“Here, tonight, we celebrate the power of reason over the failed power of false faith,” Robespierre was intoning in his pale, low voice. As Marie-Anne turned to Antoine to pull him away, Robespierre glanced down at the movement. She heard the intake of his breath and his dark, intense eyes met hers, then dropped lower down her body. Her hand came up involuntarily to her breast; she had worn the sardonyx pendant over her dress. Her hand grasped it, hiding it from sight. He seemed to smile at her, at Antoine, and at David. The pause before he began again was even longer. “We celebrate the true Supreme Being, the Goddess of Reason. Let us welcome her into our midst.”
“Antoine!” Marie-Anne pulled at his arm, dragging him away even as he whispered to the others that they were leaving, even as she heard David say, “But wait, I wanted to introduce you personally …”
Drums and trumpets sounded, and the hymn began again even as Marie-Anne tried to push through the crowds. A processional was coming down the central aisle, moving toward the Altar of Logic. The crowd on the floor began to surge toward the procession, and Marie-Anne took the opportunity to move down the side aisle toward the door. She glimpsed the goddess on her palanquin—an actress from the opera, David had told them on the way to Notre Dame, would portray the goddess so there would be no question of idolatry. The hymn rose, the drums and trumpets clamored, and the procession with its lights and banners, proceeded into the church. Marie-Anne risked a glance back. Robespierre had left the lectern; she could no longer see him.
Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe he didn’t see me, didn’t recognize me.
She clung desperately to that hope as she pushed through the last of the crowd and outside. The knife edge of the cold in her lungs seemed a relief after the atmosphere in the cathedral. She took in great gasping lungfuls as she leaned back against the great stone walls of Notre Dame. Antoine reached her side and put his arm around her. She leaned into his embrace, putting her own arms tight around him. “Darling, you look so feverish, and you’re shivering.” He touched his hand to her forehead. “Let’s find a carriage and get you home.” He glanced back at the spires and gargoyles of Notre Dame, which seemed to mock her with their silent laughter. “The Goddess of Reason,” Antoine nearly spat out the words. “There’s no reason here. Only more madness.”
*
The terror began the next morning with a crash of wood and an alarmed shout from Etienne, and the sound of many boots on the tiles of the foyer. “Where is Monsieur Lavoisier?” someone shouted. Even as Marie-Anne came running toward the commotion—Verdette padding alongside her—she heard Antoine’s voice answering.
“What outrage is this? How dare you men break into our house like this!”
As Marie-Anne reached the top of the stairs, she saw Antoine in the foyer already struggling in the grasp of two armed Guardsmen, with another quartet surrounding them, and an officer of the Guard looking at the papers in his hand. Old Etienne wrung his hands, with Josette gaping from the hall door. “Stop!” Marie-Anne shouted as Verdette growled at her feet. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“Your husband is under arrest for treason, Madame Lavoisier,” the officer replied. “We have orders to search the house and seize all material that might be pertinent.”
Marie-Anne thought of all of the papers of Antoine’s, the countless records of his experiments; she thought of the notes for her own experiments and the blue bottle of the elixir, still in her own smaller lab. “You cannot.”
The officer held up the papers. “These say I can,” he told her, “and I will.” He gestured to the two soldiers holding Antoine. “Take the prisoner away,” he said, then gestured to the others. “You know what to do.”
“No!” Marie-Anne nearly screamed. She ran down the stairs to Antoine. Already her hand was on one of the vials in the hidden pocket of her belt. She took it out, ready to throw it, readying a spell at the same time: she could blind them all momentarily and fill the room with a choking smoke. She could snatch Antoine away and run …
Before she could act, a gray blur flashed by her head: Verdette, leaping from railing of the stairs. The cat launched herself at the officer, claws extended. Yowling madly, she raked her claws down the man’s face, digging in. The officer howled himself, snatching Verdette away by the scruff of her neck and flinging her hard to the tiles. His boot lifted and stomped down on the cat’s head as both Antoine and Marie-Anne shouted. Verdette went suddenly still. Blood dripped from the officer’s face to his collar and onto the floor.
Marie-Anne lifted the vial high. But Antoine saw her gesture and shook his head as the two men holding him gripped his arms tightly, as the bayonet-tipped rifles of the other soldiers came down threateningly. “Marie-Anne,” he called out loudly, “no, please! This isn’t the way. I need you free and out here to help me. There’s been some terrible mistake. That’s all. You’ll have to convince them.” His eyes pleaded with her.
“Your husband is right, Madame,” the officer said. He dabbed at his savaged face with a handkerchief—it was obvious he regarded the vial in her hand as no threat at all. “I’ve no orders to arrest you or the rest of the household. There’s nothing you can do about this; we’re simply doing our duty to the Republic, and if Monsieur Lavoisier is innocent, he will prove it to his judge. For now, he is under arrest.” He gestured sharply to the men holding him. “Take him.”
“Where?” Marie-Anne pleaded. “Where are you taking him?”
“He’s to be taken to Port-Libre.” The officer looked at the blood-daubed handkerchief and scowled. His foot lifted again as he glared at the motionless form of Verdette.
“No!” Marie-Anne half-screamed. The officer glared at her. “There’s no need for that. Please,” she said more calmly, and the officer lowered his foot slowly to the floor. “Let me say adieu to my husband, at least,” she asked, and the officer shrugged. Marie-Anne went to Antoine, kissing him as the soldiers continued to hold him. “I’ll get you out,” she told him. “I promise. I won’t let them hurt you.”
Antoine nodded. She saw him try to smile for her. “We need to be brave for each other,” he said as the soldiers pulled him away. “I love you,” he said over his shoulder as they escorted him through the wreckage of their door. She saw a black carriage waiting on the street, with more soldiers around it.
“I love you,” she called after him, then turned back to the officer and the quartet of soldiers still with him. “Do what you need to do,” she told him. She bent down and gathered Verdette’s limp form in her arms. She could feel the faint stirring of breath in her body and knew that the elixir’s gift was already working inside to heal her. She didn’t want the officer to see that, afraid of what he might do.
She needed to get to her own laboratory: the notes for her experiment were there, and the vial of the elixir. She had to hide them. With as much dignity as she could muster, she nodded to the officer and walked slowly up the stairs, stroking Verdette’s body.
She wouldn’t show her fear. She wouldn’t weep for herself and Antoine. She wouldn’t give Nicolas—if it had been Nicolas who had ordered this—the satisfaction of hearing she was afraid of him.
Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier: 1794
THE COPY OF THE ARREST notice that was given to Marie-Anne claimed that due to his actions in his former position in the Ferme-Générale, Antoine was a traitor to the Republic to be imprisoned at Port-Libre, a former abbey, and tried. That began months of turmoil for her, as she tried frantically to obtain his release.
She watched Antoine sink into a deep depression; she watched his green heart fade and nearly die in the foul air of his prison. Especially in the first days, she was tempted to cast everything aside, to take on a new identity and flee once again. That would have been the easiest and safest route for her. But she told herself that she couldn’t abandon Antoine, whose soul-heart, encouragement, and unknowing help had allowed her to rediscover the elixir. She owed him that much, even if it meant that she remained in danger.
S
o she held back and remained in Paris. She went first before Monsieur Dupin, a former member of the Ferme-Générale, the person whose name had been on the warrant ordering Antoine’s arrest. “Why?” she asked. “Antoine is innocent of crimes against the state; you know that best of all. Why did you sign the warrant? Who gave you these vile lies against him?”
Monsieur Dupin had shrugged. “My source was quite emphatic and persuasive about the seriousness of the charge, Mme. Lavoisier. My personal feelings about Monsieur Lavoisier don’t enter into this. I’m sorry.”
“Persuasive? Do you mean he threatened you? So this came from someone above you?”
Dupin pursed thin lips. “I’ve told you more than enough, Madame.”
“Who was it?” she demanded. “Was it Monsieur Robespierre? Tell me.” But he refused, and would talk to her no further on the subject.
Marie-Anne pleaded next to Jacques-Louis David. David agreed to meet her, almost reluctantly, at his studio—David now had three separate studios in the Louvre, an indication of his status as a painter within the Republic. The smells of turpentine and oils were strong in the air; David was painting in a shaft of sunlight from the windows: a self-portrait, Marie-Anne saw. The radiance of his soul-heart was wrapped tightly around him, glowing. She touched it with her mind, tasting it. “Your favorite subject?” she asked. Startled, David nearly dropped the brush he was holding.
“Marie-Anne! You startled me.”
“We haven’t seen you since the Celebration at Notre Dame,” she said. “You’ve heard about Antoine?”
He didn’t seem to want to meet her eyes; his gaze kept slipping around her face, looking somewhere beyond her or down to his palette. “Oui, I heard,” he said. “I was utterly stunned by the news, of course …”
“Of course you were,” Marie-Anne answered. “Antoine needs your help, and so do I, Jacques-Louis. We need you to speak to the Tribunal and tell them about this mistake they’ve made.”
“Marie-Anne, I think you overestimate my influence within the Republic. I’m just a member of the Art Committee. I know you’re devastated by what’s happened, but I don’t know what I can do to help.”
“You told me that Robespierre is your friend.”
David managed a shrug. “I know the man, yes, but on this …”
“Did you talk to him at the Celebration, after I left?”
David set down the palette, inserting the brush into a small jar of turpentine. Swirls of solemn umber danced through the clear liquid. “I did. He … well, he’d noticed you in the crowd, and asked who you were.”
“And so you told him.”
David looked at her quizzically. “Of course I did. After all, introducing you to him was the reason I’d brought the two of you to the Celebration. I told him who you were, and also told him how well I thought of both of you and how crucial you and Antoine could be to the Republic. He asked several questions about you, especially, and I told him how important you were to Antoine’s work. He seemed impressed, and very interested in your laboratories and experiments. That’s why I was as startled as anyone when I heard that Antoine had been arrested.” His scarred head swayed from side to side. “I thought that if Robespierre saw the two of you with me it would keep you both safe, since I knew that the Tribunal was looking at those from the Ferme-Générale, but I never thought this—” He stopped. “I’m so sorry, Marie-Anne.”
“It wasn’t you, Jacques-Louis, and nothing you did. You owe me no apology. But you can do one thing for me.”
He seemed relieved at that. “Name it,” he said. “If it’s in my power, I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I need you to use your friendship with Monsieur Robespierre,” she told him. “He’ll see you privately, will he not? Make an appointment with him sometime in the next few days—and I will keep that appointment for you. Will you do that?”
David was frowning. Over his shoulder, his half-finished portrait seemed to scowl. “Do you mean harm to the man?” he asked. “Marie-Anne, after what happened to Marat …”
“You think I intend to kill him?” She laughed. “I don’t think that’s possible. No, I only want to talk to him, but I doubt that he’d see me if I asked myself. Will you allow me that one small favor, for the sake of Antoine? You’re married yourself; wouldn’t Marguerite do the same for you if you were imprisoned?”
David caught his lip between his teeth, looking down at the floor. Then his head came up again, slowly. “I’ll do it,” he said. “But you must promise me, Marie-Anne, that there will be no violence.”
“I promise,” Marie-Anne said.
She wondered if that was a promise she had any intention of keeping.
*
“Were you searching for me, Monsieur, or was it only terrible bad fortune that caused you to find me again?”
David had arranged to meet Robespierre at one of the taverns along the Seine on the Left Bank. He was sitting alone at a table against the wall, wineglass and some bread before him, his hat and cloak hung nearby. There was a quartet of men at a table by the door; she saw them watching her warily as she approached, and two of them had hands suspiciously in the pockets of their overcoats. His men, she decided, which is why she stopped short of the table and spoke.
Maximilien Robespierre—Nicolas—turned slowly in his chair to look at her. He smiled and rose politely, gesturing to the chair across from him. “Please, sit,” he said. Marie-Anne hesitated, then took the offered chair. “I was expecting Jacques-Louis. I assume that you coerced him into setting up this appointment; that explains the tone of his note to me.”
“Don’t blame Jacques-Louis,” Marie-Anne said. “He was feeling guilty for having brought us to the Celebration; he’d wanted to introduce me to you. Ironic, isn’t it, Monsieur Robespierre? Or do you still prefer Nicolas?”
“Nicolas …” he said, seeming to roll the word around in his mouth as if tasting the syllables. “It’s been a long time for that name—as long as it’s been for you, Perenelle, or should I say Madame Lavoisier?” He smiled again, showing his teeth. “But yes, seeing you there that night was a shock for me. I wondered if you might not be back in Paris—in fact, I thought that perhaps you could be poor Jacques-Louise’s wife, though that suspicion was dispelled as soon as I met Marguerite. I hadn’t considered Antoine Lavoisier, though that makes perfect sense. A brilliant chemist—as you were yourself. It’s a shame his days of experimentation are over now.”
“This isn’t about Antoine, any more than it was about any of the others. It’s about you and me, Nicolas.”
He was already shaking his head in denial. “We both know better. I can’t kill you; you can’t kill me. But even if I can’t kill you or even permanently harm you, we both know that the pain of injury’s still very real—why, it took me weeks to entirely recover from being shot back in Ferrara.” He took a sip of the wine in front of him. “What I’ve realized is that I can hurt you more by hurting those you love. Yes, there—I can already see it in your face, my dear. You really should work on that. We’re very alike, but also different, Perenelle. I know what you feed on, but I’m fed by something else. You’ve no idea how delicious your pain is to me—almost as delicious as the pain of others. I can taste it right now, as we’re sitting here.” He lifted the wineglass again, sipping it as his eyes closed momentarily. “Mmm, yes, this wine goes well with it. Red. Like blood.”
“You’re a vile, awful creature,” Marie-Anne spat.
“I’m sure you think so, my dear,” he replied calmly. “You probably always thought so—I’ll admit that I did enjoy the beatings I gave you so long ago, too, if not in the same way, and killing Provost Marcel with my spell was sweet as well. But it was your elixir that finished the task. That made me the way I am; you made me the way I am. The elixir changed me, as it changed you—as it would change anyone, I know. Have you figured out how to perfect it yet, Perenelle? Have you given it to anyone else?”
She shook her head, but she was remembering her cat Ver
dette.
“That’s a shame,” he said. “That would be an interesting experiment—if only to see how much pain and torture such a being can endure, and to see if perhaps I can find a way to actually kill them.”
Marie-Anne shivered, hearing the eerily calm voice discussing such a horror. “You can do that,” she told him. “You can have me. Let Antoine go; take me.”
He laughed then, leaning back hard against his chair. “I don’t mind killing mortals,” he said. “That’s all they’re really good for—feeding me with their pain and the sweet, wonderful taste of their eventual passing. But you and me … I like this, Perenelle. I like coming across you every now and then. You’re a fine feast that I love having every so many decades, but a steady diet of you …” He shook his head. “No. It’s tempting, but I don’t want that. I hate you, Perenelle, and I know that you hate me in return. Our mutual hate nourishes and sustains me; if you were gone, that would be lost to me. Besides, one day you will perfect the elixir, and then I’ll take that from you, too.”
He looked at her with such hunger and ferocity that she pushed her chair back from the table. “Antoine?”
“Oh, he’ll die.” Nicolas shrugged. “His fate’s already settled. I’ll be there to taste his death, and to taste the fury and loathing that you’ll give me as a result. It will be such a doubled pleasure.”
“You’re a monster.”
“In your eyes, perhaps. But the truth is that I’m only doing what I need to do to live, just as you are. If that’s a monstrosity, then everyone is a monster, yourself included.”
“If Antoine dies, I’ll find a way to bring you down,” she told him. “I’ll find a way to kill you, and I’ll send you to hell.”
He laughed again. “You’ve become so terribly dramatic, my dear. Do whatever you want. If you want to find me, all you need to do is go to wherever there’s pain and turmoil and death. I’ll be there, waiting for you.” He drained the wine in his glass. “And now I have affairs of the Republic to which I must attend. I need to assign a judge to Antoine’s case—one who understands the verdict I have in mind.”
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