A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

This particular Monday had been a difficult one. Robespierre had declined her invitation. Pierre Vergniaud had accepted it. She did not like the man, personally; and these days her personal likes counted for a good deal. She could find no political point on which she differed from him, but he was lazy, reserving his oratory for grand themes and grand occasions. That night his eyes were glazed with boredom. Dumouriez was lively enough—but he was not lively in the right direction. He had told at least one scandalous anecdote, and then begged her pardon. She accorded it with the merest movement of her head; and the general knew that his work tomorrow would be mysteriously obstructed. Soon and easily, she had slipped into the habits of power.

Fabre d’Eglantine had tried to draw the conversation round to the theater, but she had firmly returned it to its proper subject—the maneuvers, both military and political, of the ci-devant Marquis de Lafayette. She had seen Fabre catch Danton’s eye, and cast his own momentarily to the naked goddesses prancing across the ceiling. She had been glad of Jean-Baptiste Louvet, sitting beside her. It was true that she had once been suspicious of him, because of the novel he had written. But she understood what the position of patriots had been, under the old regime, and a great deal could be excused to such a promising journalist. His thinning blond hair flopped forward as he leaned over to listen to her. A partisan. A friend of Mme. Roland.

She talked to Louvet, but her eyes had been drawn, against her will, to Danton. It was Dumouriez who insisted she invite him: “He is a man we ought to cultivate. He has a following on the streets.”

“Among the mob,” she had said scornfully.

“Do you think we shall have no dealings with the mob?”

So here the man sat. He made her shudder. That air of joviality, that affectation of frankness and bonhomie: it covered—just barely—the man’s evident, monstrous ambition. Oh, he was just a good fellow, he was just a simple fellow, his heart was in the farmland of his province—oh was it? She glanced down at the confident hands resting on the cloth, the thick fingers outstretched. He could kill with those hands; he could snap a woman’s neck, or squeeze the breath from a man’s throat.

And that scar, faded to a dead white, slashed across his mouth; how did he get that scar? It twisted his lips, so that his smile was not really a smile, more a kind of sneer. What would it feel like to touch that scar? What would be the texture, under the fingertips? This man had a wife. He had, they said, a bevy of mistresses. Some woman’s fingers had touched that scar, traced its course, its edges.

He caught her eyes resting on him. She looked away quickly, but then she couldn’t bear not to look up again, and spend the rest of the night wondering what he had thought. Cautiously, her glance crept back. Yes, take a good look, his face said; you have never in your safe little life seen a man like me.

And on Tuesday morning, all Danton could say, with tired exasperation: “Well, which one of us is going to sleep with the bitch, because clearly that’s what she wants?”

“Why ask?” Fabre said. “She didn’t take her eyes off you for two hours.”

“Women are peculiar,” Danton said.

“And talking of peculiar women, I understand Theroigne is back. The Austrians have let her go. I can’t imagine why, unless they thought she was the sort to bring the Revolution into disrepute.”

“No such subtlety,” Danton said. “I expect they were afraid she’d cut off their balls.”

“But to return to the subject, Georges-Jacques—if Madame has her eye on you, you might as well, you really might as well. No point oiling around, ‘My dear Mme. Roland, how we all esteem your talents’—why don’t you offer her some solid evidence? Then she might bring all her gentlemen friends into line with our line. Do it, Georges- Jacques—she’ll be easy. I don’t suppose she gets much from that old husband of hers. He looks as if he’s going to die at any minute.”

“I think he probably died years ago,” Camille said. “I think she’s had him embalmed and stuffed, because at heart she’s sentimental. Also I think the whole Brissotin ministry is in the pay of the Court.”

“Robespierre,” Fabre said, nodding significantly.

“Robespierre does not think it,” Camille said.

“Don’t lose your temper.”

“He thinks they are fools and dupes and unintentional traitors. I think it is worse than that. I think we should have nothing to do with them.”

“They certainly think they should have nothing to do with you. Dumouriez said, ‘Where’s your little Camille tonight, why have you left him at home when he could be here sharing the excitement with us?’ Madame heaved her bosom and inhaled most disdainfully.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Danton said. They saw that he was very serious. “I don’t say anything about Dumouriez and the rest, but that woman couldn’t be bought. That woman hates Louis and his wife as if they had done her some desperate injury.” He laughed sourly. “Marat thinks she has a monopoly on hate?”

“You trust them, then?”

“I didn’t say that. I don’t think they’re bad people. That’s all I’m prepared to say.”

“What do you think Dumouriez wanted with you?”

The question seemed to cheer Danton. “No doubt he wants me to do something, and is anxious to know my prices.”

CHAPTER 4

The Tactics of a Bull

Gabrielle: You see, I can only say what I’ve heard, what people have told me. I can only be sure about the people I know, and not so very sure about them. Looking back over the summer—what can I say to you that won’t seem ridiculously naive?

You can grow up, not what you would call a person of iron conviction; but you think there are things about you that won’t change, beliefs you will always hold, things happening that will go on happening: a world that will do you