himself, Fabre shouted, “This was your supreme performance, supreme.” The Mountain came down to him. He was surrounded by the press of his supporters; the applause rang in his ears. Threading through the solid-packed bodies, like a coffin-worm at a wedding feast, came Dr. Marat, plucking at his sleeve. He looked down into the bloodshot eyes.
“Now is your moment, Danton.”
“For what?” he said dispassionately.
“For the dictatorship. All power is yours.”
He turned away. At that moment a magnetic ripple of deference swept the deputies aside. Robespierre walked towards him. Every time I come home, Danton thought, I find you a greater man. Robespierre’s face was taut with strain; he looked older, the muscles bunched at the sides of his jaw. But when he spoke it was in a low voice, with a hesitant gentleness: “I wanted to see you, but I didn’t want to intrude. I’m not the best person at thinking of things to say, and we’ve never been so close that nothing needs to be said. That’s my fault, I suppose. And I regret it.”
Danton put a hand on his shoulder. “My good friend, thank you.”
“I wrote—I thought, you know, these letters don’t do any good. But I wanted you to know you can count on me.”
“I will.”
“There is no rivalry between us. We have no difference of policy.”
“Look at this,” Danton said. “Listen to them cheering me. It’s only weeks since they were spitting in my face because I couldn’t produce the ministry’s accounts.”
Fabre elbowed his way up. Already he had been taking soundings. “The Gironde will split over the Tribunal. Brissot will back you, so will Vergniaud. Roland and his friends are opposed.”
“They have defected from republicanism,” Danton said. “They spend their energies trying to destroy me.”
Still the deputies surged and jostled around him, hemming him in. Fabre was bowing to left and right, as if he took the credit. Collot, the actor, was shouting, “Bravo, Danton, bravo!” his bilious face congested by emotion. Robespierre had retreated. Still the applause went on. Outside, a crowd was shouting for him. He stood still, and passed a hand over his face. Camille had struggled through to him. Danton flung an arm across his shoulders. “Camille, let’s just go home,” he said.
Louise kept her ears open now. As soon as she heard that he was back in Paris, she went downstairs and set Marie and Catherine to work. The children were at Victor Charpentier’s house, and perhaps it was as well if he did not see them yet. She would have supper ready for him, at whatever hour he came home; he must not come to a house empty except for servants. Her mother came down five times to fetch her. “What do you mean,” she said, “by entangling yourself with that brute? You have no duty to him!”
“He may be a brute. But I know what Gabrielle would have wanted. She would have wanted everything to be done for his comfort.”
She sat in Gabrielle’s chair, as if to balk her ghost. From here, she thought, Gabrielle had seen governments broken. From here she had seen the throne totter and fall. She had been plain, unaffected in her manners; her habits were those of a quiet housewife. She had lived with these sanguinary men.
Midnight struck. “He’ll not come home now,” Catherine said. “We want to get to bed, even if you don’t. He’ll be round the corner, we reckon. He’ll not come home tonight.”
At six o’clock the next morning, Citizen Danton let himself in quietly, in search of a change of clothes. She gave him a shock, the pale child, slumped without grace into Gabrielle’s chair. He picked her up in his arms and transferred her to the sofa. He threw a rug over her. She didn’t wake. He took what he needed and left the house.
Around the corner Lucile was up and dressed and making coffee. Camille was writing, making the outline of the speech Danton would deliver to the Convention later that day. “An air of quiet industry prevails,” Danton said. “That’s what I like to see.” He put his arms around Lucile’s waist and kissed the back of her neck.
“Glad to see you back in your routine,” Camille said.
“Do you know, the little girl was waiting for me. Gely’s daughter. She’d gone to sleep in a chair.”
“Really?” Lucile and her husband flicked their dark eyes at each other. They don’t really need to speak, these days. They have perfected communication by other means.
March 10: it was bitterly cold, the kind of weather that makes breathing painful. Claude Dupin called, made her his formal proposal. Her father told him that although she was so young they were disposed to allow the marriage to go ahead within the year; things have been difficult round here, he said, and he told Claude Dupin (in confidence), “We’d like to get her into a different atmosphere. She sees and hears too much for a girl of her age. She’s lost her friend, of course, she’s had a bad shock. Wedding arrangements will take her mind off it.”
She said to Claude Dupin, “I’m really really sorry, but I can’t marry you. Not yet, anyway. Would you be prepared to wait a year? I made a promise, to my friend who is dead, that I would look after her children. If I were your wife I’d have other duties and I’d have to go and live in another street. I think that, Citizen Danton being what he is, he will very soon find himself a new wife. When they have a stepmother, I shall be happy to leave here, but not until then.”
Claude Dupin looked stunned. He’d thought everything was settled. “I can’t take this in,” he said. “Gabrielle Danton seemed a sensible woman to me. How could she let you make such a promise?”
“I don’t know how it came about,” Louise said. “But it did.”
Dupin nodded. “Fine,” he said. “I can’t say that I understand you, or that I like this, but if you say wait, I’ll wait. A promise is a promise, however unfortunate. But my dear, do one thing for me—so far as you can, stay away from Georges Danton.”
She braced herself for the row. After Claude Dupin had left, her mother burst into tears; her father sat looking solemn, as if very very sorry for all concerned. Her mother called her a fool; she took her by the shoulders and shook her, and said don’t tell me you made a promise, it’s not that at all; admit it, spit it out, you must be besotted with one of these people. Who is it, come on—it’s that journalist, isn’t it? You can say his name, Louise said. It won’t call up the devil. She had a sudden, hideously painful vision of Gabrielle laughing, sitting on her sofa and giggling at Claude Dupin, Gabrielle warm, alive, her swollen hand trailing on Camille’s shoulder. Scalding tears
