“I do no damage. This is damage, this.” He picked up a paper from Camille’s desk. “I can’t read your writing, but I take it the general tenor is that Brissot should go and hang himself.”
“Ah well. As long as your conscience is clear.”
“Quite clear. You can see that I am developing a paunch. It shows how comfortable I find myself.”
“No you don’t. Your palms sweat. Your eyes flit from face to face. You are like a counterfeiter passing his first gold piece.”
Fabre looked at Camille intently. “What do you mean by that?” Camille shrugged. “Come now.” Fabre stood over him. “Tell me what you mean.” There was a pause. “Ah well,” Fabre said, “I doubt you meant anything, did you?”
“So,” Lucile said, coming in. “You have been at your meaningless prattle again, have you?” She held some letters, just arrived.
“Fabre’s had a bad fright.”
“It’s the old story. Camille has been heaping scorn on me. He thinks I am not fit to be Danton’s dog, let alone his political confidant.”
“No, that is not it. Fabre has something to hide.”
“More things than one, I imagine,” Lucile said. “And no doubt they had better remain hidden. Here is a letter from your father. I didn’t open it.”
“I should hope not,” Fabre said.
“And here is one from your cousin Rose-Fleur. I did.”
“Lucile is jealous of my cousin. We were going to be married, at one time.”
“How quaint of her,” Fabre said, “to be jealous of one woman, and that one so far away.”
“You can guess what my father says.” Camille was reading the letter.
“Yes, I can guess,” Lucile said. “Don’t vote for Louis’s death—abstain. You have so often spoken against him, and you have already published your opinion on the case. Thus you have prejudged him, which is excusable in a polemicist but not in a juror. Decline therefore to be part of the process. By declining you will also safeguard yourself.”
“In case of counter-revolution. Yes, exactly. He means that I could not be charged with regicide then.”
“The dear, whimsical old man,” Fabre said. “Really, your family are quaint altogether.”
“Do you find Fouquier-Tinville quaint?”
“No, I had forgotten him. He becomes a person of consequence. He makes himself useful. No doubt he will soon attain high office.”
“As long as he remains grateful.” There was an edge to Lucile’s voice. “They can’t bear their subservience to the scapegrace, this family of yours.”
“Rose-Fleur can bear me, and her mother has always been on my side. Her father, though …”
“History repeats itself,” Fabre said.
“Your father couldn’t imagine how we laugh at his scruples here,” Lucile said. “Tomorrow Danton will come back from Belgium and vote to condemn Louis the following day, without having heard a scrap of the evidence. What would your father say to that?”
“He’d be appalled,” Camille said, seeing it in that light for the first time. “So would I. In fact, I am. But then, you know what Robespierre says. It isn’t a trial at all, in the usual meaning of the word. It’s a measure we have to take.”
“For the public safety,” Lucile said. This was an expression that was coming up in the world; for the last few weeks it had been on everyone’s lips. “The public safety. But somehow, whatever measures are taken, one never feels any safer. I wonder why that is?”
The Cour du Commerce, January 14: Gabrielle had been sitting quietly, waiting for Georges to finish sifting through the pile of letters that had come while he was away. He took her by surprise, appearing in the doorway, filling it with his bulk. His big face was deathly white.
“When did this arrive?” He held the letter out to her, at arm’s length.
Antoine looked up from the game he was playing on the carpet. “He’s worried,” the little boy informed her.
“I don’t know,” she said. She looked away from the pulse hammering at his temple. She had seen him for a moment as a stranger might see him, and she was afraid of the violence contained by his massive body.
“Can’t you remember?” He held it under her nose. Did he mean her to read it?
“December 11. That’s more than a month ago, Georges.”
“When did it arrive?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you. Someone has slandered me,” she said. “What is it, what have I done?”
He crumpled the letter in his fist with a sound of sneering impatience. “This is nothing to do with you. Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
She looked up warningly, indicating Antoine with a weak little gesture. The child pulled at her skirt, whispering into it: “Is he cross?”
She put her finger to her lips.
