‘No, I suppose you can’t,’ Annette said.
‘Frankly, that he has the nerve – I’m surprised.’
‘So am I.’
He had considered sending Lucile away to stay with relations. But then people might put the worst construction on it – might believe she had done something she shouldn’t have.
‘What if …?’
‘If?’ Annette said impatiently.
‘If I were to introduce her to one or two eligible young men?’
‘Sixteen is too young to marry. And her vanity is already great enough. Still, Claude, you must do as you feel. You are the head of the household. You are the girl’s father.’
ANNETTE sent for her daughter, having fortified herself with a large glass of brandy.
‘The letter.’ She clicked her fingers for it.
‘I don’t carry it on my person.’
‘Where then?’
‘Inside Persian Letters.’
An ill-advised merriment seized Annette. ‘Perhaps you would like to file it inside my copy of Les Liaisons Dangereuses.’
‘Didn’t know you had one. Can I read it?’
‘No indeed. I may follow the advice in the foreword, and give you a copy on your wedding night. When, in the course of time, your father and I find you someone to marry.’
Lucile made no comment. How well she hides, she thought – with the help of only a little brandy – a most mortifying blow to her pride. She would almost like to congratulate her.
‘He came to see your father,’ Annette said. ‘He said he had written to you. You won’t see him again. If there are any more letters, bring them straight to me.’
‘Does he accept the situation?’
‘That hardly matters.’
‘Did it not seem proper to my father that I be consulted?’
‘Why should you be consulted? You are a child.’
‘I might have to have a chat with my father. About certain things I saw.’
Annette smiled wanly. ‘Ruthless, aren’t you, my dear?’
‘It seems a fair exchange.’ Lucile’s throat was constricted. On the precipice of these new dealings, she was almost too frightened to speak. ‘You give me time to think. That’s all I’m asking for.’
‘And in return you promise me your infant discretion? What is it, Lucile, that you think you know?’
‘Well, after all, I’ve never seen my father kiss you like that. I’ve never seen anybody kiss anybody like that. It must have done something to brighten your week.’
‘It seems to have brightened yours.’ Annette rose from her chair. She trailed across the room, to where some hothouse flowers stood in a bowl. She swept them out, and began to replace them one by one. ‘You should have gone to a convent,’ she said. ‘It’s not too late to finish your education.’
‘You would have to let me out eventually.’
‘Oh yes, but while you were busy with your plain chant you wouldn’t be spying on people and practising the art of manipulation.’ She laughed – without merriment now. ‘I suppose you thought, until you came into the drawing room, how worldly-wise and sophisticated I was? That I never put a foot wrong?’
‘Oh no. Until then, I thought what a boring life you had.’
‘I’d like to ask you to forget what has happened in the last few days.’ Annette paused, a rose in her hand. ‘But you won’t, will you, because you’re stubborn and vain, and bent on seizing what you – quite wrongly – feel to be your advantage.’
‘I didn’t spy on you, you know.’ She wanted, very badly, to put this right. ‘Adèle dared me to walk in. What would happen if I said yes, I want to marry him?’
‘That’s unthinkable,’ her mother said. One flower, icy-white, escaped to the carpet.
‘Not really. The human brain’s a wonderful thing.’
Lucile retrieved the long-stemmed rose, handed it back to her mother. She sucked from her finger a bead of blood. I may do it, she thought, or I may not. In any event, there will be more letters. She will not use Montesquieu again, but will file them inside Mably’s disquisition of 1768: Doubts on the Natural Order of Societies. Those, she feels, have suddenly become considerable.
III. Maximilien: Life and Times
MERCURE DE FRANCE, June 1783: ‘M. de Robespierre, a young barrister of great merit, deployed in this matter – which is in the cause of the arts and the sciences – an eloquence and wisdom that give the highest indications of his talents.’
‘I see the thorn that’s in the rose
In these bouquets you offer me …’
Maximilien de Robespierre, Poems
THE CUTTING was growing yellow now, worn from much handling. He had been trying to think how to preserve it and keep it clean, but the whole sheet was curling at the edges. He was certain that he knew it by heart, but if he simply repeated it to himself, it might have been something he had made up. But when you read it, held the paper in your hand, you could be sure that it was another person’s opinion, written by a Paris journalist, set up by the printers. You could not say that it had not happened.
There was quite a long report of the case. It was, of course, a matter of public interest. It had all begun when a M. de Vissery of Saint-Omer got himself a lightning conductor and put it up on his house, watched by a dour crowd of simpletons; when the work was finished they had clumped off to the Municipality and claimed that the thing actually attracted lightning, and must be taken down. Why would M. de Vissery want to attract lightning? Well, he was in league with the devil, wasn’t he?
So, to law over the subject’s right to have a lightning conductor. The aggrieved householder consulted Maître de Buissart, a leading figure at the Arras Bar, a man with a strong scientific bent. Maximilien was well in with de Buissart, at the time. His colleague got quite excited: ‘You see, there’s a principle at stake; there are people trying to block progress, to oppose the dissemination of the benefits of science – and we can’t, if we count ourselves enlightened men, stand idly by – so would you like to come in on this, write some letters for me? Do you think we should write to Benjamin Franklin?’
Suggestions, advice, scientific commentary poured in. Papers were spread all over the house. ‘This man Marat,’ de Buissart said, ‘it’s good of him to take so much trouble, but we won’t push his hypotheses too strongly. I hear he’s in bad odour with the scientists of the Academy.’ When, finally, the case went to the Council of Arras, de Buissart stood aside, let de Robespierre make the speeches. De Buissart hadn’t realized, when the case began, what a strain on his memory and organizational powers it would be. His colleague didn’t seem to feel the strain; de Buissart put it down to youth.
Afterwards, the winners gave a party. Letters of congratulation came – well, pouring in would be an exaggeration, but there was no doubt that the case had attracted attention. He still had all the papers, Dr Marat’s voluminous evidence, his own concluding speech with the last-minute emendations down the side. And for months when people came calling the Aunts would take out the newspaper and say, ‘Did you see about