mother. And I’m sure the play is dreadful.’
‘A typical feminine remark,’ Georges said. ‘I don’t see what’s wrong with him, except he’s a bore. His opinions are – ’ He paused and smiled. ‘I was going to say they’re correct, but of course I mean they’re mine.’
Next day, Camille said: ‘This hideous Collot. Much the worst person in the world. Play I suppose is unbearable.’
Georges said meekly, ‘I’m sure you’re right.’
Towards the end of the year Georges addressed the Assembly. A few days later the Ministry fell. People said that Georges had brought it down. My mother said, you are married to a powerful man.
THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY in session: Lord Mornington, September 1790:
They have no regular form of debate on ordinary business; some speak from their seats, some from the floor, some from the table and some from their tribune or desk…the riot is so great that it is very difficult to collect what is being said. I am certain I have seen above a hundred in the act of addressing the Assembly together, all persisting to speak, and as many more replying in different parts of the House; then the President claps his hands on both ears and roars Order, as if he were calling a coach…he beats his table, his breast…wringing his hands is quite a common action, and I really believe he swears…the galleries approve and disapprove by groaning and clapping.
I went to court this morning at the Tuileries, and a very gloomy court it was…The King seemed well, but I thought his manner evidently humbled since I was introduced to him before; he now bows to everybody, which was not a Bourbon fashion before the Revolution.
LUCILE’S YEAR: I keep two sets of notebooks now. One’s for pure and elevated thoughts, and the other’s for what really goes on.
I used to live like God, in different Persons. The reason for this was, life was so dull. I used to pretend to be Maria Stuart, and to be quite honest I must say I still do, for old time’s sake. Its not easy to break yourself of these habits. Everybody else in my life would be assigned a role – usually as a lady-in-waiting, or something – and I would hate them when they wouldn’t play it properly. If I got tired of Maria S. I would play at being Julie from La Nouvelle Héloïse. These days I wonder what is my relationship to Maximilien Robespierre. I’m living inside his favourite novel.
You have to employ some fantasy to keep brute reality at bay. The year began with Camille being sued for libel by M. Sanson, the public executioner. Strange – you don’t think of executioners having recourse to law, in the normal way, you don’t think of them having any animosity to spare.
Fortunately, the law is slow, its processes are cumbersome, and when damages are awarded the Duke is ready to pick up the bill. No, it’s not the courts that worry me. Every morning I wake up and think to myself: is he still alive?
Camille is attacked on the street. He is denounced in the Assembly. He is challenged to duels – though the patriots have made a pact never to respond. There are lunatics going round the city, boasting that they’re waiting for a chance to put a knife in him. They write him letters, these lunatics – letters so demented and so revolting that he won’t read them himself. You can tell, he says, by a quick scan, what sort of letter it is. Sometimes you can tell by the handwriting on the outside of the packet. He has a box that he throws them into. Then other people have to look through them, in case any of the threats are very specific – I will kill you, at such a time and place.
My father’s odd. About twice a month he’ll forbid me ever to see Camille again. But every morning he’s making a grab for the papers – ‘Any news, any news?’ Does he want to hear that Camille’s been found across the river with his throat cut? I don’t think so. I don’t think my father would find any joy in his life if it weren’t for Camille. My mother teases him in the most cold-blooded way. ‘Admit it, Claude,’ she says. ‘He’s the son you’ve never had.’
Claude brings home young men for supper. He thinks I might like them. Civil servants. Dear God.
Sometimes they write me poems, lovely civil service sonnets. Adèle and I read them out with suitable sentimental expressions. We turn up our eyes, slap our hands on our ribcages, and sigh. Then we make them into paper darts and bombard each other. Our spirits, you see, are high. We roll through our days in a sort of unwholesome glee. It’s either this, or a permanent welter of sniffles and tears, forebodings and fears – and we prefer to be hilarious. We prefer to make blood-curdling jokes.
My mother, by contrast, is strained, sad; but fundamentally, I think she suffers less than I do. Probably it’s because she’s older, and she’s learned to ration these things. ‘Camille will survive,’ she says. ‘Why do you think he goes around in the company of such large men?’ There are guns, I say, knives. ‘Knives?’ she says. ‘Can you imagine someone trying to get a knife past M. Danton? Hacking through all that muscle and flesh?’ That’s to imagine, I say, that he would interpose himself. She says, ‘Isn’t Camille rather good at exacting human sacrifices? After all,’ she says, ‘look at me. Look at you.’
We expect, quite soon, to hear of Adèle’s engagement. Max came here, and quite gratuitously praised the Abbé Terray. Much that the abbé had done, he said, had not been generally understood. Claude has consequently ceased to mind that Max has only his deputy’s salary, and that he is supporting a younger brother and a sister out of it.
What will Adèle’s life be like? Robespierre gets letters too, but they’re not the same as the ones Camille gets. They come from all over the city; they’re letters from little people, who have fallen foul of the authorities or got themselves into some form of trouble, and they think he can take up their case and put everything right. He has to get up at five a.m. to answer these letters. Somehow I think his standards of domestic comfort are rather low. His requirements for recreation, amusement, diversion seem to be nil. Now, ask yourself – will that suit Adèle?
ROBESPIERRE: It’s not just Paris he must consider. Letters come from all over the country. Provincial towns have set up their Jacobin Clubs, and the Correspondence Committee of the Paris club sends them news, assessments, directives; back come their letters, distinguishing among the Paris brethren the deputy Robespierre, marking him out for their praise and thanks. This is something, after the vilification of the royalists. Inside his copy of The Social Contract he keeps a letter from a young Picard, an enthusiast called Antoine Saint-Just: ‘I know you, Robespierre, as I know God, by your works.’ When he suffers, as he does increasingly, from a distressing tightness of the chest and shortness of breath, and when his eyes seem too tired to focus on the printed page, the thought of the letter urges the weak flesh to more Works.
Every day he attends the Assembly, and every evening the Jacobin Club. He calls when he can at the Duplessis house, dines occasionally with Pétion – working dinner. He goes to the theatre perhaps twice in the season, with no great pleasure, and regret at the time lost. People wait to see him outside the Riding-School, outside the club, outside the door of his lodgings.
Each night he is exhausted. He sleeps as soon as his head touches the pillow. His sleep is dreamless, a plummeting into blackness: like falling into a well. The night world is real, he often feels; the mornings, with their light and air, are populated by shadows, ghosts. He rises before dawn, to have the advantage of them.
WILLIAM AUGUSTUS MILES, observing the situation on behalf of His (English) Majesty’s government:
The man held of least account in the National Assembly…will soon be of the first consideration. He is a stern man, rigid in his principles, plain, unaffected in his manners, no foppery in his dress,
