A Place of Greater Safety. Hilary Mantel
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the crowd Camille had met the Abbé de Bourville. ‘You don’t recognize me,’ the abbé complained, pushing through. ‘We were at school together.’
‘Yes, but in those days you had a blue tinge, from the cold.’
‘I recognized you right away. You’ve not changed a bit, you look about nineteen.’
‘Are you pious now, de Bourville?’
‘Not noticeably. Do you ever see Louis Suleau?’
‘Never. But I expect he’ll turn up.’
They turned back to the procession. For a moment he was swept by an irrational certainty that he, Desmoulins, had arranged all this, that the Estates were marching at his behest, that all Paris and Versailles revolved around his own person.
‘There’s Orléans.’ De Bourville pulled at his arm. ‘Look, he’s insisting on walking with the Third Estate. Look at the Master of Ceremonies pleading with him. He’s broken out in a sweat. Look, that’s the Duc de Biron.’
‘Yes, I know him. I’ve been to his house.’
‘That’s Lafayette.’ America’s hero stepped out briskly in his silver waistcoat, his pale young face serious and a little abstracted, his peculiarly pointed head hidden under a tricorne hat à la Henri Quatre. ‘Do you know him too?’
‘Only by reputation,’ Camille muttered. ‘Washington pot-au-feu.’
Bourville laughed. ‘You must write that down.’
‘I have.’
At the Church of Saint-Louis, de Robespierre had a good seat by an aisle. A good seat, to fidget through the sermon, to be close to the procession of the great. So close; the billowing episcopal sea parted for a second, and between the violet robes and the lawn sleeves the King looked him full in the face without meaning to, the King, overweight in cloth-of-gold; and as the Queen turned her head (this close for the second time, Madame) the heron plumes in her hair seemed to beckon to him, civilly. The Holy Sacrament in its jewelled monstrance was a small sun, ablaze in a bishop’s hands; they took their seat on a dais, under a canopy of velvet embroidered with gold fleur-de-lis. Then the choir:
O salutaris hostia
If you could sell the Crown Jewels what could you buy for France?
Quae coeli pandis ostium,
The King looks half-asleep.
Bella premunt hostilia,
The Queen looks proud.
Da robur, fer auxilium.
She looks like a Hapsburg.
Uni trinoque Domino,
Madame Deficit.
Sit sempiterna gloria,
Outside, the women were shouting for Orléans.
Qui vitam sine termino,
There is no one here I know.
Nobis donet in patria.
Camille might be here somewhere. Somewhere.
Amen.
‘LOOK, LOOK,’ Camille said to de Bourville. ‘Maximilien.’
‘Well, so it is. Our dear Thing. I suppose one shouldn’t be surprised.’
‘I should be there. In that procession. De Robespierre is my intellectual inferior.’
‘What?’ The abbé turned, amazed. Laughter engulfed him. ‘Louis XVI by the grace of God is your intellectual inferior. So no doubt is our Holy Father the Pope. What else would you like to be, besides a deputy?’ Camille did not reply. ‘Dear, dear.’ The abbé affected to wipe his eyes.
‘There’s Mirabeau,’ Camille said. ‘He’s starting a newspaper. I’m going to write for it.’
‘How did you arrange that?’
‘I haven’t. Tomorrow I will.’
De Bourville looked sideways at him. Camille is a liar, he thinks, always was. No, that’s too harsh; let’s say, he romances. ‘Well, good luck to you,’ he said. ‘Did you see how the Queen was received? Nasty, wasn’t it? They cheered Orléans though. And Lafayette. And Mirabeau.’
And d’Anton, Camille said: under his breath, to try out the sound of it. D’Anton had a big case in hand, would not even come to watch. And Desmoulins, he added. They cheered Desmoulins most of all. He felt a dull ache of disappointment.
It had rained all night. At ten o’clock, when the procession began, the streets had been steaming under the early sun, but by midday the ground was quite hot and dry.
CAMILLE had arranged to spend the night in Versailles at his cousin’s apartment; he had made a point of asking this favour of the deputy when there were several people about, so that he could not with dignity refuse. It was well after midnight when he arrived.
‘Where on earth have you been till this time?’ de Viefville said.
‘With the Duc de Biron. And the Comte de Genlis,’ Camille murmured.
‘Oh I see,’ de Viefville said. He was annoyed, because he did not know whether to believe him or not. And there was a third party present, inhibiting the good row they might have had.
A young man rose from his quiet seat in the chimney corner. ‘I’ll leave you, M. de Viefville. But think over what I’ve said.’
De Viefville made no effort to effect introductions. The young man said to Camille, ‘I’m Barnave, you might have heard of me.’
‘Everyone has heard of you.’
‘Perhaps you think I am only a troublemaker. I do hope to show I’m something more. Good-night, Messieurs.’
He drew the door quietly behind him. Camille would have liked to run after him and ask him questions, try to cement their acquaintance; but his faculty of awe had been overworked that day. This Barnave was the man who in the Dauphiné had stirred up resistance to royal edicts. People called him Tiger – gentle mockery, Camille now saw, of a plain, pleasant, snub-nosed young lawyer.
‘What’s the matter?’ de Viefville inquired. ‘Disappointed? Not what you thought?’
‘What did he want?’
‘Support for his measures. He could only spare me fifteen minutes, and that in the small hours.’
‘So are you insulted?’
‘You’ll see them all tomorrow, jockeying for advantage. They’re all in it for what they can grab, if you ask me.’
‘Does nothing shake your tiny provincial convictions?’ Camille asked. ‘You’re worse than my father.’
‘Camille, if I’d been your father I’d have broken your silly little neck years ago.’
At the palace and across the town, the clocks began to strike one, mournfully concordant; de Viefville turned, walked out of the room, went to bed. Camille took out the draft of his pamphlet ‘La France Libre’. He read each page through, tore it once across and dropped it on the fire. It had failed to keep up with the situation. Next week, deo volente, next month, he would write it again. In the flames he could see the picture of himself writing, the ink skidding over the paper, his hand scooping the hair off his forehead. When the traffic stopped rumbling under the window he curled up in a chair and fell asleep by the dying fire. At five the light edged between the shutters and the first cart passed with its haul of dark sour bread for the Versailles market. He woke, and sat looking around the strange room, sick apprehension running through him like a slow, cold flame.
THE VALET – who was not like a valet, but like a bodyguard – said: ‘Did vou write this?’
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