cash than by the need of a new arena for self-advertisement.
In the old days, he claimed that his stutter was a complete obstacle to successful pleading. Of course, until one is used to it, it might discomfit, irritate or embarrass. But Herault has pointed out that Camille has wrung some extraordinary verdicts from distraught judges. Certainly I have observed that Camille’s stutter comes and goes. It goes when he is angry or wishes forcibly to make a point; it comes when he feels put-upon, and when he wishes to show people that he is in fact a nice person who is really not quite able to cope. It says much for his natural optimism that after some eight years of acquaintance he sometimes assumes the latter pose with me and expects me to believe in it. Not entirely without success: there are days when I am so bemused by Camille’s helplessness that I go around opening doors for him.
All went smoothly until the New Year. Then he took on the defense of the couple concerned in the affair of the gambling house in the Passage Radziwill. Camille deplores the intervention of the state in what he sees as a matter of private morality; he not only published his opinion, but placarded it all over the city. Now Brissot—who is a man with a regrettable busybody tendency, both in his political philosophy and in his private life—was outraged by the whole affair. He attacked Camille verbally and set one of his hacks to assail him in the press. As a result, Camille said he would “ruin Brissot. I shall simply write his autobiography,” he said. “I shall not need to embroider the facts. He is a plagiarist and a spy, and if I have refrained so far from making these revelations it is out of sentimentality over the length of our acquaintance.”
“Nonsense,” I said, “it has been out of fear of what he might reveal about you.”
“When I have finished with him …” Camille said. It was at this point I felt I must intervene. We may not see eye-to-eye on the war question, but if we are to achieve any political power of the formal kind, our natural allies are Brissot and the men of the Gironde.
I wish I could cast more light for you on Camille’s private life. The long-promised fidelity to Lucile lasted, oh, all of three months—yet from his disconnected statements at various times I gather that he doesn’t care for anyone else and would go through the whole business again to get her. There is nothing about them of the ironical coldness of people who are bored with each other; in fact, they give a lively impression of a well-heeled young couple with a great deal of energy who are having a very good time. It amuses Lucile to try out her powers on any personable man—and even on those who, like me, could never be described as personable. She has Freron on a string, and now Herault too. And you remember General Dillon, that romantic Irishman who is so attached to Camille? Camille brings him home from wherever they have been playing cards that night—for the general shares that addiction—and presents him to Lucile as if he were bringing her the most wonderful present—which indeed he is, because Dillon, along with Herault, is widely spoken of as the most handsome man in Paris, and is in addition quite wonderfully poised and polished and gallant, and all that rubbish. Quite apart from the gratification she gets from flirting, I imagine that someone—the minx Remy perhaps—has advised her that one way to keep an errant husband is to make him jealous. If this is her idea, she is having a great failure. Witness a recent conversation:
LUCILE: Herault tried to kiss me.
CAMILLE: Well, you have been raising his hopes. Did you let him?
LUCILE: No.
CAMILLE: Why not?
LUCILE: He has a double chin.
What are they then—just an amiable, cool, amoral pair who have decided to make life easy for each other? That is not what you would think if you lived on our street, not what you would think if you lived next door. They are playing for high stakes, it seems to me, and each of them is watching the other for a failure of nerve; each waits for the other to throw down the hand. The truth is, the more enmeshed Lucile becomes with her various beaux, the more Camille seems to enjoy himself. Why should this be? I’m afraid your imagination will have to supply the deficiencies of mine. After all, you know them well enough by now.
And I? Well, now, I suppose you like my wife, most people do. Our little actresses—Remy and her friends—are so accommodating, so pleasant and so easy for my Gabrielle to ignore. They never cross the threshold of this house; what would she have to say to them? They are not whores, these girls, far from it; they would be shocked if you offered them money. What they like are outings and treats and presents, and to be seen on the arms of the men whose names are in the papers. As my sister Anne-Madeleine says, people like us, we have our day; and when our day is over, and we are forgotten, they will be on the arms of other men. I like them, these girls. Because I like people who live without illusions.
I must get round to Remy herself someday soon—if only as a gesture of fellowship to Fabre and Herault and Camille.
I should say, in my defense, that I was faithful to Gabrielle for a long time; but these are not the days for fidelity. I think of all that has passed between us, the strong and sincere attachment I felt and do feel; I think of the kindness of her father and mother, and of the little child we buried. But I think, too, of her tone of cold disapproval, of her withdrawn silences. A man has his work in this world, and must do it as he sees fit, and (like the actresses) he must accommodate himself to the times in which he lives; Gabrielle does not see this. What irks me most is her downtrodden air. God knows, I never trod on her.
So I am seeing—oh, this girl and that girl—and from time to time the Duke’s ladies. Come now, you will say, surely not; this fellow is boasting again. With Mrs. Elliot, I would merely say that I have a business relationship. We discuss politics, English politics: English politics as applied to French affairs. But there is, nowadays, much warmth in Grace’s tone, in her eyes. She is an arch-dissimulator; I do believe she finds me perfectly loathsome.
Not so Agnes, I visit Agnes when the Duke is out of town. If the Duke thinks I might want to see Agnes, he is usually out of town. It works so smoothly that I would have credited Laclos with the arrangements, if that unfortunate had not disgraced himself by failure and slunk off into provincial oblivion. But why should the mistress of a Prince of the Blood—who might be a character in a novel, don’t you think?—bend herself to the conquest of a lawyer with an unsavory reputation, overweight and as ugly as sin?
Because the Duke foresees a future where he will need a friend; and I am the friend he will need.
But I find it hard, I tell you, to keep my thoughts away from Lucile. So much passion there, so much wit and flair. She is of course getting herself a reputation. It is widely believed already that she is my mistress, and soon of course she will be; unlike her other suitors, I am not a man to tease.
In a matter of weeks Gabrielle will give me another son. We shall celebrate, and be reconciled—which means that she will accept the situation. After Lucile’s child is born—by the way, it is her husband’s—Camille and I will arrive at an understanding, which will not be immensely difficult for us to do. I think perhaps 1792 is my year.
In January I took up my post as Deputy Public Prosecutor.
I shall be speaking to you again, no doubt.
