I put down my sketch and wait for her to go on.
“Will you deliver something to Robespierre?”
“Without your husband knowing?” I ask.
“It would only be a letter. I could write it now, and it would make peace between them.”
“I have no idea where he lives,” I confess.
“With Maurice Duplay. He is a cabinetmaker in the Rue Saint-Honore. His wife and daughters take care of Robespierre.” She looks at Camille while I wonder what sort of care Robespierre needs. “Please,” she begs. “You can say you are leaving to find new paper or ink.”
I nod, and while she puts Horace in his bassinet to write, I finish the sketch. When she is done, she folds the paper neatly in half. “It isn’t far, only a few doors from the Jacobin Club.” She gives me the address: 366 Rue Saint-Honore. “Thank you, Marie.”
“He doesn’t want to make this peace on his own?” I ask.
“He is fire and brimstone. I fell in love with that, but sometimes it blinds him.”
I cross the room full of warmongers and politicians from the Jacobin Club to whisper where I’m going into Henri’s ear. “You don’t have to come with me,” I say. He gives me a wry look, and I have to suppress a laugh.
Outside, the sky is a brilliant blue, and women are fanning themselves in the heat. “Summer is my favorite time of year,” Henri admits. “There’s nothing better than sitting on the porch and counting the stars.”
“You told me winter was the best time for stargazing.”
He squeezes my arm. “In winter,” he explains, “the sky is clear and the air is dry. But in summer, you have the benefit of not freezing to death.”
We reach the Duplay house and stop in front of a small, cluttered courtyard filled with wood-making tools and a narrow saw pit. We knock on the door, and a young woman answers. She has long dark hair and striking green eyes. I would guess her age to be twenty-four or twenty-five. “My father is not at home,” she says.
“We have come to see Robespierre,” I tell her. She narrows her eyes as she looks at me. Is there jealousy in them?
“What are your names?” she demands.
“Marie Grosholtz, and this is Henri Charles. We have come to deliver a letter.”
She holds out her hand. “I will give to him.”
“If we cannot deliver this to Robespierre himself, we will try another place and time.”
She is not used to being spoken to like this. She hesitates while she considers what to do. “Maximilien,” she calls finally, using his first name. “You have visitors.” She steps to the side. “He is up the stairs. I will take you to him, but only if you are brief.”
I look at Henri and wonder if he is thinking what I am. “We can be brief,” I say.
The three of us climb the stairs, and the young woman pauses before an open door. Inside, Robespierre is hunched over a desk, writing furiously. “Your visitors,” she says.
Robespierre pushes his glasses back on his nose and rises. “Thank you, Eleonore.” It is obvious that he is surprised to see us. “Henri. Marie. What are you doing here?” There is tension in his voice. He is worried that we have come to deliver ill news.
“From Lucile Desmoulins.” I hold out the letter to him, and he takes it.
“Oh.” He sounds relieved. “Please … come inside.”
We enter the small room, with its blue and white curtains and plain wooden bed. There is nothing remarkable about the furniture. Just a pair of tattered chairs, a used mahogany desk, and a broken commode. But it’s the decor that is the most interesting. I exchange a look with Henri, who is having trouble concealing his shock.
Robespierre has papered the walls with every award he has ever received and any honor he has ever been given. Letters, keys, ribbons, cockades—even a dried laurel wreath he wore on the day the Constitution was signed—it is all here. Some of the awards, I am astonished to see, date back to his childhood and are signed by the headmaster who officiated at Camille’s wedding. Robespierre is thirty-four years old! What sort of troubled ego needs to see these affirmations daily?
He unfolds the letter, and we wait while he reads. When he is finished, there are tears in his eyes. “This came from Lucile herself?” he questions.
“She wrote it while I was watching,” I tell him. “She would not let me out of the house without promising that I would take it to you.”
He nods sagely, pushing the glasses back on his nose. “I must go to see my godson,” he says. “I must go to see him right now.”
Whatever Lucile has written has moved him to forgiveness. He follows us down the stairs, and when we part company in the streets, Henri stares at me.
“I know,” I say.
“What sort of man turns his room into a shrine to himself?”
“The kind of man who is terribly insecure,” I tell him. Then I add darkly, “And this is who the revolutionaries believe will deliver them from tyranny.”
JULY
25–A
UGUST
14, 1792
—EXCERPT FROM THE SONG “THE ALARM OF THE PEOPLE”
AT FIRST, IT IS HARD TO HEAR WHAT THE NEWSBOYS ARE screaming. Then Yachin dashes inside and tells us, “The Duke of Brunswick has issued an ultimatum! Either the monarchy is reinstated or the Austro-Prussian armies are going to march on Paris and treat its citizens with unforgettable vengeance.”
“Those were his exact words.”
“I want you to go home. When the rest of the city hears about this, there will be mobs looting the Palais- Royal, breaking into every shop that carries weapons. And you are an Austrian Jew.”
“Our family is made up of patriots,” he argues.
“The Salon will be closed for the rest of the week. Go home,” I tell him.
As I predicted, thousands of
It is a grim time. There is talk of shutting down the ports, and no one is allowed out of the city without a passport and proof that they are not fleeing to join the emigres.
Over a Sunday dinner to which the entire family except Edmund has come, Johann confides that Lafayette has drawn up a plan to rescue the royal family. “But the queen refuses to put her life in Lafayette’s hands a second time. She does not wish to be indebted to him any more than she is.”
“That kind of pride will be the end of her,” my mother warns.
“What about the king?” Henri asks.
“Lafayette’s plan calls for four companies of Swiss Guards to take them out of Paris, whatever the cost to the Guard and to the people.”
“There are no better soldiers in France,” Wolfgang says. “Perhaps in all of Europe. A few companies could ride them to safety in two days.”
