Where the Light Falls

by Allison Pataki

  The crowd, still moved by Kellermann’s address, began to hiss at this Mouchetard. A woman tossed a spool from her knitting over the balcony, and it hit the lawyer in the head, knocking his spectacles loose and prompting an uproarious gust of laughter, both from the gallery and the soldiers below. Seeing this, Lazare stood up.

  With that movement from his superior, the young lawyer wavered, withdrawing toward the table like a beaten dog. Lazare strode to the center and the crowd now fell silent. André was certain that, beside him, Madame Kellermann trembled. He couldn’t blame her.

  In his signature quiet, Lazare began: “You’ve heard it from the witness. You’ve heard it from the defense. This man, General Kellermann, thought you were wrong when you condemned the tyrant and his foreign wife before this very tribunal. He thought you were wrong to send them to the guillotine.” Lazare folded his hands neatly in front of his narrow waist. “Need I remind you that since this Revolution began, we have faced enemies both within this city and outside our borders? Let’s start with the latter. Armed mercenaries who would have stamped out our Revolution and put that tyrant back on the throne. Yes, those enemies are easy to identify. They wear uniforms and carry the standards of foreign kings as they march across our lands.

  “But what of the others? The enemy within our borders? That is an enemy far more perfidious. Far more dangerous, because he is one thousand times harder to identify. And that enemy is the indecisive half patriot. The man who, in his heart, questions our Revolution. The man who affects to celebrate our freedom, declares himself loyal to the Republic, but in the quiet of his mind, he questions. He questions the verdicts we make. The constitution we draft. The actions we must take against our enemies.

  “These are the enemies who truly cause me to tremble for our Republic. These are the foes who dwell among us, masquerading as our friends. The Prussians and Austrians are gone. But the more dangerous enemy—those who live with us, and watch us, and yet, despise us—remain ever in our midst. They are still within our borders.”

  Lazare paused and André noted, with a fresh pang of despair, just how silent the courtroom had fallen.

  “No doubt, the defendant repelled those foreign invaders at Valmy. We thank him for that service, saving the Revolution in its infancy.” Lazare turned then, nodding at Kellermann once, before turning back toward the balcony.

  “But this man harbors doubts about our Revolution. He has questioned the means we have used, measures taken out of necessity in order that our Revolution may progress. You heard his statements today. He doubts whether we should have killed Citizen Capet. He doubts whether the Austrian adulteress was what we knew her to be. He doubts whether the guillotine even need be in use!” Lazare paused at this before continuing on, his tone lilting toward quiet once more.

  “Citizens and citizenesses, this is no time for doubt. This is no time for hesitant and halfhearted patriots. This is no time to put trust in those who question our efforts, our sacred work. There is too much at stake. Those who don’t support the Revolution are enemies of the people; it is plain as that. What is not plain is how we are to find and root out these enemies. That’s the difficult task that falls to each patriot. And harder still is to look them in the eyes and tell them they must die. But when have the French people ever been cowed by the hard work that must be done? You are not a people who shirk your duties. You never have been. Not when you have known repression for so long, and when you know how many still roam free who would return you to that darkness.

  “No, my good, enlightened people of France, you know your duty, and you shall do it. On the order of this court, the blade must fall. For the Comte de Kellermann, and all who question our Revolution, we shall be swift and decisive. It is us or them. Mercy for them today means enslavement for us tomorrow. We know this. We must not, we will not, allow this fate to befall the French people. The entire nation looks to us. Today, we do our duty. Today, and all days, we choose freedom.”

  When Lazare finished, no one cheered. No one clapped. No one even whispered. André looked aloft and saw how the women in the gallery had ceased their knitting and now sat clutching their children closer. The husbands had put protective arms over the shoulders of their wives.

  It was not about Kellermann anymore. It was not about Valmy or Murat or any ball where an officer might have made vague political statements. It was about an unseen but ever-present feeling shared by all. The shadow felt deep in each man and woman’s breast. Lazare had reminded them all of what they had temporarily forgotten: that any one of them could die in this city on any day. Defending the wrong person would make that a certainty. Saying the wrong thing would lead to the guillotine. They did not hate Kellermann; they did not wish to kill him. They merely wished to save themselves. And that, André thought to himself, was the genius of Lazare.

  When the justices took their recess, the people stayed, but the giddiness from the balcony, the circus-like mood from earlier, was no more, not even among the children. The cold breath of fear had entered the courtroom, casting a frost over hearts that, minutes earlier, had been inclined toward compassion and fraternity.

  The justices were out of the room for only a matter of minutes. When they reentered, the crowd was on its feet, straining and leaning close.

  The middle judge read from a scroll. He read as he had spoken all day: quickly and without emotion. André, feeling his knees giving out beneath him, listened as the words were pronounced.

  “The tribunal of the people of France finds General Christophe Kellermann guilty of conspiracy against the state and people of France. He is hereby sentenced to death by guillotine within four and twenty hours.”

  July 1794

  Jean-Luc did not know where he walked; he simply knew that on that warm, black night, stillness was not an option. Marie would have heard the news by now. She would be awake, waiting, worried for him and eager to console him upon his return. But the hours had passed and, still, guilt unlike anything he had ever known hung over him, prompting him to wander aimlessly through the darkened streets of Paris. His thoughts, too, wandered, in and out of a dreamlike state. He didn’t deserve the comfort of a loving wife’s arms, the joy of seeing his child tucked in under a blanket, his reposing face free of worry. Jean-Luc knew that he could not go home, not when Kellermann, the man who had put his faith in him, passed his last night in a dank prison with nothing but the scaffold to greet him at dawn.

  And so Jean-Luc walked deep into the night. Not another soul haunted the streets, his only companions the large linden trees that rustled in the wind. The Seine shimmered to his left, but for the occasional barge that lumbered past, bearing its cargo west on the black water, there was no noise in the Parisian night.

  Suddenly, Jean-Luc heard voices. He came to, emerging from his tormented reverie, and realized that he was entirely unaware of his surroundings.

  “Slide her in there, easy does it. Just like Sanson’ll do it later today.”

  “Only then, this lot won’t be melons. I heard that old General What’s-His-Name is on the short list.”

  “Shame to waste such a good melon.” Harsh laughter echoed down the silent street.

  Sanson. Jean-Luc repeated the name and felt a constriction around his throat. He paused, frozen in his steps; Sanson was the name of Paris’s official executioner. Known as the Gentleman of Paris, master of ceremonies, and functionary of the guillotine. Jean-Luc realized, his legs leaden beneath him, that he had wandered into La Place de la Révolution. There, in the feeble light of dawn, emerged the shapes of the massive limestone façades that hemmed in La Place, grand buildings built for the governments of Louis XIV and his heir, Louis XV, cutting a silhouette against the graying sky. And even closer to Jean-Luc stood the raised platform and sleek shape of that murderous device, its blade catching the first glints of early-morning light.

  Jean-Luc didn’t take a step closer, nor did he turn to walk away. Workers, it appeared, were prepping the apparatus for the day’s show, a show t
hat promised to be one of the most attended since the deaths of the Bourbon monarchs.

  It was still dark enough that Jean-Luc, by remaining a safe distance back, had not been detected. The workers moved about their business diligently—scrubbing the platform, sweeping the steps, checking the nails and ropes that held the device upright. One of the men struggled under the weight of a large woven basket, filled with what appeared to be round cargo. His raspy breath was audible, even from where Jean-Luc stood, as the squat man heaved the basket up the steps toward the executioner’s spot. On top of the platform now, he reached in, and Jean-Luc felt his heart begin to race, preparing him for what he was about to see. The man pulled out one of the objects from the basket, which to Jean-Luc’s relief appeared to be a melon. With skilled hands that moved quickly, the man nestled the melon into the central groove of the apparatus. He must have done this many times by now.

  Workers were scampering about, jumping off the platform and shuffling into a row, all eager spectators. Only the squat man remained up top.

  “Ready, get in position!” One of the workers below yelled, and another man took his place on the platform behind the raised blade. He put his hand on the extended lever.

  “Ready, steady, let her fly!”

  Jean-Luc watched as the man, his hand gripping the lever, pulled hard and fast. That motion set free the blade, previously suspended aloft at the top of a long track. Descending downward, it dropped with a powerful and brutal force; anything in its way must either stop its fall or be sliced in two.

  A whirring noise rippled across the square, reaching Jean-Luc and prompting him to shiver in dread. Then, a second later, the whir turned into a crunch. The workers applauded, hopping back up onto the platform to see the outcome of the demonstration. “Cut clean through, she did!”

  “The ole girl never fails.”

  Jean-Luc stumbled forward and let out a muffled groan. Just then the men turned and squinted into the darkened street. “Oi, you, what you doin’ here? No spectators ’til the appointed hour!”

  “Maybe he just wants to try the ole girl out for himself?”

  “Go on then, climb up and have a look. Mind your head!”

  Bellowing laughter echoed through the square, but Jean-Luc didn’t reply. He felt faint and heard only the sound of the retching that poured the bile out of his gut and spilled it out over the street. He wiped his mouth and gazed back across the square that in a few hours’ time would be washed in red.

  The day of Kellermann’s execution dawned clear and cold. The crowd came out early, the women staking out the prime spots at the front before the platform, where they unfurled their knitting and awaited the tumbrils that would bear their ill-fated passengers across the river and into La Place de la Révolution.

  As the hour approached, André felt drawn to La Place by the pull of some unseen force, as if he owed it to General Kellermann to bear witness as the great man departed an ungrateful world.

  André noticed the abundance of carts and vendors present on days like this, merchants selling apples, plums, barrels of wine and ale, and even linen for dresses. The summer heat kept most people outdoors anyway, but on execution days the crowds gathered in exceptional numbers, and a crowd meant customers, business. André couldn’t blame a man for trying to provide for his family, but the mere fact that it had become customary to gather and profit from the machinery of death was a sight he never accepted. A young girl, no older than five years, approached him with her hand out. She was clothed in little more than an oversized brown shift, her arms and legs stained a lighter brown. Her eyes had little light in them, and she refused to meet his gaze as she begged for his charity. With an ache of pity, André knelt and handed her a sou, and wondered what more executions would do to improve her life, and indeed the lives of the countless other impoverished children left hopeless and begging on the streets.

  “André.”

  Hearing a voice behind him, he turned around and saw Sophie emerging from the crowd. Her eyes were moist with tears, and the sight of her sent a stab of pain through his chest.

  “Oh, André.”

  He walked over to her and they embraced. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “You shouldn’t have come. You don’t need to see this.”

  “I know. I wish I could be anywhere but here, but I also know how much you loved him. How much you all loved him. We can’t do anything for him now, but we can at least say goodbye.” André held her to his chest; otherwise she would have seen the tears that swelled in his own eyes.

  They turned and made their way to join the crowd gathering toward the center of La Place, managing to push their way toward the front, where guards with bayonets struggled to hold the hordes back. Their view of the guillotine was partially obscured by someone waving a large tricolor flag. A noise from behind drew André’s attention and he glanced back; there, over the sea of fists and hands, a tumbril rolled into the square at precisely three o’clock, its arrival greeted by uproarious cheers and shouting.

  There was just one carriage loaded with ashen-faced passengers. As the cart rolled to a halt before the platform, the horses whinnied in response to the noise of the crowd. The front horse jerked its head, attempting to rear up before its coachman gave it a cuff. Even these beasts, so seasoned in their daily task of bearing the tumbrils into the sea of madness, were jumpier than usual. Perhaps, André thought, they sensed the heightened energy of the crowd inside La Place today.

  André and Sophie watched as the carriage gate was lowered. He was able to see the condemned more clearly now—six of them, the day’s haul. Kellermann stood at the back of the carriage, the tallest passenger. He wore the gray sackcloth of the prisoner. His hair had been shorn, his familiar gray-laced ponytail gone. The crowd had seen him, too, and even though there were five figures before him, some began to chant his name.

  A middle-aged man was escorted up to the platform first. His escorts turned into his carriers when his knees buckled halfway up the steps and he fell to the ground, his hands clenched in supplication. When he was jostled into position, the crowd roared ever louder. Still he cried out, begging for deliverance.

  “You will have it, soon enough,” André mouthed, as the man’s head was fitted into the smooth wooden cradle. André joined the crowd in a collective gasp, a sharp intake of breath, when the rope was pulled loose from the apparatus. The blade whirred downward and euphoria erupted around André and Sophie when the man’s head fell away from the body into the woven basket.

  Two women were brought forward next—sisters, by the look of it. They clutched each other, their unnaturally thin arms interwoven like spools of braided thread. The guards wrested them apart and the first one was ushered up the stairs, her face wracked with terror as she looked back at her companion.

  “Amélie!” The one who had been held back reached out a pale hand toward the platform. Her hair was the same strawberry blond shade as her sister’s and, like her sister’s, had been cropped short. Some guard would make a pretty fortune off those two heads of hair.

  The sister on the platform was being roughly handled, pushed into place in spite of her protests. The neck rest was slicked with the other man’s blood. She threw one last look out at her sister, who was shrieking and reaching for her still. “Amélie!”

  The girl on the platform moved her lips fast, inaudibly, reciting a prayer. Her head was taken in Sanson’s hands and slid into place under the blade. The crowd cheered ever louder when her head tumbled free, joining that of the middle-aged man.

  Her lifeless frame was tossed behind the platform as her sister was led upward. André looked around, more aghast than even a moment earlier.

  “You’ll join her now, dearie!” A toothless man to the right of André and Sophie snickered, picking at his gums as he did so. André took hold of Sophie and shuffled her away from the man. He wished that Sophie hadn’t come, and he feared that she would be sick. He had seen enough death on the battlefield as to become hardened to it, but t
his was something else entirely. He shut his eyes and grasped Sophie’s hand with a gentle but firm grip.

  The young woman’s sobs were silenced by the blade as her head joined her sister’s. André saw the next victim. He was a youth, fair-skinned and small in frame. André guessed that he could have been no more than twelve, judging by his smooth cheeks that had not yet grown even the hint of a beard. An innocent, surely, his only crime being born into a doomed family.

  The young boy was looking to his fellow prisoner as the guards called his name. Kellermann returned his stare, and André noticed the general give the boy a touch on the shoulder. He said something, its sound and meaning immediately lost to the crowd, but the boy heard it and nodded his head.

  “Enough of that—get on with it!” The same toothless man near André was growing impatient, echoing the sentiments of the crowd around them. The guard responded to this mounting restiveness and jerked the boy from Kellermann’s side. The child appeared now as though he would cry, but he did not. As he neared the top of the scaffold, he turned his gaze back toward Kellermann, who offered a barely perceptible nod.

  There were just two of them left now. Kellermann would go last, André suspected, and the other remaining prisoner was pulled forward: a white-haired man, much older than the others. And fidgety. But unlike the others, who had exhibited their fear openly, the old man seemed oddly at ease, even cheerful. He chattered toward the prison guards, gesturing with his bound hands as if to ask them to untie them. When the guards wouldn’t untie the bindings, the man laughed, looking out over the crowd and continuing to babble as if in the midst of a riveting conversation. He tittered to himself, turning back to the guards with a discordant smile, no light of understanding in his eyes.