A week, only a week, and she had promised the actors work and now—
"What choices do I have?"
"Sell up the café immediately, though you will not get a good price for it. Or you must sell this house, or..."
"Or become a member of Hérault de Séchelles's seraglio." Mansart blushed like a nun at her straightforwardness, and she added bitterly, "It is how things are done in Paris, n'est-ce pas, monsieur?"
"Your good looks, madame, give you that extra choice."
"Is that your advice?"
"You have a serious enemy in Quettehou, madame, and I would wager my livelihood that he will challenge the will, so it would definitely be an advantage to have a powerful protector in these uncertain times." He swallowed, adding with reluctance, "And certainly if such an affaire could be handled with discretion, you might find yourself wealthier in the short term."
"I see." Her fingers tapped angrily on the polished chair-back. A whore or a beggar. In the country she might find firewood; here in the city she must thieve or buy it before she could cook a meal, and in winter it would be worse. And to think she imagined her fortunes had improved.
"Or..." Mansart was regarding her speculatively, "you could take a gamble, madame, throw good money after bad."
"What exactly do you mean, monsieur?"
"You could reopen the café, hire the most expensive acts in Paris and maybe fool a buyer into thinking a profit could be made." He laid the ledger on top of its two companions. "I have another client to see, madame, and must take my leave. You still have a few days to think it over."
Think it over? She was nineteen, taught by a governess and then convent educated. She could trap a rabbit or bring down a pigeon, but what did she know about running a theatre-café? And there was so much competition.
Paris had a plethora of theatres: the National, the Molière, Citizeness Montansier's, the Palace, the Vaudeville, the Cavern and the plentiful boulevard entertainments. Then there was music: grand opera by Lesueur, or opera-comique such as Gretry's, and feasts of Gluck and Haydn at the academy. The box of broadsheets and reviews she had found in M. Bosanquet's bedchamber told of a multitude of patriotic dramas over the past years. The mother who lost all her sons in the war against Austria. The wife who divorced her aristocratic husband to marry her republican lover. Last year's most popular play, run by the Theatre-Français, had been about some peasant who ballooned heroically to the moon (clearly not a cheese one), where the king was badgered by an overbearing queen. The playwright then shifted the last act to France, whose king had accepted the restraints of a constitutional monarchy and now presided over a felicitous people. Well, with King Louis guillotined, they would not be playing that one to a packed theatre any more, nor quoting the fulsome reviews. One theatre had even had a re-enactment of the storming of the Bastille, rather ambitious for a boulevard theatre, but perhaps the sentiment, if not the spectacle, was there. And at the moment there was The Widow of Malabar, The Devil's Castle and A Daughter for Marrying.
"Ah, Fleur." Her aunt swept into the room and stared at the closed accounting books. "You are finished already?" she asked sharply. "But I understood you were to apprise us both of Bosanquet's estate, Monsieur Mansart."
"It is perfectly all right, Tante," intervened Fleur. "I have managed to get my mind around the figures. You had better go, monsieur, or you shall be late."
"Au revoir, madame." At the door, he paused. "I am not sure why Monsieur Bosanquet suddenly decided to marry after all those years as a bachelor, but permit me to say he made the right decision."
Well, at least someone in Paris had confidence in her.
Her aunt peered over the papers. "You have decided to rid yourself of that disgusting café, I take it."
"No, Tante Estelle, I have not," muttered Fleur, sweeping the bills into a pile and stuffing them into the secretaire drawer.
"But it is out of the question to keep it, you foolish creature. An unmarried girl—"
"But I am not an unmarried girl, Tante," Fleur interrupted dangerously. "Not any more, and I'm not going to starve either." And I shall find an entertainer who will bring the customers flocking to the Chat Rouge, she added silently.
But she needed to understand Paris; she needed time.
* * *
"What are you doing with this toy, Raoul?" The Girondin deputy, Armand Gensonné, idly flicked the catapult that was hanging on the side of the easel in the rented room above Raoul's apartment.
Perhaps the sunlit studio with its exposed medieval beams was not exactly the appropriate stage for a morning argument on patriotism, but Raoul, with Hérault's warning in mind, was trying to talk some sense into Armand. He had whetted his argument with freshly brewed coffee and a coup of cognac, but so far his opinions had made no impact.
"That is certainly not a toy," he retorted. "Watch!" He shifted Boniface, the neighbour's cat, from the casement sill, prodded the window open further and then selected a small pebble from a dish beside his palette and inserted it into the sling. The missile missed the nearest chimneypot and hit the tiles instead, scattering some dozy pigeons into a panicky ascent before it dropped into the water butt in the tiny courtyard below.
"And which Goliath are you trying to miss?"
"You, of course." Raoul stuffed the catapult into his coat pocket. "Now stop trying to change the subject!" Of all the Girondins, Armand was the one he knew the best and respected the most, but his friend could be as stubborn as hell and, what's more, when he chose to be, vaguer than someone who had ridden headfirst into a tree. Raoul glared across at him in exasperation. "You aren't going to heed a word I say, are you? Trying to make you recognise the danger is as cussed hard as convincing the Pope to turn heathen."
Armand shrugged. He was prowling now among the propped-up canvases. "The only way to prove this government is right is for our ministers to stay in the saddle. Fancy you even suggesting we should let go the reins in midgallop. Resign, non!" He emphasised his point by jabbing a tapering paintbrush into the air.
Raoul gave a growl. "For the good of France, Armand," he exclaimed. "Look, it's why we toppled the Bastille. So that we could get rid of an incompetent government. The whole of Europe is against France, the supply lines cannot meet our soldiers' needs, the price of food is rising daily, the assignat is barely worth the paper it's printed on, and the counter-revolutionaries are stirring up the rest of the country. Paris does not believe your government can deliver what is needed and, I am sorry, nor do I. If the ministers cannot do the work properly, they should have the courage to admit it for the good of France and resign."
That was the trouble, he decided: if one gave a political man a whiff of power, he became snared like an opium-eater, unable to see his own blemishes in the mirror of public opinion. Armand, with his eloquence and breadth of vision, was one of the few Girondin deputies who might be able to persuade the ministers to surrender their posts; the other Girondins were either too much philosophers to be pragmatic or else too naive to see that the support of the Plain was swiftly disappearing. Basically they were intellectual snobs who thought the ordinary people too ignorant to have any involvement in law-making.
Armand's smile was tired. "Much as I respect you, Raoul my poor friend, you are becoming such a pesty Jacobin that you begin to believe your own rhetoric. It is not our ministers' fault that half the generals are deserting to the Austrians. Do you really believe that the Mountain can handle the situation any better? We are trying to achieve what a thousand years of history failed to do, and the people, of course, expect instant happiness. It is totally impractical." He picked up a painting of a girl with her shoulder bare and the folds of her ribboned shepherdess costume falling tantalisingly away from the curve of her left breast. "I would not mind this one over my bedroom mantelshelf," he remarked appreciatively, setting it on the easel.
"The generals are deserting because they believe we will lose." Raoul grabbed the canvas and thrust it back in its place on the floor against the
wall. "We need unity, Armand, leadership not just orators. Danton says—"
"Danton! We're not climbing into bed with that bastard. Besides, we can't afford him. The holes in his pockets are as big as the Place de la Revolution."
"He's only trying to warn you, for God's sake. France needs strong government, otherwise the Republic will tumble like a house of cards. The people are hungry, Armand, desperately hungry. Have any of your government ministers ever known how that feels? Do you?"
"No." Armand's voice had lost its amiability. He gathered up Boniface from a patch of sunlight and stood at the window, his gaze more distant than the haphazard roofs cluttering the view. The purr of the fondled cat filled the brooding silence. "Marat's friends have wrecked our printing presses," he said grimly over his shoulder."You think that speaks of unity?"
Intolerant now, the ginger cat sprang down, its moulting hairs catching the light.
"No, of course not, but issuing an order for Marat's arrest is not going to solve anything. It will just make the sans-culottes more irate."
"It is so easy to criticise, so hard to govern." Armand turned from the casement and flicked at the tawny hairs adhering to his earth green coat. "Maybe we shall have to do without Paris, mon brave. Maybe we need to move the Convention to a city where we haven't got hacks, washerwomen and beggars telling us our business."
"You cannot be serious. The Mountain will accuse you of seeking to divide France further and conspiring with the monarchists."
"Then let them. We will stand on our laurels. We killed the King." His blue eyes rose to fix Raoul's gaze. "We all killed the King."
For a long moment Raoul stared back and then he acknowledged, "Yes, for the good of the people and for the best of reasons. Armand, I am warning you, if we can throw an incompetent king overboard because he put his religion and antiquated principles before the people's good, then we can certainly jettison the Rolands and their cronies."
But his friend merely tugged his watch from his waistcoat pocket. "Boissy's coach will be here at any moment. Time to go. I would still like to buy that shepherdess painting, by the way."
"No, you would not," growled Raoul. "It is too passé." He scooped up the cat and strode to the door. "Believe me, hanging that on your wall would not do your reputation or mine much good."
Armand picked up his hat from the table and followed him out. "Ah, but I'm not inviting the Convention into my bedchamber to view it. How much do you want?"
Raoul locked the door behind them and tried one last time: "Think about what I said. The people want bread, Armand. And if they can't have bread, they'll want circuses. And whatever happens, I do not want you to be the clown."
* * *
The Convention met on the first floor of the old Tuilleries Palace in the former theatre which lay between the two wings now called the Pavilions of Unity and Liberty. An apt meeting place, decided Fleur, for M. Beugneux had warned her that the deputies performed for a gallery that mercilessly booed any boring bleaters and drummed their heels in delight at the handsome and profane. This then was the popular daily entertainment and it was free if you didn't mind the waft of armpits and stale clothing.
Fleur, crammed in a corner against the wall because she had been advised to arrive early, had ample time to study her fellow spectators. They were mostly working-class women. A few men of bourgeois appearance stood behind the back row and several ordered the younger females to give up their places. Broadsheet writers insinuated themselves, scruffy fellows most of them, making ready to bend like question marks over their notes. Stained fingers drew out paper from writing cases; penknives flashed busily, sharpening quills or cleansing fingernails. Inkwell lids flipped up like predatory crustaceans waiting to catch the morning's morsels.
Fleur began to wonder whether she wanted to remain in such a crowd but her way out was blocked by a whole bench of noisy market creatures, talented at bawling in public. It seemed she must resign herself to remaining there for an hour or so or earn their abuse. This might be her means of understanding what was going on in Paris. At least the experience would be something she could write about to Charlotte, and it was a heady feeling to find herself at the heart of the Revolution and catch a glimpse of the leaders mentioned in the Parisian pamphlets. She became so absorbed in watching the representatives of the people's Republic seep into the hall that she totally forgot her discomfort, and when the man occupying the president's seat rang a bell to hush the hall to business, Fleur felt the tingling anticipation of seeing laws that would affect all France flower into life beneath her gaze—history, living and breathing.
The speeches in the hour that followed were as exciting as watching a puddle evaporate. For the most part, the deputies looked very ordinary and certainly not as she had imagined the villains who had scythed through the knees of the aristocracy and voted to guillotine King Louis. Many of these men must have been the stalwarts who had proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and vowed never to disband until they had made a better France, but she heard nothing remarkable from them. Instead these so-called revolutionaries yawned, scratched, ahemmed and generally looked bored. The only thing one revolutionary spent the first half-hour trying to liberate was the food from the gaps between his teeth; another spat towards the aisle whenever he disagreed with a speaker. Charlotte would not have been impressed; if these were the men intent on slapping the dough of France into a different shape, it was hardly likely that life would be better for the whole nation or that France would set an example to the world.
The deputies perched on the benches in the sloping rear of the hall, mostly men in their thirties, must be the Mountain—the Jacobins; and those sitting in the level area in front of the rostrum had to be the Plain—the unaffiliated deputies. If any member wished to address the assembly, he had to queue up in front of the platform where the President of the Convention sat, register his name and seat himself on the bench reserved for the morning's speakers. Then when it was his turn, he would be invited to step up to the lectern, which was draped in the scarlet, blue and white of the Revolution.
Making a speech here required considerable confidence, for not only did the women in the gallery hiss and mutter at the speaker like snakes on Medusa's head, but the general conduct of the representatives of the people seemed very informal and often insulting. Half the time the listeners either paid no attention or else they kept interrupting as if it was a game to unnerve the speaker. They wandered in and out at will; they conversed loudly among themselves; they passed messages; and some of them lay sprawled asleep, snoring loudly. Democracy at work?
But what a galaxy of creatures these representatives were! From men who had been powdered by their hairdressers and wore their waistcoats and breeches with fastidious elegance, to those with greasy, matted hair who obviously put liberty and equality before soap and water. And not a woman deputy among them. No wonder the women sitting in the gallery felt it important to be noisy and outspoken.
Towards midmorning the atmosphere changed, the floor of the Convention filled up and the calibre of the speakers improved.
"Rob-es-pierre, Rob-es-pierre," chanted the gallery girls as a dapper, youngish man in a swallow-tailed coat stepped up to speak. The whole place hushed as he shuffled his papers. His oratory did not exactly move Fleur as it did the other women, but his attack on the government and the way the war against Austria was being run was certainly well prepared. There was no humour in this Robespierre as he studied them over the top of his pince-nez, but the carefully timed phrases sounded as though they came from the heart.
Fleur could not hear the government's defence because all the women sharing her bench started hollering at two late arrivals. The large-bosomed sans-culotte beside her squeaked loudly, bouncing her assets excitedly at a brown-haired deputy in his early thirties.
"Hola, Gensonné!" she screamed, springing to her feet, all thighs and elbows. Delirious, palpitating womanhood, she subsided by Fleur as ecstatic as if she had seen the Angel Gab
riel. "He smiled at me," she whispered dreamily. "I adore his eyes."
Well, conceded Fleur, Gensonné's eyes were certainly his best feature if you discounted his lustrous, curling hair, but the man's mouth was definitely too effeminate for her taste and the smile had been merely the genial serenity of a man with more important matters on his mind.
"Pah, I'd rather have his friend," a voice behind them said scathingly and bawled out in a voice that almost deafened Fleur, "Give us a smile!"
The other women yelled and drummed their heels in support. Fleur leaned forward only to jerk back immediately. Gensonné's companion was Raoul de Villaret! When he nodded indifferently at the gallery, the women shrieked even louder. Fleur shrank back against the wall. Thank God, he was too intent on stooping to speak to a seated deputy to bother with ogling his admirers, for she would have been mortified if he had recognised her.
"Beau, hein?" the voice behind Fleur exclaimed. "Only twenty-seven too."
"He can climb on my rostrum any day," giggled someone else.
Fleur edged in rashly, "He looks too self-centred to me."
Her immediate neighbour had recovered from her rapture. "Well, I have a friend who says deVillaret gave her the best night in years," she declared authoritatively, wriggling with superiority. "Fingers like a pianist. Painted her in the—"
"Woo-hohhh," chorused the women.
So he painted naked women, did he? Fleur studied deVillaret's well-proportioned back with a mixture of spinsterish contempt and fascination.
Gensonné's ample admirer tweaked Fleur's black veil mischievously. "I haven't seen you here before, citizeness. Didn't your old man like you taking an interest?"
"I am new to Paris," Fleur answered cautiously.
"Really? Have you not been to the Jacobin Club in the Rue Saint-Honore yet? What, you haven't?" Blue eyes widened in disbelief. "Oh, you must! That's where the decisions are really made."
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