A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

His face averted, Camille said, “This supper with the Marseille people will be over by 8:30, always assuming that they don’t sing. After that I’ll be with Danton, wherever he is. You could go to his apartment at any time. Neither he nor his wife would give you away.”

“I don’t know Danton. I’ve seen him, of course, but I’ve never spoken with him.”

“You don’t have to have spoken with him. Just tell him I want you safe. That you’re one of my whims.”

“Would you look at me?”

“No.”

“Are you pretending to be Lot’s wife?”

Camille smiled, turned. The door closed.

“I don’t think I should try to get back to Fontenay,” Angelique said. “Victor will put me up. Would you like to go and see your uncle?”

“No,” Antoine said.

Danton laughed. “He’s a fighter, he wants to stay.”

“Will they be safe at Victor’s?” Gabrielle looked ill, sallow with strain.

“Yes, yes, yes. Would I let them go otherwise?” Ah, Lolotte, there you are.

Lucile swirled across the room, put her hands on Danton’s shoulders. “Stop looking worried,” she said. “We’ll win. I know it.”

“You’ve had too much champagne.”

“I am indulged.”

He dropped his head to whisper into her hair, “I wish you were mine to indulge.” She pulled away, laughing.

“How can you?” Gabrielle demanded. “How can you laugh?”

“Why not, Gabrielle? I’m sure we’ll all be crying soon enough. Perhaps tonight.”

“What do you want to take?” Angelique asked the little boy loudly. “Do you want to take your spinning top? Yes, I think perhaps you do.”

“Keep him warm,” Gabrielle said automatically.

“My dear girl, it’s stifling, he’s more likely to suffocate than take cold.”

“All right, Mother. I know.”

“Walk a little way with her,” Danton said. “It’s still light.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Oh, come.” Lucile hauled her bodily from her chair. Angelique was faintly annoyed. All these years, and her daughter had still not learned when men wanted to get rid of women. Was it an incapacity, or a constantly stated objection to the situation? At the door Angelique turned. “I suppose it’s needless to say take care, Georges?” She nodded to Camille, and shepherded the younger women out.

“What a way to put it,” Danton said. From the window they watched the child’s progress across the Cour du Commerce, great leaps sustained by the arms of his mother and grandmother. “He wants to get round the corner without his feet touching the ground.”

“What a good idea,” Camille said.

“You don’t look happy, Camille.”

“Louis Suleau came.”

“Ah.”

“He intends to join the resistance at the palace.”

“More fool him.”

“I told him to come here if he changes his mind. Was that the right thing to do?”

“Risky, but morally impeccable.”

“Any problems?”

“None so far. Seen Robespierre?”

“No.”

“If you do, keep him out of my way. I don’t want him at my elbow tonight. I may have to do things that will offend his delicate sense of propriety.” He paused. “We can count the hours now.”

At the Tuileries the courtiers prepared for the ceremony of the King’s coucher. They greeted each other formally, in the time-honored way. Here was the blue blood who received the royal stockings, warm from the royal calf; here was the grandee whose task was to turn down the royal coverlet; here was the thoroughbred who handed—as his father did before him, his father before that—the royal nightshirt, and assisted Louis Capet to settle it about his blue-white, corpulent torso.

They followed Louis’s slumped shoulders, arranging themselves to enter the bedchamber in the due order. But the King turned to them his pale, full, anxious face—and slammed the door on them.

The aristocrats stood looking at each other. Only then did the enormity of events become plain. “There is no precedent for it,” they whispered.

Lucile touched