After we returned home, I hoped for a visit from Pierre-André, who came to stay the night two or three times a week. On occasion he arrived early enough to share our dinner. He once told me that I was without exception the worst cook of his acquaintance, which reminded me of a similar assessment made by Joséphine years earlier. The playfulness of his tone did not fool me and, whenever he shared our meal, I bought food from a nearby inn owned by one of our countrymen.
Often I was already asleep when he unlocked the front door. That noise instantly roused me. I listened to his step, which I could recognize from any other. He undressed in silence, without lighting the candles. My heart beating fast, I waited for the moment when he would join me in bed and take me in his arms. I would awaken several times during the course of the night and listen to his breathing in the dark. His presence brought me strength, comfort, reassurance. I ran my fingers on his skin. I was not trying to wake him. I wanted only to touch him. I felt him, still asleep, stir against me. He moaned, his hands reached for me, his lips sought mine before he was even awake.
One night, he lit the candles after our embrace and raised himself on one elbow. He caressed the scar on my shoulder. I told him of the man who had hit me with his sabre on the 10th of August.
“Yes,” he said, “at the Insurrectional Municipality, we had given instructions not to harm or violate any women found in the Palace. You know how it goes. Out of 100,000 people, you always have a few scoundrels who do not follow orders and go on a rampage. You were fortunate, my beloved, to escape with a flesh wound.”
He then ran his forefinger over the scar under my left breast. I shuddered.
“This is something else,” he said. “If it had been deeper, the apex of the heart would have been perforated. How did this happen?”
I could not bring myself to tell Pierre-André of the duel between my brother and Villers. I looked away as I said:
“Also on the 10th of August.”
Before I realized what was happening, his hand had moved from my breast to my throat, which it held like a vice. I gasped and brought my hands to my neck in an attempt to defend myself, in vain. I abandoned the struggle and closed my eyes, ready to die. All of a sudden, Pierre-André’s grip loosened.
“You are lying,” he said coldly. “I told you to put an end to this habit of yours.” I was still light-headed, trying to catch my breath. “And you take me for an imbecile. This is not a recent scar. I want the truth now.”
I looked into Pierre-André’s eyes. “My brother did it. Please do not be angry with him. It was an accident.”
“Your brother? How interesting. Tell me about it.”
Pierre-Andre listened carefully to the story.
“I beg your forgiveness for lying to you,” I said. “I will never do it again. I was afraid you would create trouble for my brother.”
“You should know me better than that. On the contrary, I commend him for trying to kill Villers. I thought that Castel had let you become that man’s mistress without lifting a finger to stop that infamy. I would also have fought anyone who took liberties with the honour of a sister, with one difference: I would not have missed the scoundrel. Your brother, I will admit it, is no coward, though he lacks other qualities. I remember that fight we had in Lavigerie, after the banns for your marriage were published. He was not afraid of me in spite of my rage, and there are few men of whom I can say the same.”
“So you think more highly of him now that you know about the duel?”
“I do, my beloved, which does not mean much. He is an arrogant, selfish, evil-spirited aristocrat, but he does once in a while, not often, display some feeling for you.”
“Would you then, if I asked you, do a thing which would take a great weight off my mind?”
“If I understand you well, little minx,” said Pierre-André, a thin smile on his lips, “you are asking for a favour to reward your lies. Granting it would not be a very moral outcome, would it?”
“I cannot hide from you the fact that, regardless of what he did, I love my brother. I was trying to protect him. I would lie to protect you too.”
Pierre-André laughed. “Heaven help me if it ever came to that. You are inept at lying.”
“So would you grant me that favour?”
“Ask, since you have no shame.”
“Would you ask your brother Jean-Baptiste, who is now all powerful in Auvergne, to make sure that no harm comes to the Marquis?”
“That depends as much on the behaviour of the Marquis, since you insist on giving him that title, as on Jean-Baptiste’s influence. He is not as powerful as you think. Moreover, your brother behaved to mine in an abominably insolent manner when Jean-Baptiste sought your hand in marriage on my behalf. Castel used still more offensive language after he discovered our proposed elopement. Jean-Baptiste is an even-tempered man, far more so than I, but those were words no one can easily forgive.”
“Still, would you ask him?”
“Here is what I will do. Provided that Citizen Castel abstain from doing anything patently stupid, I do not mind asking Jean-Baptiste to cast an indulgent eye upon your brother’s little aristocratic oddities. I am even willing to extend that favour to your sister, the ci-devant Countess de Chavagnac.” Pierre-André looked grave again. “Now, my beloved, I want something to be clear.”
“What is it?”
“I am prepared to extend some protection to your brother and sister, but this will stop here. In the future, some of your so-called friends may stand trial before the Tribunal for their crimes. I do not want to be pestered by any pleas for clemency. Not only would they fail to influence me, but they would greatly irritate me.”
I made no response.
“Is it understood?” he continued, frowning. “Do you promise not to ask me to do anything I would deem contrary to justice?”
“I do.”
My promise was not put to the test then. Pierre-André informed me that the 17th of August Tribunal was to be dissolved shortly.
“Are you unhappy about it?” I asked.
“No. I am to join the Court for the Second District as a judge, with the same salary, and I will of course remain a member of the Council General of the Municipality. To tell you the truth, most of the scoundrels we should have tried were massacred by the mobs in September. To keep us busy, we were given jurisdiction over ordinary criminal cases, which was foreign to the purpose of the Tribunal.”
Pierre-André shook his head. “And Osselin, the President, is not a bad man, but he could not manage a courtroom. He let the accused and defense attorneys rant for hours on irrelevant matters. Sometimes I would run out of patience and, although it was not my place, intervene to restore a semblance of order. No, I will be perfectly happy to hear regular cases again. That is what I used to do as a Commissioner. Also, my beloved, it will leave me more time to enjoy your company.”
December 1792 saw the beginning of the King’s trial before the National Convention. A month earlier, a cache of documents, known as the “Iron Armoire” had been discovered in the Tuileries following the disclosures of the locksmith who had crafted it. It contained proof of the Court’s schemes since the beginning of the Revolution, under the form of correspondence with the enemy, plotting the defeat of France and the arrival of the foreign armies as “liberators” of the country.
The deposed King was to be tried for his crimes, or mistakes, depending on one’s opinion, before the elected Representatives of the Nation. He argued his case with composure and was defended by skilled lawyers. The result of that vote, which lasted many days, is well known: the National Convention, by an overwhelming majority, sentenced him to death. The issue of the stay of execution, however, was almost tied. Those in favor of immediate death were only one vote ahead. It was the Duke d’Orléans’s vote that sent his cousin to the guillotine, an action that won him the enmity of the royalists and revolutionaries alike. With the King dead, his younger brothers in exile and the little Dauphin still a child, the Du
ke d’Orléans strengthened his position as pretender to the throne. His vote could hardly have been disinterested.
The King was guillotined on the 21st of January, 1793. The National Guard and all forty-eight Sections of Paris were on high alert, but no one made any gesture to save the former monarch or even to protest his execution. Whether one deemed it an act of justice or of cruelty, there was no turning back now.
I received the news with sadness, although there were loud celebrations from some quarters. In the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, an inn inaugurated a new manner to serve veal’s head, in a vinaigrette sauce, in honour of the late King’s execution. That dish became a staple on the 21st of January, which was proclaimed a national holiday. I have never been fond of that gruesome delicacy, for the sight of a severed head, even that of an animal, has always aroused my pity.
73
One would imagine that writing is an innocent enough activity. Yet it seems to irritate some. Aimée has been watching me with some curiosity, and now my granddaughter Gabriella is bemoaning the slow pace of my progress in making a new dress for her doll.
“Now poor Janie will not have anything new to wear this spring,” she says, shaking her head sadly.
“Yes, she will, my treasure,” I say, smiling. “My late mother, just like you, used to complain bitterly about my sloth. I will make amends for it and finish Janie’s dress before Sunday. Now are you happy?”
“I have seen you write much lately, Mama,” says Aimée. “What about?”
“It is a memoir of my life during the Revolution, dear.”
“Why?”
“Why not? Writing pains me and soothes me at the same time.”
Aimée rings for a maid to take Gabriella to her governess.
“It is time for your lessons, my dear,” she says, without heeding her daughter’s protests.
Once we are alone, Aimée looks straight at me. “Why, Mama, would you want to recall those times? Are they not better forgotten?”
“I have never forgotten them, Aimée. Have you?”
“I do not want to be reminded of them. And I do not want Gabriella to know anything about them.”
“What do you remember?”
“Enough. I remember running with you through a gilded hall. You shot at a man and he tried to cut your head off with his sabre. You were covered with blood. I remember a garden strewn with naked cadavers.”
“That was at the Tuileries, on the 10th of August 1792, my dearest, just before your seventh birthday.”
“And I remember us moving to a hovel, and then moving again and again. We had to change names several times. We were always hiding, always fleeing. You were arrested before my eyes. I thought I would never see you again. Indeed, I was living with the constant dread of losing you.”
I laid aside the doll’s dress.
“It is not all,” she continues. “I remember a dark-haired man, with a deep voice. To me, he looked like a giant. He was always dressed in black. He would call at night. When he had dinner with us, I was so terrified that I could not eat a thing or say a word.” She shakes her head. “You would stop whatever you were doing when you recognized his step on the stairs. You would run to the door and throw yourself in his arms as if there were no other refuge in the world. I remember the way you looked at him. I have never seen you act in this manner with anyone else.”
Tears fill my eyes.
“When he was there,” says Aimée, “I no longer existed.”
I rise to sit by her on the sofa. “How can say such a thing, Aimée? Since you were born, your comfort and safety have been my foremost concern. I have not made a single decision in my life without thinking first of how it would affect you. True, that man you remember was, with you, all I had. He saved my life on more than one occasion. You knew it, and should have been grateful to him.”
Aimée rises and walks to the window. “What about my father? Why have you never told me anything about him?”
“I was doing you and his memory a kindness by sparing you the recital of my married life.” I sigh. “Your father is indeed mentioned in my memoir. I had not intended for you to read it, but perhaps you should. You might understand why I kept silent.”
Aimée, without leaving the window, turns towards me. “You must remain so. I do not want to know more about that other man.”
“Would you, my own daughter, presume to tell me what to do?”
Aimée looks down. “No, Madam, but I do not wish to see the past revived.”
“It is not for you to decide.”
“You are writing about my life too.”
“Maybe so, Aimée, but I will write what I want, whenever I want. It would pain me to see Gabriella and you leave, but I will not receive orders from my daughter in my own house.”
Aimée is sobbing. I walk to her and take her in my arms. She apologizes. Maybe the feelings she expresses towards Pierre-André are normal. I have long suspected that she might have been jealous of him. Aimée’s tears will not deter me from my purpose. On the contrary, there may now be another reason for me to write about the past.
On the night of the King’s execution, Pierre-André handed me an assignat of 100 francs.
“Buy some fabric,” he said. “I want you to rid yourself of your widow’s costume. Anyone wearing mourning will be suspected of doing so on account of Capet’s execution And you will make sure both of you pin tricolour cockades to your bonnets.”
I bought fabric, one brown with a print of small pink roses and the other pale lavender with black dots, and sewed matching dresses for Aimée and myself. I hid my hair, whenever I went out, by wearing a coqueluchon of the same fabric. It was a waist-long mantle with a hood, which had just become fashionable. Pierre-André was right: mourning clothes were now deemed a display of royalist sentiment. I was, in any case, happy to return to more cheerful fashions.
I was pinning the hem of one of Aimée’s new dresses when she asked: “Mama, do you think Citizen Pierre-André is a nice man?”
“Yes, I do. He is our best, our only friend now.”
“Why did not we see him before, when we lived on Rue Dominique?”
“He and I did not meet often then, but I have known him for a very long time.”
“How long?”
“I told you, Aimée, a long time.”
“Did you know him before Monsieur de Villers?”
“Yes, dear, years before.”
“Even before you married my Papa?”
I looked into Aimée’s eyes. “Yes, I knew him even before my marriage. Listen, Aimée, you are too young to understand certain things. What you need to know is that I would have gone back to jail if Citizen Pierre-André had not helped me.” I sighed. “He is also very generous to us. Without him, we would be on a bread and water diet, and only on the good days, because on the bad ones we would have nothing at all to eat. We would still be in our garret on Rue de l’Hirondelle. I remember that you did not like that place much.”
She shook her head. “No, I did not.”
“So we must not be ungrateful. We owe him everything.”
“Are you going to marry him?”
“No, my dear, I do not think so.”
“I used to think that you would marry Monsieur de Villers.”
“Did you want me to?”
“I would have liked to have a papa. I know I had one, of course, but he is dead. I do not remember him at all. Monsieur de Villers was so kind to me. He gave me Margaret. He taught me to ride. I liked being at Vaucelles or going to Normandy to visit Madame de Gouville. Perhaps he would have been still nicer if you had married him. Citizen Pierre-André never does anything with me.”
“Well, he has not much time. It does not mean that he does not like you. He does a great deal for you.”
“I know. Oh, Mama, I am not ungrateful. You are the best Mama that ever lived. I am very happy because now you can be with me all the time, except of course when Citizen Pierre-André is around.”
She threw
her arms around my neck.
Pierre-André’s career took another turn. Some Representatives, led by Danton, had insisted on the creation of a new tribunal, modeled on that formed on the 17th of August. Its mandate was to punish swiftly and without the possibility of any appeal “those guilty of counterrevolutionary schemes against liberty, equality, the unity of the Republic, the safety of the Nation and the sovereignty of the people.” The National Convention agreed, and the Revolutionary Tribunal came into existence. Pierre-André joined the new court as a judge.
The circumstances were dire. After the victories of the autumn of 1792, the war against the Prussians and Austrians was taking a new turn for the worse. A new general-in-chief, Dumouriez, had betrayed the Nation, and, as Lafayette had done the previous summer, defected to the enemy. The whole west of France had risen against the draft of 300,000 men decreed by the National Convention to feed the armies. Civil war was now raging, with its center around Nantes. Thus a second battlefront appeared, this time on the west. It was marked by atrocities on both sides, too gruesome to be reported here. Royalist insurgents were ready to besiege Nantes, while an army of émigrés, supported by English ships, was rumoured to prepare to attack the city by sea. I heard again of a man I had long forgotten. Carrier, my late husband’s attorney, had been elected as a Representative for the Département of Cantal to the National Convention. The violence and passion of his speeches at the Cordeliers Club had made him famous. He was sent as a Representative in Mission to Nantes to save the city from attack and quell the rebellion.
Lauzun, after various commands on the foreign fronts in the Netherlands and Italy, had also been sent to the west to fight the insurgents. There, he clashed with Jacobin officers, especially General Rossignol, a former goldsmith, who did not like to answer to a ci-devant Duke. More ominously, Lauzun won the enmity of Carrier, who revoked his command and had him arrested. I still had no news from Hélène, which, under the circumstances, I could hardly equate with good news.
Mistress of the Revolution: A Novel Page 46
