A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

Legendre, a master butcher, a neighbor of the Dantons

Francois Robert, a lecturer in law: marries Louise de Keralio,

opens a delicatessen and later becomes a radical journalist

Rene Hebert, a theater box-office clerk

Anne Theroigne, a singer

In the National Assembly:

Antoine Bamave, a deputy: at first a radical, later a royalist

Jerome Petion, a radical deputy, later called a “Brissotin”

Dr. Guillotin, an expert on public health

Jean-Sylvain Bailly, an astronomer, later Mayor of Paris

Honore Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, a renegade

aristocrat sitting for the Commons, or Third Estate

Teutch, Mirabeau’s valet

Jean-Pierre Brissot, a journalist

Momoro, a printer

Reveillon, owner of a wallpaper factory

Hanriot, owner of a saltpeter works

De Launay, Governor of the Bastille

PART THREE

M. Soules, temporary Governor of the Bastille

The Marquis de Lafayette, Commander of the National Guard

Jean-Paul Marat, a journalist, editor of the People’s Friend

Arthur Dillon, Governor of Tobago and a general in

the French army: a friend of Camille Desmoulins

Louis-Sebastien Mercier, a well- known author

Collot d’Herbois, a playwright

Father Pancemont, a truculent priest

Father Berardier, a gullible priest

Caroline Remy, an actress

Pere Duchesne, a furnace maker: fictitious alter ego

of Rene Hebert, box-office clerk turned journalist

Antoine Saint-Just, a disaffected poet, acquainted with or

related to Camille Desmoulins

Jean-Marie Roland, an elderly ex-civil servant

Manon Roland, his young wife, a writer

Francois-Leonard Buzot, a deputy, member of the

Jacobin Club and a friend of the Rolands

Jean-Baptiste Louvet, a novelist, Jacobin, friend of the Rolands

PART FOUR

Charles Dumouriez, a general, sometime Foreign Minister

Antoine Fouquier-Tinville, a lawyer; Camille Desmoulins’s cousin

Jeanette, the Desmoulins’s housekeeper

At the rue Saint- Honore:

Maurice Duplay, a master carpenter

Francoise, his wife

Eleonore, an art student, his eldest daughter

Victoire, his daughter

Elisabeth (Babette), his youngest daughter

PART FIVE

Politicans described as “Brissotins” or “Girondins”:

Jean-Pierre Brissot, a journalist

Jean-Marie and Manon Roland

Pierre Vergniaud, member of the National Convention,

famous as an orator

Jerome Petion

Francois-Leonard Buzot

Jean-Baptiste Louvet

Charles Barbaroux, a lawyer from Marseille

and many others

Albertine Marat, Marat’s sister

Simone Evrard, Marat’s common-law wife

Defermon, a deputy, sometime President of the National Convention

Jean-Francois Lacroix, a moderate deputy: goes “on mission”

to Belgium with Danton in 1792 and 1793

David, painter

Charlotte Corday, an assassin

Claude Dupin, a young bureaucrat who proposes marriage

to Louise Gely, Danton’s neighbor

Souberbielle, Robespierre’s doctor

Renaudin, a violin maker, prone to violence

Father Keravenen, an outlaw priest

Chaveau-Lagarde, a lawyer: defense council for Marie-Antoinette

Philippe Lebas, a left-wing deputy: later a member of the Committee

of General Security, or Police Committee: marries Babette Duplay

Vadier, known as “the Inquisitor,” a member of the Police Committee

Implicated in the East India Company fraud:

Chabot, a deputy, ex-Capuchin friar

Julien, a deputy, former Protestant pastor

Proli, secretary to Herault de Sechelles,

and said to be an Austrian spy

Emmanuel Dobruska and Siegmund Gotleb, known as

Emmanuel and Junius Frei: speculators

Guzman, a minor politician, Spanish-born

Diedrichsen, a Danish “businessman”

Abbe d’Espanac, a crooked army contractor

Citizen de Sade, a writer, formerly a marquis

Pierre Philippeaux, a deputy: writes a pamphlet against the

government during the Terror

Some members of the Committee of Public Safety:

Saint- Andre

Barere

Couthon, a paraplegic, friend of Robespierre

Robert Lindet, a lawyer from Normany, a friend of Danton

Etienne Panis, a left-wing deputy, a friend of Danton

At the trial of the Dantonists:

Hermann (once of Arras), President of the Revolutionary

Tribunal

Dumas, his deputy

Fouquier-Tinville, now Public Prosecutor

Fabricius Paris, Clerk of the Court

Laflotte, a prison informer

Henri Sanson, public executioner

AUTHOR’S NOTE

THIS IS A NOVEL about the French Revolution. Almost all the characters in it are real people and it is closely tied to historical facts—as far as those facts are agreed, which isn’t really very far. It is not an overview or a complete account of the Revolution. The story centers on Paris; what happens in the provinces is outside its scope, and so for the most part are military events.

My main characters were not famous until the Revolution made them so, and not much is known about their early lives. I have used what there is, and made educated guesses about the rest.

This is not, either, an impartial account. I have tried to see the world as my people saw it, and they had their own prejudices and opinions. Where I can, I have used their real words—from recorded speeches or preserved writings—and woven them into my own dialogue. I have been guided by a belief that what goes onto the record is often tried out earlier, off the record.

There is one character who may puzzle the reader, because he has a tangential, peculiar role in this book. Everyone knows this about Jean-Paul Marat: he was stabbed to death in his bath by a pretty girl. His death we can be sure of, but almost everything in his life is open to interpretation. Dr. Marat was twenty years older than my main characters, and had a long and interesting pre-revolutionary career. I did not feel that I could deal with it without unbalancing the book, so I have made him the guest star, his appearances few but piquant. I hope to write