Where the Light Falls

by Allison Pataki

  Ignoring that interjection, Merignac continued in a quiet tone, looking only at Jean-Luc. “My esteemed patron, Citizen Lazare, believes that the wrath of the people is the true source of the nation’s strength and power. The late king may have tried to appeal to the better natures of the common people, but, in truth, he feared them. He never understood them, don’t you see? Liberty, equality, fraternity.” The elder man waved his hand aside, leaning in closer to Jean-Luc. “That is all fine and dandy. But the true origin of this new power is quite a simple thing: pure, unbridled rage. Fury, born out of years of desperation. The man who understands that best…well…”

  Jean-Luc hadn’t expected this turn in the conversation. He usually enjoyed discussing policy and how best to serve the people’s interests, but something in Merignac’s words struck him as more than that. There was an edge of zealous cunning, a base view of mankind that would paint his fellow countrymen as terrifying, bestial, even maniacal. What about the noble work toward which he and his fellow patriots were striving—the Declaration of the Rights of Man? Universal suffrage? Affordable bread and housing? Jean-Luc was about to say as much when there was a loud clamor toward the front of the restaurant.

  Two young men wearing the blue coat of the army, their faces so similar that surely they must have been brothers, were being escorted out of the restaurant. One of them, his hair darker, had his arms wrapped around the other, and from the looks of it he was trying to calm him down.

  At the table from which they had just been excused, a third man, also in an officer’s uniform, was hollering in their direction. He sat before a pile of smashed china, a grin on his face as he sipped from a glass of wine. “Get your drunk arse home, Remy! And next time, I’ll stick you with the bill.”

  The younger-looking brother, his hair disheveled from the commotion, yelled over his shoulder. “You’re a fool, LaSalle, and I’d punch you if I could!” He struggled against the older man’s restraining embrace. The restaurant attendants were insisting that they leave while the darker-haired brother, his grip still on the other’s shoulders, offered several coins to the hotelier as consolation.

  He snapped at the younger man now: “Remy, that’s enough. We’re going.”

  “Agreed, André. They’re no fun in this place—take me over to the Left Bank.” The handsome young man’s words slipped out, slurred and slow. “I’ve told Celine I’d visit her tonight.”

  “Not tonight. I’m taking you home.”

  The man called Remy lowered his head onto his brother’s shoulder as they shuffled out of the café. A stunned silence hovered across the café in their wake. Jean-Luc turned his gaze back to his dinner companions. To his left, Gavreau was chuckling, and to his right, Merignac looked as if he had lost his appetite.

  Folding his thin hands on the table, the old secretary propped himself up on his elbows. “They should not allow fools like that into establishments like this. Even if they do wear the uniform.”

  How undemocratic you sound, Jean-Luc thought to himself. But he simply lifted his spoon and tucked back into his flavorless stew.

  Removing a pristine white handkerchief with which he now dabbed the corners of his mouth, Merignac looked up. “Citizen St. Clair, I hear that you just defended a widow. An unfortunate woman who had been preyed upon by a villainous marquis? My employer followed that case, in fact, with interest. He approves of your work.”

  Jean-Luc nodded, swallowing his stew and the involuntary smile that tugged on his lips, surprised that his drudging work had been noticed by anyone outside his department. “Citizeness Poitier. A worthwhile cause, reinstating her to her proper home.”

  “Speaking of widows,” Merignac said, once Jean-Luc had finished. “Now that Citizen Capet is dead, the question remains: what to do with his Austrian widow? Should Antoinette lose her head as well?”

  Jean-Luc, too, had thought much about the question of the deposed queen. He had been shocked when the king had been sent to the guillotine; he could never have imagined, at the outbreak of the Revolution almost four years ago, that the country would go that far in its quest for liberty. But it was treason to say so.

  Merignac leaned his chin onto his hands, his face angled toward Jean-Luc as he asked: “Well, citizen? What do you think ought to be done with the Austrian woman?”

  Jean-Luc swallowed hard, dabbing the corners of his mouth with his napkin before answering. “I do not wish to see her returned to Austria, where her royalist friends might make more trouble for us.”

  “What, then?”

  Jean-Luc wavered a moment before answering. He recalled the political pamphlet he had read that morning, another installment put out by the cryptic “Citizen Persephone,” this one calling for reason and clemency in the sentencing of Marie-Antoinette. Jean-Luc agreed with that argument now as he answered: “I think a life spent under house arrest would be sufficient punishment.”

  “Come now.” Merignac offered a tepid smile, his head leaning to one side. “You are a smart man, Jean-Luc St. Clair. You know she would relish a house arrest. She’d spend her time eating brioches and drinking the finest wines while bedding her guards.” He sniggered, looking down to his full bowl of stew, which he still refrained from touching. After a pause, he sighed. “My patron, Citizen Lazare, believes that for her, it must be the blade, just as it was for her husband. While the Austrian consort lives, she serves as a symbol of the monarchy, a rallying cry to inspire our enemies at home and abroad. It is a matter of simple logic: either she dies, or our revolution shall perish. So, send her to the guillotine.”

  Jean-Luc cleared his throat, lowering his eyes as he took a sip of wine.

  “But I think the idea of the guillotine makes you…uncomfortable, Citizen St. Clair.” Merignac was looking at him appraisingly, his dark eyes narrowed.

  Jean-Luc turned to Gavreau, whose lips were stained purple, and held out his glass for a refill of wine.

  “Do you know whom we have to thank for the widespread use of the guillotine, Citizen St. Clair?” Merignac asked.

  “Joseph-Ignace Guillotin,” Jean-Luc answered, turning back to his dinner partner as he lowered his wineglass. “That is from where the name is derived.”

  “Precisely. Doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. And do you know, Jean-Luc…may I call you Jean-Luc?”

  “Please do.”

  “Excellent. Where was I? Oh yes, do you know why the guillotine was chosen as our new means of execution?”

  “To offer a more humane form of capital punishment.”

  “Just so.”

  Jean-Luc swallowed, clearing his throat. “I grant you, the apparatus itself might be more…humane…than the gallows, where a man can writhe for upwards of an hour in unimaginable pain. Or beheading by an ax, where failure to land a clean blow can necessitate several hacks before the head is severed. It’s just the—”

  “Yes?” Merignac was listening intently now, his dark eyes shimmering with the excitement of discussion.

  Jean-Luc continued: “I’ve sometimes wondered about the expedience with which our tribunals send men and women—even children—to this device of death.”

  Merignac considered this, his chin resting on his narrow index finger. “So you would hope for a more bloodless form of revolution?”

  Jean-Luc opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. All he could think of was the countless hours he’d spent documenting the seized goods of the Revolution’s enemies—priests, nuns, nobles, accused spies. Families pulled from their homes in the dark of night. Furniture, china emblazoned with the crests of the former owners, empty beds, some of them no larger than the size of a toddler’s little frame.

  Finally, his voice faint, Jean-Luc continued: “I suppose I do wish that less blood might be shed. Or, at least, that it would be proven entirely necessary before shedding so much blood; I believe our courts could demand more proof of treason before damning one to the guillotine.” Jean-Luc wondered if what he was saying was dangerous—he had never before uttered
these nagging doubts. Not even to Marie.

  Merignac looked at him intently as he answered: “In any revolution, there must be blood. How else can the sins of past evils be washed clean in expiation? Monsieur Jefferson himself said as much.”

  Merignac seized on Jean-Luc’s pause to continue. “Citizen Lazare knew our former tyrant quite well, as I’m sure you have heard. He lived with him, and that queen of his, at court. Do you know what our blessed monarch wrote in his journal the day that the Bastille was stormed?”

  Jean-Luc knew the answer to this question. Every news journal had been sure to print this fact, so that all Parisians knew the answer to this question. Quietly, he answered: “Rien.”

  “Rien.” Merignac nodded. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing!” Gavreau repeated, running a finger along the rim of his empty stew bowl.

  Merignac, still ignoring Gavreau, continued. “He wrote rien, because he had caught rien while out hunting that day.” Merignac spoke with a cold, emotionless tone. “What do you think the men and women who stormed the Bastille would have written in their diaries, had they been able to afford ink and paper that day?” His thin black eyebrows arched, touching the border of his orange wig. “Perhaps they would have written a line about how starving they were. Or that another one of their children had died, due to the filth and hunger in the city.”

  Jean-Luc’s heart beat faster now, as he sensed the zeal lurking behind the man’s calm, measured voice. He sat there mute, unsure of how to answer, feeling panicked that he had been a fool to advocate for clemency when, clearly, this man loathed the nobility as much as any wronged citizen or citizeness in La Place de la Révolution. But then, to Jean-Luc’s utter relief, Merignac cracked a smile. And like a clap of thunder disperses the humidity of a heavy summer evening, the tension at the table was dispelled as Merignac, suddenly, began to laugh.

  “Come now, Citizen St. Clair.” He reached his hand toward Jean-Luc. Beside them, Gavreau, too, was laughing, for a reason that Jean-Luc could not deduce. “You know, I believe that you love a spirited debate quite as much as my employer does,” Merignac said, taking Jean-Luc’s hand in his; his palm felt cold. Like a father might soothe a child, Merignac patted the top of Jean-Luc’s hand. “What a fascinating conversation. I believe my employer would have enjoyed it! But it’s getting late. What do you say, Jean-Luc, shall we retire?” Merignac was suddenly as informal and relaxed as an old friend. “It seems that this one needs his bed.” He cast a sideways glance toward Gavreau.

  Merignac insisted on paying for the dinner, and the three of them rose from the table. “Where do you live, citizen?”

  Jean-Luc felt a moment’s flash of embarrassment as he gave his Left Bank address.

  “That’s too far to walk on a cold night such as this one. I’ll see you home in the carriage.”

  “I thank you for the offer but that won’t be necessary, I assure you.”

  “Come now, haven’t you quarreled with me enough for one night? I won’t hear your refusal. Besides, Citizen Lazare was gracious enough to lend the coach this evening.” And then, turning his eyes on Gavreau, Merignac said: “Gavreau, you’ll be fine on foot, no?”

  “I’ll be more than fine! Might even stop at the tavern on the way for a nightcap, if you two gentlemen care to join me?”

  The two of them politely declined.

  “Fine, then. But won’t let that stop me,” Gavreau answered, his words slurred. “G’night, gentlemen. A fine evening.”

  Jean-Luc cast a glance in the direction of his friend’s retreating frame before turning back to Merignac. The two of them stood alone now, outside the café. “Here we are.” Merignac pointed toward a halted coach that waited at the end of the darkened street. A footman hopped down and opened the door for them, and they stepped inside. The night was indeed cold, and Jean-Luc was grateful for the covered ride as the carriage sped across the island and south over the Pont Neuf. They sat for several minutes without speaking. It was Merignac who broke the silence. “I enjoyed our little discussion at dinner—and I believe that Citizen Lazare would find you to be quite an interesting fellow.”

  Jean-Luc looked at the orange-haired man across from him in the carriage. “You are too kind to say so, citizen.” Jean-Luc hoped that his reply came out sounding enthusiastic, even if he felt the tinge of irrefutable unease.

  “Don’t you think you are destined for greater things than counting inventory for a fool like Gavreau?”

  Jean-Luc was taken aback by the candor of the remark; by the fact that Merignac spoke that way about an old friend, and to someone whom he’d only just met. Perhaps a bit defensively, Jean-Luc answered: “I am doing the work that is necessary for the new Republic.”

  The carriage had turned onto Jean-Luc’s street, and just then the horses halted. The footman hopped down and opened the door. In the sliver of light that spilled into the coach now, Jean-Luc noticed Merignac’s derisive smile. “That may be. But if you ever wish to make something of your talents, rather than defending poor widows and struggling to pay the rent on a Left Bank garret, you know where to find us. I would be more than pleased to introduce you to Guillaume Lazare.”

  Marie had stayed awake and sat waiting for Jean-Luc. She jumped up from her chair and ran to greet him as he walked through the door. “I got your note about the Widow Poitier’s case. Out celebrating?” She planted a kiss on his cheek and took his satchel from his hands.

  He shook his head.

  “You look exhausted.” Her brown eyes now showed concern as she helped him out of his jacket.

  In the corner where the roof slanted downward, wrapped in a blanket and tucked into his small cradle, Mathieu slept. Jean-Luc crossed the room and pressed his palm into the rosy, plump cheek of the snoring baby. He remained still for several minutes, staring down at his son, the rounded features soft with sleep.

  “Where were you, then?” Marie was beside him now, whispering so as not to wake the baby.

  Jean-Luc turned to face her. “At a dinner with Guillaume Lazare’s personal secretary,” he said, his voice relaying his own confusion at the entire evening. Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “What a husband I have. Winning cases and dining with the likes of Guillaume Lazare’s secretary.” Jean-Luc was too lost in his own thoughts to notice her wide smile.

  “I think it was some sort of test,” Jean-Luc said, scratching the top of his head as they moved away from Mathieu’s cradle.

  “And? Did you pass?”

  “As a matter of fact, I believe I did.”

  Marie cocked her head to the side, smiling up at her husband. “Pretty soon you’re going to be too important for Mathieu and me and this tiny garret.”

  “Never.”

  “Well then, how was it?”

  “My darling.” He paused, looking down at her as he wrapped his arms around her waist. “It was…unexpected. I think that everyone in this world has gone a little bit mad, except for you.”

  She sighed, but her smile remained. “I went mad long ago. How else could I explain my decision to marry you and move to this dreadful neighborhood?”

  He leaned his face toward her now, his lips inches from hers. “If it was madness that caused you to first love me, are you still ailing?”

  “Very much.” She smiled, balancing on her toes to reach up and kiss him.

  “Good,” he said, kissing her in reply, his whole body yearning for her. “I would hate for you to ever be cured.”

  Summer 1793

  Back in the French capital, having marched with his men as far as the city of Strasbourg, André took his residence once more in the Saint-Paul quarter, just a short walk from the former Bastille prison. The city smoldered in the summer heat, its narrow cobblestoned streets ripe with the stench of so many close-packed bodies. The fear of both foreign and domestic enemies hung heavy like the humid air, and the free French citizens seemed as determined as ever to witness the murderous apparatus mete out its particular manner of revolutiona
ry justice.

  In spite of this, the truth was that André’s mind was elsewhere than war or revolution. He cared little for the political assemblies in the taverns or the rallies that sprung up in the squares. His thoughts were heavy with the persistent and secret desire to reunite with the young woman he had met on that strange winter evening, half a year earlier.

  When not on duty or busy keeping Remy out of trouble, André had taken to spending his time tramping around the Right Bank, his eyes studying every female figure that passed. As he walked the quays near La Place, André could not help but hear the fiendish roars of the crowds gathered there. He had never seen such bloodlust on any field of battle. But Sophie would not be anywhere near the guillotine and the public beheadings, André reasoned. He sought her in the markets near the Châtelet, among the florists’ booths near what had once been the great cathedral of Notre Dame, among the vendors whose carts lined the banks of the Seine.

  Maximilien Robespierre had consolidated power in the government, purging the Convention and killing every deputy or ally who could have posed even a shadow of a threat. “The Incorruptible” now reigned supreme, chairing a dictatorial body called the Committee of Public Safety. He called for a fixed price on bread and universal male suffrage—and more noble heads. Always, he said, there lurked the insidious threat of enemies of the Revolution: the Austrians abroad who planned to quash the Revolution from the outside, and the counterrevolutionaries who hoped to destroy it from the inside. And always, this fear fueled the frantic, insatiable need to feed the guillotine.

  André was determined that, no matter what occurred within the government and the city, he and Remy would hold tight to their military uniforms. It seemed that their good service in the army was their one thin line of defense, keeping them from the executioner Sanson’s exalted podium. And so, as the summer wore on and André heard the rumors from LaSalle that his division would be sent under Kellermann to fight the Habsburgs in the Alps, he began to lose hope of ever again seeing Sophie de Vincennes.