by Marge Piercy
Waiting for an opportunity to speak with him, she studied the Assembly room, long and heated by a porcelain stove in the shape of the Bastille. The floor had been a racing oval when this was the riding school. The only light—and presumably in warm weather the only air—came from windows just below the roof. Six rows of seats for delegates canted sharply up from the floor. The hall was divided in two by a speaker’s podium on one side and the elevated chair of the President on the other. The delegates faced each other across the narrow aisle. They were crowded together, but not as crowded as the gallery above. The atmosphere was disappointing. In her mind’s eye, she had seen the Assembly like the noble Romans in paintings, dignified, speaking in rounded sentences aphorisms of wisdom. Instead the place smelled like a sty and was as noisy as a barnyard. The delegates freely cheered and booed and whistled and stamped their feet. They were out of their seats half the time chattering, having conversations shouted up to the gallery. The level of discourse was low and quarrelsome.
She waved to Bancal. He seemed pleased to see her but restrained in his greeting, perhaps embarrassed at remembering how he had pursued her. She finally saw Brissot approaching. “Ah, my literary citizeness from Lyon, your person is as pretty as your writing. What a great pleasure. Is your husband in Paris also?”
“Jean has been sent by the city of Lyon as an emissary to the Assembly. But perhaps it’s time we were in Paris, where so much is being done for the greater good of our country… Doesn’t anyone say ‘vous’ any more? Even the flower sellers address me as ‘tu’—it took me aback.”
“That’s our friend Bonneville’s doing. He decided in the Iron Mouth that using ‘vous’ was an aristocratic hangover. You ‘voused’ those above you and used the familiar ‘tu’ with those below you. The use of ‘tu’ with everyone reflects social equality, that we’re all brothers—and sisters too.” He leaned close. “It still startles me sometimes. But you’ll get used to it.”
She changed the subject to the day’s debate on setting up workshops for the unemployed. Before she left, she invited him to her Tuesday. There was something about him, the way he moved through the crowd, the way he spoke, that made her understand why Brissot was mentioned so often. He was a natural leader. He had not seemed so when he had visited them before the Revolution; had he changed, or only her perception of him?
Bancal said at her elbow, watching with her the progress of Brissot through the gallery, “Brissot admires your writing. That’s a great advantage to you.”
Manon pretended she had not heard. “Now who is that very young man haranguing a group in the hall? The one Brissot was speaking to just before he came over.” She did not describe him as handsome, although he certainly was, on a small and almost delicate scale.
“Buzot. He may be young, but he’s reliable. He’s a true revolutionary. He’s in the Jacobin Club. Just last week Robespierre praised him.”
“Who’s Robespierre?”
“If you stay for the whole day, you’re bound to see him. Nobody in the Assembly thinks much of him, but he’s the darling of the sans-culottes—that’s the new term for what we used to call the little people, but they don’t want to be called little any longer.”
She invited Bancal to her Tuesday, and then got him to take her over to Buzot to invite him. She was starting to collect her salon.
The gallery was full of rowdy low-life women, half of whom she suspected were prostitutes. At one point a tall woman strode in wearing men’s trousers, with a pistol stuck in her belt. A great stir went through the crowd, and even some delegates turned to bow or wave. “Théroigne de Méricourt,” Bancal said. “The heroine of the Women’s March on Versailles. She wants to organize a battalion of Amazons to defend the Revolution.”
“She does not look like a respectable woman.”
“She was a high-class courtesan before the Revolution. She sold all her jewelry and gave the money to the Assembly.”
“I assume de Méricourt is not her real name.”
Bancal grinned. “She was a peasant. I’m sure she concealed that fact before, but now it’s a proud boast. People used to scurry to produce noble ancestors, but now they’d just as soon shove them back in the closet.”
Manon would not be comfortable with most of the women of the gallery, but she suspected there would always be a friend or two to sit with. It was important to attend the Assembly assiduously for the next month, until she had learned more of the players and more of the play. So far no one had turned down her invitation. She suspected she was meeting a need, someplace liberals could get together informally and discuss and debate, away from the public. Make connections. Feel out each other’s positions on legislation pending and future. She had learned that Sophie Condorcet’s salon was full of women as well as men. Hers would be strictly for working politicians, journalists, political philosophers. The only woman present would be herself, discreetly after supper in a corner at her writing desk. All as it should be.
THIRTY-NINE
Georges
(June-July 1791)
LOUIS was as inept a fugitive as he was a king. He barely bothered to disguise himself, and a postmaster recognized him. How did the postmaster recognize the King? Georges did an imitation for the benefit of Gabrielle, Camille and Lucile, all gathered around Gabrielle’s plentiful table for supper. Georges crept up on Camille, peering at him as if incredulous. Then he groped in his pocket, pulling out a louis. He held up the coin and stared at Camille, his mouth dropping open. “A perfect match! It’s the King!”
Everybody wildly applauded. The two couples living in the same house shared many meals. Lucile took care of the baby when Gabrielle ran errands. The women were so different, Georges was amazed they got along. Lucile was the overeducated pretentious daughter of a literary mama. If she had been a shade less pretty, Georges would have found her affectations unendurable. Gabrielle was of the earth: ripe, voluptuous, skilled in kitchen and bed, robust and watchful for his good, She was exactly what he wanted. He would eye Lucile with pleasure, but she was no mate for him. And what would Gabrielle do with Camille with his girlish looks, his occasional stammer, his inability to earn a living, his willingness to offend for the sake of a witticism, his spendthrift habits and his tendency to talk all night?
Gabrielle saw that Lucile was far too in love with Camille to look at Georges, a lack that amused Georges more than it annoyed him. Plenty of women looked at him and plenty of women made overtures. Now and then he went to bed with one of them, just for the moment’s pleasure, out of curiosity, out of sensuality. Gabrielle was what he wanted in his bed evening after evening, morning after morning. She had the body of summer. This marriage suited him, even if he strayed now and then. He made sure Gabrielle never knew—for he had no desire for a stiletto in his side, ice instead of fire under him. She was the woman he loved, no other, and he loved his son. He was a family man, who did what he could for his mother, who kept on good terms with his in-laws. One thing he liked about having the Desmoulins in his house was that they too became family. Camille was at odds with his own family, who wanted nothing to do with him. Camille had made Georges into an older brother.
Over the next couple of days, the King and the royal family were brought back, far more slowly than they had fled. Crowds lined the road, but not to cheer. No man removed his hat in respect. People shouted threats. It was a procession of shame. In a matter of months, Louis had managed to dispose of the love and now even the respect of his people.
The monarchists in the Assembly were determined to salvage Louis; once they had a new Constitution, they would offer him a chance to support it. They were putting out the fiction that Louis had been kidnapped. The King was prepared to go along with any far-fetched tale the right wing of the Assembly tacked together.
In the Jacobin Club there was war. Robespierre led the left wing, who wanted to depose the King, who did not want to pretend he had merely been taking a little ride to see the countryside but rather to admit he been on his way t
o lead the armies across the Rhine. The right wing had exactly the same ideas as the Assembly monarchists; there was overlapping personnel. Georges supported Robespierre loudly and long.
Now there was a funny little man. He was half Georges’ weight and Georges could have picked him up under one arm and carried him about like a child. But he did not dare even touch him. Once he had slapped Robespierre on the back. He could still remember how the little man had turned and fixed him with those cold green eyes. Georges felt his heart catch in his chest. One did not treat Robespierre without respect. One never touched him.
When they stood side by side leading this fight, they must look amusing: Georges was tall and robust, strong as a wrestler. He could lift a heavy table over his head. Maximilien Robespierre was short, slight and often ill. He was delicate and approached his food gingerly and his drink abstemiously. Georges was a mighty trencherman. Gabrielle had won him with her cherry duck as much as with her peach breasts. Robespierre seemed equally leery of food and women. Yet women chased after him. Georges was amused to watch beauties he had ogled traipsing after Robespierre, who paid them no more attention than he did other constituents. He seemed impervious. The people had given him a nickname, the Incorruptible. He could not be bought. Georges knew he himself could not be bought either, so he freely accepted money. But Robespierre seemed to need no more than bread and coffee.
Georges was called a natural orator: true to a degree, although he had watched other orators for years, observing what worked and what didn’t. He was a pragmatist; Robespierre was not. Georges had a rich voice, strong, pulsating, a trumpet that moved people almost in and of itself. When he was speaking, he was always conscious of how much of his energy, his volume, his force, he needed and how much he should hold in reserve. Robespierre had a high thin voice like a fine drill. Robespierre should have been a bit ludicrous, standing at the podium like a dried up ancien régime dandy curled and powdered and wearing a silk coat, speaking in his squeaky voice, a stick of a man. Yet there was power in his delivery. Nor was Robespierre much of a butt for jokes. Georges was fascinated by the paradox. He could not define for himself where Robespierre’s power came from. This was not a manly man. Yet he was far more popular than Georges himself or any politician except Marat. People loved him. He was their saint. At least Marat had a woman. Georges did not like Marat, but he understood him. Robespierre he could only admire and observe and sometimes dread. A man without pleasures. A man without vices. A man alone. Why should Georges sometimes experience a jolt of fear?
Georges managed to charm him now and then, but it was hard work. Camille was far more familiar with Robespierre, who seemed to care for Camille as he cared for few others. They had been schoolboys together. Robespierre liked calling on the young couple. He was brotherly with Lucile, brotherly with Camille. Come to think of it, Camille seemed proficient in providing himself with useful and diligent older brothers, didn’t he? That was Camille. Always on the lookout for how to get himself taken care of.
“The Assembly’s gone belly up,” Camille said at the Cordeliers Club. “They’re going to pretend nothing really happened.”
“For now,” Georges said. “But Louis will never govern again.”
Camille was dashing off incendiary pamphlets. The Cordeliers were working on a petition to depose the King. They carried the idea to the Social Circle, where it caught on. Both clubs decided to call a demonstration on the Champ de Mars, where the celebration of taking the Bastille occurred every July. Crowds would sign the petition publicly and then present it to the Assembly.
The three radical clubs were close to each other, the Cordeliers, the Jacobins and the Social Circle. Each had a different constituency. The Cordeliers were the closest to the common people, the cheapest to join. The Jacobins had lots of delegates and lawyers. The Circle drew both men and women of the educated classes. Camille and Georges went to the Jacobins and their own Cordeliers regularly; sometimes they attended meetings at the Circle. Georges could barely remember when he had not had eleven or twelve meetings a week on his agenda. He could dimly recall days when he sat yawning in his office preparing paralyzingly dull briefs on some bloated grocer’s desire to prove himself noble back to the time of Charlemagne. Elections were approaching for the next assembly, which Robespierre had succeeded in assuring would have no one from the current National Assembly. Thus Robespierre was not eligible; but Georges was. He meant to run.
On Friday, July fifteenth, there was a huge meeting in The Circus at the Palais Royal to organize the petition signing. People were enormously excited. The general consensus was that the King must not be put back on the throne. They didn’t need Louis, who had only been obstructing the Assembly. It was time for a republic. The petition drawn up rebuked the Assembly for refusing to debate the King’s guilt. The Assembly had been cutting back on the freedom of the people, refusing even the right for petitions such as this one. It was time for a massive show of strength.
When the meeting broke up, many were too excited to go home. About four thousand marched to the Jacobins, just along the Rue Saint Honoré a few blocks. The Jacobins were debating what to do about the King. The argument went on for two more hours. This was a night without sleep, for who could sleep with so much happening? Robespierre looked pale and weary, but his voice did not give way. He thundered condemnation. Robespierre always believed every damned word that flew out of his mouth. Georges found that amazing.
Finally a committee representing all three groups was set up, consisting of the due d’Orléans’ secretary Laclos, Brissot and Lanthénas from the Social Circle, Sergent from the Cordeliers, and Georges. They went off to a side room, some monk’s cell when this had been a monastery, and sat down with their quills and paper and went to it. Head to head till it was growing light outside. They ended up with a statement they all found acceptable.
In the morning Bonneville said he would publish the petition and people could come to his Iron Mouth offices to sign it, or they could sign it next day at the Champ de Mars. Several forms of the petition were floating around, for Laclos had rewritten a version favorable to Orléans’ desire to be King. In the meantime, the Jacobins decided the demonstration was illegal. That left the Cordeliers and the Circle calling out the people without the Jacobins.
Georges convened a meeting of what he considered the unofficial board of Cordeliers directors the morning of the seventeenth. The demonstration was scheduled for that afternoon. They were arguing strategy when the butcher Legendre ran in with a message from the Lameth brothers, who were close to Lafayette, but with whom Georges had a history. They laid some money on him from time to time. Legendre was breathless. “Bailly and Lafayette are going to use this as an excuse. They say the petition and the demonstration are both illegal. They’re going to arrest you all on the spot. They may even shoot you down. Lafayette’s arming his guards now. The Lameth brothers say you should get out of the city and stay out till things cool down.”
Gabrielle had heard. She stood in the door of the salon hands on hips staring at him and making sure he met her gaze. “Get packed,” Georges said. “Camille, I think a few days in the country are on our calendar. This damned petition has been so fucked up by now, six different versions circulating and nobody ever satisfied. We need to stay out of prison. Go get Lucile, throw some stuff in a hamper. We’re off to visit my in-laws. Any of you who want to come along, you have exactly half an hour to get ready.”
He had no taste for martyrdom. Behind walls, he would be where Lafayette wanted him, where he could do no harm and no good. He did not bother thanking the Lameths. There was no love lost. They had inherited him from Mirabeau and sometimes they paid him and sometimes they didn’t. Mirabeau had said about him that the court was not getting their money’s worth bribing him, and no doubt Mirabeau had been right.
Gabrielle was ready in half an hour. Lucile was not. But within the hour, both families were on their way in a hired coach. Their mood was more jolly than fearful. He did not expe
ct Lafayette to pursue him the way he pursued Marat, through the sewers of Paris. It was sweltering in the city. In the country, they would have a nice holiday.
“Soon we must all go down to my new property near Arcis. Gabrielle hasn’t laid eyes on it yet. Eventually, Camille, I’m planning to retire and become a country squire on the English model. Keep horses and sheep and cows and a vineyard. Make my own wine. That’s how I plan to spend the second half of my life. Once I’ve made a bit of a fortune, of course, and done the work given us. When we’ve set the country right, then I plan to live high and long. The good life, Camille, it’s not in the city.”
“Perish the thought. Why go to the theater when you can lie down with hogs and contemplate mud? Why bother with salons and cafes, when you can commune with cows? Absolutely, Georges, I see it all now.”
Gabrielle was setting out a light picnic on the tray she balanced between herself and Lucile, who held the baby. In low tones, they were discussing pregnancy. Lucile thought she might be expecting. She came to Gabrielle rather than her mother for advice.
“Camille, you don’t know true relaxation and pleasure. I’m going to teach you how to enjoy the country. You don’t have enough respect for pigs. Some of my scars are wounds from battles with pigs.”
“Oh, now we’re to be wrestling pigs. Something to look forward to.”
Georges felt his heart expanding as the filthy air of Paris gave way to the sunshine of July in the fields. “We’re going to organize the pigs into political clubs. They can’t be more backward than the Jacobins.”
FORTY
Pauline
(July 17, 1791)
PAULINE was trying to round up her women to go to the Champ de Mars. She had taken a whole group over to the Iron Mouth offices earlier, the mothers who couldn’t get away, the shopkeepers who couldn’t afford to close their shops or who were working in someone else’s, Babette who could not escape the tavern. Everybody could fit in a short trot to the newspaper office and a quick scrawl on the petition. But she wanted to make a good showing at the protest meeting too. It was a matter of pride, that they were the most revolutionary neighborhood, the most patriotic, always turning out, like Faubourg Saint Antoine and Faubourg Saint Marcel, when it was time for a show of force.
