about Dr. Marat at some future date. Any such novel would subvert the view of history which I offer here. In the course of writing this book I have had many arguments with myself, about what history really is. But you must state a case, I think, before you can plead against it.
The events of the book are complicated, so the need to dramatize and the need to explain must be set against each other. Anyone who writes a novel of this type is vulnerable to the complaints of pedants. Three small points will illustrate how, without falsifying, I have tried to make life easier.
When I am describing pre-revolutionary Paris, I talk about “the police.” This is a simplification. There were several bodies charged with law enforcement. It would be tedious, though, to hold up the story every time there is a riot, to tell the reader which one is on the scene.
Again, why do I call the Hotel de Ville “City Hall”? In Britain, the term “Town Hall” conjures up a picture of comfortable aldermen patting their paunches and talking about Christmas decorations or litter bins. I wanted to convey a more vital, American idea;
A smaller point still: my characters have their dinner and their supper at variable times. The fashionable Parisian dined between three and five in the afternoon, and took supper at ten or eleven o‘clock. But if the latter meal is attended with a degree of formality, I’ve called it “dinner.” On the whole, the people in this book keep late hours. If they’re doing something at three o’clock, it’s usually three in the morning.
I am very conscious that a novel is a cooperative effort, a joint venture between writer and reader. I purvey my own version of events, but facts change according to your viewpoint. Of course, my characters did not have the blessing of hindsight; they lived from day to day, as best they could. I am not trying to persuade my reader to view events in a particular way, or to draw any particular lessons from them. I have tried to write a novel that gives the reader scope to change opinions, change sympathies: a book that one can think and live inside. The reader may ask how to tell fact from fiction. A rough guide: anything that seems particularly unlikely is probably true.
ALSO BY HILARY MANTEL
Hilary Mantel has written nine novels, including
NOTE
Lucile Desmoulins and General Dillon were tried for conspiracy and executed on 24 Germinal. Maximilien Robespierre was executed without trial on 10 Thermidor, July 28 old-style. So was his brother Augustin, so was Antoine Saint-Just, so was Couthon. Philippe Lebas shot himself.
Louise Danton married Claude Dupin, and became a baroness under the Empire.
Anne Theroigne died in 1817, in the prison-asylum of La Salpetriere.
Charlotte Robespierre, who never married, was given a small pension by Napoleon. Eleonore remained “the widow Robespierre.” Maximilien’s father—as it turned out—had died in Munich in 1777.
Legendre died in 1795. Robert Lindet survived and prospered. Danton’s sons returned to his province and farmed their land.
Stanislas Freron deserted the cause. After Robespierre’s fall, he persecuted Jacobins, leading gangs of vandals and gallants through the streets. He died in Haiti, in 1802.
Both Jean-Nicholas Desmoulins and Claude Duplessis died within a few months of Robespierre’s fall. Camille’s child was brought up by Annette and Adele Duplessis. He attended the former College Louis-le-Grand, and was called to the Paris Bar. He died, also in Haiti, at the same age as his father. Adele Duplessis died in Vervins, Picardy, in 1854.
A PLACE OF GREATER SAFETY. Copyright © 1992 by Hilary Mantel. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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First published in the United States by Atheneum
eISBN 9781429922807
First eBook Edition : August 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data
Mantel, Hilary.
A place of greater safety / Hilary Mantel.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-42639-2
