A Place of Greater Safety

The Comte’s scrutiny was like a physical mauling, and designed to overawe. ‘I meant to get around to waylaying you in some public place,’ he said, ‘and having you fetched here. Unfortunately I waste my time, waiting for the King to send for me.’

‘He should send for you, Monsieur.’

‘Oh, you are a partisan of mine?’

‘I have had the honour of arguing from your premises.’

‘Oh, I like that,’ Mirabeau said mockingly. ‘I dearly love a sycophant, Maître Desmoulins.’

Camille cannot understand this: the way Orléans people look at him, the way Mirabeau now looks at him: as if they had plans for him. Nobody has had plans for him, since the priests gave him up.

‘You must forgive my appearance,’ the Comte said smoothly. ‘My affairs keep me up at nights. Not always, I am bound to say, my political ones.’

This is nonsense, Camille sees at once. If it suited the Comte, he would receive his admirers shaven and sober. But nothing he does is without its calculated effect, and by his ease and carelessness, and by his careless apologies for it, he means to dominate and outface the careful and anxious men who wait on him. The Comte looked into the face of his impassive servant Teutch, and laughed uproariously, as if the man had made a joke; then broke off and said, ‘I like your writings, Maître Desmoulins. So much emotion, so much heart.’

‘I used to write poetry. I see now that I had no talent for it.’

‘There are enough constraints, without the metrical, I think.’

‘I did not mean to put my heart into it. I expect I meant it to be statesman-like.’

‘Leave that to the elderly.’ The Comte held up the pamphlet. ‘Can you do this again?’

‘Oh that – yes, of course.’ He had developed a contempt for the first pamphlet, which seemed for a moment to extend to anyone who admired it. ‘I can do that … like breathing. I don’t say like talking, for reasons which will be clear.’

‘But you do talk, Maître Desmoulins. You talk to the Palais-Royal.’

‘I force myself to do it.’

‘Nature framed me for a demogogue.’ The Comte turned his head, displaying his better profile. ‘How long have you had that stutter?’

He made it sound like some toy, or tasteful innovation. Camille said, ‘A very long time. Since I was seven. Since I first went away from home.’

‘Did it overset you so much, leaving your people?’

‘I don’t remember now. I suppose it must have done. Unless I was trying to articulate relief.’

‘Ah, that sort of home.’ Mirabeau smiled. ‘I myself am familiar with every variety of domestic difficulty, from short temper at the breakfast table to the consequences of incest.’ He put out a hand, drawing Camille into the room. ‘The King – the late King – used to say that there should be a Secretary of State with no other function but to arbitrate in my family’s quarrels. My family, you know, is very old. Very grand.’

‘Really? Mine just pretends to be.’

‘What is your father?’

‘A magistrate.’ Honesty compelled him to add. ‘I’m afraid I am a great disappointment to him.’

‘Don’t tell me. I shall never understand the middle classes. I wish you would sit down. I must know something of your biography. Tell me, where were you educated?’

‘At Louis-le-Grand. Did you think I was brought up by the local curé?’

Mirabeau put down his coffee cup. ‘De Sade was there.’

‘He’s not entirely typical.’

‘I had the bad luck to be incarcerated with de Sade once. I said to him, “Monsieur, I do not wish to associate with you; you cut up women into little pieces.” Forgive me, I am digressing.’ He sank into a chair, an unmannerly aristocrat who never sought forgiveness for anything. Camille watched him, monstrously vain and conceited, going on like a Great Man. When the Comte moved and spoke, he prowled and roared. When he reposed, he suggested some tatty stuffed lion in a museum of natural history: dead, but not so dead as he might be. ‘Continue,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Why am I bothering with you? Do you think I want to leave your little talents to the Duke’s pack of rascals? I am preparing to give you good advice. Does the Duke give you good advice?’

‘No. He has never spoken to me.’

‘How pathetically you say it. Of course he has not. But myself, I take an interest. I have men of genius in my employ. I call them my slaves. And I like everyone to be happy, down on the plantation. You know what I am of course?’

Camille remembers how Annette spoke of Mirabeau: a bankrupt, an immoralist. The thought of Annette seems out of place in this stuffy little room crowded with furniture, old hangings on the walls, clocks ticking away, the Comte scratching his chin. The room is strewn with evidence of good living: why do we say good living, he wonders, when we mean extravagance, gluttony and sloth? That the bankruptcy is not discharged does not seem to hinder the Comte from acquiring expensive objects – amongst which it seems he is now numbered. As for immorality, the Comte seems only too eager to admit to it. The wild-beast collection of his ambitions crouches in the corner, hungry for its breakfast and stinking at the end of its chain.

‘Well, you have had a nice pause for thought.’ The Comte rose in one easy movement, trailing his drapery. He put an arm around Camille’s shoulders and drew him into the sunlight that streamed in at the window. The sudden warmth seemed an effulgence of his own. There was liquor on his breath. ‘I ought to tell you,’ he said, ‘that I like to have about me men with complicated and sordid pasts. I am then at my ease. And you, Camille, with your impulses and emotions which you have been selling at the Palais-Royal like poisoned bouquets –’ He touched his hair. ‘And your interesting, faint but perceptible shadow of sexual ambivalence –’

‘Do you always take people apart in this way?’

‘I like you,’ Mirabeau said drily, ‘because you never deny anything.’ He moved away. ‘There is a handwritten text circulating, called “La France Libre”. Is it yours?’

‘Yes. You did not think that anodyne tract you have there was the whole of my output?’

‘No, Maître Desmoulins, I did not, and I see that you also have your slaves and your copyists. Tell me your politics – in one word.’

‘Republican.’

Mirabeau swore. ‘Monarchy is an article of faith with me,’ he said. ‘I need it, I mean to assert myself through it. Are there many of your underground acquaintances who think as you do?’

‘No, not more than half a dozen. That is, I don’t think you could find more than half a dozen republicans in the whole country.’

‘And why is that, do you suppose?’

‘I suppose it’s because people cannot bear too much reality. They think the King will whistle them from the gutter and make them ministers. But all that world is going to be destroyed.’

Mirabeau yelled for his valet. ‘Teutch, lay out my clothes. Something fairly splendid.’

‘Black,’ Teutch said, trundling in. ‘You’re a deputy, aren’t you.’

‘Dammit, I forgot.’ He nodded towards his anteroom. ‘It sounds as if they’re getting a bit restive out there. Yes, let them all in at once, it will be amusing. Ah, here comes the Genevan government in exile. Good morning, M. Duroveray, M. Dumont, M. Clavière. These are slaves,’ he said to Camille in a carrying whisper. ‘Clavière wants to be a Minister of Finance. Any country will do for him. Peculiar ambition, very.’

Brissot scuttled up. ‘I’ve been suppressed,’ he said. For once, he looked it.

‘How sad,’ Mirabeau said.

They began to fill the room, the Genevans in pale silk and the deputies in black with folios under their arms, and Brissot in his shabby brown coat, his thin, unpowdered hair cut straight across his forehead in a manner meant to recall the ancient world.

‘Pétion, a deputy? Good day to you,’ Mirabeau said. ‘From where? Chartres? Very good. Thank you for calling on me.’

He turned away; he was talking to three people at once. Either you held his interest, or you didn’t. Deputy Pétion didn’t. He was a big man, kind-looking and fleshily handsome, like a growing puppy. He looked around the room with a smile. Then his lazy blue eyes focused. ‘Ah, the infamous Camille.’

Camille jumped violently. He would have preferred it without the prefix. But it was a beginning.

‘I paid a flying visit to Paris,’ Pétion explained, ‘and I heard your name around the cafés. Then Deputy de Robespierre gave me such a description of you that when I saw you just now I knew you at once.’

‘You know de Robespierre?’

‘Rather well.’

I doubt that, Camille thought. ‘Was it a flattering description?’

‘Oh, he thinks the world of you.’ Pétion beamed at him. ‘Everyone does.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t look so sceptical.’

Mirabeau’s voice boomed across the room. ‘Brissot, how are they at the Palais-Royal today?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘Setting filthy intrigues afoot as usual, I suppose; all except Good Duke Philippe, he’s too simple for intrigues. Cunt, cunt, cunt, that’s all he thinks about.’

‘Please,’ Duroveray said. ‘My dear Comte, please.’

‘A thousand apologies,’ the Comte said, ‘I forget that you hale from the city of Calvin. It’s true though. Teutch has more notion of statesmanship. Far more.’

Brissot shifted from foot to foot. ‘Quiet about the Duke,’ he hissed. ‘Laclos is here.’

‘I swear I didn’t see you,’ the Comte said. ‘Shall you carry tales?’ His voice was silky. ‘How’s the dirty-book trade?’

‘What are you doing here?’ Brissot said to Camille, below the buzz of conversation. ‘How did you get on such terms with him?’

‘I hardly know.’

‘Gentlemen, I want your attention.’ Mirabeau pushed Camille in front of him and placed his large be-ringed hands on his shoulders. He was another kind of animal now: boisterously dangerous, a bear got out of the pit. ‘This is my new acquisition, M. Desmoulins.’

Deputy Pétion smiled at him amiably. Laclos caught his eye and turned away.

‘Now, gentlemen, if you would just give me a moment to dress, Teutch, the door for the gentlemen, and I will be with you directly.’ They filed out. ‘You stay,’ he said to Camille.

There was a sudden silence. The Comte passed his hand over his face. ‘What a farce,’ he said.

‘It seems a waste of time. But I don’t know how these things are conducted.’

‘You don’t know much at all, my dear, but that doesn’t stop you having your prim little opinions.’ He bounced across the room, arms outstretched. ‘The Rise and Rise of the Comte de Mirabeau. They have to see me, they have to see the ogre. Laclos comes here with his pointed nose twitching. Brissot ditto. He wears me out, that man Brissot, he never stays still. I don’t mean he runs around the room like you, I mean he fidgets. Incidentally, I presume you are taking money from Orléans? Quite right. One must live, and at other people’s expense if at all possible. Teutch,’ he said, ‘you may shave me, but do not put lather in my mouth, I want to talk.’

‘As if that were anything new,’ the man said. His employer leaned forward and punched him in the ribs. Teutch spilled a little hot water, but was not otherwise incommoded.

‘I’m in demand with the patriots,’ Mirabeau said. ‘Patriots! You notice how we can’t get through a paragraph without using that word? Your pamphlet will be got out, within a month or two.’

Camille sat and looked at him sombrely. He felt calm, as if he were drifting out to sea.

‘Publishers are a craven breed,’ the Comte said. ‘If I had the ordering and disposition of the Inferno, I would keep a special circle for them, where they would grill slowly on white-hot presses.’

Camille’s eyes flickered to Mirabeau’s face. He found in its temper and tensions some indication that he was not the devil’s only steady bet. ‘Are you married?’ the Comte asked suddenly.

‘No, but in a way I am engaged.’

‘Has she money?’

‘Quite a lot.’

‘I warm to you with every admission.’ He waved Teutch away. ‘I think you had better move in here, at least when you are in Versailles. I’m not sure you’re fit to be at large.’ He pulled at his cravat. His mood had altered. ‘Do you know, Camille,’ he said softly, ‘you may wonder how you got here, but I wonder the same thing about myself … to be here, in Versailles, expecting daily a summons from the Palace, and this on the strength of my writings, my speeches, the support I command among the people … to be playing at last my natural role in this Kingdom … because the King must send, mustn’t he? When all the old solutions have been tried and have failed?’

‘I think so. But you must show him clearly how dangerous an opponent you can be.’

‘Yes … and that will be another gamble. Have you ever tried to kill yourself?’

‘It comes up as a possibility from time to time.’

‘Everything is a joke,’ the Comte snapped. ‘I hope you’re flippant when you’re in the dock for treason.’ He dropped his voice again. ‘Yes, I take your point, it’s been an option. You see, people say they’ve no regrets, they boast about it, but I, I tell you, I have regrets – the debts I’ve incurred and daily incur, the women I’ve ruined and let go, my own nature that I can’t curb, that I’ve never learned to curb, that’s never learned to wait and bide its time – yes, I can tell you, death would have been a reprieve, it would have given me time off from myself. But I was a fool. Now I want to be alive so –’ He broke off. He wanted to say that he had been made to suffer, had felt his face ground into his own errors, had been undermined, choked off, demeaned.

‘Well, why?’

Mirabeau grinned. ‘So I can give them hell,’ he said.

THE HALL of the Lesser Pleasures, it was called. Until now it had been used for storing scenery for palace theatricals. These two facts occasioned comment.

When the King decided that this hall was a suitable meeting place for the Estates-General, he called in carpenters and painters. They hung the place with velvet and tassels, knocked up some imitation columns and splashed around some gold paint. It was passably splendid, and it was cheap. There were seats to the right and left of the throne for the First and Second Estates; the Commons were to occupy an inadequate number of hard wooden benches at the back.

It began badly. After the King’s solemn entry, he surveyed them with a rather foolish smile, and removed his hat. Then he sat down, and put it on again. The brilliant robes and silk coats swept and rustled into their places. Three hundred plumes were raised and replaced on three hundred noble heads. But protocol dictates that in the presence of the monarch, commoners remain hatless and standing.

A moment later a red-faced man clamped his plain hat over his forehead and sat down with as much noise as he found he could make. With one accord, the Third Estate assumed its seat. The Comte de Mirabeau jostled on the benches with the rest.

Unruffled, His Majesty rose to make his speech. It was unreasonable, he had thought personally, to keep the poor men standing all afternoon, since they had already been waiting three hours to be let into the hall. Well, they had taken the initiative, he would not make a fuss. He began to speak. A moment later, the back rows leaned into the front rows. What? What did he say?

Immediately it is evident: only giants with brazen lungs will prosper in this hall. Being one such, Mirabeau smiled.

The King said – very little, really. He spoke of the debt burden of the American war. He said that the taxation system might be reformed. He did not say how. M. Barentin rose next: Minister of Justice, Keeper of the Seals. He warned against precipitate action, dangerous innovation; invited the Estates to meet separately the next day, to elect officers, draw up procedures. He sat down.

It is the earnest desire of the Commons that the Estates should meet as one body, and that the votes should be counted individually, by head. Otherwise, the churchmen and the nobles will combine against the Commons; the generous grant of double representation – their six hundred to the three hundred each of the Nobles and the Clergy – will avail them nothing. They might as well go home.

But not before Necker’s speech. The Comptroller of Finances rose, to an expectant hush; and Maximilien de Robespierre moved, imperceptibly, forward on his bench. Necker began. You could hear him better than Barentin. It was figures, figures, figures.

After ten minutes, Maximilien de Robespierre’s eyes followed the eyes of the other men in the hall. The ladies of the court were stacked on benches like crockery on a shelf, rigid and trapped inside their impossible gowns and stays and trains. Each one sat upright; then, when this exhausted her, leaned back for support against the knees of the lady behind. After ten minutes, those knees would twitch and flex; then the first lady would shoot upright again. Soon she would droop, stir, yawn, twitch, she would shift in the little space allowed, she would rustle and moan silently to herself, and pray for the torture to be over. How they longed to lean forward, drop their addled heads on to their knees! Pride kept them upright – more or less. Poor things, he thought. Poor little creatures. Their spines will break.

The first half hour passed. Necker must have been in here before, to test his voice in the hall, for he had been quite audible; it was just a shame that none of it made any sense. A lead was what we wanted, Max thought, we wanted some – fine phrases, I suppose. Inspiration, call it what you will. Necker was struggling now. His voice was fading. This, clearly, had been anticipated. He had a substitute by him. He passed his notes across. The substitute rose and began. He had a voice like a creaking drawbridge.

Now there was one woman Max watched: the Queen. When her husband spoke, there was some effort at a frowning concentration. When Barentin rose, she had dropped her eyes. Now she looked about her, quite frankly; she scanned the benches of the Commoners. She would watch them, watching her. She would glance down to her lap, move her fingers slightly, to catch the flash of diamonds in the light. She would raise her head, and again the stiff-jawed face would turn, turn. She seemed to be searching, searching. What was she searching for? For one face above the black coats … An enemy? A friend? Her fan jerked in her hand, like a live bird.

Three hours later, heads reeling, the deputies stumbled out into the sun. A large group gathered at once about Mirabeau, who was dissecting for their instruction the speech of M. Necker. ‘It is the speech, gentlemen, that one might expect from a banker’s clerk of some small ability … As for the deficit, it is our best friend. If the King didn’t need to raise money, would we be here?’

‘We may as well not be here,’ a deputy observed, ‘if we cannot have the voting by head.’ Mirabeau slapped the man on the shoulder, unbalancing him.

Max moved well out of range. He didn’t want to risk, even accidentally, being pounded on the back by Mirabeau; and the man was so free with his fists. At once, he felt a tap on his shoulder; it was no more than a tap. He turned. One of the Breton deputies. ‘Conference on tactics, tonight, my rooms, eight o’clock, all right?’

Max nodded. Strategy, he means, he thought: the art of imposing on the enemy the time, place and conditions for the fight.

Here was Deputy Pétion, bounding up. ‘Why lurk so modestly, de Robespierre? Look now – I’ve found you your friend.’ The Deputy dived bravely into the circle around Mirabeau, and in a moment re-emerged: and with him, Camille Desmoulins. Pétion was a sentimental man; gratified, he stood aside to watch the reunion. Mirabeau stumped off in animated conversation with Barnave. Camille put his hands into de Robespierre’s. De Robespierre’s hands were cool, steady, dry. Camille felt his heart slow. He glanced over his shoulder at the retreating Mirabeau. For a second, he saw the Comte in quite a different light: a tawdry grandee, in some noisy melodrama. He wished to leave the theatre.

ON 6 MAY the Clergy and the Nobility met separately, in the chambers allocated to them. But except for the Hall of the Lesser Pleasures, there was nowhere big enough for the Third Estate. They were allowed to stay where they were. ‘The King has made an error,’ de Robespierre said. ‘He has left us in possession of the ground.’ He surprised himself: perhaps he had learned something after all from his scraps of conversation with Lazare Carnot, the military engineer. One day soon he must undertake the nervous business of addressing this great assembly. Arras seems far, very far away.

The Third Estate cannot actually transact any business, of course. To do so would be to accept their status as a separate assembly. They don’t accept it. They ask the two other Estates to come back and join them. Nobility and Clergy refuse. Deadlock.

‘SO WHATEVER I SAY next, write it down.’

The Genevan slaves sat about with scraps of paper resting on books propped on their knees. The Comte’s papers covered every surface that might have been used as a writing desk. From time to time they exchanged glances, like the knowing veteran revolutionaries they were. The Comte strode about, gesturing with a sheaf of notes. He was wearing his crimson dressing-gown, and the rings on his big hairy hands caught the candlelight and flashed fire into the airless room. It was one a.m. Teutch came in.

TEUTCH: Monsieur –

MIRABEAU: Out.

[Teutch draws the door closed behind him.]

MIRABEAU: So, the Nobility don’t wish to join us. They have voted against our proposal – by a clear hundred votes. The Clergy don’t wish to join us, but their voting was, am I right, 133 to 114?

GENEVANS: You are right.

MIRABEAU: So that’s close. That tells us something.

[He begins to pace. The Genevans scribble. It is 2.15. Teutch comes in.]

TEUTCH: Monsieur, there is a man here with a very hard name who has been waiting to see you since eleven o’clock.

MIRABEAU: What do you mean, a hard name?

TEUTCH: I can’t understand what it is.

MIRABEAU: Well, get him to write it down on a piece of paper and bring it in, can’t you, imbecile?

[Teutch goes out.]

MIRABEAU [digressing]: Necker. What is Necker, in the Lord’s name? What are his qualifications for office? What in the name of God makes him look so good? I’ll tell you what it is – the fellow has no debts, and no mistresses. Can that be what the public wants these days – a Swiss pinch-penny, with no balls? No, Dumont, don’t write that down.

DUMONT: You make yourself sound envious of Necker, Mirabeau. Of his position as minister.

[2.45 a.m. Teutch comes in with a slip of paper. Mirabeau takes it from him in passing and puts it in his pocket.]

MIRABEAU: Forget Necker. Everybody will, anyway. Return to the point. It seems, then, that the Clergy are our best hope. If we can persuade them to join us …

[At. 3.15 he takes the slip of paper out of his pocket.]

MIRABEAU: De Robespierre. Yes, it is a peculiar name … Now, everything depends on those nineteen priests. I must have a speech that will not only invite them to join us, but will inspire them to join us – no commonplace speech, but a great speech. A speech that will set their interest and duty plainly before them.

DUROVERAY: And one that will cover the name of Mirabeau in eternal glory, just by the way.

MIRABEAU: There is that.

[Teutch comes in.]

MIRABEAU: Oh, good heavens, am I to endure you walking in and out and slamming the door every two minutes? Is M. de Robepierre still here?

TEUTCH: Yes, Monsieur.

MIRABEAU: How very patient he must be. I wish I had that kind of patience. Well, make the good deputy a cup of chocolate, Teutch, out of your Christian charity, and tell him I will see him soon.

[4.30 a.m. Mirabeau talks. Occasionally he pauses in front of a mirror to try out the effect of a gesture. M. Dumont has fallen asleep.]

MIRABEAU: M. de Robinpère still here?