day and listen to the debates. Yes, I went out and talked to the women, I talked to the National Guard. But when they broke into the palace I was in my bed, asleep.”
“I suppose someone could testify to that,” Lucile said. Theroigne stared at her, uncomprehending. “Never mind,” Lucile said. “I was making a joke. The thing is, Anne—you must have realized by now—since the Bastille fell, it doesn’t matter what you actually did, it’s what people say you did. You can’t pick the past apart in this way, it doesn’t avail you. Once you start to live in the public eye people attribute actions and words to you, and you have to live with that. If they say you rode astride a cannon, then I’m afraid you did.”
Theroigne looked up at her. “Did I? I did.”
“No, I mean—” Oh, curse God, Lucile thought, she’s not very bright, is she? “No, you
Theroigne shook her head. “They asked me about the Jacobin Club. Asked who was paid to say what. I don’t know anything about the Jacobins. But there it is. They didn’t like my answers.”
“Some of us thought, you know, that we would never see you again.”
“People say that I ought to write a book about it. But I’ve no education, Lucile, I could no more write a book than I could land on the moon. Do you think Camille would write it for me?”
“Why did the Austrians let you go, Anne?”
“They took me to Vienna. I saw the chancellor, the Emperor’s chief minister, in his private rooms.”
“Yes, but you are not answering my question.”
“Then they took me back to Liege. To where I was born. I thought I was used to traveling, but they were hell, these journeys—oh, they tried to be kind to me, but I wanted to lie by the roadside and die. When we got to Liege they gave me some money, they said I could go where I liked. I said, even Paris? They said, yes, of course.”
“We knew this,” Lucile said. “It was reported in
A good lawyer, she has closed her case. And yet it is hard to believe that—as everyone thinks but doesn’t say —the girl has agreed to act as a spy. Take away the firearms, strip the scarlet away, and she seems harmless, hopeless, not even quite sane. “Anne,” she said. “You ought to think of getting out of Paris. Somewhere quiet. Till you get your health back.”
Theroigne looked up at her quickly. “You forget, Lucile. I once let the journalists drive me out, I let Louis Suleau kick me out of Paris. Then what happened? I had a room at an inn, Lucile, miles from anywhere, the birds singing, just what you need to recuperate. I ate well, and I slept so soundly, those nights. Then one night I woke up, and there were men in my room, and they were men I didn’t know, and they dragged me out, into the dark.”
“I think you should go now,” Lucile said. Fear touched the base of her throat; fear touched the pit of her stomach, and laid its cold finger on her child.
“Lafayette is in Paris,” Fabre said.
“So I hear.”
“You knew, Danton?”
“I know everything, Fabre.”
“So when are you going to tear him in little pieces?”
“Restrain yourself, Fabre.”
“But you said—”
“A bit of bombast has its uses. It encourages others. I am thinking of visiting my in-laws in Fontenay for a day or two.”
“I see.”
“The general has plans. For marching on the Jacobins, closing them down. Reprisals for June 20. He hopes to carry the National Guard with him. In the event, no one can prove that I had anything to do with June 20—”
“Mm,” Camille said.
“—but I prefer to avoid inconvenience. It will come to nothing.”
“But surely this is serious.”
Danton was patient. “It isn’t serious, as we know his plans.”
“How
“Petion told me.”
“Who told Petion?”
“Antoinette.”
“Dear God.”
“Yes, stupid, aren’t they? When Lafayette is the only person still willing to do anything for them. It makes you wonder about the wisdom of dealing with them at all.”
Camille looked up. “Dealing with them?”
“Dealing with them, child. Grabbing what you can.”
“You don’t mean it. You don’t
