A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

“Hebert? No, I like to see him pulled down by the accumulated weight of his pettiness.”

“No, I mean—when you spoke in the Convention last, some fool shouted, ‘You dine with aristocrats.’ In itself it means nothing, but—”

“They call everyone an aristo who’s intelligent. Anyone with good taste.”

“You know that these people, these ci-devants, they’re only interested in you for the power you hold.”

“Oh yes. Well, not Arthur Dillon—he likes me. But after all, since ‘89 people have been interested in me only for the power I hold. Before ’89, no one was interested in me at all.”

“All the people who counted were.” An intense moment; Robespierre’s eyes, with their fugitive blue-green light, rest on him. “You were always in my heart.”

Camille smiles. Sentimentality; after all, it is the fashion of the era. It occurs to him that it is, anyway, more soothing than being yelled at by Georges-Jacques. Robespierre breaks the moment, gives him a good-tempered dismissive wave. But after Camille has gone, he sits and thinks. Virtue is the word that springs to his mind—or rather vertu, meaning strength, honesty, purity of intent. Does Camille understand these words? Sometimes he seems to comprehend them very well; no one has more vertu. The trouble is, he thinks he’s an exception to every rule. He’s been saying things, today, that he’ll wish he hadn’t said. That doesn’t mean I’m not obliged to take notice of them. If he hadn’t told me, I’d never have known about Georges-Jacques’s marriage settlement. Danton must be feeling very anxious about something. A man like that doesn’t worry over trifles. A man like that doesn’t give away that he’s worried. A man like that feels in danger only when there’s some huge guilt pressing on his mind, or a great accumulation of threats and fears … .

Guilt, of course: there must be. He abused the good young woman’s trust; and she was the mother of his little sons. When she died I imagined him so hurt that he would never recover, and I wrote to console him, I opened my mind and heart, laying aside all reservations, suspicions, doubts—“you and I are one.” I grant you, the sentiment was overblown. I should have guarded my pen, but I felt so raw … . No doubt he smiled at it. No doubt he thought (no doubt he said, aloud, to smirking people), what is it with this little man? How dare he claim to be one with me? How could Robespierre—the bachelor, who has only the most skulking attachments, and those he denies—how could Robespierre presume to know what I feel?

And now he says to himself, hands resting on his desk: Danton is a patriot. Nothing more is necessary; it doesn’t matter if his manners displease me. Danton is a patriot.

He rises from his desk, eases open a drawer, takes out a notebook. One of those little notebooks he uses: a fresh one. He opens the first page. He seats himself, dips his pen, writes DANTON. He would like to add something: don’t read this, it’s my private book. Yet, though he doesn’t claim to know much about people, he knows this: such a plea would drive them on, sniffing and ferreting, reading in excited gulps. He frowned. So, let them read … . or he could perhaps carry this book with him, all the time? Not liking himself very much, he began to record what he could remember of his conversation with Camille.

Maximilien Robespierre:

In our country we want to substitute morality for egotism, probity for the code of personal honor, principles for conventions, public duties for social obligations, the empire of reason for the tyranny of fashion, contempt of vice for contempt of misfortune, love of glory for love of money, good people for good society, merit for intrigue, the greatness of Man for the pettiness of the Great, a magnanimous, powerful and happy people for a frivolous and miserable one: in other words, all the virtues and miracles of the republic for all the ridiculous vices of the monarchy.

Camille Desmoulins:

Till our day it has been thought, with the lawgivers of old, that Virtues were the necessary basis of a republic; the eternal glory of the Jacobin Club will be to have founded one on vices.

All June, disasters in the Vendee. At different times the rebels have Angers, Saumur, Chinon; are narrowly defeated in the battle for Nantes, where off the coast the British navy waits to support them. The Danton Committee is not winning the war, nor can it promise a peace. If by autumn there is no relief from the news of disaster and defeat, the sansculottes will take the law into their own hands, turning on the government and their elected leaders. That at least is the feeling (Danton present or absent) in the chamber of the Committee of Public Safety, whose proceedings are secret. Beneath the black tricorn hat which is the badge of his office, Citizen Fouquier becomes more haggard each day, peering over the files of papers stacked on his desk, planning diversions for the days ahead: acquiring a lean and hungry look which he shares with the Republic herself.

And if a diversion is needed, why not arrest a general? Arthur Dillon is a friend of eminent deputies, a contender for the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front; he has proved himself at Valmy and in a half- dozen actions since. In the National Assembly he was a liberal; now he is a republican. Isn’t it then logical that he should be thrown into gaol, July 1, on suspicion of passing military secrets to the enemy?

They had made a conspiracy that Claude’s health required walks, long walks, every day. His physician had joined it, on the grounds that no amount of gentle exercise does any harm, and if one of the nastiest members of the Convention wanted to have an affair with his mother-in-law, it did not behoove him to stand in his way.

Annette, in fact, found her life less exciting than was generally believed. Each morning she occupied herself with the provincial press; she scanned the papers, took cuttings, made extracts. She would sit beside her son-in- law, they would open his letters, she would scribble on them what was to be done, or sent, or said, whether she could reply, whether he should do it, whether the letter could be consigned straight to the drawing-room fire. Who’d have thought, she’d say, that I’d end up your secretary? It’s almost ten years now since we haven’t been sleeping together and cruelly deceiving the rest of the family. They tried to remember the exact date—it would be sometime in ’84—when Freron had bowed himself into Annette’s drawing room with Camille in tow. She wasn’t, in those days, diligent about writing things down.

If they could remember it, they thought, they could give a party. Any excuse for a party! Annette said. They fell silent for a moment, thinking of the last ten years. Then they went back to discussing the Commune.

And here’s Lucile, walking in unexpected and unannounced: “Really!” her mother said. “To walk in like this, when we are having an intimate discussion of Hebert—”

Lucile didn’t laugh. She started talking. At first he thought she was saying Dillon was dead, killed in action; a miserable blankness descended on his mind, and he went to sit quietly at the desk by the fireplace, looking at the grain of the wood. It was a minute or two before he took in the message: Dillon’s here, he’s in prison, what are we going to do?

The morning’s joie de vivre seemed to drain out of Annette. “This is a complication,” she said. Immediately she thought, I can’t see the end of this. Who’s behind it? Is it one of the damned committees? The Committee of General Security, which everybody calls the Police Committee ? Is it really directed against Arthur Dillon, or is it directed at Camille?

Lucile said, “You have to get him out, you know. If he’s convicted”—her face showed she knew what conviction