A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

another incursion from Saint-Marcel. As the demonstrators marched along the embankments, stevedores fell in with them, and the workers on the woodpiles, and the down-and-outs who slept under the bridges; the workers at the royal glass factory downed tools and came streaming out into the streets. Another two hundred French Guards were dispatched; they fell back in front of Titonville, commandeered carts and barricaded themselves in. It was at this point that their officers felt the stirrings of panic. There could be five thousand people beyond the barricades, or there could be ten thousand; there was no way of telling. There had been some sharp action these last few months; but this was different.

As it happened, that day there was a race-meeting at Vincennes. As the fashionable carriages crossed the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, nervous ladies and gentlemen dressed a l’Anglais were haled out onto the sewage and cobblestones. They were required to shout, “Down with the profiteers,” then roughly assisted back into their seats. Many of the gentlemen parted with sums of money to ensure good will, and some of the ladies had to kiss lousy apprentices and stinking draymen, as a sign of solidarity. When the carriage of the Duke of Orleans appeared, there was cheering. The Duke got out, said a few soothing words, and emptied his purse among the crowd. The carriages behind were forced to halt. “The Duke is reviewing his troops,” said one high, carrying aristocratic voice.

The guardsmen loaded their guns and waited. The crowd milled about, sometimes approaching the carts to talk to the soldiers, but showing no inclination to attack the barricades. Out at Vincennes the Anglophiles urged their favorites past the post. The afternoon went by.

Some attempt was made to divert the returning race-goers, but when the carriage of the Duchess of Orleans appeared the situation became difficult. Up there was where she wanted to go, the Duchess’s coachman said: past those barricades. The problem was explained. The reticent Duchess did not alter her orders. Etiquette confronted expediency. Etiquette prevailed. Soldiers and bystanders began to take down the barricades. The mood altered, swung about; the idleness of the afternoon dissipated, slogans were shouted, weapons reappeared. The crowd surged through, after the Duchess’s carriage. After a few minutes there was nothing left of Titonville worth burning, smashing or carrying away.

When the cavalry arrived the crowds were already looting the shops on the rue Montreuil. They pulled the cavalrymen off their horses. Infantry appeared, faces set; orders crackled through the air, there was the sudden, shocking explosion of gunfire. Blank cartridges: but before anyone had grasped that, an infantryman was grazed by a roof tile dropped from above, and as he turned his face up to see where the tile had come from, the rioter who had picked him out as a target skimmed down another tile, which took out his eye.

Within a minute the mob had splintered doors and smashed locks, and they were up on the roofs of the rue Montreuil, tearing up the slates at their feet. The soldiers fell back under the barrage, hands to their faces and scalps, blood dripping between their fingers, tripping on the bodies of men who had been felled. They opened fire. It was 6:30 p.m.

By eight o‘clock fresh troops had arrived. The rioters were pushed back. The walking wounded were helped away. Women appeared on the streets, shawls over their heads, hauling buckets of water to bathe wounds and give drinks to those who had lost blood. The shopfronts gaped, doors creaked off their hinges, houses were stripped to the brick; there were smashed tiles and broken glass to walk on, spilt blood tacky on the tiles, small fires running along charred wood. At Titonville the cellars had been ransacked, and the men and women who had breached the casks and smashed the necks of the bottles were lying half-conscious, choking on their vomit. The French Guards, out for revenge, bludgeoned their unresisting bodies where they lay. A little stream of claret ran across the cobbles. At nine o’clock the cavalry arrived at full strength. The Swiss Guard brought up eight cannon. The day was over. There were three hundred corpses to shovel up off the streets.

Until the day of the funeral, Gabrielle did not go out. Shut in her bedroom, she prayed for the little soul already burdened with sin, since it had shown itself intemperate, demanding, greedy for milk during its year’s stay in a body. Later she would go to church to light candles to the Holy Innocents. For now, huge slow tears rolled down her cheeks.

Louise Gely came from upstairs. She did what the maids had not sense to do; parceled up the baby’s clothes and his blankets, scooped up his ball and his rag doll, carried them upstairs in an armful. Her small face was set, as if she were used to attending on the bereaved and knew she must not give way to their emotions. She sat beside Gabrielle, the woman’s plump hand in her bony child’s grasp.

“That’s how it is,” Maitre d’Anton said. “You’re just getting your life set to rights, then the wisdom of the bloody Almighty—” The woman and the girl raised their shocked faces. He frowned. “This religion has no consolations for me anymore.”

After the baby was buried, Gabrielle’s parents came back to sit with her. “Look to the future,” Angelique prompted. “You might have another ten children.” Her son-in-law gazed miserably into space. M. Charpentier walked about sighing. He felt useless. He went to the window to look out into the street. Gabrielle was coaxed to eat.

Mid-afternoon, another mood got into the room: life must go on. “This is a poor situation for a man who used to know all the news,” M. Charpentier said. He tried to signal to his son-in-law that the women would like to be left alone.

Georges-Jacques got up reluctantly. They put on their hats, and walked through the crowded and noisy streets to the Palais-Royal and the Cafe du Foy. M. Charpentier attempted to draw the boy into conversation, failed. His son-in-law stared straight ahead of him. The slaughter in the city was no concern of his; he looked after his own.

As they pushed their way into the cafe, Charpentier said, “I don’t know these people.”

D’Anton looked around. He was surprised at how many of them he did know. “This is where the Patriotic Society of the Palais-Royal holds its meetings.”

“Who may they be?”

“The usual bunch of time wasters.”

Billaud-Varennes was threading his way towards them. It was some weeks since d’Anton had put any work his way; his yellow face had become an irritation, and you can’t keep going, his clerk Pare had told him, all the lazy malcontents in the district.

“What do you think of all this?” Billaud’s eyes, perpetually like small, sour fruits, showed signs of ripening into expectation. “Desmoulins has declared his interest at last, I see. Been with Orleans’s people. They’ve bought him” He looked over his shoulder. “Well, talk of the devil.”

Camille came in alone. He looked around warily. “Georges-Jacques, where have you been?” he said. “I haven’t seen you for a week. What do you make of Reveillon?”

“I’ll tell you what I make of it,” Charpentier said. “Lies and distortion. Reveillon is the best master in this city.