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

‘You and Camille write for the educated,’ Hébert said. ‘So does Marat. I’m not going to do that.’

‘You are going to start a newspaper for the illiterate?’ Camille asked him sweetly. ‘I wish you every success.’

‘I’m going to write for the people in the street. In the language they speak.’

‘Then every other word will be an obscenity,’ Brissot said, sniffing.

‘Precisely,’ Hébert said, tripping out.

Brissot is the editor of the French Patriot (daily, four pages in quarto, boring). He is also a most generous, painstaking, endlessly inventive contributor to other people’s papers. He quivers into the office most mornings, his narrow, bony face shining with his latest good idea. I’ve spent all my life grovelling to publishers, he would say; and tell how he had been cheated, how his ideas had been stolen and his manuscripts pirated. He didn’t seem to see that there was any connection between this sad record of his, and what he was doing now – 11.30 in the morning, in another editor’s office, turning his dusty, Quaker-style hat in his hands and talking his substance away. ‘My family – you understand, Camille? – was very poor and ignorant. They wanted me to be a monk, that was the best life they could envisage. I lost my faith – well, in the end, I had to break it to them, didn’t I? Of course, they didn’t understand. How could they? It was as if we spoke different languages. Say, they were Swedes, and I was Italian – that’s how close I was to my family. So then they said, you could be a lawyer, we suppose. Now, I was walking along the street one day, and one of the neighbours said, “Oh, look, there’s M. Janvier on his way back from court.” And he pointed to this lawyer, stupid-looking man with a paunch, trotting along with his evening’s work under his arm. And he said, “You work hard, you’ll be like that someday.” And my heart sank. Oh, I know, that’s a figure of speech – but, do you know, I swear it did, it bunched itself up and thudded into my belly. I thought no, any hardship – they can put me in gaol – but I don’t want to be like that. Now, of course, he wasn’t that stupid-looking, he had money, he was looked up to, didn’t oppress the poor or anything, and he’d just got married for the second time, to this very nice young woman…so why wasn’t I tempted? I might have thought – well, it’s a living, it’s not too bad. But – there you are – steady money, easy life – it’s never quite been enough, has it?’

One of Camille’s volatile assistants put his head around the door. ‘Oh, Camille, here’s a woman after you. Just by way of a change.’

Théroigne swept in. She wore a white dress, and a tricolour sash about her waist. A National Guardsman’s tunic, unbuttoned, was draped over her slim, square shoulders. Her brown hair was a breeze-blown waterfall of curls; she had employed one of those expensive hairdressers who make you look as if you’ve never been near a hairdresser in your life. ‘Hallo, how’s it going?’ she said. Her manner was at variance with this democratic greeting; she radiated energy and a quasi-sexual excitement.

Brissot hopped up from the desk, and considerately lifted the jacket from her shoulders, folded it carefully and laid it over a vacant chair. This reduced her to – what? A pretty-enough young woman in a white dress. She was displeased. There was a weight in the pocket of the tunic. ‘You carry firearms?’ Brissot said, surprised.

‘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.’

Théroigne 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 13 July. Théroigne, 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 rumours about Théroigne 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; Théroigne 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 odour 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 Grétry 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 Théroigne’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 Fréron 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 Révolutions 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 things 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. Orléans 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 didn’t matter where his sentences began and ended, because he was talking to himself – who else could he trust? He glanced up once to a mirror, to the thin, fair face and receding hairline that the Cordeliers’ pamphleteers found so risible; then, sighing, walked out of the empty room.

THE COMTE DE MIRABEAU to the Comte de la Marck:

Yesterday, late, I saw Lafayette. He spoke of the place and the pay; I refused; I should prefer a written promise of the first major embassy; a part of the pay is to be advanced to me tomorrow. Lafayette is very anxious about the Duke of Orléans…If a thousand louis seems to you indiscreet, do not ask for it, but that is the amount I urgently need…

ORLÉANS left for London, with a sulky expression and Laclos. ‘A diplomatic mission,’ the official announcement said. Camille was with Mirabeau when the bad news came. The Comte strode about, he said, swearing.

And another disappointment for the Comte: early November, the Assembly passed a motion debarring deputies from office as ministers.

‘They unite to ostracize me,’ Mirabeau howled. ‘This is Lafayette’s doing, Lafayette’s.’

‘We fear for your health,’ said the slave Clavière, ‘when you get into these rages.’

‘That’s right, slight me, sneer, abandon me,’ the Comte roared. ‘Place-seekers. Fair-weather friends. Toadying swine.’

‘The measure was aimed at you, there is no doubt.’

‘I’ll break that bastard. Who does he think he is? Cromwell?’

DECEMBER 3 1789: Maître G.-J. Danton paid over to Maître Huet de Paisy and Mlle Françoise Duhauttoir the sum of 12,000 livres, with 1,500 livres interest.

He thought he’d tell his father-in-law; it would be a weight off his mind. ‘But that’s sixteen months early!’ Charpentier said. He was adding up in his head, calculating income and expenditure. He smiled, swallowed. ‘Well, you’ll feel more settled,’ he said.

Privately, he thought: it’s impossible. What in God’s name is Georges-Jacques up to?

II. Liberty, Gaiety, Royal Democracy (1790)

‘OUR CHARACTERS make our destiny,’ Félicité de Genlis says. ‘Ordinary people for that reason do not have destinies, they belong to chance. A pretty, intelligent woman who has original ideas should have a life full of extraordinary events.’

WE ARE NOW IN 1790. Certain events befall Gabrielle – a few of them extraordinary.

IN MAY THIS YEAR, I gave my husband a son. We called him Antoine. He seems strong; but so did my first baby. We never talk about our first son now. Sometimes, though, I know that Georges thinks about him. Tears come into his eyes.