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His first evening with Camille, he had thought prey. Georges-Jacques doesn’t know this, but Camille had thought the same. Or not thought, but felt, by instinct, as Camille did with all such things. This one I will have.
*
They let him into Camille’s cell, in the end. Not their last night, he thinks, but who knows. He expects at least one more day, for the judicial process, which is not a process but must at least appear one. No doubt they hope this will make the Republic look less unpalatable. Fools.
Camille has been writing, but for the moment his fingers are still, and he stares. Ostensibly at the wall, but in truth at Lucile, somewhere in her own cell, perhaps at the child although probably not, perhaps at Max. Probably at the words he hasn’t yet finished writing. He rouses when Georges-Jacques enters.
It has been a long while since he sat on anything as uncomfortable as this floor; his body is not made for this, and he’s made sure to be rich enough to afford proper chairs. But the floor is where Camille is, and it is clear that he lacks both the capacity and the will to lift himself. In silence Georges-Jacques settles on the ground next to his friend, then raises his arm – Camille crumbles against him with a sigh. Of exhaustion, of despair, the sigh you make when you have nothing left but the internal wrecking has not yet finished and the after quakes must come out.
Is he here to offer comfort? To seek it out? His fingers are carding through Camille’s hair, as they often have in the past. Has he come here to say something?
“I am sorry,” he says at last, his thumb sliding to stroke at Camille’s ear, “that I never went to bed with your wife.”
A sudden hiccup of hilarity, with a tinge of madness, is pressed into his neck. The hands fisted in his shirt become looser. “I know.”
They both chuckle.
“I wouldn’t have minded,” pronounces Camille after a while.
“But would she?”
“Not if I joined in.”
Georges-Jacques turns; for this he needs the whole of Camille’s face. Something will be happening there, he knows, and something is, a spark in the black eyes, a wobble of a smirk in the corner of the pink mouth. Camille throws his hair back a little, and raises his eyebrow.
“Oh? Is this something you planned?”
“Oh yes. We discussed it extensively.”
Georges-Jacques lets that sink in, but he is still not prepared for the next part.
“In bed, as you’d expect.”
A rumble of a laughter begins to build in his chest. “Of course. Just as you’d expect.”
Camille hums into his cheek; they are very close now.
“I suppose I could have lived with that,” says Georges-Jacques.
*
They’d somehow let Adèle in. That was a mistake, Max will have to do something about that, speak to someone. As soon as she leaves.
He head hasn’t stopped hurting in days, and it won’t, he knows, until they’ve.
“…this is not rationality, Max, this is not even pragmatism, this is pure vanity!”
She is very loud, and very reasonable. Neither of those things are helping.
“Take a moment and think – don’t look at the Committee, or the Convention, or the Commune, just use your brain and think what this means for the Revolution. What will our enemies think? They will think that the French are too concerned with fighting each other to fight their enemies, they will think that you are blind, that you are a fool. And fine, perhaps you are blind and you are certainly a fool, but Max, this is not about you. It should not be about you. You are failing the Revolution here, you are failing the Republic, and this is not good enough. We cannot let the Revolution fail just because you don’t like Danton, or just because Camille hurt your feelings with his writings. The Revolution matters more than any of us. But with things are they are, with the situation as it is, if you kill Danton, it will all go to hell. The Revolution needs both of you, and you need to work together – no one else will do.”
“Do you think he hasn’t done any of the things he’s accused of?” He offers, at last. A piece of driftwood to hang himself on. It’s not enough.
“Do you think it matters?” she responds. She is, and knows herself to be, painfully right. “Perhaps he has taken money that he shouldn’t have, but you know he is not a royalist, and you know that he wants the Republic to succeed as much as you do. He has skills that you do not have – skills that are needed, if we are to succeed. It should not be about whether you like him or not.”
“It isn’t a question of – look, Adèle, it’s not just me, Saint-Just also thinks that…”
“Saint-Just hates Camille because Camille once made fun of his poetry. Do you think that is a reason for the man to die? More importantly, is that a reason for our Revolution to fail, so that Saint-Just can be appeased in his poetistical ego?”
He did know about that, actually. He’d just forgotten to count it, among all his ledgers. Saint-Just is often right, and always finds a reason for everything he has a mind to do.
“It isn’t only Saint-Just,” he says. The conversation has now moved from what should be done to what can be done. He’s not sure if that’s a failure on his part, or a relief. “Although he holds great sway in the Committee, I cannot on my own make decisions about this, even if I wanted to.”
“Saint-Just is currently being held in a stationary closet by Legendre, who has no qualms about kicking men where it hurts.” He winces, as any man would, and notes that she looks very pleased about this. “He will not interrupt. Lebas is held in a wine shop by his wife’s cousin, who is not, it turns out, as stupid as the rest of them.”
Simon, it must be, thinks Max. He was always a little too sarcastic when he talked about the Revolution.
“The rest we can manage, if you give the word. The Convention is scared of you, now, and the idea of killing Danton, like this with no reason other than your suspicions and Saint-Just’s forgeries, that scares them even more. If you can do this to Danton, would you not do it to them? And Max, if you do this to Danton – they will do it to you to keep it from happening to themselves.”
“If we let them go now, this will also have repercussions, Adèle. I will look weak, and we cannot afford that, with the war, and the English, and the Commune…”
“If you do this, you will sign the death sentence of the Revolution. Is that the legacy you want?”
He stops. He cannot see himself into where she is, but he knows her, and she knows him; this is why she came. He knows that she is honest and that she cares about the Revolution. He knows that she respects him, and that what she respects in him is also that which he respects most in himself. He cannot see the direct route that seems evident to her, but what he can see is worse; a hundred little rivulets leading to failure. He has long grown accustomed to the thought of his own death, and although the death of Camille is a new thought, he would have reconciled himself to it. Eventually, perhaps. But the death of the Republic, the failure of the Revolution, this he cannot. Would it not make our enemies happy, she had said, when she first came in, to see the most powerful man in France guillotine the second most powerful one?
The pain in his head is unbearable.
“What can we do, then,” he asks, and it is weak, it is mortifyingly weak. But he can ask the question. And then consider.
“Have Danton brought here,” she says. “And I will tell you both what you must do.”
*
Camille is writing the twelfth issue of the Old Cordelier. The women have arranged it so that he has an editorial board, now, consisting of Lucile, Adèle, and Annette. These are the first reviewers; after they have hacked his words into something more appeasing – they say, appropriate for the current climate, what was it you yourself said about Cicero being foolish to indulge himself in attacking Marc Antony in his Philippics so that Marc Antony wanted to murder him, listen to your own words Camille – it goes to the second review, which is Danton and Robespierre. They make fond of his commas there. Apparently this is a bonding moment.
(When he came out, the first thing – before seeing Lucile, before anything, because this was something he knew needed to be done for it all to hold – the first thing he did was seek out Max. He’d been alone in one of the rooms next to the Committee, looking at his papers but not reading. Camille had taken the glasses off his face and pulled him upright, pressed his body into the seam of Max’s arm and chest, I forgive you. Wrapped his arms around Max, too tightly for either of their comfort, knowing that no one has embraced Max like this is years, if ever, I forgive you. He repeated it until Max had cried, and Camille had cried, because that was what was needed of him here. The benefit of being known for displaying excessive emotions is that no one questions if the emotions are real.)
The war is going well, since they stopped replacing competent officers with people of vertu. They’ve stopped fixing the price of bread, and now only some of the people starve, rather than all. They’ve sent Saint-Just to learn agriculture, and come up with better plans for moving food. He goes with Legendre, these days, and Camille has been expressly forbidden from commenting on this, or asking about it. Adèle says the future of the Revolution depends on him avoiding all communication with Saint-Just, and that this is a sacrifice he is expected to make.
Not more than ten years, he thinks. With Saint-Just, it’s not like Max – here is a dog growing rabid that will need putting down. Danton is too careful, and more amused than bothered by threats to his life, so he won’t care. Lucile, however. It will not take her more than ten years, and probably less.
Camille writes about consensus and competence, the ideal Republic and the need for education, a judicial system with checks and balances. It might not be enough, in the end – but he thinks, perhaps in a hundred years, our Republic will still live. If it does, this is what it will need.
*
“…and I told him not to worry, your tastes run to large men who prefer women, and unfortunately he did entirely understand my meaning there. And so.”
Lucile watches as Georges arranges Camille in his lap. He is still wearing his clothes, only the relevant parts pushed aside; Camille wears only a shirt, and that opened and pushed to his elbows, the harlot. You could hold his arms still like that, and play with him. Lucile smiles into her arm; she is tired, from earlier. They had been competitive with her. That is how it starts, these days. She expects they will notice soon enough that it doesn’t have to.
“And so,” says Camille, and shifts his position slightly. He likes to tease. She watches the muscles in George’s arms, attempting to move Camille; the muscles in his neck when he cannot. His mouth is bitten into redness.
“And so,” she says, and they turn. “He will keep talking if you don’t stop his mouth with something. It will go quicker if you do.”
“My wife betrays my secrets,” says Camille, delighted. It distracts him enough that Georges manages to pull him forward and down; both men shudder.
Lucile has started writing her diary again. She thinks about turning it into a novel.