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

‘And that upsets your plans?’

‘They have to be directed.’ Brissot shook his head. ‘We don’t want anarchy. I shudder when I find myself in the presence of some of the people we have to use…’ He made a gesture in d’Anton’s direction; with M. Charpentier, he had walked away. ‘Look at that fellow. The way he’s dressed he might be any respectable citizen. But you can see he’d be happiest with a pike in his hand.’

Camille’s eyes widened. ‘But that is Maître d’Anton, the King’s Councillor. You shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Let me tell you, Maître d’Anton could be in government office. Except that he knows where his future lies. But anyway, Brissot – why so unnerved? Are you afraid of a man of the people?’

‘I am at one with the people,’ Brissot said reverently. ‘With their pure and elevated soul.’

‘Not really you aren’t. You look down on them because they smell and can’t read Greek.’ He slid across the room to d’Anton. ‘He took you for some cut-throat,’ he said happily. ‘Brissot,’ he told Charpentier, ‘married one Mlle Dupont, who used to work for Félicité de Genlis in some menial capacity. That’s how he got involved with Orléans. I respect him really. He’s spent years abroad, writing and, you know, talking about it. He deserves a revolution. He’s only a pastry-cook’s son, but he’s very learned, and he gives himself airs because he’s suffered so much.’

M. Charpentier was puzzled, angry. ‘You, Camille – you who are taking the Duke’s money – you admit to us that Réveillon has been victimized – ’

‘Oh, Réveillon’s of no account now. If he didn’t say those things, he might have done. He might have been thinking them. The literal truth doesn’t matter any more. All that matters is what they think on the streets.’

‘God knows,’ Charpentier said, ‘I like the present scheme of things very little, but I dread to think what will happen if the conduct of reform falls into hands like yours.’

‘Reform?’ Camille said. ‘I’m not talking about reform. The city will explode this summer.’

D’Anton felt sick, shaken by a spasm of grief. He wanted to draw Camille aside, tell him about the baby. That would stop him in his tracks. But he was so happy, arranging the forthcoming slaughter. D’Anton thought, who am I to spoil his week?

VERSAILLES: a great deal of hard thinking has gone into this procession. It isn’t just a matter of getting up and walking, you know.

The nation is expectant and hopeful. The long-awaited day is here. Twelve hundred deputies of the Estates walk in solemn procession to the Church of Saint-Louis, where Monseigneur de la Fare, Bishop of Nancy, will address them in a sermon and put God’s blessing on their enterprise.

The Clergy, the First Estate: optimistic light of early May glints on congregated mitres, coruscates over the jewel-colours of their robes. The Nobility follows: the same light flashes on three hundred sword-hilts, slithers blithely down three hundred silk-clad backs. Three hundred white hat plumes wave cheerfully in the breeze.

But before them comes the Commons, the Third Estate, commanded by the Master of Ceremonies into plain black cloaks; six hundred strong, like an immense black marching slug. Why not put them into smocks and order them to suck straws? But as they march, the humiliating business takes on a new aspect. These mourning coats are a badge of solidarity. They are called, after all, to attend on the demise of the old order, not to be guests at a costume ball. Above the plain cravats a certain pride shows in their starched faces. We are the men of purpose: goodbye to frippery.

Maximilien de Robespierre walked with a contingent from his own part of the country, between two farmers; if he turned his head he could see the embattled jaws of the Breton deputies. Shoulders trapped him, walled him in. He kept his eyes straight ahead, suppressed his desire to scan the ranks of the cheering crowds that lined the routes. There was no one here who knew him; no one cheering, specifically, for him.

In the crowd Camille had met the Abbé de Bourville. ‘You don’t recognize me,’ the abbé complained, pushing through. ‘We were at school together.’

‘Yes, but in those days you had a blue tinge, from the cold.’

‘I recognized you right away. You’ve not changed a bit, you look about nineteen.’

‘Are you pious now, de Bourville?’

‘Not noticeably. Do you ever see Louis Suleau?’

‘Never. But I expect he’ll turn up.’

They turned back to the procession. For a moment he was swept by an irrational certainty that he, Desmoulins, had arranged all this, that the Estates were marching at his behest, that all Paris and Versailles revolved around his own person.

‘There’s Orléans.’ De Bourville pulled at his arm. ‘Look, he’s insisting on walking with the Third Estate. Look at the Master of Ceremonies pleading with him. He’s broken out in a sweat. Look, that’s the Duc de Biron.’

‘Yes, I know him. I’ve been to his house.’

‘That’s Lafayette.’ America’s hero stepped out briskly in his silver waistcoat, his pale young face serious and a little abstracted, his peculiarly pointed head hidden under a tricorne hat à la Henri Quatre. ‘Do you know him too?’

‘Only by reputation,’ Camille muttered. ‘Washington pot-au-feu.’

Bourville laughed. ‘You must write that down.’

‘I have.’

At the Church of Saint-Louis, de Robespierre had a good seat by an aisle. A good seat, to fidget through the sermon, to be close to the procession of the great. So close; the billowing episcopal sea parted for a second, and between the violet robes and the lawn sleeves the King looked him full in the face without meaning to, the King, overweight in cloth-of-gold; and as the Queen turned her head (this close for the second time, Madame) the heron plumes in her hair seemed to beckon to him, civilly. The Holy Sacrament in its jewelled monstrance was a small sun, ablaze in a bishop’s hands; they took their seat on a dais, under a canopy of velvet embroidered with gold fleur-de-lis. Then the choir:

O salutaris hostia

If you could sell the Crown Jewels what could you buy for France?

Quae coeli pandis ostium,

The King looks half-asleep.

Bella premunt hostilia,

The Queen looks proud.

Da robur, fer auxilium.

She looks like a Hapsburg.

Uni trinoque Domino,

Madame Deficit.

Sit sempiterna gloria,

Outside, the women were shouting for Orléans.

Qui vitam sine termino,

There is no one here I know.

Nobis donet in patria.

Camille might be here somewhere. Somewhere.

Amen.

‘LOOK, LOOK,’ Camille said to de Bourville. ‘Maximilien.’

‘Well, so it is. Our dear Thing. I suppose one shouldn’t be surprised.’

‘I should be there. In that procession. De Robespierre is my intellectual inferior.’

‘What?’ The abbé turned, amazed. Laughter engulfed him. ‘Louis XVI by the grace of God is your intellectual inferior. So no doubt is our Holy Father the Pope. What else would you like to be, besides a deputy?’ Camille did not reply. ‘Dear, dear.’ The abbé affected to wipe his eyes.