“If this goes on—I don’t know.” He passed a hand over his face. “People starved every year under the old regime. Lindet, where is it, where is all the food? The land still produces.”
“Danton says we have frozen trade up with our regulations. He says—it’s true enough—that the peasants are afraid to bring their produce into the cities in case they get on the wrong side of some regulation and end up being lynched for profiteering. We requisition where we can, but they hide the stuff, they prefer to let it rot. Danton’s people say that if we took the controls off, supply would begin to move again.”
“And what do you say?”
“The agitators in the Sections support controls. They tell the people it is the only way to do things. It is an impossible situation.”
“So …”
“I await your guidance.”
“What does Hebert say?”
“Excuse me. Give me the newspaper.” He shook it out, and crumbs showered onto the floor. “There.”
“‘The butchers who treat the sansculottes like dogs and give them nothing to gnaw upon but bones should be guillotined like all the enemies of the ordinary people.’”
Robespierre’s lip curled. “Very constructive,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the mass of the people has not gained much in wisdom since ’89. This sort of suggestion seems a solution, to them.”
“Is there much unrest?”
“Of a sort. They are not demanding liberty. They don’t seem to be interested in their rights now. Camille and the release of suspects were very popular, around Christmas. But now they only think about the food supply.”
“Hebert will exploit this,” Robespierre said.
“There’s a good deal of agitation, trouble, in the arms factories. We can’t afford strikes. The army is under- supplied as it is.”
Robespierre lifted his head. “The agitators must be rounded up, in the streets, factories, wherever. I understand that the people have grievances, but we can’t let everything go now. People must sacrifice themselves for the nation. It will work out, in the long term.”
“Saint-Just and Vadier on the Police Committee keep a tight hand on things. Unfortunately,” Lindet hesitated, “without a political decision at the highest level, we can’t move against the real troublemakers.”
“Hebert.”
“He will get up an insurrection if he can. The government will fall. Read the newspaper. There is a movement at the Cordeliers—”
“Don’t tell me,” Robespierre said. “I know it all too well. The bombast to get your courage up, and the meetings in back rooms. It is only Hebert that balances out the influence of Danton. Here I am, helpless, and everything is falling apart. Won’t the people be loyal to the Committee, after we have saved them from invasion, and fed them as best we can?”
“I’d hoped to spare you this,” Lindet said. He reached into a pocket and took out a piece of card, which he unfolded. It was an official notice, giving the hours and wage rates for government workshops. There was a ragged tear at each corner, where it had been ripped from the wall.
Robespierre stretched out his hand for it. The notice bore the reproduced signatures of six members of the Committee of Public Safety. Underneath them, crudely scrawled in red, were the words:
CANNIBALS. THIEVES. MURDERERS.
Robespierre let it fall onto the bed. “Were the Capets abused like this?” He dropped his head against the pillows. “It is my duty to hunt out the men who have misled and betrayed these poor people and put these wicked thoughts into their heads. I swear to you, from now on I shall not let the Revolution out of my own hands.”
After Lindet had gone he sat for a long time, propped up by pillows, watching the afternoon light change and flit across the ceiling. Dusk fell. Eleonore crept in with lights. She put a log on the fire, shuffled together the loose papers that lay about the room. She stacked up books and replaced them on the shelves, refilled his jug of water and drew the curtains. She stood over him and gently touched his face. He smiled at her.
“You are feeling better?”
“Much better.”
Suddenly she sat down at the foot of the bed, as if all the strength had left her; her shoulders slumped, she cradled her head in her hands. “Oh,” she said, “we thought at first you’d die. You looked like a corpse, when we found you on the floor. What would happen if you died? None of us could go on.”
“I didn’t die,” he said. His tone was pleasant, decisive. “Also I’m more clear now about what has to be done. I shall be going to the Convention tomorrow.”
The date was 21 Ventose—March 11, old-style. It was thirty days since his withdrawal from public life. He felt as if all the years past he had been enclosed by a shell, penetrable to just a little light and sound; as if his illness had split it open, and the hand of God had plucked him out, pure and clean.
March 12: “The mandate of the Committee was renewed by the Convention for a further month,” Robert Lindet said. “There was no opposition.” He said it very formally, as if he were a speaking gazette.
“Mm,” Danton said.
“There wouldn’t be, would there?” Camille leapt up to pace about the room. “There wouldn’t be any opposition. The members of the Convention stand up and sit down to the applause of the galleries. Which the Committee had packed, I imagine.”
Lindet sighed. “You’re right. Nothing is left to chance.” His eyes followed Camille. “Will you be glad of Hebert’s
