“It’s hard to say. I might even be back in a week. You can be sure we’ll not waste any time, with Louis’s trial going forward here.”
“Are you really so anxious to be in at the kill, Georges?”
“Is that what you think of me?”
“I don’t know what to think,” she said wearily. “I am sure that, like Belgium and General Dumouriez and everything else, it is much more complicated than I know. But I know it will end with the King’s death, unless someone with your influence takes his part. The whole Convention is to try him, you say—and I know you can sway the Convention. I understand your power.”
“But what you don’t understand is the consequence of exercising it. Let’s drop the subject, shall we? I have only an hour.”
“Is Robespierre better?”
“He is—at least, he spoke in the Convention today.”
“And he’s staying with the Duplays now?”
“Yes.” Danton sat back in his chair. “They’re keeping Charlotte away from him. What I hear is, she sent her servant round with some jam, and Mme. Duplay wouldn’t let the girl in. She sent a message back that she didn’t want him poisoned.”
“Poor old Charlotte.” Gabrielle half-smiled. His face showed relief. She was diverted to the trivial, the domestic: to where he preferred her.
“It is only two months now. And perhaps a week.” To the birth of the child, she meant. She pushed herself from her chair, crossed the room; she drew the heavy curtains against the night. “You will at least be back to see the new year in with me?”
“I’ll try my best.”
When he had gone, she put her head back against a cushion and fell into a doze. The clock ticked on towards the small hours, and embers rustled into the grate. Outside the owl’s wings beat the cold air, and small animals screamed in the undergrowth. She dreamt she was a child again, at morning, in the sun. Then the sounds of the pursuit entered her dreams, and she became, by turns, the hunter and the prey.
Robespierre to the Convention, January:
There is no case to plead here. Louis is not a defendant, you are not judges. If Louis can be tried, Louis can be acquitted; he may be innocent. But if Louis can be acquitted, if Louis can be presumed innocent, what becomes of the Revolution? … You have no verdict to give for or against a man, but a measure of public safety to adopt, an act of Providence to carry out … . Louis must die so that the nation can live.
CHAPTER 4
The rue des Cordeliers, January 13: “Do you think,” Fabre asked, “that Mr. Pitt will send us some money? For the New Year.”
“Ah,” Camille said, “Mr. Pitt only ever sends his good wishes.”
“The great days of William Augustus Miles are over.”
“I think we’ll be at war with England soon.”
“You’re not supposed to look like that about it, Camille. You’re supposed to burn with patriotic fervor.”
“I can’t see how we can win. Suppose the British populace doesn’t rise in revolt, and so on? They might prefer native oppression to liberation by Frenchmen. And now, of course”—he thought of recent decisions of the Convention—”it seems to be our policy to annex territories. Danton approves it, at least in the case of Belgium, but to me it just seems the way Europe has always been run. Imagine trying to annex England. People who bored the Convention would be sent as special commissioners to Newcastle-on-Tyne.”
“You’re in no danger of boring them, my dear. All my years of careful training, and you never open your mouth.”
“I spoke in the debate about attaching Savoy. I said that the republic should not behave like a king, grabbing territory. No one took the least notice. Fabre, do you think that Mr. Pitt really cares whether we have Louis executed?”
“Personally? Oh no, no one gives a damn for Louis. But they think it is a bad precedent to cut off monarchs’ heads.”
“It was the English who set the precedent.”
“They try to forget that. And they will declare war on us, unless we do it first.”
“Do you think Georges-Jacques has miscalculated? He had this idea that he could use Louis’s life as a bargaining point, keep him alive as long as England stays neutral.”
“I don’t think they care about the man’s life, in Whitehall. They care about commerce. Shipping. Cash.”
“Danton will be back tomorrow,” Camille said.
“He must be aggrieved that the Convention has sent for him. Another week and Capet’s trial would have been over, he wouldn’t have needed to commit himself one way or the other. Besides, such a good time he’s been having! A pity the stories had to come to his wife’s ears. She should have stayed in Sevres, away from the gossip.”
“I suppose you have not been passing it on to her?”
“What interest would I have, in adding to their difficulties?”
“Just your normal day-to-day malice would suffice.”
