“Doesn’t it?” His thinking had been quite other.
“But Rose-Fleur will have to come to Paris, I can’t go back there.”
“What’s she like?”
“I don’t know really, our paths so seldom cross. Oh, to look at, you mean? She’s quite pretty.”
“When you say it doesn’t matter who you marry—don’t you expect to love someone?”
“Yes, of course. But it would be a vast coincidence to be married to them as well.”
“What about your parents? What are they like?”
“Never seem to speak to each other these days. There’s a family tradition of marrying someone you find you can’t stand. My cousin Antoine, one of my Fouquier-Tinville cousins, is supposed to have murdered his first wife.”
“What, you mean he was actually prosecuted for it?”
“Only by the gossips at their various assizes. There wasn’t enough evidence to bring it to court. But then Antoine, he’s a lawyer too, so there wouldn’t be. I expect he’s good at fixing evidence. The business rather shook the family, and so I’ve always regarded him as, you know”—he paused wistfully—“a sort of hero. Anyone who can give serious offense to the de Viefvilles is a hero of mine. Another case of that is Antoine Saint-Just, I know we are related but I can’t think how, they live in Noyon. He has recently run off with the family silver, and his mother, who’s a widow, actually got a
“I can’t think why you don’t write and encourage him.”
“Yes, perhaps I shall. You see, I do agree that I can’t go on like this. I have had a little verse published—oh, nothing really, just a modest start. I’d rather write than anything—well, as you can imagine, with my disabilities it’s a relief not having to talk. I just want to live very quietly—preferably somewhere warm—and be left alone till I can write something worthwhile.”
Already, d’Anton did not believe this. He recognized it as a disclaimer that Camille would issue from time to time in the hope of disguising the fact that he was an inveterate hell-raiser. “Don’t you care for anyone respectable?” he asked.
“Oh yes—I care for my friend de Robespierre, but he lives in Arras, I never see him. And Maitre Perrin has been kind.”
D’Anton stared at him. He did not see how he could sit there, saying “Maitre Perrin has been kind.”
“Don’t you mind?” he demanded.
“What people say? Well,” Camille said softly, “I should prefer not to be an object of general odium, but I wouldn’t go so far as to let my preference alter my conduct.”
“I’d just like to know,” d’Anton said. “I mean, from my point of view. Whether there’s any truth in it.”
“Oh, you mean, because the sun will be up in an hour, and you think I’ll run down to the Law Courts and tell everybody I spent the night with you?”
“Somebody told me … that is, amongst other things they told me … that you were involved with a married woman.”
“Yes: in a way.”
“You do have an interesting variety of problems.”
Already, by the time the clock struck four, he felt he knew too much about Camille, and more than he was comfortable with. He looked at him through a mist of alcohol and fatigue, the climate of the years ahead.
“I would tell you about Annette Duplessis,” Camille said, “but life’s too short.”
“Is it?” D’Anton has never thought about it before. Creeping towards his future it sometimes seems long, long enough.
In July 1786 a daughter was born to the King and Queen. “All well and good,” said Angelique Charpentier, “but I expect she’ll be needing some more diamonds to console her for losing her figure.”
Her husband said, “How would we know if she’s losing her figure? We never see her. She never comes. She has something against Paris.” It was a matter of regret to him. “She doesn’t trust us, I think. But of course she is not French. She is far from home.”
“I am far from home,” Angelique said heartlessly. “But I don’t run the nation into debt because of it.”
The Debt, the Deficit—these were the words on the lips of the cafe’s customers as they occupied themselves in trying to name a figure. Only a few people had the ability to imagine money on this scale, the cafe believed; they thought it was a special ability, and that M. Calonne, now the Comptroller-General, had not got it. M. Calonne was a perfect courtier, with his lace cuffs and lavender-water, his gold-topped cane and his well-attested greed for Perigord truffles. Like M. Necker, he was borrowing; the cafe thought that M. Necker’s borrowing had been considered, but that M. Calonne’s borrowing stemmed from a failure of imagination and a desire to keep up appearances.
In August 1786 the Comptroller-General presented to the King a package of proposed reforms. There was one weighty and pressing reason for action: one half of the next year’s revenues had already been spent. France was a rich country, M. Calonne told its sovereign; it could produce many times more revenue than at present. And could this fail to add to the glory and prestige of the monarchy? Louis seemed dubious. The glory and prestige were all very well, most agreeable, but he was anxious to do only what was right; and to produce this revenue would require substantial changes, would it not?
Indeed, his ministers told him from now on everybody—nobles, clergy, commons—must pay a land tax. The pernicious system of tax exemptions must be ended. There must be free trade, the internal customs dues must be abolished. And there must be some concessions to liberal opinion—the corvee must be done away with completely.
