M. Roland never comes. Neither does Marat.
The second week in June, there was a crisis in the government. The King was not cooperating with the ministers, he was holding out against them, and Roland’s wife wrote him a terrible letter, lecturing him on his duty. I don’t say anything about the rights and wrongs of it—not my place, is it?—but one can see, surely, that there are insults that a King can’t accept, lie down under, without no longer being King. Louis must have thought so, because he dismissed the ministry.
My husband’s friends talked about the Patriotic Ministry. They said it was a national calamity. They have a way of turning calamities to their own account.
General Dumouriez was not dismissed. We understood he was on rather different terms with the Court. But he called on us. I was ashamed. Georges strode about and shouted at him. He said that he was going to put the fear of God into the Court, and that the King must divorce the Queen and pack her off back to Austria. When the general left he was white to the lips. The day after this he resigned, and went back to the armies. Georges was a good deal more frightening than the Austrians, Camille said.
Then came the letter from Lafayette to the Assembly, telling them to suppress the clubs, close down the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, or else … or else what? He would march his army on Paris? “Let him show his face,” Georges said. “I’ll tear him in little pieces and dump the remains in the Queen’s bedroom.”
The Assembly would not dare to act against the clubs—but, even for the suggestion, I knew that the patriots would have some revenge. There seems to be a pattern to these crises. Louise Gely said to my husband, “Is there going to be a ‘day,’ M. Danton?”
“Well, what do you think?” He seemed amused. “Perhaps we should have a second Revolution?”
She turned to me with a mock-shudder. “Does your husband want to be King?”
The comings and goings in our apartment had to be worked out carefully, so that Chaumette never met Vergniaud, Hebert’s path never crossed Legendre’s. It is a trial to me; it is a trial to the servants. I became aware of the tension in the air that says, tomorrow, or the day after … Robespierre came; sat making general conversation. He looked as ever, like a tailor’s model taken out of a box, so formal, so well barbered, so polite. But he wore, besides his striped olive-green coat, a little smile that never seems to leave his face now; it’s full of tension, it’s his way (Camille says) of stopping himself swearing at people. He asked after the baby; he began to tell Antoine a story, and said he’d finish it in a day or two. So that’s not too bad, I thought, we are going to survive … . What is strange, in such a clean, precise man, is how much M. Robespierre likes children, and cats, and dogs. It’s only the rest of us that put this worrying smile on his face.
It was quite late now. Petion was the last to leave. I was keeping out of the way. I heard the study door open. My husband slapped him on the shoulder. “Timing,” he said.
“Don’t be afraid I’ll nip anything in the bud,” the mayor said. “I’ll show my face, but not too early. There’ll be time for events to take their natural course.”
He’s alone now, I thought, they’ve gone. But as I approached the study door—closed again—I heard Camille’s voice: “I thought you were going to adopt the tactics of a bull. The tactics of a lion. That’s what you said.”
“Yes, I am. But only when I’m ready.”
“You don’t hear bulls saying, when I’m ready.”
“Hey you—I’m the expert on bulls. You don’t hear them saying anything, that’s why they’re so successful.”
“Don’t they bellow a bit?”
“Not the really successful ones.”
There was a pause. Then Camille said: “But you don’t leave it to chance. If you want someone killed, you don’t leave it to chance.”
“What business is it of mine to want the King killed? If the district of Saint-Antoine wants him killed, the district will do it. Tomorrow, or at some future date.”
“Or not at all. All this sudden fatalism. Events can be controlled.” Camille sounded calm and very tired.
“I prefer not to rush things,” Georges said. “I’d like to settle matters with Lafayette. I don’t want to have to fight on all fronts at once.”
“But we can’t let this chance go.”
Georges yawned. “If they kill him,” he said, “they kill him.”
I walked away. My courage failed. I didn’t want to listen. I opened a window. I never remember the summers being so hot. There was some noise on the street, nothing you don’t get every night. A patrol of National Guardsmen swung up the street. They slowed down as they approached. One of them said quite clearly, “Danton’s place.” There must be somebody new, that they were pointing it out. I pulled my head back, and heard them march away.
I went back to the door of Georges’s study and pushed it open. He and Camille were sitting at either side of the empty fireplace, not speaking, just staring into each other’s faces.
“Am I interrupting you?”
“No,” Camille said, “we were just staring into each other’s faces. I hope you weren’t discomfitted by what you heard when you were listening at the door just now?”
Georges laughed. “Was she? I didn’t know.”
“It is like Lucile. She opens my letters, then gets into a terrible state. It is my poor cousin, Rose-Fleur Godard, who causes problems at the moment. She writes every week from Guise. Her marriage is not happy. She now wishes she were married to me.”
“I think I’d advise her to be reconciled to her lot,” I said. We laughed: surprising, how one can. The tension was broken. I looked at Georges. I never see the face that horrifies people. To me it is really a kind face. Camille looked no different from the boy Georges had brought to the cafe six years before. He stood up, leaned forward quickly, kissed my cheek. I have misheard, I thought, I have misunderstood. There is a distance between a politician and a
