Every day she expected them to come and tell her that her husband had been captured, that he was being held in some provincial town, that he was on his way to Paris to stand trial with her. But what if Francois-Leonard were taken? Perhaps they would not tell her at all. This is the price of discretion, this is the prize for good conduct; they had been so discreet, and behaved so well, that even her closest friends would not think Buzot any personal concern of hers.
Her room in prison was bare and cold, but clean. Meals were sent in to her; nevertheless, she had decided to starve herself to death. Little by little she cut down her intake, until they took her away to another room that served as the prison hospital. The prospect was held out to her then that she would be allowed to testify at Brissot’s trial; for that she must be strong, and so she began to eat again.
Perhaps it had been a trick from the start? She didn’t know. While the trial was in progress she had been taken to the Palais de Justice and held in a side room, under guard. But she never saw the accused, never saw the judges or (such as they were) the jury. One of her keepers brought her the news of Valaze’s suicide. One death breeds another. What was it Vergniaud had said, of the calm, smooth- skinned girl who had stabbed Marat? “She has killed us, but she has taught us how to die.”
They had delayed her own trial—perhaps because they hoped to capture Roland and stand them side by side. One could ask for mercy, of course; but her life was not worth the sacrifice of everything she had lived it for. Besides, there was no mercy to be got. From Danton? From Robespierre? Camille Desmoulins had been in some uncharacteristic mood at Brissot’s trial. He had said—a score of people had heard it, her keepers told her—“They were my friends, and my writings have killed them.” But no doubt he had repented of repentance, before Jacobin hands had scooped him up from the floor.
On the day she was moved to the Conciergerie, she realized that she would never see her child or her husband again. The cells were below the hall where the Tribunal sat; this was the last stage, and even if Roland were taken now she would be dead before he reached Paris. She appeared before the Tribunal on November 8—18 Brumaire, by the reckoning of that charlatan Fabre d’Eglantine. She wore a white dress, her auburn hair down, gathering and accreting to itself the last rays of the afternoon light. Fouquier was efficient. She was bundled into a cart that same evening. The bitter wind whipped color into her cheeks, and she shivered inside her muslin. It was growing dark, but she saw the machine against the sky, the sinister geometry of the knife’s edge.
An eyewitness:
“Robespierre came forward slowly … . He wore spectacles which probably served to conceal the twitchings of his pallid face. His delivery was slow and measured. His phrases were so long that every time he stopped and raised his spectacles one thought that he had nothing more to say, but after looking slowly and searchingly over the audience in every part of the room, he would readjust his glasses and add a few more phrases to his sentences, which were already of inordinate length.”
Nowadays when he came up behind people they would jump, startled and guilty. It was as if the fear he often felt had communicated itself to them. Since he was not naturally heavy-footed, he wondered what he should do to warn them—cough, barge into the furniture? He knew that they thought he was there, listening, before they saw him, and all their self-doubts and mutinous half-thoughts came swarming to the surface of their skins.
At the meetings of the Committee he often sat in silence; he did not want to force his views on them, and yet when he abstained from comment he knew that they suspected him of watching them, of noting things down. And he did; he noted a great many things. Sometimes when he gave his opinion Carnot drily contradicted him; Robert Lindet looked very grave, as if he had reservations. He would snap at Carnot to reduce him to silence. What did the man think, that he had some sort of privilege, because he had known him before? His colleagues would exchange glances. Sometimes he would extract a few papers from Carnot’s portfolio, complaints from commanders whose men had dysentery or no shoes, or whose mounts were dying from lack of fodder. He would read them quickly and spread them out on the table like a gambler laying down his hand, his eyes engaging Camot’s; I wonder, he would say, if you think your appointment is working out for the best? Carnot sucked on his lower lip.
When his colleagues spoke, Robespierre sat with his narrow chin propped on thumb and forefinger, his face tilted to the ceiling. There was nothing they could tell him about day-to-day politics, about publicity good and bad, about handling the Convention and obtaining a majority. He remembered his school days, toiling in the shade of more flamboyant characters; he remembered Arras, where he was chivvied about by the claims of his family, slapped down by local magistrates, blackballed because of his politics by the local Bar’s dining club.
He’s not like Danton; he doesn’t want to go home. Here’s home: under the midnight lamps, and out in the rainy street. But sometimes while they’re talking he finds himself, for a moment, elsewhere; he thinks of those gray- green meadows and quiet town squares, the lines of poplars bending in an autumn wind.
20 Brumaire. A “Festival of Reason” is held in the public building formerly known as Notre Dame. The religious embellishments, as people like to call them, have been stripped from the building, and a cardboard Greek temple has been constructed in the nave. An actress from the Opera impersonates the Goddess of Reason, and is enthroned while the crowd sings the “Ca Ira.”
Under pressure from the Hebertists, the Bishop of Paris appears before the Convention, and announces his militant atheism. Deputy Julien, who had once been a Protestant pastor, took the occasion to announce his at the same time.
Declared Deputy Clootz (a radical, a foreigner): “A religious man is a depraved beast. He resembles those animals that are kept to be shorn and roasted for the benefit of merchants and butchers.”
Robespierre came home from the Convention. His lips were pale, his eyes cold with fury. Someone is going to suffer, Eleonore thought.
“If there is no God,” he said, “if there is no Supreme Being, what are the people to think who live all their lives in hardship and want? Do these atheists think they can do away with poverty, do they think the Republic can be made into heaven on earth?”
Eleonore turned away from him. She knew better than to hope for a kiss. “Saint-Just rather thinks it,” she said.
“We cannot guarantee bread to people. We cannot guarantee justice. Are we also to take hope away?”
“It sounds as if you only want a God because he fills the gaps in your policies.”
He stared at her. “Perhaps,” he said slowly. “Perhaps you’re right. But Antoine, you see, he thinks everything can be achieved by wishing it—each individual makes himself over, becomes a better person, a person with more
She put her hand on his arm. “It’s not a failure, my darling. It’s the only success there’s ever been in the world.”
