Mistress of the Revolution (56 page)
I left for the Tuileries while Aimée was still asleep. I went to her bedroom and took a long look at her before setting off. I passed the Common House, followed the banks of the river until I reached the hall of the Convention in the Tuileries. I remembered the 10th of August, the bodies of Swiss Guards, the man who had wanted to behead me with his sabre, even Villers.
Wrapped in my mantle, I sat with the public in the galleries of the Convention, waiting for the session to begin. I knew that there I would be able to follow the evolution of the general situation, and, as much as I dreaded it, obtain the first news of Pierre-André’s arrest if his fate was indeed to fall prey to his enemies.
The session opened at nine in the morning. The Representatives were still congratulating themselves upon the fall of the “tyrant” Robespierre eight days earlier. I was too numbed by sorrow and boredom to pay much attention to the speeches. Suddenly, a man, out of breath, ran into the hall and shouted, “Coffinhal was arrested. He has been taken to La Conciergerie.”
That announcement drew cheers from the Representatives. For a moment, the hall seemed to swirl around me. I saw the panting man climb the stairs to the President’s chair and whisper in his ear. I heard the latter ring his bell to demand silence.
“It seems that we have a difficulty,” he said. “Since the Revolutionary Tribunal is temporarily closed pending its regeneration, Coffinhal was taken to the ordinary Criminal Court.”
“To death!” yelled several Representatives. “No trial for the traitor!”
The President again rang his bell to call for order. “It is not so easy as it sounds. Oudard, the President of the Criminal Court, has declined any jurisdiction over political crimes. He refuses to sentence Coffinhal to death.”
Oudard must have been a brave man. For a few minutes, I entertained the hope that Pierre-André could be saved.
One of the Representatives stood from his seat and shouted: “The traitor must perish
today
. We cannot wait for the Revolutionary Tribunal to reopen. Let us put to the votes a special bill ordering the Criminal Court to sentence Coffinhal to death.”
Cries of “Death to the traitor!” echoed through the hall.
I have since read that bill. In it Pierre-André’s name was misspelled
Coffinal
, another indication of the urgency the Convention felt to put an end to his life. Pierre-André Coffinhal, who had presided over so many trials, was denied one. For him there would be no evidence, no witnesses, no arguments. He was sentenced to death upon the declarations of two clerks who merely attested to his identity.
After hearing that the bill sending Pierre-André to the guillotine had passed, I ran in a heavy summer rain to La Conciergerie. I knew that he would be executed immediately and prayed that I was not too late. When I reached the courthouse, a group of women had gathered around the prison entrance in the
Cour du Mai
. I had heard of that hideous crowd. They were called the
lécheuses de guillotine
, “guillotine lickers” and waited there every day to escort the prisoners on their last journey on earth. The cart, with its large white horses, was ready.
I held my breath as Pierre-André appeared, his hands tied behind his back, surrounded by a dozen guards. A slash cut across one of his eyebrows. He was greeted by the cries of the women. He climbed alone the steps to the cart and sat on one of the planks, sullen, facing backwards. The cart, escorted by rows of mounted gendarmes, slowly crossed the
Pont-Neuf
and turned into Rue Honoré in the direction of the Place de la Révolution. The rain drenched Pierre-André, gluing his black hair to his face and his shirt to his chest. The weather had not discouraged a howling crowd from gathering. The sight of human suffering is too alluring not to attract spectators. Cowards who would not have dared come within ten yards of Pierre-André if he had been free sidled between the horses of the gendarmes and climbed onto the cart, shouting insults. A well-dressed man was trying to poke him through the bars with a closed umbrella. I remembered witnessing similar behaviour towards a caged lion at the ménagerie of the Garden of the Plants. People were yelling: “Coffinhal, you are out of order!” and repeating to him some of the jokes Dumas had made on the bench. Pierre-André looked around with contempt and shrugged in silence at the jeers.
I followed the cart, my knees unsteady, leaning on strangers in the crowd to keep from stumbling. Midway to the place of execution Pierre-André saw me. His look pierced me. I started, but his face relaxed and from then on he kept his eyes fixed upon me. My strength returned. I had to be brave for his sake. He would leave this world assured that I would not give in to sorrow.
When the cortege reached the guillotine, placed next to the bronzed statue of Liberty that had replaced that of the late King Louis the Fifteenth, Pierre-André looked up with what seemed like relief. His lips moved as he took one last look at me. I will never know whether he was saying a prayer. Perhaps he was bidding me farewell or telling me to remember my last promise to him. Then he shook his head sideways as if to tell me to leave. I did not. In spite of the throbbing pain in my chest, I had to stay till the end. I could not even look away.
Disdaining the ladder pulled by the executioner’s aide, Pierre-André jumped off the cart. He climbed the stairs to the scaffold with a surprising lightness for a man of his bulk, as if impatient to be done with the business of dying. He stood, face forward, against the plank. It swung down, the neck was adjusted inside the
lunette
, where it barely fitted, and the triangular blade dropped a moment later with a dull noise.
The crowd roared. I still watched as Sanson, the executioner, retrieved the head from the leather bag where it had fallen. He walked around the scaffold, holding it aloft by the hair, blood dripping from the neck, for all to behold. The body was rolled sideways into a wicker coffin by the side of the dreadful machine, and from there pushed into a second waiting cart. Sanson and one of his aides climbed next to the driver.
I had not given a thought to what I would do after Pierre-André’s death, but now I could not bring myself to abandon his remains. Free at last from the cries of the crowd, I followed the cart carrying the head and body under the relentless rain. I had no umbrella and was by now soaked to the bone. Yet I felt neither cold nor weariness. At last we arrived in sight of the graveyard of Les Errancis. The entrance portal bore the inscription
Champ du Repos
, “Resting Field.” Once inside the gates, I saw two separate trenches, each about thirty feet deep and square, both surrounded by barrels of quicklime.
Sanson looked at me with curiosity. “Did you know him?” he asked.
“He was my best friend. I believe you knew him too.”
“True. I’ve never met a more resolute character. I might still be in trouble because I helped him on the 9th.”
“Do you mind if I stay a moment?”
“Suit yourself, but it won’t be a pretty sight.”
“I have not seen any pretty sights today. I want to say farewell to him.”
“All right then. That pit over there’s reserved for those who die a natural death. This one was dug the other day for Robespierre and his friends.”
“So they are all buried right here?”
“That’s right. All of them.”
The back of the cart stopped at the edge of the pit. Sanson and his aide cut the leather strap tying Pierre-André’s wrists and proceeded to strip his body. Because of the weather or the unpleasantness of the task, they made haste. I could not keep my eyes off the naked flesh, glistening in the rain, whiter than I had ever seen it in life. The downpour washed away rivulets of blood flowing down the chest. Even decapitated, the corpse, broad in the shoulders, slender in the waist and hips, looked strong and tall. I was struck by its beauty despite the horror of the red gash at the neck.
“You’re not going to faint, are you?” asked Sanson. “You look as pale as he. Do you want any of his clothes? The Nation lets me have them, but I donate them to hospitals because they are ruined by the blood. You can have your pick, except for these fine leather boots, which might fit me.”
I was tempted to ask for the shirt, a wet heap of white material, stained red. It could not be of any value with its mangled collar, but I thought of the watch and ring Pierre-André had given me before his appointment with fate. I preferred to remember him alive.
“Thank you,” I said. “Keep everything. If you want to do me a great favour, you can let me hold his head for a moment.”
“Are you sure?”
“Please.”
He delicately seized the head and gave it to me. I held it between my hands, surprised at its weight. The expression was serene now, the dark eyes half-open and not yet cloudy. I kissed the cold white lips and touched the forehead with mine as I had done when Pierre-André was alive. With infinite regret I put the head down on the floor of the cart. I closed the eyes and for the last time caressed the cheeks.
I turned away when it was thrown, along with the body, into the pit. At the time I shuddered at the thought of the immediate destruction of his flesh. Yet the lime that burnt his body spared it the slow indignities of putrefaction.
My solace is that he joined his friends Robespierre, Payan and the members of the Council General of the Municipality of Paris. He rests in the company of the men who shared his ideals and his death. All are buried in that pit, separated from him only by thin layers of dirt and lime.
How I left the graveyard and returned to my lodgings I know not. I remember awaking in my bed, feeling nothing but exhaustion and an overwhelming desire to die. I was drenched in sweat, shaking with sorrow, cold and fever. A cough would not leave me a moment of rest. Breathing seemed to bring water instead of air into my lungs. I was suffocating. I could not distinguish between the light of the candles and that of the sun. My surroundings were bathed night and day in a yellow glow, the colour of urine. I had taken leave of my body, so unbearable was the pain of living.
I must have remained three weeks in this condition. Manon reappeared. She was, as usual, most attentive and talked without respite “to entertain me,” as she would say. The only way to bear her chatter was to listen to none of it and turn my head away in spite of the effort and pain that movement entailed. Pélagie, when Manon left, would take a seat by my bed and knit in silence. She stopped only once in a while to pat my hand without trying to meet my eye. Every day she would take Aimée to me and put a finger to her lips. Their silent presence soothed me.
One day at the very end of August, Pélagie gently rolled the bedsheets and rubbed my stomach through my chemise. She had never done anything of the kind before. She was nodding at me, smiling. It had not escaped me, even in my condition, that I had missed my monthly curses. Yet I had not thought anything of it, attributing their absence to the effects of my sorrow and sickness. Pélagie’s caress made everything clear. For the first time since the death of Pierre-André, tears rolled down my cheeks. They would not stop. They saved me. I knew then that I would live, for you, because of you. Pélagie took me in her arms. She too was sobbing.
I recovered. During my first outing after my illness, as I was walking past a wall covered with bills, the name
Coffinhal
caught my eye. Posted there were various court orders. I forced myself to read. One of them reported that
Pierre-André Coffinhal, former physician, former attorney, Vice President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, member of the Council General of the Municipality of Paris, outlawed on the 9th of Thermidor
had been sentenced to death on the 18th of the same month by judgment of the Criminal Court of Paris. It was his obituary. He was thirty-one. Life was atrociously short then.
You understand all by now, Edmond, my poor love. He was your father. The portrait of the lady in the black dress you have seen all your life in my bedroom is indeed that of your grandmother. But she is not the Marquise de Castel, my mother, as I told you. She is Jeanne-Françoise Dunoyer, Pierre-André’s mother. Forgive me for lying to you. Forgive me for not telling you of these things earlier. Forgive me for telling you the truth now. You have to know.
Pierre-André was executed on the 18th of Thermidor of the Year Two of the Republic, One and Indivisible, the 5th of August 1794, old style. I have learned since that, upon his arrival at La Conciergerie, he kept shouting at the top of his voice that he had been hiding on the Island of the Swans for a week, that all of his former friends had either shut their doors in his face or betrayed him, that he was starving and that he considered the prospect of the guillotine a kindness compared to the hardships he had just endured. A meal was brought in haste to silence him. He ate, but his clamours lost none of their violence. They only turned to the subject of Hanriot’s cowardice. For hours they echoed through the jail, so frightening to the other prisoners, the turnkeys and the gendarmes assigned to guard him that no one thought of questioning him about his whereabouts during the week of his disappearance. It was the last proof of love I received from him.
Life goes on. It was growing within my womb. I had to make plans for you, for Aimée, for poor Pélagie, whom I could not abandon, for my own safety. I was sitting in my bed, thinking of what the future held for all of us, when Manon, looking very pleased with herself, entered and handed me a letter. I did not expect any and opened it with great curiosity when I recognized my brother’s handwriting.
Madam,
I received from your maid news that you are unwell and a request that I allow you to return to Fontfreyde when you are again able to travel. I do not know whether her letter was simply a ploy to appeal to my love for you, or whether you are indeed too sick to write. If the latter is true, I am sorry to hear it and wish you from my heart a full and prompt recovery. Whatever the case, I want to make my feelings clear.
Do not believe me ignorant of your conduct during these past two years. I know to what, and to whom, you owe the preservation of your life. At a time when the King and Queen, our sister Hélène, and so many of our friends confronted the gravest dangers and met their deaths with heroic courage, you found your safety in the bed of a man whom I had detested long before the true extent of his depravity became public knowledge. You enjoyed, thanks to his protection, your own little island of comfort in an ocean of innocent blood. This I know for certain, but I suspect worse.
I suspect that you eagerly threw yourself in the power of that man whose name I cannot bear to write, that scoundrel, that cutthroat, that murderer of thousands. I suspect that you enjoyed your degradation and that your present illness results from its sudden ending, although his death is considered a blessing by all decent persons. How you could have sunk so low is beyond my comprehension. Have you no conscience?
If you are in need of money, I will send you all I can spare. It will not be much, because the peasants have become insolent beyond belief nowadays and seem to think that the abolition of our ancestral rights absolves them from paying rent. As to giving you the protection of my roof and my name, it is out of the question, now or at any time in the future. Your company would be unbearable to me. The truth is, Gabrielle, that I never want to see you again. My anger may fade in time, but the disgust I feel for you is so deep that I cannot imagine it subsiding.
During these two years, how many times have you thought of me? You have been constantly on my mind. I spent sleepless nights worrying that the brute, your love, would tire of you. I feared that he would on a whim sentence you, still fresh from his embraces, to share the fate of his other victims. I pictured you, your hands tied behind your back, climbing the stairs to the scaffold. I tried in vain to prepare myself to hear the ghastly news. Yes, little sister, sometimes I prayed for the continuation of your disgrace, if only it could preserve your life, and sometimes I cried for you as one cries for the dead. You made me wish for what I hated most.
I believe in the forgiveness of all offenses. Yet I cannot forgive you. I have no more ardent desire than to see my beloved Gabrielle again, to feel her presence next to me, but pray tell me, what is left of her now? I am happy to know that you are safe, but I would not be able to look at you without thinking of what you did; I would always picture that man touching you. His shadow will forever separate us.
I beg you not to renew your request. It hurts me to deny it, but my answer is firm. Have your maid write back: I will do everything in my power to help you, except what you are asking. You have always enjoyed an excellent constitution, which leaves me no doubt of your recovery.
May God keep you, Madam, and my niece under His holy protection.
The Marquis de Castel
P.S. I enclose the note he had the cruelty to send me, along with its contents. Why I have not burnt both I cannot say. Please imagine what I felt upon receiving them.
Within my brother’s letter was a note, dated of the 28th of September 1792, and addressed to the “so-called Marquis de Castel.”
Citizen Castel,
You will be happy to learn that I am extremely satisfied with your sister.
Greetings and fraternity,
Pierre-André Coffinhal
Folded within was the white and blue garter he had taken from me, and whose twin I had found in his lodgings. Pierre-André’s note was written, as an added mark of disrespect to my brother, in the familiar style.
I put both letters down on the bed covers. I was angry with my brother; I pitied him. The sight of Pierre-André’s bold handwriting made me cry. I understood now why he had asked for my garter. In one sentence, he had taken his revenge for the humiliation received years earlier, for the destruction of our hopes of happiness, for the long misery that followed.
Suddenly I was freed of the ties that had bound me to my brother. All that mattered was to keep the last promise made to Pierre-André. I had to live and to leave France.