A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

MANDAT: Not nearly enough.

PETION: How improvident.

Gabrielle sat down with a rustle of skirts. Lucile woke with a gasp. “It’s only me,” Gabrielle said. “They’ve gone.”

Louise Robert sank to the floor in front of her, took both her hands and squeezed them. “Will they ring the tocsin?” Lucile asked.

“Yes. Very soon.”

Anticipation tightened the back of her neck. She put up a hand to her face and tears spilled between her fingers.

At midnight Danton came back. Gabrielle jumped up in alarm when they heard his footsteps, and they scurried after her into the drawing room.

“Why are you back so soon?”

“I told you I would be. If everything’s going smoothly, I said, I’ll be back for midnight. Why do you never believe anything I say?”

“Then it is going smoothly?” Louise demanded. He looked at them, irritated. They were his problems.

“Of course. Or would I be here?”

“Where’s Francois? Where have you sent him?”

“How the hell do I know where he is? If he’s where I left him, he’s at City Hall. And the place isn’t on fire, and there’s no shooting.”

“But what are you doing?”

He resigned himself. “There is a large body of patriots at City Hall. They are shortly going to take over from the existing Commune and call themselves the Insurrectionary Commune. Then the patriots will have de facto control of the city.”

Gabrielle: “What does de facto mean?”

“It means they’ll do it now and make it legal later,” Lucile said.

Danton laughed. “Your turn of phrase, these days, Madame! We can tell what marriage has done for you.”

Louise Robert said, “Don’t patronize us, Danton. We understand what the plan is, we just want to know whether it’s working or not.”

“I’m going to get some sleep,” Danton said. He walked into the bedroom they had just left and slammed the door. Fully clothed, he lay down: staring at the ceiling, waiting for the tocsin to ring, waiting for the alarm signal that would bring the people surging out into the streets. The clock struck; it was August 10.

Perhaps two hours later, they heard someone at the door; and Lucile shadowed Gabrielle as she answered it.

There was a little group of men outside. They had been very quiet on the stairs. One stepped forward: “Antoine Fouquier-Tinville. For Danton, if you please.” His courtesy was automatic and very brisk; courtroom politeness.

Gabrielle stood aside. “Must I wake him?”

“Yes, we need him now, my dear. It’s time.”

She indicated the bedroom. Fouquier-Tinville inclined his head to Lucile. “Good morning, cousin.”

She nodded nervously. Fouquier had Camille’s thick, dark hair and dark skin; but the hair was straight, the face was hard, the lips were thin and set for crises, for bad situations becoming worse. Possible, yes, to trace a family likeness. But when you saw Camille you wanted to touch him; when you saw his cousin, that was not your reaction.

Gabrielle followed the men into the bedroom. Lucile turned to Louise Robert, opened her mouth to make some usual kind of remark: was shocked by the violence in her face. “If anything happens to Francois, I’ll put a knife in that pig myself.”

Lucile’s eyes widened. The King? No: Danton was the pig she meant. She could not think of an answer.

“Did you see that man? Fouquier-Tinville? Camille says all his relations are like that.”

They heard Danton’s voice, intermittently, between the others: “Fouquier—first thing tomorrow—but wait—and getting to the Tuileries at the right time, Petion should know—cannon on the bridges—tell him to hurry it up.”

He came out, hauling his cravat into place, skimming his fingers over his bluish chin. “Georges-Jacques,” Lucile said, “What an unregarding tough you look. A proper man of the people, I do declare.”

Danton grinned. He put a hand on her shoulder, squeezed it; so jovially, so painfully, that she almost cried out. “I’m going now. City Hall. Otherwise they’re going to keep running up here—”He paused at the door. He was not going to kiss his wife and have her start crying. “Lolotte, you look after things here. Try not to worry too much.” They heard him striding down the stairs.

“All right, little man?”

“I am impervious,” Jean-Paul Marat said, “to bullets and your wit.”

“You look even worse at this hour.”

“The Revolution does not value me tor my decorative qualities, Danton. Nor you, I believe. Men of action, that’s what we are, aren’t we?” As usual, Marat seemed to be deeply entertained by some private joke. “Get Mandat here,” he said.

“Is he still at the palace? Message to Mandat,” Danton said over his shoulder. “My compliments to him, and the Commune requests his presence urgently at City Hall.”

From the Place de Greve, the roar of the growing crowd. Danton splashed some brandy into a glass and stood cradling it in his palm. He reached up to loosen the cravat he had wasted his time in tightening, at home in the Cour du Commerce. The pulse jumped at the side of his neck. His mouth was dry. A wave of nausea welled inside him. He took another sip from the glass. The nausea abated.