Fleur-de-Lis

by Isolde Martyn

  Silent, sad and detached, Fleur waited.

  Led by youths and maidens in Grecian robes and laurel leaves, the procession of Jacobin deputies, Commune dignitaries and national guard marched stony-faced to a muffled drumbeat as they accompanied the gun carriage bearing the coffin through the hushed crowd. Seeing de Villaret's sash, the one he had worn at Caen, looped on a pike like a Roman legion banner in front of the bier was no surprise after what they had done for the stabbed Lepeletier. It was Raoul's plumed hat on top of his coffin that was almost her undoing—this at last was reality, the living breathing man who had made love to her and planned her death lay lifeless in that wooden box.

  Instinctively, Fleur pushed forward into the crowd as it surged at the stark mausoleum. She had almost left it too late but, yes, she would go in, hide at the back like Christ's humble penitent, well away from the deputies brandishing their patriotism. The national guards let her through just in time to avoid the six bearers as they emerged from the central doorway of the Pantheon to shoulder the casket. There was a dull thud of the body sliding as bull-shouldered Danton grabbed the handle on his side and heaved. Taller than the others, he and Hérault took the main weight at the front, with Boissy and Gensonné uncomfortable in the middle, and at the rear, hardly bearing the weight at all, David and, surprisingly, Marat, looking like a stained leftover on a secondhand clothing stall. Sweaty in the heat, he still wore the signature strip of ermine, and blotches of livid, irritable skin made islands on his nose and chin. As they went past, he was the only one to notice Fleur's shadowy presence.

  "You want to take my place, Chat Rouge?" he called back outrageously, making the others lose stride and the haute bourgeoisie sneer over their shoulders.

  Standing at the packed rear of the temple, Fleur could see nothing of the funeral bier beneath the dome, nor in her tangle of guilt did she want to. The opening hymn to the Republic required compliance but she felt incapable of paying more than lip service. Those around her sung fervently. Then the speeches began, Jacobin eulogies oozing with patriotism. Eulogies for a martyred murderer!

  Well, she hoped de Villaret's soul was being tumbriled down the road to hell, with her father and his other victims lining the route and hissing him in. Knowing the damnable rogue, he'd come back and haunt her just to annoy. She should not weep but... dead. Oh, dear God, it was as if she were treading some precarious plank flung down across an abyss from which she might tumble down into hysteria on one side and, on the other, grief.

  The temple rustled as the congregation jostled for kneeling space. Peeping through her fingers, Fleur could at last see the coffin resting beneath the gloomy dome and the deputies sitting in rows in the east and west aisles. Envy was not one of her vices but she was becoming squashed and uncomfortable. The guards were misguidedly letting some of the baser sort in, and the air, what there was of it, was fetid with unsponged skin and stale clothing.

  Someone's knees were poking into her soles and she wriggled forward. Then a man's shabbily trousered thighs annoyingly edged in close beside her. She shuffled discreetly leftwards but a bare hand fastened round her sleeve.

  "I have been looking for you everywhere," whispered an impatient male voice. "Outside, now!"

  She was never sure afterwards how her feet carried her out of the Panthéon or indeed what kept her upright; only that within seconds she found herself shaky and momentarily speechless in a corridor of air between the soldiers and the outside stonework.

  "Well, that was easy," said her abductor smoothly. "We can talk here or perhaps a cell at La Force might be appropriate." He seemed unperturbed by the crowd.

  "With no distractions," she agreed blithely, gesturing at their surroundings, and, wondering if she was out of her mind, added, "But I think really think you should go back in there."

  "With no distractions?" her escort reiterated, his smile only skin-deep. "Round there, perhaps?" He gestured for her to precede him towards the corner of the building. "Anyway, who's being buried?"

  "You are."

  * * *

  It was the theatrical exit line of the century, worthy of an audience of thousands, except the singing hordes were not listening, and there was no door for her to leave by.

  Raoul, unquestionably alive, if somewhat battered, recovered first. His bruised jaw clenched. "This is for me?"The words were not exactly ground out. When a vastly amused M. Beugneux had redirected him to find la patronne at the Panthéon, there had been no explanation.

  "Surely you deserve it?" Fleur Bosanquet asked with the enchanting innocence she seemed to keep for playing him. Any astonishment at her victim's shirtsleeve appearance in workman's waistcoat was now abandoned and the cunning little cat was recklessly appraising the unaccustomed sight of his shortened hair curling about his forehead in ancient Roman fashion. She looked like Delilah thinking about sharpening the scissors further. Had they not been standing outside a Pantheon packed with diamond patriots gathered to remember his short, rebellious life, Raoul might have been tempted to squeeze the life out of her pretty throat. Either that or find somewhere nearby in the old abbey grounds where he might exact his revenge more pleasurably. The black, gauzy fichu begged to be ripped away, the tempting creamy cleavage plundered except—His funeral? Questioning his own sanity and whether being alive was a sudden inconvenience, Raoul took another look at the monstrous flowerbed of people.

  "Christ!" he muttered, and grabbed his would-be murderess's right hand and hauled her back towards the tomblike entrance. "You are right, citizeness, it would be impolite not to attend."

  At the threshold, he halted. The revolutionary te deum was in crescendo. "Well now, my little actress," he murmured, "we can walk up the nave demurely like a bourgeois married couple or you can wait here. But if you leave, I will hunt you to the ends of the earth." Only a fool with a sense of drama would have proceeded and he knew Fleur could not resist.

  "I haven't a posy," she retorted coquettishly.

  "Don't worry, I'll be buying you a wreath shortly. Let us get this over, shall we?" He elbowed his way through the crowd near the door. Further in, the guards were keeping the naves clear. Pikes suddenly barred his path.

  "You can't go through, citizen."

  "But it's my—"

  "Invitation," purred Fleur, brandishing a crumpled card, and proceeded sweetly on. Raoul thrust the pike aside and hastened after her.

  "Why is it I have this uncontrollable urge to throw you off the Pont Neuf?"

  "Lack of imagination, I daresay."

  People suddenly forgot the words to the anthem as they passed. Graciously smiling, La Veuve Bosanquet glided along beside Raoul with infuriating competence. Given encouragement, the wretched girl would start waving like a princess.

  "Marie-Antoinette's in prison. They don't need a substitute," he warned and increased his stride. It could have been a romantic melodrama if the chit had not been a royalist Medusa.

  His coffin—well, someone's—swathed in the republican flag, had not been placed before the dismantled altar but in the centre of the temple beneath the dome with the festooned pike propped up at one end like a macabre gravestone. Several lines of shiny-faced choirboys faced it from the far side.

  As he reached the revolutionary elite, privileged on rows of chairs in front of the steps that descended from the north and south naves, Raoul bestowed a lift of eyebrow on the Girondins' solemn faces. No one recognised him at first in his sans-culotte clothing, then Armand, usually away with the fairies, dropped his prayer book in astonishment and received a schoolmistress's silent rebuke from Mme Roland. Slowly, the rest of the row turned, goggle-eyed like children at a puppet show. Observing the Jacobins on the opposite side, Raoul saw Hérault direct an outraged look at Fleur Bosanquet as though she had engineered this unexpected resurrection—the scoundrel had probably spent the last two weeks trying to lure her to his cushions. This was priceless. Best of all, David's beatific expression, which he always wore when ceremonies were going well, had metamorphosed
into open-beaked astonishment.

  With theatrical timing, Raoul paused by his coffin but his frown as he became aware of the blood spatters on the tricolore sash wreathing the pike was honest.

  "What the hell—"Armand broke rank and, tackling the barricade of knees with rare exuberance, emerged free to embrace Raoul in true French fashion.

  "Isn't it customary for the dead to attend?"

  Across Armand's shoulder, Raoul watched the distracted choirmaster fall off his box. The boys' voices faltered to giggles and a wave of exclamations rippled backwards from the closest rows. But when the deceased sprang up onto the coffin, the entire Panthéon erupted in disgusted yells.

  "Brothers!" Raoul shouted and held up his hand for the hubbub to cease. As the sans-culottes at the front recognised him, the protestation hushed to awe and slowly the whole temple fell silent.

  "Patriots!" Oh God, this was pleasurable. His voice carried with ease among the columns. "I do not know what stranger you honour in this coffin but it isn't Raoul de Villaret. I am Raoul de Villaret and lucky to be alive, gloriously alive." Oh, he had them in the palm of his hand now And, like Marcus Antonius, he had a corpse to stand over. "My friends, I was attacked on the way to Caen by royalists. They stole my papers and left me for dead. See!"

  He pushed back the hair that lapped his forehead. Even Fleur, who had planned his murder, forgot to act and gaped up at him like the rest, her lips divinely parted. Raoul resisted that invitation and concentrated on his audience. "Friends," he cried, his fists to his chest, "only the courage of a loyal sans-culotte saved me. I wish he stood here now so we might honour him. Two of my fellow patriots were shot down beside me."

  "What happened to your hand, deVillaret?" Marat came capering out to shout the question but it was David who had cued him. The great master's gaze met Raoul's, artist to artist, his expression white with grey stirred in.

  Raoul grimly tugged off his glove; above the bandaged knuckles, his smallest finger was missing. The shot had smashed through the bone below.

  "The royalists tried to destroy my hand, the hand that signed the death warrant of a king." Pivoting on his feet, he held his right arm up so the people packed into all four sections of the temple could see, and then his gaze selected Fleur. Oh God, yes, he blamed her. "But I shall sign their death warrants."

  The girl trembled, for an instant she looked as though her legs might dissolve beneath her, and he relished the flash of terror before she suppressed it, gazing up at him artlessly like a lamb about to be slaughtered. I have you now, his eyes told her. With one gesture, he could turn this crowd upon her. They would eat her heart out.

  He swung back to face the people. "Do the vermin that attacked me think to cripple the Revolution?" The spectators held their breath. "See," he roared, "I can still fight against tyranny!" It hurt his damaged palm but he rasped out the rapier that hung on his belt and thrust it heavenwards. Light danced upon the blade—well, what light there was. The congregation cheered and beyond the open doors the curious crowd rushed forward shouting.

  Ah, this was almost worth being shot at. "Patriots, brothers and sisters of the Revolution, we have fought to free France from its servile yoke. We are no more beasts of burden to those men who let our children starve, men who judged us, men who did not question us because they did not want to hear our answers. But those carrion are still out there, waiting for us to die beneath the invaders' boots. They are still out there. Their agent provocateurs are in our great cities, turning our people against Paris, against you, against the Convention—the Convention that was democratically elected. Only in unity can we preserve our liberty! Only in unity can we defeat the enemy!" Raoul tossed his sword to his other hand and drove his wounded fist up through the air. The crowd roared.

  Fleur panicked. The man was inciting another massacre. He was cranking up the hatred, almost whetting their blades for them.

  "Out there—" he began.

  She had to stop this before the streets ran with blood.

  "Citizens," she shouted, springing up onto the coffin in front of him. "Rejoice!"

  De Villaret, thank God, was too astonished to push her down but the people's indignation reached her like a breath so foul it nearly toppled her. With a deep gasp, she flung her hands towards the great dome. "People of Paris, we have already triumphed over death. The citizen lives. Kiss your children, embrace your wives! Let this be a day of celebration. Of love! Vive la France!" She swivelled round with difficulty and, stooping, carried his bandaged hand to her lips in an act of homage.

  "Love!" scoffed someone who sounded like Quettehou. "We need BREAD"

  "Get down!" De Villaret's smile was angelic; his words a fierce hiss of fury.

  "No!" she exclaimed, rising and swirling round to kiss her hands to the congregation. "HAPPINESS! HOPE!" And Paris roared back. Beaming, Fleur drew breath and launched into one of the songs beloved by the sans-culottes:"Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça—Ooof!"

  De Villaret sprang down, hauling her with him. Behind the coffin, the voices soared and the feet of the Revolution stamped the chorus of "Ça ira".

  "Ah! Just you wait! Just you wait! Just you wait!

  The people are shouting this again and again.

  Just you wait! Just you wait! Just you wait!

  Despite your treachery, we'll prevail."

  * * *

  "The patriot here," de Villaret kept his good arm like an iron band about her waist as the deputies closed about them, "can never leave the stage. Thank you, ma mie." The venom in his voice would have poisoned a village.

  "I can't breathe," she hissed, trying to free herself without anyone noticing.

  "Good," his voice replied in her ear. "So long as you can't talk." His boot nudged the flag-draped bier. Who in hell was standing in for him?

  "This is in very bad taste in my opinion." The muse of the Girondins, Mme Roland, pushed through, snatching her brown skirts aside from brushing Fleur's black bombazine. Both her younger admirer, Buzot, and her ageing husband followed in the wake of her bustle. "Did you orchestrate this travesty?" she snapped, brandishing her parasol menacingly at David's kneecaps.

  The master of ceremonies inclined his head. "My dear Manon, we could have done this for Buzot if you needed a second coming, but let's find out, shall we?" He started to peel back the flag petticoating the bier and then laughed at the woman's delicate shudder. "No? I thought not."Already the wheels of David's artistic mind were in full revolution. He stepped forward to clasp Raoul's shoulder but he was looking speculatively at Fleur. "A day of love. Very good! Lead the girl out like a bride."

  "What!" Raoul was fit to strangle her. "She's a widow," he protested.

  "Widowed France! Think of the symbolism. Move, Raoul! Before they reach the last line! Repeat the final chorus," he ordered the choirmaster. "The rest of you follow in pairs. Stop sulking, Manon! Quickly! And you," he snapped his fingers at one of the military officers, "set a guard around the coffin!" Swiftly rearranging the cloak that proclaimed him a deputy, the great man turned on his heel. "Behind me, now! Now!" And the great master of French art started down the nave with the solemnity of an archbishop.

  Suppressing a curse, Raoul rearranged himself so that his hale hand might secure Fleur's. "Till death us do part," he muttered malevolently.

  "Amen to that," Fleur retorted, her chin raised haughtily.

  "We'll conquer the enemies that still remain,

  Sing alleluia as our refrain.

  Oh, just you wait, just you wait, just you wait.

  Those who are down, we'll elevate.

  Those who are high, we'll bring 'em down.

  Ah, just you wait, just you wait, just you wait!

  This true catechism we'll impart

  And like fanatics, spread the word

  To obey this with all your heart

  Until it's done by all of France

  Oh, just you wait, just you wait, just you wait,

  Despite your treachery, we'll advance."

&n
bsp; Two by two, like animals on Noah's ark, the deputies fell in behind as though they had been rehearsing all week. The congregation beamed on approvingly. Only Quettehou's face, dark against a flanking pillar, was a mask of fury. The people cramming the doorway parted to let them through and closed in behind the procession.

  Fleur's euphoria was beginning to vaporise, leaving a residue of horror at the price she might pay for her audacity. She seesawed between reckless elation and wild despair; one instant exhilarated that de Villaret was alive, the next afraid because he was leading her out towards the mob. Was this how the Queen had felt, made to parade before the pikes and smile and smile?

  They waited a few paces back while David tested the crowd. The rain had come.

  "And where would you like to spend the night, you harpy?" de Villaret growled through his teeth while he beamed at the rabble. What answer did he expect? La Force?

  "Not in your bed, you bastard." She tried to tug her fingers free. If only she could tunnel into the living mass, away from him, away so she could rally her courage. "Your master's whistling us. Youll earn some brisket if you behave."

  The double doors framed them as they posed like royalty—constitutional newlyweds—while David wound up his speech to the crowd. When he finally stepped aside with a flourish, Fleur blew kisses from her fingers to the shouts of "Bravo!" and simpered at deVillaret like a besotted bride.

  "When I have finished with you, cherie," her companion threatened softly, pulling her close as if to kiss her cheek, "you will be praying for the little window."

  "You think I planned your death?" she protested as he held up her hand to the crowd like a victorious wrestler.

  "Since you tried to shoot me the morning I left Paris, yes!" He kissed her hand, still keeping firm hold of it. Then, with an unkind laugh, he drew her breast to breast. His mouth came down on hers and the crowd roared. Fleur emerged knowing she was dealing with one very furious man.