Three-Book Edition: A Place of Greater Safety; Beyond Black; The Giant O’Brien

What has it been, until now?

Nothing.

What does it want?

To become something.

THE FIRST Electoral Assembly of the Third Estate of Guise, in the district of Laon: 5 March 1789. Maître Jean-Nicolas Desmoulins presiding, as Lieutenant-General of the Bailiwick of Vermandois: assisted by M. Saulce, Procurator: M. Marriage as Secretary: 292 persons present.

In deference to the solemnity of the occasion, M. Desmoulins’s son had tied his hair back with a broad green ribbon. It had been a black ribbon earlier that morning, but he had remembered just in time that black was the colour of the Hapsburgs and of Antoinette, and that was not at all the kind of partisanship he wished to display. Green, however, was the colour of liberty and the colour of hope. His father waited for him by the front door, fuming at the delay and wearing a new hat. ‘I never know why Hope is accounted a virtue,’ Camille said. ‘It seems so self-serving.’

It was a raw, blustery day. On the rue Grand-Pont, Camille stopped and touched his father’s arm. ‘Come to Laon with me, to the district assembly. Speak for me. Please.’

‘You think I should stand aside for you?’ Jean-Nicolas said. ‘The traits which the electors will prefer in me, are not the ones you have inherited. I am aware that there are certain persons in Laon making a noise on your behalf, saying you must know your way about and so on. Just let them meet you, that’s all I say. Just let them try to have a five-minute normal conversation with you. Just let them set eyes on you. No, Camille, in no way will I be party to foisting you on the electorate.’

Camille opened his mouth to reply. His father said, ‘Do you think it is a good idea to stand about arguing in the street?’

‘Yes, why not?’

Jean-Nicolas took his son’s arm. Not very dignified to drag him to the meeting, but he’d do it if necessary. He could feel the damp wind penetrating his clothes and stirring aches and pains in every part. ‘Come on,’ he snapped, ‘before they give us up for lost.’

‘Ah, at last,’ the de Viefville cousins said. Rose-Fleur’s father looked Camille over sourly. ‘I had rather hoped not to see you, but I suppose you are a member of the local Bar, and your father pointed out that we could not very well disenfranchise you. This may, after all, be your only chance to play any part in the nation’s affairs. I hear you’ve been writing,’ he said. ‘Pamphleteering. Not, if I may say so, a gentleman’s method of persuasion.’

Camille gave M. Godard his best, his sweetest smile. ‘Maître Perrin sends his regards,’ he said.

After the meeting nothing remained except for Jean-Nicolas to go to Laon to collect a formal endorsement. Adrien de Viefville, the Mayor of Guise, walked home with them. Jean-Nicolas seemed dazed by his easy victory; he’d have to start packing for Versailles. He stopped as they crossed the Place des Armes and stood looking up at his house. ‘What are you doing?’ his relative asked.

‘Inspecting the guttering,’ Jean-Nicolas explained.

By next morning everything had fallen apart. Maître Desmoulins did not appear for breakfast. Madeleine had anticipated the festive chink of coffee cups, congratulations all round, perhaps even a little laughter. But those children who remained at home all had colds, and were coddling themselves, and she was left to preside over one son, whom she did not know well enough to talk to, and who did not eat breakfast anyway.

‘Can he be sulking?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t think he’d sulk, today of all days. This comes of apeing royalty and having separate bedrooms. I never know what the bastard’s thinking.’

‘I could go and find him,’ Camille suggested.

‘No, don’t trouble. Have some more coffee. He’ll probably send me a note.’

Madeleine surveyed her eldest child. She put a piece of brioche into her mouth. To her surprise, it stuck there, like a lump of ash. ‘What has happened to us?’ she said. Tears welled into her eyes. ‘What has happened to you?’ She could have put her head down on the table, and howled.

Presently word came that Jean-Nicolas was unwell. He had a pain, he said. The doctor arrived, and confined him to bed. Messages were sent to the mayor’s house.

‘Is it my heart?’ Desmoulins inquired weakly. If it is, he was about to say, I blame Camille.

The doctor said, ‘I’ve told you often enough where your heart is, and where your kidneys are, and what is the state of each; and while your heart is perfectly sound, to set out for Versailles with kidneys like those is mere folly. You will be sixty in two years – if, and only if, you take life quietly. Moreover – ’

‘Yes? While you’re about it?’

‘Events in Versailles are more likely to give you a heart attack than anything your son has ever done.’

Jean-Nicolas dropped his head back against the pillows. His face was yellow with pain and disappointment. The de Viefvilles gathered in the drawing room below, and the Godards, and all the electoral officials. Camille followed the doctor in. ‘Tell him it’s his duty to go to Versailles,’ he said. ‘Even if it kills him.’

‘You always were a heartless boy,’ said M. Saulce.

Camille turned to break into a clique of de Viefvilles. ‘Send me,’ he said.

Jean-Louis de Viefville des Essarts, advocate, Parlementaire, surveyed him through his pince-nez. ‘Camille,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t send you down to the market to fetch a lettuce.’

ARTOIS: the three Estates met separately, and the assemblies of the clergy and the nobility each indicated that in this time of national crisis they would be prepared to sacrifice some of their ancient privileges. The Third Estate began to propose an effusive vote of thanks.

A young man from Arras took the floor. He was short and slightly built, with a conspicuously well-cut coat and immaculate linen. His face was intelligent and earnest, with a narrow chin and wide blue eyes masked behind spectacles. His voice was unimpressive, and half-way through his speech it died momentarily in his throat; people had to lean forward and nudge their neighbours to know what he said. But it was not the manner of his delivery that caused them consternation. He said that the clergy and the nobility had done nothing praiseworthy, but had merely promised to amend where they had abused. Therefore, there was no need to thank them at all.

Among people who were not from Arras, and did not know him, there was some surprise when he was elected one of the eight deputies for the Third Estate of Artois. He seems locked into himself, somehow not amenable; and he has no orator’s tricks, no style, nothing about him at all.

‘I NOTICE you’ve paid off your tailor,’ his sister Charlotte said. ‘And your glove-maker. And you said he was such a good glove-maker too. I wish you wouldn’t go around town as if you’ve decided to leave for good.’

‘Would you prefer it if I climbed through the window one night with all my possessions done up in a spotted handkerchief? You could tell them I’d run away to sea.’

But Charlotte was not to be mollified: Charlotte, the family knife. ‘They’ll want you to settle things before you go.’

‘You mean about Anaïs?’ He looked up from the letter he was writing to an old schoolfriend. ‘She’s said she’s happy to wait.’

‘She’ll not wait. I know what girls are like. My advice to you is to forget her.’

‘I am always glad of your advice.’

She threw her head up and glared, suspecting sarcasm. But his face expressed only concern for her. He turned back to his letter:

Dearest Camille,

I flatter myself you won’t be very surprised to learn I’m on my way to Versailles. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward…

MAXIMILIEN de Robespierre, 1789, in the case of Dupond:

The reward of the virtuous man is his confidence that he has willed the good of his fellow man: after that comes the recognition of the nations, which surrounds his memory, and the honours given him by contemporaries…I should like to buy these rewards, at the price of a laborious life, even at the price of a premature death.

PARIS: on 1 April, d’Anton went out to vote at the church of the Franciscans, whom the Parisians called the Cordeliers. Legendre the master butcher walked down with him – a big, raw, self-educated man who was in the habit of agreeing with anything d’Anton said.

‘Now a man like you…’ Fréron had said, with careful flattery.

‘A man like me can’t afford to stand for election,’ d’Anton said. ‘They’re giving the deputies, what, an eighteen-franc allowance per session? And I’d have to live in Versailles. I’ve a family to support, I can’t let my practice lie fallow.’

‘But you’re disappointed,’ Fréron suggested.

‘Maybe.’

The voters didn’t go home; they stood in groups outside the Cordeliers’ church, gossiping and making predictions. Fabre didn’t have a vote because he didn’t pay enough taxes; the fact was making him spiteful. ‘Why couldn’t we have the same franchise as the provinces?’ he demanded. ‘I’ll tell you what it is, they regard Paris as a dangerous city, they’re afraid of what would happen if we all had votes.’ He engaged in seditious conversation with the truculent Marquis de Saint-Huruge. Louise Robert closed the shop and came out on François’s arm, wearing rouge and a frock left over from better days.

‘Think what would happen if women had votes,’ she said. She looked up at d’Anton. ‘Maître d’Anton believes women have a lot to contribute to political life, don’t you?’