LITMIR.BIZ

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on the strength of my writings, my speeches, the support I command among the people…to be playing at last my natural role in this Kingdom…because the King must send, mustn’t he? When all the old solutions have been tried and have failed?’

      ‘I think so. But you must show him clearly how dangerous an opponent you can be.’

      ‘Yes…and that will be another gamble. Have you ever tried to kill yourself?’

      ‘It comes up as a possibility from time to time.’

      ‘Everything is a joke,’ the Comte snapped. ‘I hope you’re flippant when you’re in the dock for treason.’ He dropped his voice again. ‘Yes, I take your point, it’s been an option. You see, people say they’ve no regrets, they boast about it, but I, I tell you, I have regrets – the debts I’ve incurred and daily incur, the women I’ve ruined and let go, my own nature that I can’t curb, that I’ve never learned to curb, that’s never learned to wait and bide its time – yes, I can tell you, death would have been a reprieve, it would have given me time off from myself. But I was a fool. Now I want to be alive so – ’ He broke off. He wanted to say that he had been made to suffer, had felt his face ground into his own errors, had been undermined, choked off, demeaned.

      ‘Well, why?’

      Mirabeau grinned. ‘So I can give them hell,’ he said.

      THE HALL of the Lesser Pleasures, it was called. Until now it had been used for storing scenery for palace theatricals. These two facts occasioned comment.

      When the King decided that this hall was a suitable meeting place for the Estates-General, he called in carpenters and painters. They hung the place with velvet and tassels, knocked up some imitation columns and splashed around some gold paint. It was passably splendid, and it was cheap. There were seats to the right and left of the throne for the First and Second Estates; the Commons were to occupy an inadequate number of hard wooden benches at the back.

      It began badly. After the King’s solemn entry, he surveyed them with a rather foolish smile, and removed his hat. Then he sat down, and put it on again. The brilliant robes and silk coats swept and rustled into their places. Three hundred plumes were raised and replaced on three hundred noble heads. But protocol dictates that in the presence of the monarch, commoners remain hatless and standing.

      A moment later a red-faced man clamped his plain hat over his forehead and sat down with as much noise as he found he could make. With one accord, the Third Estate assumed its seat. The Comte de Mirabeau jostled on the benches with the rest.

      Unruffled, His Majesty rose to make his speech. It was unreasonable, he had thought personally, to keep the poor men standing all afternoon, since they had already been waiting three hours to be let into the hall. Well, they had taken the initiative, he would not make a fuss. He began to speak. A moment later, the back rows leaned into the front rows. What? What did he say?

      Immediately it is evident: only giants with brazen lungs will prosper in this hall. Being one such, Mirabeau smiled.

      The King said – very little, really. He spoke of the debt burden of the American war. He said that the taxation system might be reformed. He did not say how. M. Barentin rose next: Minister of Justice, Keeper of the Seals. He warned against precipitate action, dangerous innovation; invited the Estates to meet separately the next day, to elect officers, draw up procedures. He sat down.

      It is the earnest desire of the Commons that the Estates should meet as one body, and that the votes should be counted individually, by head. Otherwise, the churchmen and the nobles will combine against the Commons; the generous grant of double representation – their six hundred to the three hundred each of the Nobles and the Clergy – will avail them nothing. They might as well go home.

      But not before Necker’s speech. The Comptroller of Finances rose, to an expectant hush; and Maximilien de Robespierre moved, imperceptibly, forward on his bench. Necker began. You could hear him better than Barentin. It was figures, figures, figures.

      After ten minutes, Maximilien de Robespierre’s eyes followed the eyes of the other men in the hall. The ladies of the court were stacked on benches like crockery on a shelf, rigid and trapped inside their impossible gowns and stays and trains. Each one sat upright; then, when this exhausted her, leaned back for support against the knees of the lady behind. After ten minutes, those knees would twitch and flex; then the first lady would shoot upright again. Soon she would droop, stir, yawn, twitch, she would shift in the little space allowed, she would rustle and moan silently to herself, and pray for the torture to be over. How they longed to lean forward, drop their addled heads on to their knees! Pride kept them upright – more or less. Poor things, he thought. Poor little creatures. Their spines will break.

      The first half hour passed. Necker must have been in here before, to test his voice in the hall, for he had been quite audible; it was just a shame that none of it made any sense. A lead was what we wanted, Max thought, we wanted some – fine phrases, I suppose. Inspiration, call it what you will. Necker was struggling now. His voice was fading. This, clearly, had been anticipated. He had a substitute by him. He passed his notes across. The substitute rose and began. He had a voice like a creaking drawbridge.

      Now there was one woman Max watched: the Queen. When her husband spoke, there was some effort at a frowning concentration. When Barentin rose, she had dropped her eyes. Now she looked about her, quite frankly; she scanned the benches of the Commoners. She would watch them, watching her. She would glance down to her lap, move her fingers slightly, to catch the flash of diamonds in the light. She would raise her head, and again the stiff-jawed face would turn, turn. She seemed to be searching, searching. What was she searching for? For one face above the black coats…An enemy? A friend? Her fan jerked in her hand, like a live bird.

      Three hours later, heads reeling, the deputies stumbled out. into the sun. A large group gathered at once about Mirabeau, who was dissecting for their instruction the speech of M. Necker. ‘It is the speech, gentlemen, that one might expect from a banker’s clerk of some small ability…As for the deficit, it is our best friend. If the King didn’t need to raise money, would we be here?’

      ‘We may as well not be here,’ a deputy observed, ‘if we cannot have the voting by head.’ Mirabeau slapped the man on the shoulder, unbalancing him.

      Max moved well out of range. He didn’t want to risk, even accidentally, being pounded on the back by Mirabeau; and the man was so free with his fists. At once, he felt a tap on his shoulder; it was no more than a tap. He turned. One of the Breton deputies. ‘Conference on tactics, tonight, my rooms, eight o’clock, all right?’

      Max nodded. Strategy, he means, he thought: the art of imposing on the enemy the time, place and conditions for the fight.

      Here was Deputy Pétion, bounding up. ‘Why lurk so modestly, de Robespierre? Look now – I’ve found you your friend.’ The Deputy dived bravely into the circle around Mirabeau, and in a moment re-emerged: and with him, Camille Desmoulins. Pétion was a sentimental man; gratified, he stood aside to watch the reunion. Mirabeau stumped off in animated conversation with Barnave. Camille put his hands into de Robespierre’s. De Robespierre’s hands were cool, steady, dry. Camille felt his heart slow. He glanced over his shoulder at the retreating Mirabeau. For a second, he saw the Comte in quite a different light: a tawdry grandee, in some noisy melodrama. He wished to leave the theatre.

      ON 6 MAY the Clergy and the Nobility met separately, in the chambers allocated to them. But except for the Hall of the Lesser Pleasures, there was nowhere big enough for the Third Estate. They were allowed to stay where they were. ‘The King has made an error,’ de Robespierre said. ‘He has left us in possession of the ground.’ He surprised himself: perhaps he had learned something after all from his scraps of conversation with Lazare Carnot, the military engineer. One day soon he must undertake the nervous business of addressing this great assembly. Arras seems far, very far away.

      The Third Estate cannot actually transact any business, of course. To do so would be to accept their status as a separate assembly. They don’t accept it. They ask the two other Estates to come back and join them. Nobility and Clergy refuse. Deadlock.

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