Gabrielle’s hand, for comfort. There were a dozen people in the apartment, and a stack of firearms on the floor. “Bring more lights,” Danton said, and Catherine brought them, dough-faced, eyes averted, so that new shadows danced across the ceiling and walls.
Louise Robert said, “Can I stay here, Gabrielle?” She wound her shawl about her, as if she were cold.
Gabrielle nodded. “Must these guns stay here?”
“Yes, they must. Don’t go tidying them up, woman.”
Lucile threaded her way across the room to her husband. They spoke in low, small voices. Then she turned away, calling Georges, Georges; her head ached now, that fuzzy champagne kind of headache that you feel you could brush away, and there was a knot of tension in her throat. Without looking at her Danton broke off his conversation with Freron, put an arm around her and pulled her close to him. “I know, I know,” he said. “But you must be strong, Lolotte, you are not a silly girl, you must look after the others.” His face was distant, and she wanted all his attention, to fix herself finally in his mind, her priority, her need. But he might have been down the street somewhere; his mind was at the Tuileries, at City Hall, and his mouth issued automatic words of comfort.
“Please take care of Camille,” she said. “Please don’t let anything happen to him.”
He looked down at her now, somber, giving her request consideration; he wanted to give her an honest answer.
“Keep him with you,” she said. “I beg of you, Georges.”
Freron put a hand on her elbow, tentative; her arm shrank away from it. “Lolotte, we all look out for each other,” he said. “It’s the best we can do.”
She said, “I want nothing from you, Rabbit. You just take care of yourself.”
“Listen now.” Danton’s blue eyes fixed her, and she thought she heard those familiar words, I am going to speak to you as if you were grown up. But he did not say that. “Listen now, when you married Camille you knew what it meant. You have to choose, a safe life, or a life in the Revolution. But do you think I would ask him to take any unnecessary risk?” His eyes traveled to the clock, and she followed them. We shall measure our survival by that clock, she thought. It had been a wedding gift to Gabrielle; its hands were pointed, delicate fleur-de-lis—’86,’ 87. Georges had been King’s Councillor. Camille had been in love with her mother. She had been sixteen. Danton touched her forehead with his scarred lips. “Victory would be ashes,” he said. He could of course have driven a bargain with her. But he was not that sort of man.
Freron picked up a gun. “For my part,” he said, “I wouldn’t be sorry if it ended tonight.” He glanced at Lucile. “I see little point in my life as I live it now.”
Camille’s voice across the room, acidly solicitous: “Rabbit, I didn’t realize you felt like that, is there anything I can do?”
Someone sniggered. Lucile thought, I can’t help it if you’re in love with me, you should have more sense, you do not hear Herault saying his life is over, you do not hear Arthur Dillon say it, they know when a game is a game. This is no game, now; this has nothing to do with love. She raised her hand to Camille. She felt she ought to salute. Then she turned away and walked into the bedroom. She left the door slightly ajar; a little light penetrated from other rooms, and the odd muted syllable of conversation. She sat down on a couch, leaned back and began to doze—a post-party doze, full of fragmentary dreams.
“The Great Council Chamber, Monsieur.” Petion was making for the royal apartments, sash of office round substantial chest. The aristocrats removed themselves from his path as he walked.
He reached the outer galleries. “May I inquire why all you gentlemen are standing around?” His tone suggested that he was addressing performing apes, and did not expect an answer.
The first ape who stepped forward was at least eighty years old—a quavering, paper-tissue ape, with orders of chivalry, which Petion could not identify, gleaming on his breast. He made a courteous little bow. “M. Mayor, one does not sit in or near the royal apartments. Unless specifically commanded to do so. Did you not know this?”
He cast a glance of distress at his companions. A small ceremonial sword hung at his withered shank. They all wore them, all the trained apes. Petion snorted and strode on.
The King looked dazed; he was accustomed to a long sleep, to his regular hours. Antoinette sat very upright, her Hapsburg jaw clenched; she looked precisely as Petion had expected her to look. Pierre-Louis Roederer, a high official of the Seine
Petion bowed, but not profoundly; not in any sense obsequiously.
PETION: What’s that you have there, Roederer? You’re not going to need law books tonight.
ROEDERER: I wondered, if it became necessary to declare martial law within the city boundaries, whether the
MME. ELISABETH: Has it?
ROEDERER: I don’t think so, Madame.
PETION: I have that authority.
ROEDERER: Yes, but I thought I’d check in case you were—detained in some way.
KING [
PETION: Forget your law books. Throw them away. Burn them. Eat them. Or you might like to keep them to hit people over the head with. Better than those toothpicks they’re all wearing.
MANDAT: Petion, you do grasp the fact that you’re legally responsible for the defense of the palace?
PETION: Defense against what?
QUEEN: The insurrection is being organized under your very eyes.
MANDAT: We have no ammunition.
PETION: What, none at all?
