A young man from Arras took the floor. He was short and slightly built, with a conspicuously well-cut coat and immaculate linen. His face was intelligent and earnest, with a narrow chin and wide blue eyes masked behind spectacles. His voice was unimpressive, and half-way through his speech it died momentarily in his throat; people had to lean forward and nudge their neighbours to know what he said. But it was not the manner of his delivery that caused them consternation. He said that the clergy and the nobility had done nothing praiseworthy, but had merely promised to amend where they had abused. Therefore, there was no need to thank them at all.
Among people who were not from Arras, and did not know him, there was some surprise when he was elected one of the eight deputies for the Third Estate of Artois. He seems locked into himself, somehow not amenable; and he has no orator’s tricks, no style, nothing about him at all.
‘I NOTICE you’ve paid off your tailor,’ his sister Charlotte said. ‘And your glove-maker. And you said he was such a good glove-maker too. I wish you wouldn’t go around town as if you’ve decided to leave for good.’
‘Would you prefer it if I climbed through the window one night with all my possessions done up in a spotted handkerchief? You could tell them I’d run away to sea.’
But Charlotte was not to be mollified: Charlotte, the family knife. ‘They’ll want you to settle things before you go.’
‘You mean about Anaïs?’ He looked up from the letter he was writing to an old schoolfriend. ‘She’s said she’s happy to wait.’
‘She’ll not wait. I know what girls are like. My advice to you is to forget her.’
‘I am always glad of your advice.’
She threw her head up and glared, suspecting sarcasm. But his face expressed only concern for her. He turned back to his letter:
Dearest Camille,
I flatter myself you won’t be very surprised to learn I’m on my way to Versailles. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward …
MAXIMILIEN de Robespierre, 1789, in the case of Dupond:
The reward of the virtuous man is his confidence that he has willed the good of his fellow man: after that comes the recognition of the nations, which surrounds his memory, and the honours given him by contemporaries … I should like to buy these rewards, at the price of a laborious life, even at the price of a premature death.
PARIS: on 1 April, d’Anton went out to vote at the church of the Franciscans, whom the Parisians called the Cordeliers. Legendre the master butcher walked down with him – a big, raw, self-educated man who was in the habit of agreeing with anything d’Anton said.
‘Now a man like you …’ Fréron had said, with careful flattery.
‘A man like me can’t afford to stand for election,’ d’Anton said. ‘They’re giving the deputies, what, an eighteen-franc allowance per session? And I’d have to live in Versailles. I’ve a family to support, I can’t let my practice lie fallow.’
‘But you’re disappointed,’ Fréron suggested.
‘Maybe.’
The voters didn’t go home; they stood in groups outside the Cordeliers’ church, gossiping and making predictions. Fabre didn’t have a vote because he didn’t pay enough taxes; the fact was making him spiteful. ‘Why couldn’t we have the same franchise as the provinces?’ he demanded. ‘I’ll tell you what it is, they regard Paris as a dangerous city, they’re afraid of what would happen if we all had votes.’ He engaged in seditious conversation with the truculent Marquis de Saint-Huruge. Louise Robert closed the shop and came out on François’s arm, wearing rouge and a frock left over from better days.
‘Think what would happen if women had votes,’ she said. She looked up at d’Anton. ‘Maître d’Anton believes women have a lot to contribute to political life, don’t you?’
‘I do not,’ he said mildly.
‘The whole district’s out,’ Legendre said. He was pleased. He had spent his youth at sea; now he liked to feel he belonged to a place.
Mid-afternoon, a surprise visitor: Hérault de Séchelles.
‘Thought I’d drop down to see how you Cordeliers wild men were voting,’ he said; but d’Anton had the impression he’d come to look for him. Hérault took a pinch of snuff from a little box with a picture of Voltaire on the lid. He turned the box in his fingers, appreciatively; proffered it to Legendre.
‘This is our butcher,’ d’Anton said, enjoying the effect.
‘Charmed,’ Hérault said, not a flicker of surprise on his amiable features; but afterwards d’Anton caught him surreptitiously checking his cuffs to see if they were free of ox-blood and offal. He turned to d’Anton: ‘Have you been to the Palais-Royal today?’
‘No, I hear there’s some trouble …’
‘That’s right, keep yourself in the clear,’ Louise Robert muttered.
‘So you’ve not seen Camille?’
‘He’s in Guise.’
‘No, he’s back. I saw him yesterday in the company of the ineffably verminous Jean-Paul Marat – oh, you don’t know the doctor? Not such a loss – the man has a criminal record in half the countries in Europe.’
‘Don’t hold that against a man,’ d’Anton said.
‘But he has, you know, a long history of imposing on people. He was physician to the Comte d’Artois’s household troops, and it’s said he was the lover of a marquise.’
‘Naturally, you don’t believe that.’
‘Look, I can’t help my birth,’ Hérault said, with a flash of irritation. ‘I try to atone for it – perhaps you think I should imitate Mlle de Kéralio and open a shop? Or your butcher might take me on to scrub the floors?’ He broke off. ‘Oh, really, one shouldn’t be talking like this, losing one’s temper. It must be the air in this district. Be careful, Marat will be wanting to move in.’
‘But why is this gentleman verminous? You mean it as a figure of speech?’
‘I mean it literally. This man abandoned his life, walked out, chooses to live as some sort of tramp.’ Hérault shuddered; the story had a horrible grip on his imagination.
‘What does he do?’
‘He appears to have dedicated himself to the overthrowing of everything.’
‘Ah, the overthrowing of everything. Lucrative business, that. Business to put your son into.’
‘What I am telling you is perfectly true – but look now, I’m getting diverted. I came to ask you to do something about Camille, as a matter of urgency –’
‘Oh, Camille,’ Legendre said. He added a phrase he had seldom used since his merchant navy days.
‘Well, quite,’ Hérault said. ‘But one doesn’t want to see him taken up by the police. The Palais-Royal is full of people standing on chairs making inflammatory speeches. I don’t know if he is there now, but he was there yesterday, and the day before –’
‘Camille is making a speech?’
This seemed unlikely: and yet, possible. A picture came into d’Anton’s mind. It was some weeks ago, late at night. Fabre had been drinking. They had all been drinking. Fabre said, we are going to be public men. He said, d’Anton, you know what I told you about your voice when we first met, when you were a boy? I told you, you’ve got to be able to speak for