“Charlotte, my dear, you’ve always taken care of us—couldn’t you just for a while take a rest?”
“In another woman’s house?”
“All houses belong to somebody, and most of them have women in them.”
“We could have privacy. A nice convenient apartment of our own.” It would solve some problems, he thought. Her face darkened as she watched him, expecting contradiction. He opened his mouth to agree. “And there’s another thing,” she said.
He stopped short. “And what is that?”
“These girls. Maximilien, I’ve seen Augustin ruining himself with women.
So she knew. Did she? “How is he ruined?”
“Well, he would have been, if it weren’t for me. And that wretched old woman has no other aim in life but to get those girls into your bed. Whether she’s succeeded I leave to your conscience. That little horror Elisabeth looks at men as if—I can’t describe it. If any harm ever came to her, it wouldn’t be the man I’d blame.”
“Charlotte, what are you talking about? Babette’s just a child. I’ve never heard anyone say a word against her.”
“Well, you have now. What about it then? Shall I look for an apartment for us?”
“No. We’ll stay as we are. I can’t bear to live with you. You’re just as bad as you ever were.” And just as mad, he thought.
November 5: people have queued all night for a place in the public galleries. If they expect to see on Robespierre’s face a sense of personal crisis, they will be disappointed. How familiar now, these streets and these slanders. Arras seems twenty years ago; even in the Estates-General, wasn’t he there singled out for attack? It is his nature, he thinks.
He is careful to deny responsibility for September, but he does not, you notice, condemn the killings. He also refrains from killing words, sparing Roland and Buzot, as if they were beneath his notice. August 10 was illegal, he says; so too was the taking of the Bastille. What account can we take of that, in revolution? It is the nature of revolutions to break laws. We are not justices of the peace; we are legislators to a new world.
“Mm,” Camille says, up on the Mountain. “This is not an ethical position. It is an excuse.”
He is speaking quietly, almost to himself; he is surprised by the violence with which his colleagues turn round on him. “He is in politics, practical politics,” Danton says. “What the fuck does he want with an ethical position?”
“I don’t like this idea of ordinary crimes and political crimes. Our opponents can use it to murder us, just as we can use it to murder them. I don’t see what good the idea does. We ought to admit that all crimes are the same.”
“No,” Saint-Just said.
“And you talk, Lanterne Attorney.”
“But when I was the Lanterne Attorney, I said, right, let’s have some violence, it’s our turn. I never excused myself by saying I was a legislator to the world.”
“He is not making excuses,” Saint-Just said. “Necessity does not have to be excused or justified.”
Camille turned on him. “Where did you read that, you half-wit? Your politics are like those improving fables they give to children, each one with a little moral tag on the end. What does it mean? You don’t know. Why do you say it? You have to say something.”
He watched a flush of rage wash over Saint-Just’s pale skin. “Whose side are you on?” Fabre hissed into his ear.
Stop now, he told himself. You are antagonizing everybody. “Whose side? That’s what we say about the Brissotins, that their judgement is destroyed by factional interest. Isn’t it?”
“My God, you are a liability,” Saint-Just snapped. Camille got to his feet, more frightened by the words coming out of his own mouth than of theirs, thinking that in minutes he could be among the black branches and indifferent faces in the Tuileries gardens. It was Orleans who put out a hand and detained him, a slight social smile on his face. “Must you go now?” the Duke said, as if a party were breaking up early. “Don’t go. You can’t do a walkout in the middle of Robespierre’s speech.”
His actions at variance with his manner, the Duke reached out and pulled Camille to the bench beside him. “Sit still,” he said. “If you go now, people will read things into it.”
“Saint-Just hates me,” Camille said.
“He certainly isn’t a very friendly young man, but you shouldn’t feel singled out. I myself am on his list, I feel.”
“His list?”
“He would have one, wouldn’t you think? Looks the type.”
“Laclos had lists,” Camille said. “Oh God, I sometimes wish it were ’89 again. I miss Laclos.”
“So do I. So do I.”
Herault de Sechelles was in the president’s chair. He glanced up at his Montagnard colleagues and flicked an eyebrow, a request for later explanation. They seemed to be holding some private parliamentary session up there; and now Camille was having some sort of tussle with Egalite. Robespierre had reached his peroration. He had left his opponents with nothing to say and nowhere to go. Camille was going to miss the end of the speech, he would not be there for the applause. The Duke seemed to have released him. He was on his way to the door. Herault remembered Camille running out of a courtroom, years ago, long, long before they had been introduced: his chin lifted, his expression a compound of contempt and glee. Winter 1792, still running; his expression now a compound of contempt and fear.
Annette wasn’t at home; he attempted retreat, but Claude heard his voice, came out. “Camille? You look upset. No, don’t try escaping, I have to talk to you.”
He looked upset himself—a discreet, semi-official agitation. There were a couple of Girondist newspapers draped around the room. “Really,” Claude said. “The tone of public life these days! The lowness of it! Need Danton
