Danton’s first action at the Ministry of Justice was to call together his senior civil servants. He surveyed them. A grin split his broken face. “I advise you gentlemen,” he said, “to take up the option of early retirement.”
“I’ll miss you terribly,” Louise Gely said to Gabrielle. “Shall I come and see you at the Place Vendome?”
“The Place des Piques,” Gabrielle corrected. She smiled: a very small smile. “Yes, of course you must come. And we will be back soon, because Georges has only taken office for the Emergency, and when the Emergency is over—” She bit the words back. Tempting fate, she called it.
“You shouldn’t be frightened,” Louise said, hugging her gently. “You should have a look in your eyes which says, I know that while my husband is in the city the enemy cannot come.”
“Well, Louise … you are brave.”
“Danton believes it.”
“But can one man do so much by himself?”
“It’s not a question of one man.” She moved away. Hard sometimes not to be irritated by Gabrielle. “It’s a question of many men with the best leader.”
“I didn’t think you liked my husband.”
Louise raised her eyebrows. “When did I say I did? All the same, it is good of him to do something for my father.”
M. Gely had a new post at the Ministry of Marine.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Gabrielle said. “He’s found places for all the people who used to be his clerks, and—oh, everybody really. Even Collot d’Herbois, whom we don’t like.”
“And are they duly grateful?” Probably not, Louise thought. “People he likes, people he doesn’t like, people of no importance whatever—I think he’d give the whole city a job, if he could. It’s interesting. I was wondering why he has sent Citizen Freron off to Metz?”
“Oh,” she said uneasily, “it’s to do with the Executive Council there—they need some help running their revolution, I suppose.”
“Metz is on the frontier.”
“Yes.”
“I was wondering if he’d done it as a favor to Citizeness Desmoulins. Freron was always following her around, wasn’t he? And giving her soulful glances, and paying her compliments. Danton doesn’t like it. It will make life easier for him, now that Freron’s away.”
Gabrielle wouldn’t, out of choice, be having this conversation. Even this child notices, she thinks, even this child of fourteen knows all about it.
When the news of the coup of August 10 reached his military headquarters, General Lafayette tried to organize his armies to march on Paris and bring down the Provisional Government. Only a handful of officers were prepared to back him. On August 19 he crossed the border near Sedan, and was promptly taken prisoner by the Austrians.
The Ministry of Justice had taken to having breakfast together, to work out the plan for the day. Danton greeted everyone except his wife, but after all, he had seen her before that morning. This would have been the time to make the change to separate rooms, they both thought; but neither had the heart to mention it first. Consequently, the usual conjugal arrangements were made; they woke up beneath a coronet and a canopy, stifled by velvet bed curtains thicker than Turkey carpets.
Lucile was wearing gray this morning. Dove-gray: piquantly puritanical, Danton thought. He imagined leaning across and kissing her savagely on the mouth.
Nothing affected Danton’s appetite—not a sudden seizure of lust, not the national emergency, not the historic dust of the state bed curtains. Lucile ate nothing. She was starving herself, trying to get back pre-pregnancy angles. “You’ll fade away, girl,” Danton told her.
“She’s trying to look like her husband,” Fabre explained. “She will not admit to it, but for some reason best known to herself that is what she is doing.”
Camille sipped a small cup of black coffee. His wife watched him covertly as he opened their letters—nasty little slits with a paperknife, and his long elegant fingers. “Where are Francois and Louise?” Fabre asked. “Something must be detaining them. How quaint they are, always waking up side by side and always in the bed they started off in.”
“Enough!” Danton said. “We shall have a rule, no lubricious gossip before breakfast.”
Camille put down his coffee cup. “For you it may be before breakfast, but some of us are anxious to begin on our daily ration of scandal, backbiting and malice.”
“We must hope the gracious atmosphere of the place will seep into us in time. Even into Fabre.” Danton turned to him. “It won’t be like living among the Cordeliers, with your every little depravity applauded as soon as you step out of doors.”
“I’m not depraved,” Fabre complained. “Camille’s depraved. Incidentally, I suppose it will be all right for Caroline Remy to move in?”
“No,” Danton said. “It won’t be all right at all.”
“Why not? Herault won’t mind, he can call round.”
“I don’t give a damn whether he minds or not. Do you think you’re going to turn the place into a brothel?”
“Are you serious?” Fabre demanded. He looked at Camille for support, but Camille was reading his letters.
“Divorce your Nicole, marry Caroline, and she’ll be welcome.”
“Marry her?” Fabre said. “You’re certainly not serious.”
“Well, if it’s so unthinkable, she shouldn’t be in the company of our wives.”
