A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

to it.

“Citizens.” Fabre beckoned. “Word with you?”

The irritation on Saint-Just’s face deepened. Robespierre thought of the pretty new calendar, and fetched up a wintery smile.

“Please?” Fabre said. “Something of extreme importance. Would you grant me a private interview?”

“Is it a lengthy matter?” Robespierre asked politely.

“Now look, Fabre,” Saint-Just said, “we’re busy.” Robespierre had to smile again at young Antoine’s tone: Max is my friend and we’re not playing with you. He half-expected that Fabre would step back a pace and survey Saint-Just through his lorgnette. But that didn’t happen; pale, clumsily urgent, Fabre solicited his attention. Saint-Just’s rudeness had thrown him off balance. “I have to see the Committee,” he said. “This is business for them.”

“Then don’t shout about it.”

“Only conspirators whisper.” Seeing his chance, Fabre recovered suddenly into a grand resonance. “Soon the whole Republic must know my news.”

Saint-Just looked at him with distaste. “We are not on the stage,” he observed.

Robespierre darted a glance at Saint-Just, rather shocked. “You’re right, Fabre. If your news concerns the Republic, it must be broadcast.” At the same time, he looked around swiftly to see who had heard.

“It is a matter of public safety.”

“Then he must come to the Committee.”

“No,” Saint-Just said. “Tonight’s agenda will keep us working till dawn. There is no single item that is not a matter of extreme urgency. There is nothing that can be postponed, and I, Citizen Fabre, have to be at my desk by nine tomorrow.”

Fabre ignored him, and took Robespierre by the arm. “I have to reveal a conspiracy.” Robespierre’s eyes widened. “However, it will not mature overnight—if we move with energy tomorrow, there will be time enough. Young Citizen Saint-Just needs his rest. He is not accustomed to watching late, like we elder patriots.”

It was a mistake. Robespierre looked at him icily. “I happen to be informed, Citizen Fabre, that most of your watching late is done in a gambling house whose existence is unknown to the patriots of the Commune, in the company of Citizen Desmoulins’s winning streak and several women of dubious reputation.”

“For the love of God,” Fabre said, “take me seriously.”

Robespierre considered him. “Is it a complicated conspiracy?”

“Its ramifications are enormous.”

“Very well. Citizen Saint-Just and myself meet tomorrow with the Committee of General Security.”

“I know.”

“Will that be suitable?”

“The Police Committee will be most suitable. It will expedite matters.”

“I see. We meet at—”

“I know.”

“I see. Good night.”

Saint-Just shifted from foot to foot. “Robespierre, you’re expected. The Committee will be waiting.”

“They will not, I hope,” Robespierre said. “They will be getting on with the business, I hope. No one should be waited for. No one is indispensable.” But he followed.

“The man is untrustworthy,” Saint-Just said. “He is theatrical. He is hysterical. I have no doubt that this conspiracy is a figment of his too-active imagination.”

“He is a friend of Danton’s and a proven patriot,” Robespierre corrected snappily. “He is a great poet.” He brooded as they walked. “I am inclined to credit what he says. He was very white in the face, and he had not his lorgnette.”

It seemed, it seemed all too credible. Taut, quiet, motionless, his hands palm down on the table, Robespierre took over the interrogation. He had moved from a corner of the table to a place directly opposite Fabre, and the committeemen, moving fast, had clumsily scraped their chairs out of his way; now they sat silent, skipping to the beat of his intuitions. He would ask sharply for Fabre to stop; he would make a note, and then wiping his pen and putting it aside deliberately he would spread out his fingers on the tabletop and glance up at Fabre to indicate that he should begin again.

Fabre slumped in his chair. “And when,” he said, “within a month, Chabot comes to you and says, there is a plot, I hope you will remember who first gave you these names.”

“You,” Robespierre said, “shall interrogate him.”

Fabre swallowed. “Citizen,” he said, “I am very sorry to be the agent of your disillusionment. You must have believed many of these people to be staunch patriots?”

“I?” Robespierre looked up with a small joyless smile. “I already have the names of these foreigners in my notebooks. Anyone may see them. That they were corrupt and dangerous I was well aware, but now you speak to me of systematic conspiracy, of money from Pitt—do you think I don’t see it clearly, and more clearly than any of you do? The economic sabotage, the extremist policies which they advocate at the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, the blasphemous, intolerant attacks on the Christian religion, which disturb the good people and turn them away from the new order—do you think I suppose these things are not related?”

“No,” Fabre said. “No, I should have realized that you would make the connection for yourself. You intend to order arrests?”