it yours?”
“Her baby? Good heavens, no.”
“It’s just the way you look at her. Well, how am I to know what goes on in Paris?”
So I stood for election, and was beaten by a man named de Gerville. Within days, this de Gerville was appointed Minister of the Interior, and thus removed from my path. There were fresh elections. My opponent this time was Collot d’Herbois, the none-too-successful playwright, whom I suppose I must regard as a revolutionary comrade. The electors may question my fitness for office, but Collot has all the gravitas of a mad dog. My majority was very large.
Make of this what you will. My opponents made much of it, to my discredit. They said that “the Court had a hand in it.” Since Louis Capet retains the prerogative of ministerial appointment, it would be strange if it were otherwise.
Let me spell it out for you: they say I am “in the pay of the Court.” Now that is a very vague allegation, an imprecise charge, and unless you could be more definite about names, dates, amounts, I would not feel obliged to make any statement. But if you ask Robespierre, he will vouch for my integrity. Nowadays that is the highest guarantee; because he is afraid of money, he is known as “the Incorruptible.”
If you feel well disposed to me, regard de Gerville’s removal as a happy coincidence. If not, console yourself that my friend Legendre was recently offered a very large sum to slit my throat. However, he told me of it; he obviously sees some long-term advantage in turning down a good cash offer.
My new salary was useful, and status as a prominent public official does no harm. I thought that now we might be seen to spend a little money without incurring criticism (oh, I was wrong of course) and so I kept Gabrielle busy during the last tedious weeks in choosing carpets, china and silver for our apartment, which we have just had redecorated.
But I suppose you will not want to know about our new dining table—you will want to know who is sitting in the new Assembly. Lawyers, naturally. Propertied men, like myself. On the right, Lafayette’s supporters. In the center, a huge uncommitted many. On the left—now, this is what concerns us. My good friend Herault de Sechelles is a deputy, and we have a few recruits for the Cordeliers Club. Brissot is amongst those elected for Paris, and many of his friends seem likely to lay claim to the public’s attention.
I must explain something about “Brissot’s friends”; it is a misnomer, as many of them can’t stand him. But to be “one of Brissot’s people” is a kind of tag, a label, one which we find useful. In the old Assembly, Mirabeau used to point to the Left and shout, “Silence, those thirty voices.” Robespierre said to me one day, it would be convenient if all “Brissot’s people” would sit together in the Jacobin Club, so that we could do the same.
Do we want them silent? I don’t know. If we could get over this absurd matter of war or peace—and it is a lot to get over—there wouldn’t be much to divide us. They’re just, somehow, not our sort—and don’t they let us know it! There are a number of outstanding men from the Gironde region, amongst them the leading lights of the Bordeaux Bar. Pierre Vergniaud is a polished orator, the best in the House—if you like that antique type of oratory, which is a bit different from the fire-eating style we affect on our side of the river.
“Brissot’s people” are of course outside the Assembly as well as in it. There is Petion—now mayor, as I said— and Jean-Baptiste Louvet, the novelist, who now writes for the papers—and of course you’ll remember Francois- Leonard Buzot, the humorless young fellow who sat with Robespierre on the far Left of the old Assembly. They have several newspapers between them, and assorted positions of influence in the Commune and the Jacobin Club. Why they rally round Brissot I can never grasp, unless they need his nervous energy as a driving force. He is here, there, an instant opinion, a lightning analysis, an editorial in the blink of an eye. He is forever setting up a committee, launching a project; he is forever hatching a plan, blazing a trail, putting his machinery in motion. I saw Vergniaud, who is a large, calm man, regarding him from under his thick eyebrows; as Brissot chattered, a small sigh escaped him, and a look of pained exhaustion grew on his face. I understood. Camille can wear me out in the same way. But one thing you must say about Camille—even in the direst circumstances, he can make you laugh. He can even make the Incorruptible laugh. Yes, I have seen it with my own eyes and Freron says he has seen it too—unseemly tears of mirth streaming down the Incorruptible’s face.
I don’t wish to suggest that Brissot’s people are anything so definite as a party. Yet they see a good deal of each other—salon life, you know. Last summer they used to meet at the apartment of an aging nonentity called Roland, a provincial married to a much younger woman. The wife would be passably attractive, if it were not for her incessant fervor. She is the type who always wants to surround herself with young men, and play them off against each other. She probably cuckolds the old husband, but I doubt if that is the point for her—it’s not her body that she wants to gratify. Well, so I suppose. To my relief, I don’t know her very well.
Robespierre used to go to supper there, so I gather they’re a high-minded lot. I asked him did he contribute much to the conversation; he said, “Not a word do I speak, I sit in a corner and bite my nails.” He has his moments, does Maximilien.
He called on me in early December, soon after he got back from Arras. “Am I distrubing you?” he asked— anxious as usual, peering into our drawing room to make sure there was no one he didn’t wish to meet. I waved him in airily. “Only, do you mind the dog?”
I hastily removed the hand I had placed on his shoulder.
“I don’t mean to take him everywhere,” he said, “but he will follow.”
The dog—which was the size of a small donkey—disposed itself at his feet, its head on its paws and its eyes on his face. It was a great brindled creature, and its name was Brount. “He is my dog at home,” he explained. “I thought I should bring him because—well, Maurice Duplay wants me to have a bodyguard, and I don’t like the idea of people following me about. I thought the dog—”
“I’m sure it will,” I said.
“He’s very well behaved. Do you think it’s a good idea?”
“Well, after all,” I said, “I have Legendre.”
“Yes.” He moved uneasily, causing the dog to twitch its ears. My wit is lost on Maximilien. “Is it true that there was an assassination plot against you?”
“More than one, I understand.”
“But you don’t let them intimidate you. Danton, I have great respect for you.”
I was nonplussed: I had not expected a testimonial. We talked a little about his visit to Arras. He told me about his sister Charlotte, who is his warmest supporter in public, but tiresome in private. It was the first time he had
