“It was wastepaper, for all I know. He went on in his usual way about plotters, and I said. ‘Have you any documentary evidence?’ He said, ‘I do, but,’” Robespierre laughed, “‘it’s all written in invisible ink.’ Then he said, ‘This money was given to me to bribe the Committee of Public Safety with, so I thought the best thing to do was to bring it to you. Can I have a safe conduct? I think I ought to get out of the country.’” He looked up at Danton. “Pitiable, isn’t it? We had him picked up at eight o’clock the next morning. He’s in the Luxembourg now. We made the mistake of letting him have pen and ink, so now every day he produces yards and yards of self-justificatory maundering which he sends to the Police Committee. Your name crops up a lot, I’m afraid.”
“And not in invisible ink?” Danton asked. “Talking of which—” He took Robespierre’s letter out of his pocket and dropped it on the desk between them. “Well, my old friend—what’s all this about doing away with Hebert?”
“Ah,” Robespierre said. “Camille and I got together and had a little panic.”
“I see. So I came all this way because you had a little panic.”
“I spoiled your holiday? I’m sorry. You’re quite better, though?”
“Fighting fit. I’m just trying to work out where’s the fight.”
“You know,” Robespierre cleared his throat, “I really think that by New Year our position may be quite favorable. As long as we get Toulon back. And here in Paris, rid ourselves of these anti-religious fanatics. Your friend Fabre is doing a good job on the so-called businessmen. Tomorrow I intend to obtain four expulsions from the Jacobins.”
“Of?”
“Proli, this Austrian who has worked for Herault. And three of Hebert’s friends. To put them outside the club paralyzes them. And it serves as a warning to others.”
“I must point out that recently expulsion from the club has been the prelude to arrest. And yet Camille says you favor an end to the Terror?”
“I wouldn’t put it—quite so—I mean, I think in a couple of months we may be able to relax, but there are still a number of foreign agents that we have to flush out.”
“And that aside, you’d favor a return to the normal judicial process, and bringing in the new constitution?”
“We’re still at war, that’s the trouble. Very much at war. You know what the Convention said—‘The government of France is revolutionary until the peace.’”
“‘Terror is the order of the day.’”
“It was the wrong word, perhaps. You’d think the populace was going around with its teeth chattering. But it isn’t so. The theaters are open as usual.”
“For the performance of patriotic dramas. They bore me, patriotic dramas.”
“They are more wholesome than what the theater used to provide.”
“How would you know? You never go to the theater.”
Robespierre blinked at him. “Well, it seems, logically, that it must be so. I can’t oversee everything. I haven’t time to go to the theater. But if we return to the point—you must understand that in my private capacity I don’t like what has been happening, but I have to admit that politically it has been necessary. Now if Camille were here he would demolish that, but, well, Camille is a theoretician and I have to get on with things in the Committee and reconcile myself … as best I can. The way I see it … externally, our situation is much better, but internally we still have an emergency; we still have the Vendee rebels, and a capital full of conspirators. The Revolution is not safe from day to day.”
“Do you know what the hell it is you do want?”
Robespierre looked up at him helplessly. “No.”
“Can’t you think it out?”
“I don’t know what’s best to do. I seem to be surrounded by people who claim to have all the solutions, but mostly they involve more killings. There are more factions now than before we destroyed Brissot. I am trying to keep them apart, stop them destroying each other.”
“If you wanted to stop the executions, how much support would you have on the Committee?”
“Robert Lindet for sure, probably Couthon and Saint-Andre: Barere perhaps—I never know what Barere is thinking.” He kept count on his fingers. “Collot and Billaud-Varennes would be against any policy of moderation.”
“God,” Danton said reflectively, “Citizen Billaud, the big tough committeeman. He used to come round to my office, ’86, ’87, and I used to give him work drafting pleadings, so he could keep body and soul together.”
“Yes. No doubt he’ll never forgive you.”
“What about Herault?” Danton said. “You’ve forgotten him.”
“No, not forgotten.” Robespierre avoided his eyes. “I think you know he no longer enjoys our confidence. I trust you’ll sever your links with him?”
Let it pass, Danton thought: let it pass. “Saint-just?”
Robespierre hesitated. “He would see it as weakness.”
“Can you not influence him?”
“Perhaps. He has had remarkable successes in Strasbourg. He will tend to think he is working on the right lines. And when people have been with the armies, a few lives in Paris don’t seem so important to them. The others—I can probably pull them into line.”
“Then get rid of Collot and Billaud-Varennes.”
“Not possible. They have the backing of all Hebert’s people.”
