A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

“I got my pistol when we raided the Invalides. Remember, Camille?” She swished across the room. “You’re not seen much on the streets, these last weeks.”

“Oh, I couldn’t cut the figure,” Camille murmured. “Not like you.”

Theroigne took his hand and turned it palm up. You could still just see the bayonet cut, not much thicker than a hair, that he had got on July 13. Theroigne, meditatively, drew her forefinger along it. Brissot’s mouth became slightly unhinged. “Look, am I in your way?”

“Absolutely not.” The last thing he wanted was any rumors about Theroigne coming to Lucile’s ears. As far as he knew, Anne was leading a chaste and blameless life; the strange thing was, that she seemed dedicated to giving the contrary impression. The royalist scandal sheets were not slow to pick anything up; Theroigne was a gift from God, as far as they were concerned.

“Can I write for you, my love?” she said.

“You can try. But I have very high standards.”

“Turn me down, would you?” she said.

“I’m afraid I would. The fact is, there’s just too much on offer.”

“As long as we know where we stand,” she said. She scooped up her jacket from the chair where Brissot had disposed it, and—out of some perverse form of charity—placed a kiss on his sunken cheek.

When she’d gone, an odor trailed behind her—female sweat, lavender water. “Calonne,” Brissot said. “He used lavender water. Remember?”

“I didn’t move in those circles.”

“Well, he did.”

Brissot would know. He would know everything, really. He believed in the Brotherhood of Man. He believed that all the enlightened men in Europe should come together to discuss good government and the development of the arts and sciences. He knew Jeremy Bentham and Joseph Priestley. He ran an anti-slavery society, and wrote about jurisprudence, the English parliamentary system and the Epistles of Saint Paul. He had arrived at his present cramped apartment on the rue de Gretry by way of Switzerland, the United States, a cell in the Bastille and a flat on Brompton Road. Tom Paine was a great friend of his (he said) and George Washington had more than once asked for his advice. Brissot was an optimist. He believed that common sense and love of liberty would always prevail. Towards Camille he was kind, helpful, faintly patronizing. He liked to talk about his past life, and congratulate himself on the better days ahead.

Now Theroigne’s visit—perhaps the kiss, particularly—put him into a regular fit of how-did-we-get-here and ain’t-life-strange. “I had a hard time,” he said. “My father died, and shortly afterwards my mother became violently insane.”

Camille put his head down on his desk, and laughed and laughed, until they really thought he would make himself quite ill.

On Fridays, Freron would usually be in the office. Camille would go out to lunch for several hours. Then they would have a writ conference, to decide whether to apologize. Since Camille would not be entirely sober, they never apologized. The staff of the Revolutions was never off duty. They were committed to leaping out of bed in the small hours with some hair-raising bright idea; they were doomed to be spat at in the street. Each week, after the type was set, Camille would say, never again, this is the last edition, positively. But next Saturday the paper would be out again, because he could not bear anyone to think that THEY had frightened him, with their threats and insults and challenges, with their money and rapiers and friends at Court. When it was time to write, and he took his pen in his hand, he never thought of consequences; he thought of style. I wonder why I ever bothered with sex, he thought; there’s nothing in this breathing world so gratifying as an artfully placed semicolon. Once paper and ink were to hand, it was useless to appeal to his better nature, to tell him he was wrecking reputations and ruining people’s lives. A kind of sweet venom flowed through his veins, smoother than the finest cognac, quicker to make the head spin. And, just as some people crave opium, he craves the opportunity to exercise his fine art of mockery, vituperation and abuse; laudanum might quieten the senses, but a good editorial puts a catch in the throat and a skip in the heartbeat. Writing’s like running downhill; can’t stop if you want to.

A few low intrigues to wrap up the annus mirabilis … Lafayette tells Duke Philippe that he is seeking proofs of his involvement in the October riots and that if he finds them he will … proceed. The general wants the Duke out of the country; Mirabeau, finding him essential to his schemes, wants him in Paris. “Tell me who is pressuring you,” Mirabeau begs; not that he can’t guess.

The Duke is confused. He should have been King by now, but he isn’t. “You set these thing afoot,” he complains to de Sillery, “and other people take them out of your hands.”

Charles-Alexis is sympathetic: “Not exactly plain sailing, is it?”

“Please,” the Duke says, “I am not in the mood for your naval metaphors this morning.”

The Duke is frightened—frightened of Mirabeau, frightened of Lafayette and marginally more frightened of the latter. He is even frightened of Deputy Robespierre, who sits in the Assembly opposing everyone and everything, never raising his voice, never losing his temper, his gentle eyes implacable behind his spectacles.

After the October days, Mirabeau conceives a plan for the escape of the royal family—you have to talk, now, in terms of “escape.” The Queen loathes him, but he is trying to manipulate the situation so that he seems to the Court a necessary man. He despises Lafayette, but believes he might be turned to some account; the general has his fingers on the purse strings of the Secret Service funds, and that is no small matter, if one has to entertain, to pay one’s secretaries, to help out needy young men who happen to put their talents at your disposal.

“They may pay me,” the Comte says, “but they have not bought me. If someone would trust me, I wouldn’t need to be so devious.”

“Yes, Monsieur,” Teutch says stonily. “I wouldn’t go marketing that epigram, if I were you, Monsieur.”

And meanwhile, General Lafayette brooded: “Mirabeau,” he said coldly, “is a charlatan. If I cared to expose his schemes I could bring the sky around his ears. The idea of him in the ministry is unthinkable. He is massively corrupt. It is wonderful how the man’s popularity survives. I might say it grows. It does, it grows. I will offer him a place, some embassy, get him out of France … .” Lafayette ran his fingers through his scanty blond hair. It was fortunate that Mirabeau had once said—said in public—that he wouldn’t have Philippe as his valet. Because if they should ally themselves … no, it’s unthinkable. Orleans must leave France, Mirabeau must be bought off, the King must be guarded day and night by six National Guardsmen, likewise the Queen; tonight I dine with Mirabeau and I will offer … He had lapsed into silent thought. It