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ON 27 MARCH the ci-devant Comte de Mirabeau collapsed suddenly in great pain and was taken to his house on the rue Chaussée-de-l’Antin. He died in a coma on 2 April, at 8.30 in the morning.

LATELY CAMILLE had retreated to the blue chaise-longue, fenced in by books, his long legs curled up beneath him as if to disassociate himself from Lucile’s taste in carpets. It was late afternoon. The light was failing, and the street was almost deserted. Today the shops were shut, as a mark of respect. The funeral was tonight, by torchlight.

He had been to Mirabeau’s house. He’s in great pain, they said, he can’t see you. He had begged: just for a moment, please, please. Put your name in the book of well-wishers, they said. There, by the door.

Then a Genevan, in passing, too late: ‘Mirabeau asked for you, at the last. But we had to say you were not there.’

The Court had sent twice a day to inquire: time was, when Mirabeau could have helped them, that they did not send at all. All forget now, the distrust, the evasions, the pride: the grasping egotist’s hand on the nation’s future, rifling through circumstance as through a greasy sheaf of promissory notes. Strangers stop each other in the streets, to commiserate and express dread of the future.

On Camille’s desk, a scribbled-over sheet, almost illegible. Danton picked it up. ‘“Go then, witless people, and prostrate yourself before the tomb of this god” – what does it say then?’

‘This god of liars and thieves.’

Danton put down the paper, appalled. ‘You can’t write that. Every newspaper in the country is given over to panegyrics. Barnave, who was his staunch opponent, has pronounced his eulogy at the Jacobins. Tonight the Commune and the whole Assembly will walk in his funeral procession. His most obdurate enemies are praising him. Camille, if you write that, you may be torn to pieces the next time you appear in public. I mean, literally.’

‘I can write what I like,’ he snapped. ‘Opinion is free. If the rest of the world are hypocrites and self-deluders, does it therefore follow – am I bound to alter my views because the man is dead?’

Danton said, ‘Jesus Christ’ in an awestruck way, and left.

It was now almost dark. Lucile was at the rue Condé. Ten minutes passed; Camille sat in the unlit room. Jeanette put her head in at the door. ‘Don’t you want to talk to anybody?’

‘No.’

‘Only Deputy Robespierre is here.’

‘Oh yes, I want to talk to Robespierre.’

He could hear the woman’s tactful lower-class voice outside the door. I am forever coming into mothers, he thought: mothers and friends.

Robespierre looked haggard and uneasy, a sallow tinge on his fair skin. He pulled up a hard chair uncertainly, and sat facing Camille. ‘Are you not sleeping?’ Camille asked.

‘Not very well, these last few nights. I have a nightmare, and when I wake up it is difficult to breathe.’ He put his hand tentatively against his ribcage. He dreaded the summer ahead, the suffocating blanket of walls and streets and public buildings. ‘I wish I had better health. My hours at the moment are trying my strength.’

‘Shall we open a bottle of something and drink to the glorious dead?’

‘No thanks. I’ve been drinking too much,’ he said apologetically. ‘I have to try to keep off it in the afternoons.’

‘I don’t call this afternoon,’ Camille said. ‘Max, what’s going to happen next?’

‘The Court will be looking for a new adviser. And the Assembly for a new master. He was their master, and they have a slavish nature – or so Marat would say.’ Robespierre brought his chair an inch or two forward. The complicity was total; they had understood Mirabeau, and they alone. ‘Barnave will loom large now. Though he is hardly a Mirabeau.’

‘You hated Mirabeau, Max.’

‘No.’ He looked up quickly. ‘I don’t hate. It blurs the judgement.’

‘I have no judgement.’

‘No. That’s why I try to guide you. You can judge events, but not men. You were too much attached to Mirabeau. It was dangerous for you.’

‘Yes. But Hiked him.’

‘I know. I accept that he was generous to you, he built your confidence. I almost think – he wished to be a father to you.’

Goodness, Camille thought: is that the impression you carried away? I think perhaps my sentiments were not entirely filial. ‘Fathers can be deceptive creatures,’ he said.

Max was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘In the future, we must be careful of personal ties. We may have to break free of them – ’ He stopped, conscious that he had suddenly said what he came to say.

Camille looked at him without speaking. After a moment: ‘Perhaps you did not come to discuss Mirabeau,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I am quite wrong, but perhaps you have chosen this evening to tell me that you don’t intend to marry Adèle.’

‘I don’t want to hurt anybody. That’s the reason, really.’

Robespierre avoided his eyes. They sat for a moment in silence. Jeanette came in, smiled at them both, and lit the lamps. When she had gone, Camille flung himself to his feet. ‘You’ll have to do better than that.’ He was very angry.

‘It’s hard to explain. Have patience for a minute.’

‘And I’m to tell her. Is that it?’

‘I hoped you would. I honestly don’t know what I would say. You must realize, I feel I hardly know Adèle.’

‘You knew what you were doing.’

‘Don’t yell at me. There was no definite arrangement of any kind, nothing was settled. And I can’t go on with it. The longer it goes on the worse it gets. There are plenty of people for her to marry, better than me. I don’t even know how the whole thing got started. Am I in a position to marry?’

‘Why shouldn’t you?’

‘Because – because I work all the time. I work because it’s my duty, so it seems to me. I have no time to devote to a family.’

‘But you have to eat, Max, you have to sleep somewhere, you have to have a home. Even you have to take an hour off occasionally. Adèle knows what to expect.’

‘That’s not the whole point. You see, I might have to make sacrifices for the sake of the Revolution. I’d be very happy to do it, it’s what I – ’

‘What kind of sacrifices?’

‘Suppose it were necessary for me to die?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘It would leave her a widow for the second time.’

‘Have you been talking to Lucile? She has it all worked out. How there might be an outbreak of bubonic plague. Or one might be run over by a carriage. Or be shot by the Austrians, which I admit is quite likely. All right – one day you’re going to die. But if everybody proceeded on your assumptions, the human race would come to an end, because no one would have children.’

‘Yes, I know,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It’s right for you to marry, even though your life may be in danger. But not for me. It’s not right for me.’

‘Priests now marry. You campaigned in the Assembly for their right to do so. You run contrary to the spirit of the times.’

‘What the priests do and what I do are two separate questions. Most of them couldn’t remain celibate, we ended an abuse.’

‘Do you find celibacy so easy?’

‘The easiness of it isn’t the question.’

‘What about the girl in Arras – Anaïs, wasn’t it? Would you have married her, if things had gone differently?’

‘No.’

‘Then it’s not Adèle?’

‘No.’

‘You just don’t want to be married?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But not for the reasons you give me.’

‘Don’t browbeat me, you haven’t got me in court.’ He got up, in great distress. ‘Oh, you think I’m callous, but I’m not. I want everything that people do want – but it just doesn’t work out, for me. I can’t commit myself, knowing – I mean, fearing – what the future may hold.’

‘Are you afraid of women?’

‘No.’

‘Give the question your honest consideration.’

‘I try always to be honest.’

‘As a practical matter,’ Camille said scathingly, ‘life will be difficult for you now. You may not like the fact, but it seems that you’re attractive to women. In company they pin you against walls and heave their bosoms at you. There is a positive rustle of carnality from the public galleries when you make an intervention. The belief that you had an attachment has held them back so far, but what now? They’ll be pursuing you in public places and ripping your clothes off. Think of that.’

Robespierre had sat down again, his face frozen by consternation and distaste.

‘Go on. Tell me your real reason.’

‘You have it already. I can’t explain any more.’ At the back of his mind, something moved, full of dread. A woman, her pinched mouth, her hair scraped back into a band; the crackle of firewood, the drone of flies. He looked up, helpless. ‘Either you understand or you don’t. I think there was something I wanted to say…but you shouldn’t have flown into a rage because now I can’t remember what it was. But I need your help.’

Camille dropped into a chair. He looked at the ceiling for a while, his arms hanging loose over the chair’s arms. ‘It’s all right,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll sort it out. Don’t think about it any more. Your fear is, that if you marry Adèle, you will love her. If you have children, you will love them more than anything else in the world, more than patriotism, more than democracy. If your children grow up, and prove traitors to the people, will you be able to demand their deaths, as the Romans did? Perhaps you will, but perhaps you will not be able to do it. You’re afraid that if you love people you may be deflected from your duty, but it’s because of another kind of love, isn’t it, that the duty is laid upon you? It is really my fault, this business, mine and Annette’s. We liked the idea, so we set it up. You were too polite to upset our arrangements. You’ve never so much as kissed her. Of course, you wouldn’t. I know, there is your work. No one else is going to do what you are going to do, and you come to the point of renouncing, as much as you can, human needs and human weaknesses. I wish – I wish I could help you more.’

Robespierre searched his face for some evidence of malice or levity; saw none. ‘When we were children,’ he said, ‘life wasn’t particularly easy for either of us, was it? But we kept each other going, didn’t we? The years in Arras were the worst, the years in between. I’m not so lonely, now.’

‘Mm.’ Camille was looking for a formula, a formula to contain what his instinct rejected. ‘The Revolution is your bride,’ he said. ‘As the Church is the Bride of Christ.’

‘OH WELL,’ ADELE SAID. ‘Now I shall have Jérôme Pétion looking down the front of my dress and breathing sentimental slogans in my ear. Look, Camille, I’ve understood the situation for weeks. Let this be a lesson to you not to scheme.’

He was amazed, that she was taking it so well. ‘Will you go away and cry?’

‘No, I’ll just – do a bit of rethinking.’

‘There are lots of men, Adèle.’

‘Don’t I just know it?’ she said.

‘Will you not feel able to see him now?’

‘Of course I’ll feel able to see him. People can be friends, can’t they? I presume that’s what he wants?’

‘Yes, of course. I’m so glad. Because it would be difficult for me, otherwise.’

She looked at him fondly. ‘You’re a self-centred little bastard, aren’t you, Camille?’

DANTON began to laugh. ‘Eunuch,’ he said. ‘The girl should be glad he didn’t carry the farce any further. Oh, I should have guessed.’

‘No need for such unholy jubilation.’ Camille was gloomy. ‘Try to understand.’

‘Understand? I understand perfectly. It’s easy.’

He went to hold forth at the Café des Arts. He had it on good authority, he told everyone, that Deputy Robespierre was sexually impotent. He told his cronies at City Hall, and a few score deputies of his acquaintance; he told the actresses backstage at the Théâtre Montansier, and almost the entire membership of the Cordeliers Club.

APRIL 1791, Deputy Robespierre opposed a property qualification for future deputies, defended freedom of speech. May, he upheld press freedom, spoke against slavery, and asked for civil rights for the mulattos in the colonies. When the organization of a new legislature was discussed, he proposed that members of the existing Assembly should not be eligible for re-election; they must give way to new men. He was heard for two hours in a respectful silence, and his motion was carried. In the third week of May, he fell ill from nervous strain and overwork.

Late May, he demanded without success the abolition of the death penalty.

June 10, he was elected Public Prosecutor. The city’s Chief Magistrate resigned rather than work with him. Pétion took the vacant place. Gradually, you see, our people are coming into the power they have always thought is their due.

IV. More Acts of the Apostles (1791)

IT IS THE END of Lent. The King decides that he does not wish, on Easter Sunday, to take holy communion from a ‘constitutional’ priest. Nor does he wish to cause protest and outrage the patriots.

He decides therefore to spend Easter quietly at Saint-Cloud, away from the censorious eye of the city.

His plans become known.

PALM SUNDAY: City Hall.

‘Lafayette.’

This was the voice the general now associated with calamity. Danton stood close when he spoke to him, forcing him to look up into the battered face.

‘Lafayette, this morning a refractory priest, a Jesuit, said Mass at the Tuileries.’

‘You are better informed than I,’ Lafayette said. His mouth felt dry.

‘We won’t have it,’ Danton said. ‘The King has accepted the changes in the church. He has put his signature to them. If he cheats, there will be reprisals.’

‘When the royal family leave for Saint-Cloud,’ Lafayette said, ‘the National Guard will cordon off the area for their departure, and if necessary I shall give them an escort. Don’t get in the way, Danton.’

Danton took out of his coat – not a firearm, as Lafayette had half-feared, but a rolled piece of paper. ‘This is a wall-poster drafted by the Cordeliers Battalion. Would you like to read it?’

Lafayette held out his hand. ‘Some of M. Desmoulins’s instant invective?’

Lafayette’s eyes swept over the paper. ‘You call upon the National Guard to prevent the King’s departure from the Tuileries.’ His eyes now searched Danton’s face. ‘I shall order otherwise. Therefore, it is a kind of mutiny you are urging.’

‘You could say that.’

Danton watched him steadily, waiting for a slight flush along the cheekbones to tell him that the general’s inner forces were in disarray. In a moment, the capillaries obliged. ‘I shouldn’t have thought religious intolerance was amongst your vices, Danton. What is it to you who ministers to the King’s spiritual needs? As he conceives of it, he has a soul to save. What is it to you?’

‘It is something to me when the King breaks his promises and flouts the law. It is something that he leaves Paris for Saint-Cloud, and Saint-Cloud for the border, where he can put himself at the head of the émigrés.’

‘Who told you that was his intention?’

‘I can divine it.’

‘You sound like Marat.’

‘I am sorry if you think so.’

‘I shall ask for an emergency meeting of the Commune. I shall ask for martial law to be declared.’

‘Go ahead,’ Danton said contemptously. ‘Do you know what Camille Desmoulins calls you? The Don Quixote of the Capets.’

EMERGENCY session. M. Danton obtained a majority against martial law, working on the peaceable and the pliable. Lafayette, in a passion, offered Mayor Bailly his resignation. M. Danton pointed out that the mayor was not competent to accept it; if the general wanted to resign, he would have to visit each of the forty-eight Sections in turn and tell them.

Further, M. Danton called General Lafayette a coward.

THE TUILERIES, Monday of Holy Week, 11.30 a.m.

‘It is a piece of folly,’ Mayor Bailly said, ‘to have the Cordeliers Battalion here.’

‘You mean Battalion No. 3,’ said Lafayette. He closed his eyes. He had a small tight pain behind them.

The royal family were allowed to enter their coach, and there they stayed. The National Guard were disobeying orders. They would not allow the gates to be opened. The crowd would not allow the carriage to proceed. The National Guard would not disperse the crowd. The ‘Ça Ira’ was sung. The First Gentleman of the Bedchamber was assaulted. The Dauphin burst into tears. Last year, or the year before, it might have aroused some compunction. But if they didn’t want to subject the child to the ordeal, they should have taken him back into the palace.

Lafayette swore at his men. He was quivering with fury as he sat his white horse, and the animal twitched restively and shifted its feet.

The mayor appealed for order. He was shouted down. Inside the carriage, the royal couple gazed into each other’s faces.

‘You pig,’ a man shouted at the King. ‘We pay you twenty-five million a year, so do what we tell you.’

‘Proclaim martial law,’ Lafayette told Bailly.

Bailly did not look him in the face.

‘Do it.’

‘I cannot.’

Now patience was required. An hour and three-quarters, and the King and Queen had had enough. As they re-entered the Tuileries, the Queen turned to speak to Lafayette above the jeers of the mob. ‘At least you must admit that we are no longer free.’

It was 1.15 p.m.

EPHRAIM, AN AGENT in the service of Frederick William of Prussia, to Laclos, in the service of the Duke of Orléans:

For some hours our position was brilliant. I even thought your dear employer was about to replace his cousin on the throne; but now my expectations have altered. The only thing that gives me pleasure in all this is that we have ruined Lafayette, which is a great deal achieved. Our 500,000 livres have been spent more or less for nothing, which is what I find so unfortunate; we shall not have such sums at our disposal every day, and the King of Prussia will get tired of paying out.

ON A FINE DAY in June, Philippe was on the Vincennes road, driving Agnès de Buffon in his English dog-cart. Bearing down on him pretty fast was a smart, very large, very new equipage of the type known as a ‘berlin’.

The Duke flagged it down with a flourish of his whip. ‘Hallo there, Fersen. Trying to break your neck, old chap?’

The Queen’s lover, the thin-faced, supple Swedish count: ‘Trying out my new travelling-carriage, my lord.’

‘Really?’ Philippe noted the elegant lemon wheels, the dark-green coachwork and the walnut fittings. ‘Going on a trip, are you? Bit big, isn’t it? Are you taking all the girls from the Opéra chorus?’

‘No, my lord.’ Fersen inclined his head respectfully. ‘I leave them all for you.’

The Duke looked after the carriage as it gathered speed along the road. ‘I wonder,’ he said to Agnès. ‘It would be just like Louis to choose a get-up like that for a quick sprint to the border.’

Agnès turned away with an uncomfortable half-smile; it made her afraid to think that Philippe might soon be King.

‘And you can keep that damned pious expression off your face, Fersen,’ the Duke announced to the dust on the road. ‘We all know how you spend your time when you’re not at the Tuileries. His latest woman is a circus acrobat, if you please. Not that I’d wish that Austrian scrag-end to be any man’s sole consolation.’ He gathered up the reins.

THE BABY, ANTOINE, woke up at six o’clock and lay watching the sunlight filter through the shutters. When this bored him, he yelled for his mother.

In a few moments Gabrielle stood over him. Her face was soft with sleep. ‘Tyrant child,’ she whispered. He put up his arms to be lifted. Shushing him, a finger over his lips, she carried him to the big bedroom. A curtained alcove sheltered twin beds, marked off their private territory from the patriotic circus that their bedroom had become. Lucile had this problem, she said. Perhaps we should move, get somewhere bigger? But no, everybody knows Danton’s house, he’ll not want to move. And such an upheaval it would be.

She climbed into her bed, settled down with the warm little body against hers. In the other bed, his father slept with his face pushed into the pillow.

Seven o’clock, the doorbell jangled. Her heart jolted with apprehension. It’s too early for it to be anything good. She heard Catherine, protesting; then the bedroom door was flung open. ‘Fabre!’ she said. ‘My God, what’s happened? Are the Austrians here?’

Fabre pounced on her husband, pummelled him into life. ‘Danton, they’ve gone in the night. The King, his wife, his sister, the Dauphin, the whole bloody bunch.’

Danton stirred, sat up. Immediately, he was wide awake; perhaps he had never been asleep? ‘Lafayette was in charge of security. Either he’s sold out to the Court, betrayed us, or he’s an incompetent dolt.’ He punched Fabre’s shoulder. ‘I’ve got him where I want him. Organize me some clothes, girl, would you?’

‘Where to?’

‘The Cordeliers first – find Legendre, tell him to get people together. Then City Hall, then the Riding-School.’

‘What if they’re not caught?’ Fabre said.

Danton drew his hand across his chin. ‘Does it matter? As long as enough people see them running away.’

Very ready, his answers; very neat. Fabre said, ‘Did you know this was going to happen? Did you want it to happen?’

‘Anyway, they will be caught. They’ll be dragged back within the week. Louis messes everything up. Poor devil,’ he said ruminatively. ‘I feel sorry for him at times.’

GRACE ELLIOT: ‘I have no doubt that Lafayette was privy to the attempt, and afterwards, through fear, betrayed them.’

GEORGES-JACQUES DANTON, to the Cordeliers Club: ‘By upholding a hereditary monarchy, the National Assembly has reduced France to slavery. Let us abolish, once and for all, the name and function of King; let us turn this kingdom into a republic.’

ALEXANDRE DE BEAUHARNAIS, President of the Assembly: ‘Gentlemen, the King has fled in the night. Let us proceed to the Order of the Day.’

WHEN DANTON ARRIVED at the Riding-School, with a small military escort, the packed, rumour-ridden crowd cheered him. ‘Long live our father, Danton,’ someone called. He was momentarily astonished.

Later that day, M. Laclos arrived at the rue des Cordeliers. He looked Gabrielle over carefully – not with lecherous intent, but as if he were assessing her suitability for something. She flushed slightly, and twitched away from his gaze. She thought, these days, that everyone was noticing that she had put on weight. A small sigh escaped Laclos. ‘Warm weather we’re having, Mme Danton.’ He stood in the drawing room and removed his gloves, easing them off finger by finger, raising his eyes to Danton’s. ‘There are things we must discuss,’ he said pleasantly.

Three hours later he replaced his gloves by a similar careful process, and left.

PARIS WITHOUT THE KING. Some wit hung a placard on the railing of the Tuileries: PREMISES TO LET. All over town, Danton talked about the republic. At the Jacobins Robespierre rose to reply to him, adjusting his cravat minutely with his small fingers with the bitten nails. ‘What is a republic?’ he asked.

Danton must define his terms, he sees. Maximilien Robespierre takes nothing on trust.

THE DUKE brought his fist down hard on a fragile table, inlaid with a pattern of roses, ribbons and violins.

‘Don’t talk to me as if I were a three-year-old,’ he snarled.

Félicité de Genlis was a patient woman. She smiled faintly. She was prepared to argue, if necessary, all day.

‘The Assembly have asked you to accept the throne, should it become vacant,’ she said.

‘There you are,’ the Duke bellowed. ‘You’re doing it again. We’ve established that, haven’t we? We all know that. You are a tiresome woman.’

‘Don’t bluster, dear. Firstly, may I point out that it is unlikely that the throne will become vacant? I hear that your cousin’s journey has been interrupted. He is on his way back to Paris.’

‘Yes,’ the Duke said with relish. ‘The booby. Let himself get caught. They’ve sent Barnave and Pétion to fetch them back. I hope Deputy Pétion is bloody rude to them all the way.’

Félicité did not doubt that he would be. ‘You know,’ she went on, ‘that now the Assembly has the new constitution framed and ready for the King’s signature, it – I mean the Assembly – is most anxious for stability. Change has gone so far and so fast, and I believe people are aching for a return to good order. It is possible that a month from now Louis will be replaced firmly on the throne. It will be as if all this had never happened.’

‘But dammit, he ran away. He’s supposed to be King of this country, and he was running away from it.’

‘The Assembly may not put that construction on his actions.’

‘What other is there? Forgive me, I’m a simple man – ’

‘They aren’t. They’re really quite ingenious. Lawyers, mostly.’

‘Don’t trust ’em,’ Philippe said. ‘As a breed.’

‘Think then, my dear – if Louis is restored – think how it will antagonize him if you appear so anxious to step into his shoes.’

‘But I am, aren’t I?’ Philippe gaped at her. What was she trying to do to him? Wasn’t this what all the fuss was about, over the last three years and more? Wasn’t it to be King that he had endured the company of people who weren’t gentlemen, who didn’t hunt, who didn’t know the nose of a racehorse from its tail? Wasn’t it in order to be King that he had allowed himself to be patronized by that fish-eyed Laclos? Wasn’t it to be King that he had endured that scarfaced thug Danton at his own dinner table, quite blatantly eyeing up his mistress Agnès and his ex-mistress Grace? Wasn’t it to be King that he had paid, paid, paid?

Félicité closed her eyes. Carefully, she thought. Speak carefully, but do speak: for the nation, for this man’s children, whom I have brought up. And for our lives.

‘Think,’ she said.

‘Think!’ The Duke exploded. ‘Very well, you don’t trust my supporters. Neither do I. I have their measure, I tell you.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘You think I’d let those low types push me around?’

‘Philippe, you’re not the man to set limits to their ambition. They’ll swallow you up, you and your children – and everything, everybody that is close to your heart. Don’t you realize that the men who can destroy one King can destroy another? Do you think they’d have any scruple, if you didn’t do everything exactly as they wished? And you’d only be, at best, a stop-gap for them – until they felt they could get along without you, till they felt they didn’t need any King at all.’ She took a breath. ‘Think back, Philippe – think back to before the Bastille fell. Louis used to tell you, go here, go there – come back to Versailles, keep away from Versailles – you know how it was? Your life wasn’t your own, you used to say. You had no freedom. Now, from the moment you say, “Yes, I want to be King,” you give your freedom away again. From that day on, you will be in prison. Oh, not a prison with bars and chains – but a pleasant gaol that M. Danton will make for you. A gaol with a civil list and protocol and precedent and the most charming social occasions, ballets and masked balls and yes, even horse-racing.’

‘Don’t like ballet,’ the Duke said. ‘Bores me.’

Félicité smoothed her skirt, glanced down at her hands. A woman’s hands show her age, she thought; they give everything away. Once there’d been hope. Once there’d been the promise of a fairer, cleaner world; and no one had hoped harder, no one had worked for it more assiduously than she had. ‘A gaol,’ she said. ‘They’ll trick you, amuse you, occupy you – while they carve up the country between them. That is their object.’

He looked up at her, this middle-aged child of hers. ‘You think they’re cleverer than me, do you?’

‘Oh, much, my darling: much, much, much.’

He avoided her eye now. ‘I’ve always known my limitations.’

‘Which makes you wiser than most men. And wiser than these manipulators give you credit for.’

That pleased him. It came to him vaguely that he might outsmart them. She had spoken so softly, as if the thought were his own. ‘What’s the best thing to do? Tell me, Félicité, please.’

‘Disassociate yourself. Keep your name clear. Refuse to be their dupe.’

‘So you want me – ’ he struggled – ‘to go to the Assembly, and say no, I don’t want the throne, you may have thought I did but that was not what I meant at all?’

‘Take this paper. Look. Sit here. Write as I dictate.’

She leaned against the back of his chair. The words were prepared, in her head. Precarious, she thought. This was a near thing. If I could shut him away from all counter-persuasion, all other influence – but that’s impossible. I was lucky to get him for an hour alone.

Quickly now – before he changed his mind. ‘Put your signature. There, it’s done.’

Philippe threw his pen down. Ink spattered the roses, the ribbons, the violins. He clapped a hand to his head. ‘Laclos will kill me,’ he wailed.

Félicité made soothing noises, as if to a child with colic, and took the paper from Philippe to amend his punctuation.

WHEN THE DUKE told Laclos of his decision, Laclos bowed imperceptibly from the shoulder. ‘As you wish, Milord,’ he said, and withdrew. Why he had spoken in English he never afterwards understood. In his apartment he turned his face to the wall and drank a bottle of brandy with a thoughtful but murderous expression.

At Danton’s apartment he worked around to a comfortable chair, handing himself from one piece of furniture to the next in a manner faintly nautical. ‘Have patience,’ he said. ‘Any moment now I shall deliver myself of a profound observation.’

‘I shall go,’ Camille said. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what Laclos had to say. He preferred not to know the finer details of Danton’s entanglements; and, though he knew they were supposed to regard Philippe only as a means to an end, it was very difficult when somebody had been so nice to you. Every time some Cordeliers oaf came tramping though his apartment, yelling from room to room, he thought of the Duke’s twelve-bedroomed wedding-present. He could have wept.

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