flooded down her cheeks. You little tart, her mother said; and slapped her hard across the face.
This was the second time in a month. Up here, she thought, is getting just like down there.
“You’re going to Belgium again?” she asks Danton.
“This will be the last time, I hope. I am needed in the Convention, these days.”
“And the children, are they to come home?”
“Yes. The servants can take care of them.”
“I won’t leave them to servants.”
“You’ve done too much. You shouldn’t be playing nursemaid. You should be out enjoying yourself.”
He wonders, vaguely, what a respectable girl-child of fifteen does for enjoyment.
“They’re used to me,” she says. “I like taking care of them. Can you explain what you’ll be doing while you’re away?”
“I’m going to see General Dumouriez.”
“Why do you have to keep going to see him?”
“Well, it’s complicated. Some of the things he’s doing recently don’t seem to be very revolutionary. For instance, we had Jacobin clubs set up all over Belgium, and he’s closing them down. The Convention wants to know why. They think he may have to be arrested, if he isn’t a patriot.”
“Not a patriot? What is he then? A supporter of the Austrians? Of of the King?”
“There is no King.”
“Yes, there is. He’s shut up in prison. The Dauphin is the King now.”
“No, he’s not anything—he’s just an ordinary little boy.”
“If that’s true, why do you keep him shut up?”
“What an argumentative child you are! Do you follow events? Do you read the newspapers?”
“Yes.”
“Then you will know that the French have decided not to have a King.”
“No, Paris has decided. That’s quite different. That’s why we have a civil war.”
“But child—deputies from all over France voted for the end of the monarchy.”
“They wouldn’t allow a referendum, though. They didn’t dare.”
Danton doesn’t seem pleased. “Are these your parents’ views?”
“My mother’s. Mine too. My father doesn’t have views. He would like to, but he can’t take the risk.”
“You must be very careful, because clearly your parents are royalists, and that is not a safe thing to be nowadays. You must be careful what you say.”
“Are people not allowed to say what they like? I thought it was in the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Free speech.”
“You are allowed to express your opinion—but we are at war, and so your opinion must not be treasonable or seditious. Do you understand what they mean, those words?”
She nods.
“You must remember who I am.”
“You don’t let a person forget, Citizen Danton.”
“Come here,” he says. “Let me try to explain.”
“No.”
“Why won’t you?”
“My parents have forbidden me to be alone with you.”
“But you are. What’s the matter, do they think I might make you a little Jacobin?”
“No, it’s not my politics they worry about. It’s my virginity.”
He grinned. “So that’s what they think of me?”
“They think you’re in the habit of taking what you want.”
“They think I’m not to be trusted alone with a little girl?”
“Yes, they think that.”
“I wish you would go and tell them,” he said, “that I have never in my life forced my attentions on a woman. Despite some dire provocation from a pretty creature around the corner—tell your mother that, she’ll know just what I mean. Tell me, have they singled me out for this? Have they warned you about Camille? Because, I can assure you, if you were alone in an empty house with Camille he would consider it his positive duty to deflower you. His positive patriotic duty.”
“Deflower? What an expression!” she said. “I thought Camille had been having an affair with his mother-in- law?”
“Where the hell do you get these stories from?” Suddenly she has touched the anger that is never far below the
