Mademoiselle Revolution by Zoe Sivak

Author:Zoe Sivak [Sivak, Zoe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

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Late août 1792

Sylvie’s new resolution was easier said than done. Since the insurrection at the Tuileries, roughly half of the Assembly had fled the city—fearing the very populace they swore to serve. Given the fresh graves dug for those who rose against the people’s will, Sylvie did not judge them too harshly.

But with an impotent Assembly and an all-powerful Commune, there was little they could do except keep the pathways of communication clear. So she accepted the role of carrier pigeon—dressing in plain clothes befitting a shopkeeper’s daughter rather than a bourgeois princess.

Sylvie kept the letters in her bodice, the paper cool but warming from her skin. Her brief rendezvous with that sans-culotte had made her more cautious: if anyone were to demand she empty her pockets, they would only walk away with a few assignats and some lint.

September was only a few days away, and already the temperature crept lower. Without a summer sun keeping watch over her errands, she could navigate the sections with a modicum of pleasure. Delivering missives throughout the city gave her the opportunity to better understand the organization of Paris.

The capital was recently reorganized into a hierarchy of forty-eight sections rather than sixty districts. The Duplays and Rohmers lived in the first section, known as the Tuileries section, and shared that distinction with the Tuileries Gardens and the Place de la Révolution.

She walked parallel to the Seine to meet her last contact near the Place des Victoires. The place boasted a near-constant flux of crowds or passersby. Its most iconic feature was an ostentatious statue of Louis XIV atop a horse at the center of the circle.

As she approached the place, the cries of a crowd overwhelmed the normal sounds of activity. A herald stood on the statue of the Sun King, holding the rearing steed’s hoof for balance, as he shouted into the raging crowd.

France contained a patchwork of languages from Flemish to Basque, and the general public was semiliterate at best. Heralds, usually just men with newspapers, shoveled the news directly from print to greedy ears.

“The People’s Friend,” the herald declared, referring to Marat’s nickname, “beseeches his brothers and sisters of liberty to begin a new bloodletting to purge our nation of mutinous enemies.” His audience cheered, and he held up a hand to silence them once more. “The Prussians draw nearer, the prisons overflow with conspirers—we must unleash a fury of our justice greater than the Tuileries or the Bastille, so that all of the monarchs of Europe tremble upon their thrones.”

The Tuileries had just hosted a public memorial to those who lost their lives breaching its gates. The king rotted in a cell.

And still Marat ordered a massacre from his sickbed?

They sang out his name and pledged their muskets, their kitchen knives, and even their broomsticks to his rallying cry.

Sylvie backed away in horror and shielded her face with her cloak. To witness his words work their blood magic over the vulnerable—it was not love or fear, but witchcraft.

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