggary from the Republic. It fails to assure bread to those who have none.”

  Robespierre was stopped in his tracks. This was the dearest wish of his heart: to ensure bread to those who had none. Every aim apart from this could be picked to pieces, hacked apart, assassinated. Surely this aim was simple, achievable? Yet he could not address the larger problem, because of all the petty problems that got in the way. He said, “I wish I could do that. I wish the poor would be no longer with us. But we are working within the bounds of possibility.”

  “You mean that the Committee, with all the powers we have given It—

  “You have given the Committee some powers and many more problems, you have charged us with questions we can’t possibly answer. You have given us—for instance—a conscript army to provision. You expect everything from the Committee, and yet you’re jealous of its powers. If I could produce a miracle of loaves and fishes, I suppose you’d say we’d exceeded our mandate.” He raised his voice, for those around to hear. “If there’s no bread, blame the English blockade. Blame the conspirators.”

  He walked away. He had never liked Chabot. He tried not to be prejudiced by the fact that Chabot looked, as everyone said, like a turkey: red, mottled, swelling. He had once been a Capuchin friar. It was hard to imagine him obedient to his vows: poverty, chastity. He and Deputy Julien were members of a committee formed to stamp out illegal speculation. Put there, Robespierre supposed, on the principle of setting a thief to … Julien was a friend of Danton, unfortunately. He thought of that egg cradled between Camille’s narrow palms. They said that Chabot was thinking of marrying. She was a Jewess, sister of two bankers called Frei; at least, they claimed that was their name, and that they were refugees from the Hapsburgs. After the marriage, Chabot would be a rich man.

  “You dislike foreigners on principle,” Camille said to him.

  “It doesn’t seem a bad principle to have, when we are at war with the rest of Europe. What do they want in Paris, all these Englishmen and Austrians and Spaniards? They must have loyalties elsewhere. Just businessmen, people say. What sort of business, I ask myself. Why should they stay here, to be paid in worthless paper and to be at the dictates of the sansculottes? In this city the women who do laundry fix the price of soap.”

  “Well, why do you think?”

  “Because they’re spies, saboteurs.”

  “You don’t understand finance, do you?”

  “No. I can’t understand everything.”

  “There is often a lot of money to be made out of deteriorating situations.”

  “Cambon is our government’s financial expert. He should explain things to me. I will remind him.”

  “But you’ve already formed your conclusions. And I suppose you will agree to imprisoning these people on suspicion.”

  “Enemy aliens.”

  “Yes, you say that now—but will it stop there? Every internment law perverts justice.”

  “You must see—”

  “I know,” Camille said. “National Emergency, extraordinary measures. You can’t say I’ve been soft on our opponents. I’ve never flinched—and incidentally, why are you delaying the trial of Brissot’s people—but what is the point of combating the tyrants of Europe if we behave like tyrants ourselves? What is the point of any of it?”

  “Camille, this isn’t tyranny—these powers we are taking, we may never need to use them, or not for more than a few months. It’s for our self-preservation, our survival as a nation. You say you have never flinched, but I’ve flinched—I flinch all the time. Do you think I’m bloodthirsty? I thought you would have trusted me to do the right thing.”

  “I do—yes, I think I do. But do you control the Committee, or are you just their public front?”

  “How could I control them?” He threw his hands out. “I’m not a dictator.”

  “You affect surprise,” Camille observed. “If you are not in control, is Saint-Just leading you by the nose? I ask you this to remind you not to let your grasp on events slip. And if I do think it is tyranny, I shall tell you. I have the right.”

  You see what the Revolution has boiled down to, a more biting concentrate: menials now ministers, and old friends who understand one’s mind. Up to September the Tribunal has condemned no more than thirty-six of the 260 accused brought before it; this ratio will begin to alter. While the issues grow greater, the manpower diminishes; at any one point, the survivors feel they have known each other a long time.

  Camille knew that this summer he had made a bad move; he should have left Arthur Dillon to the Republic’s judgement. At the same time, he had demonstrated his personal power. But it was isolation he sensed, as mornings grew fresh, as logs were got in for the winter, as the pale gold sun anatomized the paper leaves in the public gardens. With no particular end in view, he made a chance annotation among his papers:

  Pytheus said that in the island of Thule, which Virgil called Ultima Thule, six days’ journey from Great Britain, there was neither earth, nor sea, but a mixture of the three elements, in which it was not possible to walk, or go in a vessel; he spoke of it as a thing which he had seen.

  September 2, 1793: Address of the Sans-Culottes Section (formerly known as Jardin-des-Plantes) to the Convention: “Do you not know there is no basis to property other than the extent of physical needs? … A maximum should be fixed to personal fortunes … no one should be able to own more land than can be tilled with a stipulated number of ploughs … . A citizen should not be allowed to own more than one shop or workshop … the industrious workman, tradesman or farmer should be able to get for himself not only those things essential for eking out a bare existence, but also those things that may add to his happiness … .”

  Antoine Saint-Just: “Happiness is a new idea in Europe.”

  On September 2, the news reached Paris that the people of Toulon had handed their town and their navy over to the British. It was an unprecedented act of treason. France lost sixteen frigates and twenty-six out of her sixty-five ships of the line. This time last year, the gutters ran with blood.

  “Look,” Danton said. “You use this. You don’t just let it wash over you.” The noise from the hall of the Convention was a dull roar, punctuated by the occasional scream. “You get hold of it.” His fingers made a motion of folding themselves around something: a throat? “As a September murderer, I have never felt so popular.”

  Robespierre began to say something.

  “You’ll have to speak up,” Danton said.

  They were in one of the little rooms, bare and dusty, entered from the warren of dark passages that led from the debating chamber. They were alone, but they did not feel it, because of the tumult and close press of the mob; it was almost possible to smell them. Camille and Fabre effaced themselves against the dank far wall. September 5, 1793: the sansculottes are holding among their representatives a demonstration, or riot.

  “I said, Danton, why are you leaning against the door?”

  “To stop Saint-Just getting in,” Danton said swiftly. Never explain. Robespierre opened his mouth. “Now be quiet,” Dant
on said. “Hébert and Chaumette organized this.”

  Robespierre shook his head.

  “Oh well,” Danton said, “there may be a measure of truth in that. Maybe the sansculottes organized themselves, and that is a precedent I dislike. So make sure we stay ahead of events. Wrap up their demands in one package and give them back as a present from the Mountain. Economic controls, price maximums—very well. Arrest of suspects, very well. Then we stop there—no interference with private property. Yes, Fabre, I know what the businessmen will think of the economic controls, but this is an emergency, we have to give way, and why should I justify myself to you?”

  “We have to present a moving target to Europe,” Robespierre said quietly.

  “What did you say?”

  Nothing: Robespierre waved it away, tense and out of patience.

  “You have come around to the idea of interning suspects—Camille, the definition must wait. Yes, I know it is the heart of it, but I need a piece of paper for framing legislation. Will you keep quiet? I won’t listen to you now.”

  “Will you listen to me?” Robespierre shouted at him. Danton stopped. He looked at Robespierre warily.

  “All right. Go on.”

  “Tomorrow the Committee is due for re-election. We want to add to it Collot d’Herbois and Billaud-Varennes. They are giving us a lot of trouble, criticizing us all the time. We can’t think of any other way of keeping them quiet. Yes, I know it is a craven policy. We need our spines stiffening, don’t we? The Committee wants you back.”

  “No.”

  “Please, Danton,” Fabre said.

  “I’ll give you all the support you need. I’ll press for extension of your powers. Just tell me what you want from the Convention and I’ll fix it. But I won’t sit with you. The business wears me down. God blast it, can’t you see? I’m not the type for committees. I like to work on my own, I have an instinct and I like to act on it, I hate your bloody agenda and your minutes and your procedures.”

  “Your attitude is extremely exasperating,” Robespierre yelled at him.

  The noise from outside increased. Danton nodded his head in its direction. “Let me handle this for you. I’m probably the only one who can make his voice heard out there.”

  “I resent you—” Robespierre said. His words were lost. “The People,” he shouted, “are everywhere good, and if they obstruct the Revolution—even, for example, at Toulon—we must blame their leaders.”

  “What are you going on about this for?” Danton asked him.

  Fabre launched himself from the wall. “He is trying to enunciate a doctrine,” he shrieked. “He thinks the time has come for a bloody sermon.

  “If only,” Robespierre yelled, “there were more vertu.”

  “More what?”

  “Vertu. Love of one’s country. Self-sacrifice. Civic spirit.”

  “One appreciates your sense of humor, of course.” Danton jerked his thumb in the direction of the noise. “The only vertu those bastards understand is the kind I demonstrate every night to my wife.”

  Robespierre’s face crumpled, like a child’s on the verge of tears. He followed Danton out into the dark passage.

  “You wish he hadn’t said that, don’t you?” Fabre inquired. He gently prized Camille from the wall.

  Maximilien Robespierre, private notebooks: “Danton laughed at the idea of vertu, comparing it to what he did every night with his wife.”

  When Danton began to speak, the demonstrators cheered; the deputies stood up and applauded. It was some moments before he could continue. Shock and gratification chased each other across his face; now what have I done right? Once again he exhorted, conceded, unified, endorsed—saved the day. The day following, when he was elected once more to the Committee, Robespierre called at his house. Stiff-featured, he sat on the very edge of his chair and refused refreshment. “I have come to urge you to see your duty,” he said. “If the word retains any meaning for you.”

  Danton was in a good humor. “Don’t run away, Louise. You’ve never met Citizen Robespierre face-to-face, have you?”

  “I am sick of this taunting,” Robespierre said. He choked the words out, and at the same time his left eyelid began to jump in spasm. He took off his spectacles and pressed his fingers to it.

  “You’ll have to calm down,” Danton said. “Think of Camille, living all his life with a stutter. Though I confess Camille’s stutter has considerably more charm.”

  “The Convention may override you. May order you to join us.”

  “I intend to be,” said Danton pleasantly, “a thorn in the flesh of all committees.”

  “There isn’t really any more to say, is there? People are screaming for trials and purges and killings. You prefer to walk away.”

  “What do you want me to do? Sweat blood for the Republic? I’ve told you I’ll support you.”

  “You want to be the idol of the Convention. You want to get up and make big speeches and cover yourself in glory. Well, let me tell you, there’s a lot more to it than that.”

  “You’ll make yourself ill if you go on like this.”

  “You blame me for turning to Saint-Just for support. At least he doesn’t make his personal pleasures a touchstone for the Revolution.”

  “Who said I did that?”

  “You will at least, I hope, try to be civil to me in public?”

  “I shall be positively affectionate,” Danton promised.

  Robespierre left his door in a government conveyance. Two large men climbed in beside him. “Bodyguards,” Danton said, watching from the window. “They were forced upon him in the end. He was suspected of a plot to put his dog on the Committee of Public Safety. Actually, he’d quite like to be assassinated.” He stretched out a hand for Louise. “It would be the crowning glory of the hard, miserable life he’s made for himself.”

  On the day of the demonstration, the sansculotte leader Jacques Roux was arrested. For some time no proceedings were taken against him, but when in the end he was called before the Tribunal he killed himself in his cell. September saw the institution of Terror as a form of government. The new constitution was to be suspended till the end of the war. On September 13, Danton proposed that all committees be renewed, and that in future their members be appointed by the Committee of Public Safety. There was a moment when he and Robespierre stood together, as if to acknowledge jointly the applause of the Mountain. “All right?” he said to Robespierre, and Robespierre answered calmly, “Yes, that’s fine.”

  The decree was passed. The moment passed. And now, thought Danton, we ought to be able to bow and walk off stage. Weariness like a parasite seemed to burst into flower from his bones.

  The following morning he found he could hardly lift his head from the pillow. He could not remember anything about the previous day. His memory had been taken out, and replaced by a leaden, pulsating pain. A few incidents floated across the pain—disconnected, some from years back. He did not know the date. He thought he saw Gabrielle come into the room, look down at him, smooth his pillow. Only later he remembered that Gabrielle was dead.

  Several doctors came. They argued with each other as if their lives depended on it. When Angélique arrived, Louise crumpled into a little sniffling heap on a sofa. Angélique sent the children off to their uncle, and made Louise drink warm milk. Then she routed the doctors. Souberbielle remained. “He should get out of Paris,” he said. “A man like that needs to breathe his own air. He has spent all his adult life going against the grain. He has abused his strength, wrecked his constitution.”

  “He will get better?” Louise said.

  “Oh yes. But he must recover himself outside this city. The Convention must give him leave of absence. Citizeness, may I advise you?”

  “Of course.”

  “While he is ill, don’t discuss his affairs with anyone. Don’t trust anyone to have his interests at heart.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Stay out of arguments. It’s known, Citizeness, that you lik
e to air your views. By doing so, you increase the stress on him.”

  “I only speak as my conscience dictates. Perhaps this illness is providential. He must give up the Revolution.”

  “It’s not so simple. My dear, you were twelve years old when the Bastille fell.”

  “Gabrielle was weak.”

  “That was not my view of her. She confined herself to her sphere.”

  “I want to rescue him from himself.”

  “Strange,” the doctor said. “Robespierre has the same ambition.”

  “You know Robespierre?”

  “Pretty well.”

  “Is he a good man?”

  “He is honest and scrupulous and he tries to save lives.”

  “At the cost of certain other lives.”

  “That is sometimes unavoidable. He regrets it.”

  “Do you think he likes my husband?”

  The doctor shrugged. “I hardly know. They’re different types of men completely. Does it matter?”

  Of course it matters, she muttered to herself, as he took his leave. The doctors were replaced by Angélique’s daughters-in-law, strong and decisive women whom she hardly knew. They chivvied her about and sent her upstairs, to sleep in her old room. She crept out and sat on the stairs. She almost expected to see Gabrielle, returning to her sphere. You’re not pregnant, are you? her mother asked her. She could see the way her mother’s mind was working; if something’s really wrong, if he takes a turn for the worse, if he dies, how fast can we extricate her? If I’m not pregnant, she said, it’s not for the want of trying. Her mother shuddered. He is a savage, she said.