Paris: The Novel

matter in hand. “Oh, my dears,” Father Pierre began, “what terrible news I must share with you.”

    Claudie listened carefully. The priest was very upset. Sixteen women from a Carmelite religious house had just been executed today, near the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. They had refused to obey the Clergy Law. They had declared that they would sooner be martyred for the faith.
    “They went to the guillotine chanting,” the old priest declared. “They were martyred every one.”
    “Martyrs indeed,” said the man, and the young lady agreed with him. And they both said it was a disgrace, and that it should not have been done.
    Then they asked the priest to come home with them for a little while. The lady said the old man needed a hot drink. “Laced with brandy,” said the young man.
    Claudie went back to where her mother was waiting, and told her exactly what she had heard.
    “Follow them, Claudie,” said her mother. “I’ll keep a little way behind you. Let’s find out where they live.”
    Following them was easy. The old priest couldn’t walk very fast. The place they went into was a mansion with a courtyard in front of it, in the Saint-Germain quarter. A regular aristocrat’s palace, her mother said.
    After that, it had taken only a few inquiries along the street to discover who lived in the mansion. A tavern keeper said that the family owned a château in the Loire Valley, down in the west.
    “That is interesting,” her mother said. “You go home now,” she told Claudie. “I’ll be back later.”

    The widow Le Sourd walked swiftly. She had not far to go. Back to the Pont Neuf, across to the Right Bank, then northward up to the rue Saint-Honoré. For that was where the man she sought was living.
    The house that the widow Le Sourd was seeking belonged to Monsieur Duplay the cabinetmaker. But it was not Maurice Duplay that the widow sought. It was his longtime lodger. As she had hoped, he was at home.
    The room was not large, but pleasant. There was painted paneling on the walls and a small chandelier. He was sitting, very straight, at a table. She had heard that he had not been in the Convention for three weeks. Some had wondered if he might be sick. Others believed he was preparing an important speech. He looked perfectly well, so she concluded that it was probably the latter. They had met only a few times, but he had evidently remembered her and knew that she was loyal.
    “How can I be of service to you,
citoyenne
?” he asked.
    Some people said that he was ugly. But the widow Le Sourd didn’tthink so. His broad brow suggested a fine and quick intelligence. His jaw protruded slightly, but that told her that he was tenacious.
    He was small, but wonderfully upright. She liked that. Truth to tell, the large-boned woman had a secret desire to scoop him up and take him home with her.
    But above all, as the whole of France knew, he was incorruptible. He was pure. He was unyielding. Men like Danton might have been impressive, spoken louder and been more loved, but the lonely figure of Maximilien Robespierre was superior to them all.
    It did not take her long to tell him about the old priest and the young de Cygnes. It was evident from what they had said in front of Claudie that they were enemies of the Revolution.
    “I’m only surprised,” she said, “that they have not been arrested already.”
    “I have heard the name of de Cygne before,
citoyenne
,” Robespierre replied. “I think Danton answered for them.” He shrugged. “Perhaps he was paid.”
    He said nothing more for a moment, and seemed to be thinking. Could it be, she wondered, that the evidence she had brought was not enough for him?
    “There is more,” she continued. “He told the old priest that he had encouraged the peasants on his estate to join the insurrections in the Vendée. His estate is close to the Vendée, as you may know.”
    It was a lie. Yet she felt no guilt at making it. The two de Cygnes must die. She was quite persuaded of it. The lie was merely the vehicle—like providing a cart to take someone to their destination.
    And in telling it, she was just doing her duty. Wasn’t she a guardian of the Revolution, after all?
    “Ah.” The eyes of Robespierre fixed upon her. Did he know that she was lying? She wasn’t certain, but she thought that he probably did. He nodded slowly. Then he spoke. “You know,
citoyenne
,” he said in his high-pitched voice, “when the great debate took place about whether the