Authors: Anne Perry
The King climbed into the green carriage, accompanied by his ‘citizen minister of religion,’ as priests were known these days. Célie had heard that this one was an Irishman called Henry Essex Edgeworth.
Two gendarmes got in opposite and closed the doors with a thud. The carriage began to move forward, preceded by a number of drummers who seemed determined to make so much noise that even if there had been anyone brave enough to shout ‘Long live the King!,’ it would have been drowned out.
The old man with the white hair started to walk, keeping pace with his monarch, pushing through the crowd.
Célie followed after him, jostled and elbowed as others tried to press in the same direction. The cobbles were wet and slippery. There was more noise now: marching feet, horses’ hoofs, drums, the occasional shouting and baying of the crowd.
More than once Célie was close enough to look into the carriage window and see the King and the priest passing a small breviary back and forth, each reciting something from it in turn. She knew the old man saw it too, because she was aware of him making the sign of the cross, almost invisibly, so no one in the crowd would identify his act. A sudden thought came to her of Bernave and his volume of Thomas à Kempis. Had he clung to that in his worst moments?
She wondered if Marat was somewhere in the throng. Had he come to witness the culminating moment of his power? Had he the faintest idea what it would bring in its wake? Did he imagine an age of peace to follow this, a time of prosperity and justice built on this terrible act of public humiliation and revenge, not for anything Louis himself had done, but for the whole rotten system which had finally collapsed upon itself? Surely this fat, solemn, little man reciting his prayers was as much a victim as anyone?
And what about Robespierre? Was his lust for blood part of the ‘purity of the people’ he longed for so much? Was he also here to see it? Rumour had it he never came to executions. He found the physical reality of blood and terror and bodies repulsive. What kind of man has the will to command death, but not the courage to see it?
The carriage was moving at a steady, even pace. Where was Georges? It must be soon! Every second ate up more of the time they had left.
Célie did not know by sight any of the others who were going to crowd the carriage. She had searched the faces around her but she had not seen Briard. Fear prickled over her skin. Had something gone wrong? Had Bernave betrayed them after all, and they were all arrested, apart from her?
She swung around wildly. Where was everyone? Why were they not acting, now, quickly, before it was too late and they were in the Place de la Révolution?
She was carried along by the crowd, bumped and buffeted. She could not have stopped even if she had wanted to. There was a force here driving people, like something in the air. She was helpless. They were pushing, shouting, men and women, their faces distorted with anger, fists raised. She was being dragged towards the middle of the street and the carriage.
Someone took her by the arm, impelling her forward. She tried to free herself, yanking away with all her strength.
‘Forward!’ The word came clear and sharp—Georges’ voice!
With wild, blazing relief, an upsurging of joy that he was alive and here, she pressed forward. They were only yards from the carriage. Someone reached out and grasped the lead horse’s rein, slowing them up. The shouting grew louder. She saw Briard’s white head in front of her.
A hand lunged forward and caught hold of the carriage door.
‘Death to the king!’ Someone yelled, and the cry was taken up.
On the far side the door was open; people were pulling the two gendarmes out.
The door in front of Célie flew open. There was a glimpse of terrified faces inside. The priest cried out in desperation.
‘In the name of God, can you not wait till we reach the scaffold?’
The King seemed frozen. She was close enough to see his pale, almost bloodless skin.
The far door slammed to.
Briard, whose plain dark clothes were like the King’s, but covered now with a rough brown tunic, mounted the carriage steps and reached inside. He took the King by the arm.
Behind Célie the mob was waving pikes and staves, threatening the Guards who were shouting at them to move on.
Briard leaned forward and said something to the King. The priest turned one way then the other, his face masked with terror.
There was shouting and turmoil all around. The carriage lurched forward a step, then came to a halt again. Further up the street someone fired a shot and one of the horses squealed and reared up.
Inside the coach Briard was struggling to take off his outer jerkin. He spoke again to the King.
Hurry! Hurry! Célie was in an agony of impatience.
The moment seemed frozen.
Then the King shook his head.
Célie was knocked sideways and lost her balance, falling against a fat woman and sending them both stumbling.
The carriage door was gaping wide, then slammed shut. Someone slithered down the step—a small, stocky man with white hair and a pallid face.
Célie regained her balance and stood upright, swinging around desperately. The carriage had not moved. Georges was a couple of yards away. He had lost his hat and his black head was instantly recognisable.
Then she saw another face that sent her heart into her throat: a face with slack, gaping mouth and black eyes staring into hers. The greasy, red bandanna around only half his straggling hair. He smiled, and raised his hand in signal.
The edges of the crowd began to press inward, violently, purposefully. There was shouting further ahead. A volley of shots rang out. The carriage jolted another step forward, and again stopped.
Marat yelled something which was lost in the uproar.
The man with the white hair was being half-supported, as if he were too weak to stand alone. He was surrounded by men and women in browns and greys, ordinary people, workmen and artisans, and they closed in and then tried to move away, but the men on the edge, armed with pistols, were crushing inwards.
Célie hurled herself forward at the carriage door. ‘We’ll get you out!’ she screamed, willing Marat to hear her over the din. ‘We’ll get you out!’ She grasped at the carriage door and yanked it. A pain shot through her wrist as claw-sharp fingers dug into it, holding her almost helpless.
She turned to look up, and saw the leering face of Marat a foot away.
Her throat closed so tight her voice was strangled. She could smell the sour stench of him, even out here in the street in the fog-laden air, with the wood and leather odours of the carriage and the sweat of frightened horses.
The moment hung in eternity.
Then she felt a weight behind her, dragging, and a voice in her ears.
‘Come back! You can’t do anything. Citizen Marat’s right ... leave the King to the guillotine. The people have a right!’ A woman’s voice, insistent, hands pulling at her strongly. Madame Lacoste!
Marat looked from Célie to Madame.
Where was the King ... or Briard? Above everything, where was Georges?
Marat’s iron grip eased.
‘Come on!’ Madame urged. ‘It is the law of the people. Let it be!’ She looked up at Marat. ‘Thank you, Citizen, for stopping her from doing something stupid. The King’s death belongs to all of us.’
Marat let go. ‘Of course it does,’ he agreed. He turned to Célie. ‘Go and watch it with everyone else, Citizeness.’
Célie fell back.
The crowd ahead parted and the green carriage went on down towards the Place de la Révolution and the guillotine. Who was in it? Briard or the King? If they had succeeded it would be Briard. They needed it to be Briard. Otherwise the country would be at war within months, perhaps weeks.
But she found tears stinging her eyes and spilling down into the damp on her cheeks. She wished it were the King, and Briard safe.
Why was Marat there? Bernave had betrayed them after all! He had always intended that they should be caught, but in the act, not before. Coldness filled her. Tears stung her eyes.
She turned to Madame. The crowds were surging past, leaving them.
‘Come,’ Madame said firmly. ‘There’s nothing more you can do here.’
Célie stared at her. How had she known? Surely not by chance! It couldn’t be. How long? All the time? She wanted to laugh ... and cry.
‘Come!’ Madame repeated. ‘We mustn’t seem to be different. They are going to create history. It is the end of the old world.’ Her voice dropped. ‘You can’t save it.’
Where was Georges? Had he got away? Had Célie delayed Marat’s attention just long enough?
She was beginning to walk after the crowds and the green carriage, Madame beside her.
She could not help the tears running down her face. Why did it matter that Bernave had betrayed them? She should have stopped hoping anything about him ages ago, when she heard about the girl he had raped. What good could be in the heart of anyone who could do that?
They were being left behind by the crowd. The green carriage was getting further away. Madame was urging Célie along, half dragging her over the slippery cobbles. In spite of herself Célie hurried, her feet hurting and her hands numb.
They finally arrived in front of the Palace of the Tuileries and Célie saw the stark machine of execution, its two great prongs high above the wooden platform, the triangular blade suspended between them.
It was half-past nine. There were thousands of people here, as if everyone in Paris had come.
The swirl of the crowd had carried them almost to the front.
Suddenly there was a hush. The carriage stopped a few yards from the scaffold, the horses stepping nervously and shifting their weight, stamping. One of them threw its head high, rolling its eyes as it caught the smell of blood and fear in the air.
The carriage door opened and a man climbed down, his legs steady, his face forward. It was not Briard. Célie knew it the moment she saw him move. This was the King. He had been offered freedom, even if only to run, but at the cost of another man’s life. And he must have declined it, whether from nobility, or only weariness, or the lack of belief that it could work, they would never know.
Sanson and two assistants approached him, their feet unheard on the sandy gravel. They attempted to begin removing his clothes, but he shook them off with a gesture, and undid the buttons of his coat himself. Louis unfastened his collar and opened his shirt, fixing it so that his neck was exposed. He had barely finished when they pinioned his arms.
He drew his hands back. ‘What are you doing?’ he exclaimed, his voice clear and close in the damp air.
‘Binding your hands,’ one of them answered.
‘Binding me?’ The King turned to his priest, indignation in his voice.
Edgeworth shook his head. ‘Sire,’ he said gently, ‘I see in this last outrage only one more resemblance between Your Majesty and our Saviour who is about to be your recompense.’
Célie glanced at Madame Lacoste and saw the pity in her eyes, and the knowledge of the end of things good and bad which could never be recovered.
The King’s arms were tied behind his back, after which Sanson cut his hair, leaving his neck bare and pale.
There was a murmur from the throng. Someone yelled.
The King went forward, and climbed the steps of the scaffold, awkwardly, leaning on the priest for balance, but when he was up he walked across it with a steady step.
There was a vast, whispering, breathing silence, every face turned towards him.
He spoke in a loud voice, very clearly.
‘I die innocent of all the crimes of which I have been charged. I pardon those who have brought about my death and I pray that the blood you are about to shed may never be required of France.’
Whatever he would have said next was drowned as an officer on horseback shouted a command, and fifteen drummers immediately resumed a frantic beating.
Sanson and one of his assistants guided the King to the bascule of the guillotine where so many others had been bound and lowered before, and obediently Louis XVI of France laid his neck in the lunette.
Sanson pulled the rope. The blade hissed down between the posts. It slammed into the King’s neck, and stopped, the flesh too thick for it to do its work in one blow. It was unbelievably hideous. The King screamed.
Célie was drowned with horror.
The executioner’s assistants rushed forward and threw their combined weight on the blade, forcing it downwards.
Célie gagged and looked away.
The man to the other side of her wore the rust-coloured leather jerkin of an artisan, and his face was seamed with lines, but there were tears on his cheeks and his eyes were blind. His back was ramrod-stiff and his chin high.
For a moment Célie felt a surge of grief, a pride, a wild emotion something like victory that the King had met his death with a courage no one could take from him, and an overwhelming relief that it was over and there was no more pain for him. Shorn of his crown and his power to do good or ill any more, parted from his family, even from his clothes and his hair, he was simply a human being whose neck was too fat for the mercy Dr Guillotin had intended. Her pity for him twisted inside like a knife.
Then the silence erupted into noise. All around the square the cry went up, echoing and re-echoing ‘Long live the Republic! Long live the Nation!’ Hats were tossed in the air. The cavalry waved their helmets on the points of their sabres, and people began to shove and push forward to dip handkerchiefs, pieces of paper and their hands into the blood that spilled on to the scaffold.
In front of Célie a large man in a brown coat put his blood-wet finger to his lips. He turned to his friend. ‘It is well salted!’ he said in a cheerful voice. They both laughed.
Célie and Madame had seen all that was history. The rest was barbarism. They together turned and pushed through the crowds, trying to make their way towards the river.
Célie’s legs ached and her feet were sore. The fog was still thick, clinging and wet. She had enough money for two cups of coffee, if they could find someone selling any. Actually they passed the first coffee seller without either of them noticing her. Physical discomfort was so small a part of the confusion and misery which descended over her. They had risked their lives to prevent the future that would now come, and they had failed.