Reign of Fear: Story of French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars (Cantiniére Tales)

by Longward, Alaric

  Weeks rolled by and prices went up.

  One rainy day, I was fidgeting at the local baker’s, counting tarnished coins while persistent Jean was trying a desperate escape, when I heard from an old, overly excited grandmother that the Third Estate had denounced the Estates General, and claimed to be the one, the true body whom the whole stubborn government should revolve around. They called themselves the Commons.

  Normally, that would mean vengeful soldiers, unhappy prisoners, and swift reprisals, but our king was cautious. Therefore, things started to move from bottom up, for like a child who is not punished for mischief, the people saw a dangerous door opening, and used it. Common people were energized, took active sides in the conflict, happy, yet terrified by what they were doing. The Commons were joined by some priests in June, and the indecisive king, while not ordering his confused soldiers to disperse the openly rebellious body of men, ordered the estate to be locked out of the meeting rooms. Instead, they met at the tennis court, and wowed not to disperse before a new constitution has been degreed. No madly radical words of deposing of the king were uttered yet, Marie. Nothing like that. They were just men wanting a change. New constitution? The royals were still part of that. Mirabeau, the rouge noble heading the Third Estate wanted royals, though more humble ones. Lafayette, the noble enthralled by the American way, having fought there, having brought many interesting ideas over, agreed. King should have modest powers, but a constitutional monarchy, instead of absolute one, was their goal, like that of Britain.

  Had Louis done something then, rejected these ideas with swords and crushed them all like frogs, things might have gone differently, but he did not. Soon, the movement was calling itself the National Assembly, giving it an ominous air of importance. Again, no swift military activity was apparent. The king, a fool, recognized the validity of the rogue meeting. Instead of shooting the sulking Third Estate, he ordered the nobles and the priests to join them, but by that, he gave power to Mirabeau and the others. The mutinous French Guard was no longer reliable, and the king had cause to fear. It was the end of June 1789.

  I scarcely understood that great things were happening. I cared for the twins, and struggled to buy them food with the few coins I was given. Nothing is more humiliating, Marie, than to tell a scowling baker you can only afford half of what is the smallest loaf. To be a virtual mother to wild twins aged one year old, Marie, is a thing to make one grow one up quickly. I no longer thought of pranks in the streets, I was too tired, unreasonably angry, and nervous even in my sleep. I was more concerned about the prices of the loaves of bread, and whatever the twins would sleep soundly, or wake up coughing, than my old, foolish concerns, and I thought Gilbert had been right to claim our fine, joyful childhood was over. Florian helped me when he did not work, but I was very alone as I ritualistically counted our coins for food, cursing the prices and so I suffered. One morning, the lines to the bakery were incredibly long, growing angry and restless and a young servant woman finally confuted when she spied two footmen for a nearby noble getting served first, sidestepping the volatile line, and they all surged forward. The footmen were properly clobbered, the hapless baker was beaten and robbed clean, and I went home, with no bread. Madame Fourier gave us some soup, but I fretted over where I would go for food the next day, especially if mother worked in the morning.

  Then, on a Friday, mother came home, apparently beaten, and bloody from a gash on her forehead. I asked her what had happened, as I administered cold water on the small cut. She did not say, but insisted she must sleep. She was sore, very angry at first, and then silently fey, until she fell asleep, but she cried bitterly as she slept.

  Next day, Florian told me Colbert had put Adam forth as a candidate for a vacant mastership of the Paris Book Guild. I spied Gilbert on a road, running a desperately swift errand for his father. If possible, Gilbert looked like a balloon, one of the new wonderful things you could see during the feast days being flown across they sky, the globe aérostatisque. He was so proud, I saw it on his glowing, determined face, but I wanted to run along with him, and cursed, as I could not. I spied him coming back, and Adam slapping him, shaking him so hard his head flew back and forward and Gilbert wept, as he went back out to fetch something he had apparently forgotten. I hated Adam.

  That evening we heard the crowds had freed some mutinous French Guards by brute force from a prison near us. There were loud demonstrations on our street too. People in dirty clothes were protesting with angry tones, and marching around loudly with seemingly no purpose and mother and I were on the open window, enjoying the crisp air and wondrous sounds of the rowdy people. She eyed the raucous crowd, and I saw longing in her eyes. ‘If it were not for you, love, I would join them and things would be different,’ she said. I felt lonely after those words, and she saw it, regretting her words. She hugged me fiercely, turned me to face her. ‘No matter what Jeanette, I have you, and that is most important. The little monsters too. I will do anything to keep you safe, and think of myself when it is so.’

  That night, she would prove her fateful words, for at midnight, I heard footsteps on the stair and the demons came out to play.

  I knew Gilbert’s padding steps, but there were heavier steps following him. A man was laughing with a voice of a madman, and I thought they were going to Adam’s apartment, but instead they passed it ominously, the steps determined and they came to our door, and mother slowly got up, shaking in fear while pulling on a shirt. The lock turned. In came Colbert, but not the Colbert I knew. This one was utterly drunk, his powdered wig askew, a piece of white cake in his wine stained hand. He was eating the fine cake frugally, cherishing it and I felt anger, for we were starving, while he enjoyed the luxury. Behind him stood Adam, and Gilbert was peeking from behind his father, his face nervous, but somehow different. He walked in after Adam, and I noticed he also was drunk, very drunk, smiling foolishly at things we could not see, mumbling to himself. Colbert saw my appraising look, and grinned, while he ogled at the twins, who were asleep, and then he looked at my pale mother, and thumbed my direction. ‘She has to go. Gilbert can keep her company.’

  Mother looked at me, worried. ‘Why does she have to go?

  Colbert burped and smiled apologetically. ‘It is God who has blessed us. We are here because of him and because our talented Adam is now a Master in the Paris Book Guild, and I want to give him a mighty present, something he has long desired. It is a fruit I own, have tasted and savored and wish to taste again, tonight, in good company.’

  I cursed him and his God, for there was something happening I could not fathom, and I was afraid. Henriette shook her head in denial, and Adam walked slowly forward, looking at me, his eyes strangely intense. ‘Jeanette, go and play with Gilbert,’ he said, his face flushed with expectation.

  ‘I will not…’ I started, but mother eyes were pleading for me to obey. Even Gilbert was hesitant.

  He looked ill as he took hesitant steps towards me. ‘Father...’ He started, but Adam whirled on him.

  ‘Take her out, you boy-loving rat,’ Adam yelled at Gilbert, who blanched. ‘Remember what I told you. Do so, and I will forget your many offenses.’

  Colbert waved his hand at me. ‘It is all good, love. Your mother will be fine. She works for me and Madame Fourier, you see, and Adam is just another welcome customer, tonight.’

  ‘You want her to wash his shirt?’ I asked, and after an awkward pause, they stared at me incredulously, and then burst into laughter. Adam was holding his belly.

  ‘Florian told you she works at the Seine?’ Adam asked me, but I glowered at them, not enjoying the mocking attention. Mother gripped my shoulders, shaking in fear as she pushed me out, Gilbert following me, uncertainly. I did not understand it then, I was young, but Gilbert pulled me after him and I saw mother’s eyes, haunted and full of terror, as she closed the door.

  ‘Don’t come back, boy, until late, you ugly fool,’ Adam called after Gilbert, who shook in anger.

  We went down the sta
irs, Gilbert pulling me after him, forcing me to move until I grew angry with him and pushed him off. He opened his mouth in surprise, and the drunken beast took him over as he pushed me back, and grabbed me roughly.

  ‘What is going on in there? What do they want?’ I asked him. He was silent for a long time, glancing at me, unsure of his answer, opening his mouth, closing it, anger and regret playing on his chiseled face.

  ‘I told him the secret, but it was a mistake,’ he murmured.

  ‘Tell me, then, and then tell me what…’

  ‘No,’ he told me, his drunken eyes full of determination. ‘I have to make amends, I do. I have to become a man, as he asks me to. I’m sorry, Jeanette, but I have to grow up, swiftly, and obey him. Come, and I will tell you what is happening up there.’

  He held onto my arm while he walked me down the chilly night street, guiding me to an abandoned, dirty alley we sometimes hid at, and I was confused, as he finally turned me around, and looked me in the eye.

  ‘Your mother,’ he blurted, ‘your beautiful, blissfully dutiful mother is a whore in Colbert’s whorehouse, run by that hag Fourier.’ Then he pulled out my mother’s watch. ‘Mine now. Adam says it is my heirloom, a reward for me, especially if I make him proud. And I will.’ He looked at the watch, uncertainly, at loss, drunk, bordering on melancholy.

  That was the time things could have turned otherwise.

  I could have been calm and wise like a sage of old, and I could have cried, and endured his words, the terrible words and accepted what had happened, but all thoughts of care evaporated to the thin air at his terrible words and the watch unsettled me greatly. Anger and panic crept in.

  So I pushed him, and his face turned from blank into astonished. I accosted him, not sensing the danger. ‘You stole it from him, didn’t you?’ I mocked him while tears were flowing on my cheeks, for I knew Adam would never let Gilbert have such a thing. Mother was a whore?

  ‘Perhaps, but mine anyways,’ he mumbled, thumbing the beautiful thing, his eyes hard and upset and drunk.

  I tried to understand it all, feeling all alone and terrified, for I was next in line for their business, when I grew up, and perhaps I did not need to grow up much. I was morbidly afraid, beset with fears, and I wanted our watch back, somehow feeling it would return a portion of our honor back to us. ‘It is ours, father owed him money, not mother!’ I said, pushed him again, this time angrily, and tried to grab the watch.

  Gilbert’s drunken eyes focused on me, and he slapped me hard, and I fell against the wall. He looked shocked, but then even angrier and he flew into a wild tantrum, like a rogue sprit torn free from hell as he danced around, cursing, shrieking unholy oaths and laughing and crying. ‘You! You dare push me? Is it my fault?’ He rushed for me, and grabbed me by my throat, and I could barely breathe, as his claw-like hand was holding me to the wall. I was afraid, for he was drunk, vicious and no longer my friend and somehow in his eyes, I saw it was Adam who had replaced Gilbert, and I think the boy I knew died there that moment.

  ‘Gilbert, I am sorry…’

  He spat at me. ‘It is not yours, Jeanette, the watch. Father is right. You are from the weak side of the family. You are like Guillemin. Your father was ever the pretty, spoiled brat, and my father was hated and detested, for he was sickly. Now, it is all different, and all will be repaid. Adam takes your mother, but since you think yourself so high as to push me, the boy who has been pushed all my life, perhaps I will have you. Did they not say, you would one day work in Fourier’s beds? I will break you in, I will.’ Then he pushed me again to a dirty wall, grunting savagely, as if fighting a demonic thought. He lost and gave in to the demon as he put his hand between my legs, forcefully. I was terrified, shocked, trying to push him away desperately, but he was powerful, mad with betrayal and drink and he shoved me back and grinned, his face hovering near mine, his fingers seeking my privates, starting to tear at the skirt. He was there, so close to me, the boy I had known, finally given in to the whisperings of his father. ‘I am a grown up and father will appreciate me. One day, soon, perhaps you will be a whore, as your mother is to the rest of the family, eh? Perhaps one day, I will hump her too.’ he said, and that is when I found a drop of my courage from sea of terror, stopped trying to end his advances and raked my finger in his eye. It was not a strong move, or a calculated one, for I was shaking, afraid and out of my mind, but it was a lucky move, for he had been trying to kiss me savagely, moving forward with the filthy purpose and my finger sunk into the left eye socket, pulling at the orb as he recoiled, and it came out of the redly oozing hole to tangle on his cheek.

  He let go of me in shock, and suddenly all the rage I had been harboring since father left burst out of me like thunder. I did not care about the fact we had been friends all our lives, nor of his shrieks as I kicked him, scratched him, and pushed him in utter rage. We were both screaming; I screamed in anger, he in pain. His hands flailed at me, but his eye injury was horrid, and he could only try to grasp at his pained face, while I let a raging banshee loose, and I beat him with my fists and seized a piece of wood, that was sturdy enough to kill a man. I hit him in the head, the ribs, the legs, losing sense of time and place.

  Suddenly, he fell silently and struck his head sickly on the cobblestones and he went still but for some gentle shuddering, and I was out of breath, the terrible anger spent. I leaned on the wall. I was standing there, forlorn and shocked, panting like a thirsty dog, and felt filthy, beyond hope. A young ballad singer frequenting the street to share his latest sentimental story of lost love was squatting at a corner of the main street and staring at us in the deep shadows with an open mouth, I noticed, and there were some rough women who were laughing, evidently approving of my humiliation of Gilbert.

  I panicked, contemplating on running far away. They would throw us out like rats, if we were lucky, or rather, we would die in a dirty prison. There would be no mercy for us, I though over and over again, as Gilbert’s eyeball tangled crazily on his cheek and I even tried to replace it in the red and raw hole oozing surprisingly bright blood. It was slippery, rubbery, impossible to replace, and I threw up on his chest. I let go of the eye, took a deep breath, dragged the boy deeper to the shadows, and squatted next to him. Should I get Florian? Would he get into trouble? Of course, he would. I had hit the man in the tavern with a bottle, now Gilbert. I cried bitterly, my tears mixing with the cold pools of rains on the cracks of the dark cobblestones, and I held arms around my head. The street was quiet.

  Then, a shadow squatted near me.

  I shrieked, but the dangerous shadow was but a girl my age. She put a finger on her thin lips. She was also blonde, but she was dirty, with hollow cheeks and torn dress. She likely lived in the filthy streets. ‘Hi. Marie-Louise. That is my name. A bit of a problem, this?’ She poked Gilbert as if he was a pile of rubbish.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, miserable. ‘I do not know what to do. They are hurting mother and I was angry and pushed him and he tried to…’

  ‘Shh.’ She put a hand on her cheek and pondered. ‘You mind if I loot him? Except the shirt. Could you not throw up on the side? Matters not,’ she said happily, as if one who is used to most hardships in the world and treated life as it was given.

  ‘Loot him?’ I asked, horrified.

  She looked at me like I was a simpleton. ‘Well, yes. What do you think I should do? Let you bury him with all this finery he has?’ She said, and poked Gilbert expertly.

  ‘I’m not burying him!’

  ‘Fine! But I will help you, if I can take this stuff. What does it matter, really?’

  I had a lingering suspicion she knew what I had to do, but I was not ready to face it yet. I supposed there was no real harm in letting her do the deed, and I needed her then, more than anything. ‘The watch is ours,’ I said and grabbed it quickly from Gilbert’s pocket. She grinned enviously and rifled through Gilbert’s clothing, then stripped him expertly, leaving him practically naked, but for the vomit stained shirt.

&nbs
p; ‘Good coin for these; Madame Grenouille buys used clothes, even bloody ones for she knows how to take the nasty stuff off. But I do detest vomit.‘

  ‘Does she know how to replace eyeballs?’ I asked, miserable, and she stared at me, and burst to laughter. She came over and let me cry on her shoulder, stroking me gently, until much time had passed. We stared at Gilbert, and both knew we needed an answer.

  She cleared her throat. ‘So, I have a suggestion,’ she said, smiling, urging me to listen. ‘I say he disappears, and you go home innocent and confused, pretending not to know where he went. You cannot let him go back, for he will not forget and will do terrible things to you. Might die of infection anyway.’

  In such a place, in such a time, Marie, it is sometimes hard to figure out what to do. You realize, instinctively, that any hard choice you make is going to be the final one, and there will be consequences, and some of us go limp, and do nothing.

  Not I.

  I thought of my mother, and the twins, and what our brutal relatives were likely doing to her while the babies were, hopefully, sleeping, and then I looked at Gilbert. My friend had changed, and while he had been drunk, I was terrified of him. I thought of Gilbert in the house, his eye balefully seeking me, and knew we would never be friends, and the damage had been done. I though of him gone, and fortified myself by the thought of his probing hands between my legs, and made a hard, hard decision.

  ‘How?’ I asked, wiping away my tears. She grinned, relieved.

  ‘Let him take the plunge?’ She asked, and I nodded. There were places under Paris, holes we had discovered, ruins below in the dark where we had almost drowned and ways that can take one to vast labyrinths the Romans began, quarrying limestone for their buildings. In this alley, a former street, there was one such deep hole on a side of a crumbling building. We dragged Gilbert roughly deeper in to the alleyway, dodging some curious stray cats and mangy dogs, and grunting, sweating with the herculean effort, we pushed his savage face, then his chest to a dark hole on the side of an old building. It was a dark maw running downhill, gently at first, and then came the sudden drop. I would put him there, on a slope, and push him all the way in to the jaws of darkness, and he would disappear, and I needed not fear him anymore, I thought as I tried to do the deed, my hands reluctant, but still working to make it so. We had often looked at the hole, thrown stones down there, and heard them roll down first, then fall free. Finally, we would hear sloshes, long way down. He would drown, and that would be the end of it.