A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

HEBERT: Justice! I demand a hearing!

PRESIDENT: Order! I put it to the meeting that the fifth issue should be read out.

JACOBIN: We have all read it.

JACOBIN: I should be ashamed to admit that I had read an aristo pamphlet.

JACOBIN: Hebert does not want it read, he does not want the truth given wider currency.

CITIZEN HEBERT: No, no, by no means should it be read out! Camille is trying to complicate everything. He is trying to divert attention from himself. He is accusing me of stealing public funds, and it is completely false.

CITIZEN DESMOULINS: I have the proofs of it here in my hand.

CITIZEN -EBERT: Oh God! He wants to assassinate me!

Proceedings of the Jacobin Club (2):

PRESIDENT: We are calling on Camille Desmoulins to justify his conduct.

JACOBIN: He’s not here.

JACOBIN: To Robespierre’s relief.

PRESIDENT: I am going to call his name three times, so that he has the opportunity to come forward and justify himself before the Society.

JACOBIN: It is a pity he has not got a cockerel that he could persuade to crow thrice. It would be illuminating to see what Danton would do.

PRESIDENT: Camille Desmoulins—

JACOBIN: He isn’t here. He knows better.

JACOBIN: It’s no use calling his name and calling his name, if he’s not here.

CITIZEN ROBESPIERRE: We will discuss instead—

CITIZEN DESMOULINS: I am here, actually.

CITIZEN ROBESPIERRE [loudly]: I said we will move instead to a discussion of the crimes of the British government.

JACOBIN: Always a safe topic.

CITIZEN DESMOULINS [at the tribune]: I suppose … I suppose you are going to say that I have been mistaken. I admit I may have been—about Philippeaux’s motives, perhaps. I have made a lot of mistakes in my career. I must ask the Society for guidance because I really … I really don’t know where I am in these matters anymore.

JACOBIN: I knew he would go to pieces.

JACOBIN: Always a safe tactic.

JACOBIN: Look at Robespierre, on his feet already.

CITIZEN ROBESPIERRE: I demand to speak.

CITIZEN DESMOULINS: But Robespierre, let me—

CITIZEN ROBESPIERRE: Be quiet, Camille, I want to speak.

JACOBIN: Sit down, Camille, you will only talk yourself into more trouble.

JACOBIN: That’s right—give way, and let Robespierre extricate you. Wonderful, isn’t it?

CITIZEN ROBESPIERRE [at the tribune]: Citizens, Camille has promised us he will renounce his errors and put aside all the political heresies with which the pages of these pamphlets are filled. He has sold vast numbers of copies and the aristocrats in their falseness and treachery have been heaping praise upon him, and it has all gone to his head.

JACOBIN: He has dropped this manner of his, you know, the long pauses.

CITIZEN ROBESPIERRE: These writings are dangerous, because they disturb public order and fill our enemies with hope. But we have to distinguish between the author and his work. Camille—oh, Camille is just a spoiled child. His inclinations are good but he has fallen in with bad people and he has been seriously misled. We must repudiate these writing, which even Brissot would not have dared acknowledge, but we must keep Camille amongst us. I demand that—as a gesture—the offending issues of the “old Cordelier” be burned before this Society.

CITIZEN DESMOULINS: Burning is not answering.

JACOBIN: How true! Rousseau said it!

JACOBIN: That we should live to see the day!

JACOBIN: Robespierre confounded by his god Jean-Jacques! He looks green.

JACOBIN: I should not like to have to live with the consequences of being that clever.

JACOBIN: He may not have to.

CITIZEN ROBESPIERRE: Oh, Camille—how can you defend these writings, which are such a delight to the aristocrats? Camille, if you were anyone else, do you think we should treat you with such indulgence?

CITIZEN DESMOULINS: I don’t understand you, Robespierre. Some of the writings which you condemn you read yourself in proof. How can you imply that only aristocrats read my work? The Convention and all this Society have read it. Are they all aristocrats?

CITIZEN DANTON: Citizens, may I suggest you pursue your deliberations calmly? And remember—if you strike