Treason's Spring

by Robert Wilton

  The others began to relax. They couldn’t quite see how the beggars would . . . But at least Danton was blowing over. ‘Well, if the minister is confident – then I think we may all be more confid-’

  ‘Yes, be confident.’ It came as a growl from Danton. ‘The Revolution is now too powerful to fail.’ A great shrug. ‘You must forgive me, Messieurs. You know I am not a man for these pocket-book essentials of administration. You tell me we should worry, and I’m sure you’re right. But the Revolution will not fail.’ The growl again. ‘It cannot. The people will not let themselves be thwarted. With our enemies around us, we will only be stronger!’ He was up now, resting heavy on his fists. ‘The people will stop – at – nothing – to defend the Revolution and to carry its flag onwards! If it’s gold you want, the people will find it; if it’s blood, they will give it. The Revolution will not lack.’ The final ‘pas’ was spat, disdain for these trifles.

  And Fouché almost laughed aloud; he restrained it in a cough. It’s brilliant, even for Danton. More worried than any of them about the Revolution’s finances, behind-door he has with murmurs stirred these lesser men to anxiety, and when they cry back to him his murmurs he stands on the dignity of the Revolution and looks down his nose at such trivialities; then, at the instant when his fervour might calm their clerical fears, he instead lets them wind him up into a greater fervour of defiance about the crisis of finances.

  Fouché watched him, large in front of them and staring down from his defiance, with admiration. This combination of little intrigues and grandstanding has given Danton enormous power in this moment. With his next word he could have the King in chains, or any of the men in this chamber, or a mob . . . doing what? A little smile crept onto Fouché’s lips, but the eyes stayed watchful. What has he justified, with that little performance? What is he about to unleash? Danton alone is dangerous enough; Danton when he whistles up one of his mobs can up-turn Europe.

  Fouché wondered. There have been tremors during the day, rumours swelling like yeast: men are gravitating towards the centre of the city; there is more bustle around the Hôtel de Ville; Santerre has been gathering weapons. One of the intermittent spasms of the revolutionary fever? Or is something planned? What would Danton say next?

  ‘We must let the Revolution take its course,’ he said. ‘It may not be stopped.’ Fouché’s eyebrows rose a fraction. Danton slumped down into his chair. ‘I hope that we may prove its adequate servants.’

  And discussion turned to the possibility of new measures for supporting the Army of the Vosges. Fouché gave Danton one final moment of consideration. Then his eyes dropped, and he leaned forwards, skimmed the line of figures and notes in front of him. Danton has his games, he thought; I mine.

  Across the table from him, the two representatives of the Ministry of Finance sat upright, edgy, licked lips, waited for the examination to begin, rabbits before a snake. Fouché on the track of inaccuracy, of vulnerability, of error, is unstoppable and terrible.

  Slowly, his eyes came up to them.

  Emma Lavalier let the men wait.

  She moved her knee slowly, and a ripple rolled up the hip-bath to her face. She lowered her chin, and blew bubbles into the tide.

  Marie had stuck her head in to announce Benjamin and Pinsent. More hot water. But her visitors! More hot water.

  More hot water.

  A day such as she was become used to. And a trial all the same.

  Social calls. So they should seem. Visits that should be appropriate to a lady of her sort, visits to people that knew her and who were known to know her. She was known for a woman of independent but not unseemly social habits, and Paris was freer now, and it should be nothing for her to call on a female acquaintance and thereby exchange some words with the acquaintance’s husband; to carry out certain pieces of business touching her financial affairs; to seek a meeting with a minister to intercede for a friend in prison; to exchange a civil word or two in the street.

  But words carried greater weight now. To say the wrong thing – even to be present at the wrong moment – was prison. During Emma’s visit Thérèse du Morlay had murmured hardly a word and hurried from the room with no further pretence at propriety, leaving Emma alone with her husband. A wife should have been scandalized by the idea of doing such a thing, by the possibility of what husband and charming widow might do. But a betrayal of marital fidelity was the least of the possible betrayals now, and it was better to think of no possibility at all. Gossip about the worries of some of the principal revolutionaries, and the vulnerability of Brissot and Roland, should have been trivia; but to show interest in the gossip was to send a message, and to pass on the gossip was to declare an acquaintanceship. During her visit to the minister she had stated her ostensible mission – a triviality, the kind of triviality that before had oiled the springs of all social interaction in Paris – and when she looked into his face she couldn’t tell if his next word was going to send her to La Force or call for some tea. A word could be expensive; but a life could be very cheap.

  And underlying it all . . . the atmosphere. There seemed, indeed, something actually in the atmosphere, some vile humour of the air that poisoned the mood of the city and every human thought. Paris was sour milk, Paris was . . . a porcupine, a constant threat to over-sensitive nerves. People were scared, and people were angry, and people were watchful. Giving a merchant a coin for a ribbon was an exchange of suspicions. To say a word was to invite a dispute. Glances that would once have been indifferent or even admiring were now envious, bitter, and seething with the possibility of threat. In the rue de Cléry a man had spat near her feet, and no one had reacted; and she had hurried on.

  You walked through Paris with the blade over your head at every moment.

  One hand keeping her hair piled high, she bent forwards and lowered her face flat into the water. She was a creature of a different element now. She could drift away.

  Children did it, she had heard: If I cannot see, I cannot be seen.

  If I were invisible, then I would be truly free.

  From some other element, some other world, there was a hollow thumping, and then a murmur. She came out of the water with a gasp and a dribbling of tepid water, and glared at Marie.

  But I am not invisible: it was her glory and her curse to be the most noticeable of human creatures.

  She stood, and the water exploded from her breasts and hips.

  And so her triumph would be of bravado, and not of disappearance.

  After the committee: Fouché striding away along the corridor, driving the Revolution with each fast stride. ‘Fouché!’

  Fouché slows but does not stop; the Revolution will not be served by hesitation. ‘A moment for an old man?’ Danton, jovial and filling the corridor as he makes up the distance. For Danton, Fouché stops, and waits respectfully.

  ‘Tidy work in there,’ Danton says, and Fouché bows his head to acknowledge the point. He holds the pose a moment; what new Danton is this? Danton’s shirt-front shows a trace of his breakfast. ‘I own I sometimes lack the patience for your little surgeries of logic, but we need them right enough. Tidy work.’ Fouché is looking into his face now, trying to work out what expression to adopt.

  ‘I was asking Roland about you,’ Danton says. ‘Work out whether my irritation at you was justified.’ Fouché smiles, instinctively; it’s well judged – he knows I wouldn’t believe friendship. Now Danton smiles down at him: ‘Irritation might be, but respect too. Keeping us straight, Roland says.’

  Fouché nods.

  Danton’s hand clutches hard at his shoulder. Fouché refuses to show the discomfort. ‘Keep at it! The Revolution needs its Fouchés as well as its Dantons.’ For now, Fouché thinks. ‘Trust your instincts, and we will too.’

  A nod, and he releases the shoulder and strides off. ‘Don’t get bogged down!’ he calls back. ‘We don’t have Fouchés to waste.’ The mighty smile, and Danton is gone.

  Fouché stares after him. Danton really is worried about s
omething.

  Sir Raphael Benjamin and Edward Pinsent had dismissed Emma’s apology with thin-lipped courtesy, which Ned Pinsent had managed to build into an over-elaborate compliment. And Emma had thought: Yes, damn you; for I am glorious and worth a little waiting.

  Benjamin had heard where there might be a party; Pinsent had heard there might be some discreet gaming there, arrangements for even a lady to amuse herself with a wager.

  ‘I think those will prove the mildest games played tonight,’ she said. Benjamin growled interest; he knew her eyes. ‘There’s a mob out tonight. Who knows? Another Tuileries, even. It’s rumoured they’ll head for that way again.’

  And she knew Benjamin’s eyes. He was calculating now, instinctively: risk and opportunity, red and black. This time it didn’t take long. ‘A mob is poor sport,’ he said, and sniffed. ‘Excitable sort of beast; unpredictable.’

  ‘No sort of form,’ Pinsent added.

  ‘And with only a small stake you risk a hell of a loss.’ The mischief rekindled in Benjamin’s eyes. ‘Unless larceny’s our game this evening. Fancy a new pair of boots, Ned?’

  Pinsent affected a groan of distaste. Everyone knew he was thinking about it.

  ‘Don’t,’ Emma said. Between them the men were boys enough to follow the mob for amusement alone. ‘There’s something behind it tonight; policy of some kind.’

  She’d meant it for a warning, but of course Benjamin was interested again, and the irritation hissed in her throat; and became a smile. ‘You’re a pair of great hearts, no mistake.’

  ‘Madame Lavalier.’ Benjamin was mock-gravity, but she could see his alertness. ‘Amuse us with your rumours.’

  DEPARTMENT 3

  Paris/Centre, the 14. of September

  The trading house of Kuyper & cie.

  Holdings of gold: reckoned one half million livres; declared three hundred thousand livres.

  Visited this day the agent of the Comte de Thomis, the nephew of Mme Le Sommer, Delannoy, and Becquey of the Assembly, all seeking to withdraw investment, even at fifteen sous in the franc, and Quinette of the Assembly interested to speculate, and a delegation of the lacemakers’ guild.

  Also for one full hour Soyer, of the house of that name. M. Kuyper in sour humour after the discussion.

  A foreigner – probably British from clothes and voice – name unheard – called on M. Kuyper, and after agreeing to wait thirty minutes was seen in the outer salon. He was a business partner of the Englishman Henry Greene, and had come to Paris to join him. But M. Greene had been called away shortly before the stranger’s arrival, stranger was not sure whither – had heard perhaps Geneva – and Greene had left no detailed instructions. Stranger knew that the house of Kuyper was on occasion in affairs with Greene, and was anxious that Kuyper suffer no inconvenience from Greene’s absence: had he any obligations outstanding to Greene? M. Kuyper more cautious even than usual: M. Greene but an occasional acquaintance in affairs; a man interested in information more than cargoes, and of late but little; M. Kuyper would always be delighted to take a glass of wine with any man who shared his interest in the world and might usefully exchange information regarding matters of commerce and political economy, and was glad to know the gentleman; but no, there was no business outstanding; M. Greene had not been in for 3 or 4 weeks.

  News of the arrival in Brest of the Gabriel and the Sainte-Marie. The Soleil now one week late to Toulon.

  [SS K/1/X1/2 (AUTHOR TRANSLATION)]

  In Fouché’s never-resting brain, there came first a sense of familiarity – a musical resonance, as in the chants of the Oratorians back in Nantes: questions about the British in France. And within this a single chime, a point of memory: an Englishman named Greene.

  Fouché stepped to the cupboard in the minister’s offices that was becoming his cupboard, and retrieved another paper. A stranger in St-Denis. Asking for Greene, known to this Department.

  Fouché put the two pages together, as if they might whisper to each other. 1. I must have some satisfactory system of referencing and across-referencing. 2. I must be admitted to the secrets of ‘this Department’. 3. An Englishman called Greene, and another with a strange name, loose in Paris.

  Tonight we will march and burn, and don’t it feel grand? The shoulders of men beside and jostling and it’s a scrum and a surge, and we can feel our feet stamping into the ground and our arms strong. Behind in our ears are shouts and breaths and we gasp in the excitement of it all, and the shouts grow and merge around us and we throw our heads back ... and – we – roar! Anger and hope are joyous and we roar, and the noise around us picks up our roar and lifts it into the gloom. We are stamping forwards shoulder-by-shoulder, and we have a purpose though we don’t know what it is, and we are thousands. In front, the torches wave high and scorch the darkness. Tonight we will march and burn.

  Paris at night: for Lucie, all the cheap sins of man, and all the darkness beyond him. This habit of walking the streets alone had been hers for ten years and more, but she knew she would always be that first little girl – eight years old? – sent on an errand and losing her attention for a moment and realizing herself lost in the biggest, darkest, most deceptive, most mysterious place she could imagine. She had learned her way around now. But that meant knowing where she could not go – alleys that were too terrifying in her imagination, huddles of streets that turned their backs on the rest of the city and where she heard whispers of lost girls and unknown unpunished crimes, the places where the whores stood brazen and jeered and spat at another woman and showed her what the world could be. It also meant knowing how she must go: how she should walk not to be noticed; whom she should and shouldn’t look at; how to look if she wanted a protective smile; how to look if she wanted something extra for her sou. She knew how to stand and how to look in a merchant’s hall, and how in a pimp’s pot-house.

  Somehow she had found a familiarity in all this. She never relaxed, she never seemed to take a full breath, but she knew this place; it was a body she inhabited. She knew the pretences to adopt for the smarter squares, and in the streets that ran away from them and interwove like water down glass she felt invisible and thus, brilliantly, safer. In the chaos she could hide and survive.

  Lately there was something new in the streets: everything was strained; sharpened. Once the faces had been complacent, or scornful, or the poor ones just deadened. Now everyone was edgy; feverish, with the wider excited eyes of the fever. Remarks became insults more quickly; fights started more easily. Everyone was looking for something, in each face and each word. Everyone was waiting.

  It made the darkness even more welcome. She had a warm meal inside her, half of it given free for a smile and a familiarity. She knew that the shit collected on the left-hand side of this street. She knew the light ten yards ahead was a good light, a friendly sentry and where she would turn right. The sounds came distinct to her from the shadows: horses, carriages, arguments, feet on earth, words in corners, knives on plates, moans into ears. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the familiar sound of a crowd.

  Still distant from the mob, the Hôtel de le Marine stared pale and cold onto the Place de la Révolution; waiting. In truth, the Department of the Marine only occupied one corner of the building: an administrative convenience in a time of confusion. Its grand upper level – the dozen columns of its portico, giant bars through which the building itself peered – soared above the archways of the ground storey. In the night, the archways became a sewer-grille, blackness and mystery.

  Testimony: I only came out to meet a friend, no harm intended, messieurs, but then there were a few of us and we had a drink or so and then we couldn’t pay for any more so we went outside – warm evening, you know, messieurs? – normally the drink makes you feel a bit cold when you get outside but it was warm enough – proper Paris summer evening – we were standing there in the street, no harm to anyone, fooling around a little I guess, and then we hear shouting at the end of the street, and what were we supposed to do? D
ecided we’d go and see what the ruckus was – well, didn’t really decide – just naturally went that way – always a bit of excitement in the crowd these days, eh, messieurs? I wasn’t leading, no; and I don’t know who was. Dark, see?

  Raph Benjamin and Ned Pinsent were in darkness. Warm evening, but Benjamin could feel the cool of the stone against his back. He adjusted his shoulders and enjoyed the thrill against his neck. Sordid sort of habit for a fellow who was born to the lights and the wine. He readjusted his hat. Or have I become a fellow of the night who sometimes sticks his head out to play in the light? He could see Ned Pinsent’s outline a yard away, but the face was lost. The dark has become the place where we thrive – and the place where we must hide.

  It’s the Hôtel de la Marine now, but we’ve not started calling it that yet. For most it’s still the Hôtel du Garde-Meuble: the Meuble; the Furniture. It’s one magnificent side of the Place de la Révolution – we’ve only been calling it that for a month, but we’re a bit more assiduous about forgetting the Place Louis XV. It was designed – in fact, the whole square was laid out – by the Royal Architect Gabriel, who also did the Opéra at Versailles, and the Petit Trianon for the older Louis’s successive mistresses. The Meuble has more than five hundred rooms. Its two ornamental facades are allegories of Magnificence and the Public Happiness. At night it hangs over the square like a frown.

  Testimony: we were in a crowd – how many? I don’t know, messieurs – you don’t, do you? You know – a crowd. And we’re walking now – marching – feel proud when you march in a crowd, don’t you? – and these are our streets now, we go where we like, no one to tell us not to, long live the revolution, right? – But we were angry, yes. Shouting – there were shouts – not speeches, just slogans – you know, whenever someone feels like it, yes? – Down with the King! Death to the Prussians! – that’s the stuff. But we’re still angry, because – begging your pardon, messieurs, but we’re all still rather in the shit, aren’t we?