“I may flee Paris if Pierre-André leaves. I do not want to attract attention by traveling with someone so conspicuous.”
“And why should I want someone so conspicuous, as you put it, around my house? She might be recognized as Pierre-André’s maid. My connection to my younger brother cannot be forgotten too soon.” He looked straight at me. “But you came here, I believe, to discuss his fate, not this woman. I was able to make arrangements. A countryman of ours by the name of Lescure owns an inn on Rue Croix des Petits Champs. Pierre-André is to knock at the back door at one o’clock tonight. The man has a false passport for him and will take him, hidden in his cart, to Clamart. There Pierre-André can catch the five o’clock stagecoach to Clermont. Jean-Baptiste will have a manservant meet him there. Pierre-André will have to hide in the mountains until things settle.”
“Can that man Lescure be trusted?”
“I have known him for years, and so has my brother. Pierre-André lent him money on more than one occasion, and even helped clear charges against him when Lescure was in trouble with his Section for hoarding flour.”
“So you are certain that the man will not betray Pierre-André?”
“I would trust him with my life.”
Pierre-André was pacing the parlour when I returned to my lodgings. I told him of Joseph’s plan.
“Something does not sound right,” I said. “I cannot bring myself to trust your brother. Please, I beg you, stay here with me.”
He sighed. “It is useless to insist. I have made up my mind to go. Lescure owes me more than money, after all, and in any event I have no choice. Please do not make it more difficult for me. Take care of yourself, Gabrielle, for your daughter’s sake and for my own. I put a great deal of effort into saving you, my beloved. Do not let it go to waste.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket. “There, keep these in memory of me.”
He handed me his watch and removed the antique ring from his little finger. “My body will go to the scoundrels who will kill me, but I want you to have these.”
I shook my head, refusing to take the objects. He put them in my hand and closed it around them.
“So you know that this so-called escape scheme is a trap,” I said. “Please, my love, listen to me. Do not go.”
“What else can I do? Stay here? Make you run the risk of being arrested for hiding a fugitive? You know that you would be sentenced to death too. Do you think I want you to be guillotined with me? Worse, to be massacred by a mob in jail like Citizen Duplay?”
“I am willing to take that risk.”
“I know. But what for? What kind of life is left for me? I still have you, my Gabrielle, my poor, my tender love, but my friends are dead, all of them. Can you imagine how it feels to be the last one standing? The Revolution is over; the Nation can fall prey to a dictator. Now that the fear of the Tribunal is gone, any victorious general may use his popularity to seize power. Liberty and equality are defeated, perhaps for decades. For me it is too late. I will not see them reborn. You may, but only if you live.”
He raised my face, forcing me to look at him. “You must live, Gabrielle. I beg you. You have done so much for me this past week, these past years. Now I am asking you to do still another thing. Please let me go, my beloved.” He pressed his lips on mine. “We will be reunited someday, I am sure of it, though maybe not in this world.”
I ran my hands on his face, kissed it, smelled it, filled my eyes with its image. I thought of the children we would not have, of the years we would not spend together, of all the things that take a lifetime to share. Words I had never spoken came to my mind, words he would never hear if I did not say them now. I needed to tell him all.
“You will never know…” I was shaken by sobs. “I will never see you again, and you will never know…”
He pressed me in his arms. His embrace was stronger than the crushing feeling in my chest. “I do know, my love. I have long known. Stop this. You are killing yourself, and me too.” He held my face in his hands. “Look at me. Promise me to live. I need to hear it.”
I could only moan. He held me by the shoulders and shook me.
“Do you promise? Say it.”
I caught my breath. “I promise.”
He left just after midnight. From the doorstep, I watched his large frame receding into the shadows of the stairwell. I listened to the sound of his footsteps, fainter and fainter. At last there was nothing left. He was gone. All was empty.
Finding any rest, any occupation was impossible. At dawn I dressed and woke Pélagie. I gave her a note, with instructions to take it to Manon if I did not return by nightfall.
I am sorry to have left you, dear Manon, without news for many months. I know that you must have worried about me, but please understand that I had no choice. You may trust the woman who will bring you this. She will lead you to Aimée. I may not live to see the end of this day. If I do not, I count on you to tell my sister, the Countess de Chavagnac, of my daughter’s whereabouts.
God bless you, dearest Manon, and Louise.
I left for the Tuileries while Aimée was still asleep. I went to her bedroom and took a long look at her before setting off. I passed the Common House, followed the banks of the river until I reached the hall of the Convention in the Tuileries. I remembered the 10th of August, the bodies of Swiss Guards, the man who had wanted to behead me with his sabre, even Villers.
Wrapped in my mantle, I sat with the public in the galleries of the Convention, waiting for the session to begin. I knew that there I would be able to follow the evolution of the general situation, and, as much as I dreaded it, obtain the first news of Pierre-André’s arrest if his fate was indeed to fall prey to his enemies.
The session opened at nine in the morning. The Representatives were still congratulating themselves upon the fall of the “tyrant” Robespierre eight days earlier. I was too numbed by sorrow and boredom to pay much attention to the speeches. Suddenly, a man, out of breath, ran into the hall and shouted, “Coffinhal was arrested. He has been taken to La Conciergerie.”
That announcement drew cheers from the Representatives. For a moment, the hall seemed to swirl around me. I saw the panting man climb the stairs to the President’s chair and whisper in his ear. I heard the latter ring his bell to demand silence.
“It seems that we have a difficulty,” he said. “Since the Revolutionary Tribunal is temporarily closed pending its regeneration, Coffinhal was taken to the ordinary Criminal Court.”
“To death!” yelled several Representatives. “No trial for the traitor!”
The President again rang his bell to call for order. “It is not so easy as it sounds. Oudard, the President of the Criminal Court, has declined any jurisdiction over political crimes. He refuses to sentence Coffinhal to death.”
Oudard must have been a brave man. For a few minutes, I entertained the hope that Pierre-André could be saved.
One of the Representatives stood from his seat and shouted: “The traitor must perish today. We cannot wait for the Revolutionary Tribunal to reopen. Let us put to the votes a special bill ordering the Criminal Court to sentence Coffinhal to death.”
Cries of “Death to the traitor!” echoed through the hall.
I have since read that bill. In it Pierre-André’s name was misspelled Coffinal, another indication of the urgency the Convention felt to put an end to his life. Pierre-André Coffinhal, who had presided over so many trials, was denied one. For him there would be no evidence, no witnesses, no arguments. He was sentenced to death upon the declarations of two clerks who merely attested to his identity.
86
After hearing that the bill sending Pierre-André to the guillotine had passed, I ran in a heavy summer rain to La Conciergerie. I knew that he would be executed immediately and prayed that I was not too late. When I reached the courthouse, a group of women had gathered around the prison entrance in the Cour du Mai. I had heard of that hideous crowd. They were called the lécheuses de guillotine, “guillotine l
ickers” and waited there every day to escort the prisoners on their last journey on earth. The cart, with its large white horses, was ready.
I held my breath as Pierre-André appeared, his hands tied behind his back, surrounded by a dozen guards. A slash cut across one of his eyebrows. He was greeted by the cries of the women. He climbed alone the steps to the cart and sat on one of the planks, sullen, facing backwards. The cart, escorted by rows of mounted gendarmes, slowly crossed the Pont-Neuf and turned into Rue Honoré in the direction of the Place de la Révolution. The rain drenched Pierre-André, gluing his black hair to his face and his shirt to his chest. The weather had not discouraged a howling crowd from gathering. The sight of human suffering is too alluring not to attract spectators. Cowards who would not have dared come within ten yards of Pierre-André if he had been free sidled between the horses of the gendarmes and climbed onto the cart, shouting insults. A well-dressed man was trying to poke him through the bars with a closed umbrella. I remembered witnessing similar behaviour towards a caged lion at the ménagerie of the Garden of the Plants. People were yelling: “Coffinhal, you are out of order!” and repeating to him some of the jokes Dumas had made on the bench. Pierre-André looked around with contempt and shrugged in silence at the jeers.
I followed the cart, my knees unsteady, leaning on strangers in the crowd to keep from stumbling. Midway to the place of execution Pierre-André saw me. His look pierced me. I started, but his face relaxed and from then on he kept his eyes fixed upon me. My strength returned. I had to be brave for his sake. He would leave this world assured that I would not give in to sorrow.
When the cortege reached the guillotine, placed next to the bronzed statue of Liberty that had replaced that of the late King Louis the Fifteenth, Pierre-André looked up with what seemed like relief. His lips moved as he took one last look at me. I will never know whether he was saying a prayer. Perhaps he was bidding me farewell or telling me to remember my last promise to him. Then he shook his head sideways as if to tell me to leave. I did not. In spite of the throbbing pain in my chest, I had to stay till the end. I could not even look away.
Disdaining the ladder pulled by the executioner’s aide, Pierre-André jumped off the cart. He climbed the stairs to the scaffold with a surprising lightness for a man of his bulk, as if impatient to be done with the business of dying. He stood, face forward, against the plank. It swung down, the neck was adjusted inside the lunette, where it barely fitted, and the triangular blade dropped a moment later with a dull noise.
The crowd roared. I still watched as Sanson, the executioner, retrieved the head from the leather bag where it had fallen. He walked around the scaffold, holding it aloft by the hair, blood dripping from the neck, for all to behold. The body was rolled sideways into a wicker coffin by the side of the dreadful machine, and from there pushed into a second waiting cart. Sanson and one of his aides climbed next to the driver.
I had not given a thought to what I would do after Pierre-André’s death, but now I could not bring myself to abandon his remains. Free at last from the cries of the crowd, I followed the cart carrying the head and body under the relentless rain. I had no umbrella and was by now soaked to the bone. Yet I felt neither cold nor weariness. At last we arrived in sight of the graveyard of Les Errancis. The entrance portal bore the inscription Champ du Repos, “Resting Field.” Once inside the gates, I saw two separate trenches, each about thirty feet deep and square, both surrounded by barrels of quicklime.
Sanson looked at me with curiosity. “Did you know him?” he asked.
“He was my best friend. I believe you knew him too.”
“True. I’ve never met a more resolute character. I might still be in trouble because I helped him on the 9th.”
“Do you mind if I stay a moment?”
“Suit yourself, but it won’t be a pretty sight.”
“I have not seen any pretty sights today. I want to say farewell to him.”
“All right then. That pit over there’s reserved for those who die a natural death. This one was dug the other day for Robespierre and his friends.”
“So they are all buried right here?”
“That’s right. All of them.”
The back of the cart stopped at the edge of the pit. Sanson and his aide cut the leather strap tying Pierre-André’s wrists and proceeded to strip his body. Because of the weather or the unpleasantness of the task, they made haste. I could not keep my eyes off the naked flesh, glistening in the rain, whiter than I had ever seen it in life. The downpour washed away rivulets of blood flowing down the chest. Even decapitated, the corpse, broad in the shoulders, slender in the waist and hips, looked strong and tall. I was struck by its beauty despite the horror of the red gash at the neck.
“You’re not going to faint, are you?” asked Sanson. “You look as pale as he. Do you want any of his clothes? The Nation lets me have them, but I donate them to hospitals because they are ruined by the blood. You can have your pick, except for these fine leather boots, which might fit me.”
I was tempted to ask for the shirt, a wet heap of white material, stained red. It could not be of any value with its mangled collar, but I thought of the watch and ring Pierre-André had given me before his appointment with fate. I preferred to remember him alive.
“Thank you,” I said. “Keep everything. If you want to do me a great favour, you can let me hold his head for a moment.”
“Are you sure?”
“Please.”
He delicately seized the head and gave it to me. I held it between my hands, surprised at its weight. The expression was serene now, the dark eyes half-open and not yet cloudy. I kissed the cold white lips and touched the forehead with mine as I had done when Pierre-André was alive. With infinite regret I put the head down on the floor of the cart. I closed the eyes and for the last time caressed the cheeks.
I turned away when it was thrown, along with the body, into the pit. At the time I shuddered at the thought of the immediate destruction of his flesh. Yet the lime that burnt his body spared it the slow indignities of putrefaction.
My solace is that he joined his friends Robespierre, Payan and the members of the Council General of the Municipality of Paris. He rests in the company of the men who shared his ideals and his death. All are buried in that pit, separated from him only by thin layers of dirt and lime.
How I left the graveyard and returned to my lodgings I know not. I remember awaking in my bed, feeling nothing but exhaustion and an overwhelming desire to die. I was drenched in sweat, shaking with sorrow, cold and fever. A cough would not leave me a moment of rest. Breathing seemed to bring water instead of air into my lungs. I was suffocating. I could not distinguish between the light of the candles and that of the sun. My surroundings were bathed night and day in a yellow glow, the colour of urine. I had taken leave of my body, so unbearable was the pain of living.
I must have remained three weeks in this condition. Manon reappeared. She was, as usual, most attentive and talked without respite “to entertain me,” as she would say. The only way to bear her chatter was to listen to none of it and turn my head away in spite of the effort and pain that movement entailed. Pélagie, when Manon left, would take a seat by my bed and knit in silence. She stopped only once in a while to pat my hand without trying to meet my eye. Every day she would take Aimée to me and put a finger to her lips. Their silent presence soothed me.
One day at the very end of August, Pélagie gently rolled the bedsheets and rubbed my stomach through my chemise. She had never done anything of the kind before. She was nodding at me, smiling. It had not escaped me, even in my condition, that I had missed my monthly curses. Yet I had not thought anything of it, attributing their absence to the effects of my sorrow and sickness. Pélagie’s caress made everything clear. For the first time since the death of Pierre-André, tears rolled down my cheeks. They would not stop. They saved me. I knew then that I would live, for you, because of you. Pélagie took me in her arms. She too was sobbing.
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I recovered. During my first outing after my illness, as I was walking past a wall covered with bills, the name Coffinhal caught my eye. Posted there were various court orders. I forced myself to read. One of them reported that Pierre-André Coffinhal, former physician, former attorney, Vice President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, member of the Council General of the Municipality of Paris, outlawed on the 9th of Thermidor had been sentenced to death on the 18th of the same month by judgment of the Criminal Court of Paris. It was his obituary. He was thirty-one. Life was atrociously short then.
You understand all by now, Edmond, my poor love. He was your father. The portrait of the lady in the black dress you have seen all your life in my bedroom is indeed that of your grandmother. But she is not the Marquise de Castel, my mother, as I told you. She is Jeanne-Françoise Dunoyer, Pierre-André’s mother. Forgive me for lying to you. Forgive me for not telling you of these things earlier. Forgive me for telling you the truth now. You have to know.
87
Pierre-André was executed on the 18th of Thermidor of the Year Two of the Republic, One and Indivisible, the 5th of August 1794, old style. I have learned since that, upon his arrival at La Conciergerie, he kept shouting at the top of his voice that he had been hiding on the Island of the Swans for a week, that all of his former friends had either shut their doors in his face or betrayed him, that he was starving and that he considered the prospect of the guillotine a kindness compared to the hardships he had just endured. A meal was brought in haste to silence him. He ate, but his clamours lost none of their violence. They only turned to the subject of Hanriot’s cowardice. For hours they echoed through the jail, so frightening to the other prisoners, the turnkeys and the gendarmes assigned to guard him that no one thought of questioning him about his whereabouts during the week of his disappearance. It was the last proof of love I received from him.
Mistress of the Revolution: A Novel Page 55
