A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

Author:Hilary Mantel
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2011-03-14T01:26:33+00:00

THE DAY OF THE RIOT I did not go out, and neither did Georges. No one came until the middle of the evening. Then I heard the stories the day had produced.

The people from Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marcel, led by agitators from the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, had entered the Tuileries, armed and in their thousands. Legendre was one of the leaders; he insulted the King to his face, and came back here to sit in my drawing room and boast about it. Perhaps the King and Queen should have died under their staves and pikes, but it didn't happen like that. I was told that they stood for hours in a window embrasure, with the little Dauphin and his sister, and the King's own sister Mme Elisabeth. The crowd filed past them and laughed at them, as if they were the freaks at a country fair. They made the King put on a 'cap of liberty'. These people - people out of the gutter - passed the King cheap wine and made him drink from the bottle to the health of the nation. This went on for hours.

At the end of it they were still alive. A merciful God protected them; and as for the man who should have protected them - Petion, I mean, the Mayor of Paris - he didn't show his face until the evening. When he could not decently wait any longer, he went to the Tuileries with a group of deputies and got the mob out of the palace. 'And then, do you know what?' Vergniaud said. I handed him a glass of cold white wine. It was ten p.m. 'When they had all gone, the King snatched the red cap off his head, threw it on the floor and stamped on it.' He nodded his thanks to me, urbanely. 'The curious thing is that the King's wife behaved with what can only be called dignity. It is unfortunate, but the people are not so opposed to her as they were before.'

Georges was in a rage. It is a spectacle to contemplate, his rage. He tore off his cravat, strode about the room, his throat and chest glistening with sweat, his voice shaking the windows. "This bloody so-called Revolution has been a waste of time. What have the patriots got out of it? Nothing.' He glared around the room. He looked as if he would hit anyone who contradicted him. Outside there was some far-off shouting, from the direction of the river.

'If that's true - ' Camille said. But he couldn't manage it, he couldn't get his words out. 'If this one's done for - and I think it always was done for -' He put his face into his hands, exasperated with himself.

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