DANTON: How is the trial going?
ROBESPIERRE: No problems really. We hope it will be over tomorrow. Oh, perhaps, you don’t mean Hebert’s trial? Fabre and Herault will be in court in a few days’ time. The exact date escapes me, but Fouquier will know.
DANTON: You wouldn’t be trying to frighten me, by any chance? All this relentless laboring of the point.
ROBESPIERRE: You seem to think I have something against you. All I have asked you to do is to disassociate yourself from Fabre. Unfortunately there are people who say that if Fabre is on trial you should be too.
DANTON: And what do you say?
ROBESPIERRE: Your activities in Belgium were not perhaps above reproach, However, I chiefly blame Lacroix.
DANTON: Camille—
ROBESPIERRE: Never speak to me again of Camille.
DANTON: Why not?
ROBESPIERRE: The last time we met you spoke abusively of him. With contempt.
DANTON: Suit yourself. The point is, in December you were ready to admit that the Terror should be mitigated, that innocent people—
ROBESPIERRE: I dislike these emotive phrases. By “innocent” you mean “persons of whom for one reason or another I approve.” That is not the standard. The standard is what the court finds. In that sense, no innocent person has suffered.
DANTON: My God! I don’t believe what I’m hearing. He says no innocent person has suffered.
ROBESPIERRE: I hope you’re not going to produce anymore of your tears. It is the kind of talent Fabre and the actors have, and not becoming to you.
DANTON: I appeal to you for the last time. You and I are the only people capable of running this country. All right—let’s admit it Dnally—we don’t like each other. But you don’t really suspect me, any more than I suspect you. There are people around us who would like to see us destroy each other. Let’s make life hard for them. Let’s make common cause.
ROBESPIERRE: There’s nothing I’d like better. I deplore factions. I also deplore violence. However, I would rather destroy the factions by violence than see the Revolution fall into the wrong hands and be perverted.
DANTON: You mean mine?
ROBESPIERRE: You see, you talk so much about innocence. Where are they, all these innocent people? I never seem to meet them.
DANTON: You look at innocence, but you see guilt.
ROBESPIERRE: I suppose if I had your morals and your principles, the world would look a different place. I would never see the need to punish anyone. There would be no criminals. There would be no crimes.
DANTON: Oh God, I cannot stand you and your city for a moment longer. I am taking my wife and my children to Sevres, and if you want me you know where to find me.
Sevres, March 22: 2 Germinal. “So here you are,” Angelique said. “And you can enjoy the fine weather.” She kissed her grandsons, ran her eyes down Louise and found occasion to put an arm round her waist and squeeze her. Louise kissed her cheek dutifully. “Why didn’t you all come?” Angelique asked. “I mean, Camille and family? The old people could have come, too, there’s plenty of room.”
Louise made a mental note to pass on the description of Annette Duplessis as an old person. “We wanted some time to ourselves,” she said.
“Oh, did you?” Angelique shrugged; it was a desire that she couldn’t comprehend.
“Has my friend Duplessis recovered from his ordeal?” M. Charpentier asked.
“He’s all right,” Danton said. “He seems old, lately. Still, wouldn’t you, if you had Camille for a son-in- law?”
“You’ve not spared me gray hairs yourself, Georges.”
“How the years have flown by!” Angelique said. “I remember Claude as a handsome man. Stupid, but handsome.” She sighed. “I wish I could have the last ten years over again—don’t you, daughter?”
“No,” Louise said.
“She’d be six,” Danton said. “But Christ, I wish I could have them! There’d be things to do different.”
“You wouldn’t neccessarily have hindsight,” his wife said.
“I remember an afternoon,” Charpentier said. “It would be ’86, ’87? Duplessis came into the cafe and I asked him to supper. He said, we’re up to our eyes at the Treasury—but we will sort out a date, as soon as the present crisis is over.”
“Well?” Louise said.
Charpentier shook his head, smiled. “They haven’t been yet.”
Two days later the weather broke. It turned gray, damp and chilly. There were draughts, the fires smoked. Visitors from Paris arrived in a steady stream. Hasty introductions were made: Deputy So-and-so, Citizen Such-a- one of the Commune. They shut themselves up with Danton; the conversations were brief, but the household heard voices raised in exasperation. The visitors always said that they had to get back to Paris, that they could by no means stay the night. They had about them the air of grim irresolution, of shifty bravado, that Angelique recognized as the prelude to crisis.
