Authors: Matthew Plampin
Everyone out in the cafés and bars had been talking of the sortie. The National Guard would lead it, they’d declared, and it would be a massive victory, ushering in a new age for Paris and for France as a whole; the working man would become the hero of the nation and would finally be given his due. There’d been no trace of Jean-Jacques. It seemed that Elizabeth now had truly exclusive access to the Leopard of Montmartre, in order to produce those articles of hers. The thought made Hannah want to bite her hand until it bled.
Once word had got around that she was back, Hannah had assumed that Jean-Jacques would come to her, or at least make contact somehow. Nothing had happened. The only explanation she’d been able to entertain was that he was still in hiding – still under some kind of threat from the provisional government. Lying on her mattress in the shed, she’d found herself imagining his reappearance so keenly that she could almost bring him into being: walk him in through the door, shed his coat and boots and shirt, slide him under the blanket and arrange him around her.
Hannah was not the sort, however, to become lost in longing sighs. Growing impatient, she’d risen, cleared a space in the middle of the shed and set the ruined picture of the Club Rue Rébeval on an easel. She’d stared at it for a moment, fixing its failures in her memory; then she’d scraped off the paint with her canvas knife, using a pumice stone afterwards to rub the surface clean. Taking up a length of charcoal, pinning her preparatory studies to the wall, she’d begun her portrait of Jean-Jacques. It was against her method to work without a model, but she’d pressed on regardless. Strange times called for adaptability.
It hadn’t been right. This much had been plain within an hour of starting. Something hadn’t been flowing through properly. Errors were frequent and clumsiness rife; it had been like trying to play the piano in thick winter gloves. The fundamental problem, she’d decided, was the absence of Jean-Jacques. How could she strive for naturalism without the living man here before her? How could she hope to show him as he was, honest and whole? She’d dropped her brushes back into their jars. Elizabeth’s commission would have to wait.
No one in the Moulin de la Galette that afternoon knew why they’d been called there. The battle-group had already been given its orders for the following day: they were assembling two hours before dawn at the Pont de Charenton to march out alongside General Ducrot’s regulars and break through the Prussian defences to the south-east. Lucien, Benoît and Octave smelled trouble. Set apart from the rest of the hall, gripped by a black recklessness, they were trying to outdo each other in their predictions of defeat.
‘When men in uniform are given free drink by their commanders,’ said Lucien, ‘you can bet that things are bad.’
‘The gates have been shut, did you see?’ muttered Octave. ‘Every blasted one of them. There was a stampede to get back in – people out foraging beyond the wall and so forth. I heard some old fellow was trampled to death.’
‘Surely the Prussians will guess that an attack is coming?’ asked Benoît nervously. ‘Surely the shutting of the gates is an obvious sign – as good as sending up a damned signal rocket?’
Lucien threw out a bony arm towards their comrades. ‘These idiots don’t care either way. Nothing but socialist fanatics, drunks and simpletons – many all three at once.’ He sucked hard on his cigarette, the spark creeping between his paint-stained fingers. ‘And the attack plans are already widely known. Paris a very leaky vessel. You’d be foolish indeed to believe that Marshal von Moltke doesn’t have them on his desk at Versailles, with a crushing retaliation prepared.’
There was a tense silence; they’d postured themselves into a corner. Octave lowered his head, linking his hands. Across the hall some of the other guardsmen started to sing the ‘Marseillaise’.
‘Why the devil did you volunteer, then?’ Hannah asked them, failing to keep the exasperation from her voice. ‘If you’re so sure that we’re doomed, that this sortie will fail, that these brave men whom you hold in such contempt are wasting themselves, then why are you here? Plenty aren’t! You could leave now, if you so wished!’
‘Our country is under attack,’ Octave replied. ‘We must defend France.’
The painters nodded, smoking and scowling as if they thought their position – this noble campaign to which they had pledged their lives – utterly ridiculous.
Hannah banged her heel against the panels of the bar. ‘But how can you expect to be beaten? Haven’t you been listening to all that’s been said? We outnumber them. And we are defending our home. This gives us a natural advantage. This gives us a motivation that—’
They weren’t listening. Hannah realised that Laure was weaving her way towards them. There was sash of plum silk around the waist of her National Guard tunic, and a pair of patent-leather bottines on her feet – dainty ankle-boots several leagues above the scratched workhorses Hannah was wearing. She’d slept with Benoît, this was common knowledge, and very probably Lucien as well; she hailed the men with a languid tilt of the head, ignoring Hannah completely.
‘Mademoiselle Laure!’ Benoît cried, grasping at this distraction. ‘How strange to see you in the Galette. I always think of you as a lady of the Mabille. For you to be
here
, well, it’s rather like putting a shark into a duck pond.’
Laure set down one of her wine bottles and slapped his arm. ‘Quiet, you beast. I come to the Galette on occasion. I rather like it.’
‘We were talking about the sortie,’ Lucien told her, ‘and why we’ve joined up. Hannah here thinks that only the most devoted reds are qualified to fight.’
Laure snorted as she filled Benoît’s cup, emptying the bottle. ‘Not a surprise. There are ultras who wear it lightly, aren’t there, and then there are those who become the most
incredible
bores …’
‘That’s not what I said, Lucien, and I don’t like—’
‘Why did
you
join up, Mademoiselle Laure?’ Benoît interrupted.
The cocotte shrugged, tossing the bottle behind the bar. ‘My boys love me. I can’t let them down, now can I?’ She met Benoît’s stare. ‘You got a cigarette for me, black-eyes?’
The young painter took one from his jacket, lighting it between his own lips and then passing it over with a flourish. ‘For ever your slave.’
Laure winked at him as she inhaled. ‘There’s a rumour,’ she said, quite pointedly not to Hannah, ‘that a certain spotted cat has been sighted around here – this afternoon, in broad daylight and everything.’
Hannah sprang down from the bar. ‘Where did you hear that?’ She barely stopped herself from seizing the cocotte by the shoulders and shaking her. ‘Answer me!’
Laure’s right eyebrow rose a cruel inch, her red mouth parting at the corner to release a coil of smoke. ‘Sounds to me as if someone’s feeling a little neglected.’
Hannah stepped back, regaining her composure – cursing herself for having handed Laure an advantage. ‘He needs to stay hidden,’ she said, ‘to keep striking at the Prussians and supplying stories to the
Figaro
. You know this.’
‘To your mother, you mean,’ corrected Laure, acting as if she was trying to get the situation straight in her head. ‘To keep supplying stories to your mother. You don’t see him for weeks but he can go to the centre of the city, into the Grand Hotel no less, meet with that famous old mother of yours and gab away quite happily about all the Prussians he’s killed. Isn’t that right?’
Hannah looked to her artists for support. None was forthcoming. Benoît and Lucien were grinning; Octave didn’t seem to be enjoying himself, but he wasn’t about to intervene. ‘He has his reasons,’ she said. ‘He does what is best for our cause. For this city and everyone in it.’
‘And he is a hero. A
hero
! Don’t be coy about it, Mademoiselle Pardy! The slogans are everywhere. And the paw-prints. Have you seen that? Red paw-prints on the side of buildings? So
sweet
.’ Laure flicked ash onto the floor. ‘Nobody knows where he is. Nobody knows what he’ll do next. All very exciting. For everyone, that is, but you,’ she took a drag before adding, ‘the forgotten lover.’
The anger felt physical, like a blow to the stomach; Hannah blinked, slightly winded. She clenched her fists. The blood surged beneath her skin, pressing around her fingernails. ‘
Enough
. I won’t hear this. You are an enemy of my family. You led my brother into the heart of a riot and then you abandoned him to his fate. Did you know that he was arrested – thrown in the Mazas? That he rots there still?’
Laure rolled her eyes. Hannah couldn’t tell if she’d already known Clement was in prison; she obviously didn’t care much anyway. ‘Your brother,’ she replied, ‘is a hopeless horse-prick who deserves whatever happened to him. He dropped me, Mademoiselle Pardy, like men spit into the gutter. Like I was nothing.’ She gave Hannah a meaningful look as she picked tobacco from her teeth:
Like your lover has dropped you
.
Hannah was consumed by the desire to fight. She was aware that Laure would be by far the more experienced brawler, but this didn’t check her. She wanted to act, to
hurt
– to punch this callous bitch on the chin.
A murmur rose from the back of the hall, gathering quickly to a cheer. The commanding officer of the 197th, a local apothecary turned colonel named Chomet, had climbed up onto the bandstand to address the company. Benoît and Lucien hopped off the bar, blocking Hannah’s path to Laure. It was useless to protest. Hannah crossed her arms, biting hard on her lower lip. She resolved to leave the second Chomet had made his proclamation.
The colonel, a stocky, moustachioed man with a ponderous manner, began by announcing a twenty-four-hour delay to the sortie. This elicited a disappointed groan from his militiamen. He told them that the recent rainfall had swollen the River Marne, making General Ducrot’s planned pontoon crossing to the Villiers Plateau impossible. All arrangements were to be put off by a day.
‘One good thing, however, has come from this,’ Chomet continued, starting to smile. ‘It means that we have an opportunity to salute the very best among us – a champion of the common man, of the worker, who has evaded the policemen of our weak and compromised government for well over a month …’
The battle-group shifted; Hannah forgot Laure Fleurot immediately. She looked over to the edges of the bandstand – to the doors of the hall. He was here.
‘… who returns to lead us in this crucial hour. Our wretched government may have stripped him of his rank, of his official post in our battalion, but they cannot stop him from taking up arms beside his fellow citizens. They cannot stop us from following his noble example.’ Chomet paused, beaming now, savouring the moment. ‘I present to you: Monsieur Jean-Jacques Allix.’
The militiamen lost themselves in cheering. A fast chant shook the hall:
Vive le Léopard!
Vive le Léopard!
Hannah stood up on a chair to get a proper view and there was Jean-Jacques, thanking Colonel Chomet and wrapping him in a brotherly embrace. The sight untethered Hannah from the earth. Her breath felt shallow; her vision seemed to drift. Octave planted a broad palm on the middle of her back, steadying her as she teetered atop her chair.
Jean-Jacques was the same. His clothes were plain but immaculate; his hair was swept from his brow, as always; his broken jaw-line was freshly shaved. Paris was slowly coming apart, weathering, fraying, crumbling; yet amongst all this Jean-Jacques Allix was like a polished black stone, perfect and immutable, proof against any hardship. He faced the hall, his posture opening, drawing everyone to him as he prepared to speak. If he saw Hannah, he gave no sign of it. The speech was typical of him: it appeared spontaneous yet appealed powerfully to his audience in terms they understood at once. After extolling their bravery, he told them of the pitiful numbers who’d volunteered to fight from the bourgeois militia divisions. So keen to gun down their fellow Parisians at the Hôtel de Ville, they would not now take this great chance to turn their weapons on the Prussians!
‘And I’ll tell you this,’ Jean-Jacques went on, ‘if the saviours of Paris are her ordinary working people then Paris will afterwards be obliged to give us a proper hearing. To give us the fair, free society that we deserve.’
‘They’ll give us fairness!’ someone cried. ‘They’ll have to!’
‘Prepare yourselves, my fellow citizens, for what lies ahead of you. Our foe is ruthless. His stranglehold upon our city is strong. But we will break it – we will inflict a defeat that will be remembered for centuries. This coming day is your last as untried militia. By the end of the next you will be
soldiers
, heroes of France!’
‘That,’ muttered Lucien, ‘or cadavers.’
Hannah did her best to disregard him, to applaud and cheer, but something felt wrong. The exhilaration that usually came when she heard Jean-Jacques speak was missing. Had she been infected by the artists’ cynicism – by Émile Besson’s senseless doubts? Was her commitment weakening? She’d always taken these speeches as the earnest avowals of a man of deep conviction. Now, though, she saw a clear end to the oratory – a manipulation, almost. It was a performance as expert as that of any professional stage-actor, intended to stoke up his audience: to get them running out gladly before the Prussian guns.
Few others in the Moulin de la Galette shared her uncertainty. Jean-Jacques’s words met with a roaring affirmation, the battle-group declaring that it would follow him to death. He was mobbed as he left the bandstand, dragged into a lengthy round of embraces, toasts and congratulations. They were asking him about this Leopard mission or that, so he began to retell a story from the
Figaro
with understated verve; soon there was laughter and exclamations of praise.
It was growing dark. Candles were lit – there had been no gas in the Galette for several weeks – and more wine poured. Hannah got down from her chair and waited by the bar. The others talked on, Laure needling her again; and then their conversation stilled. Jean-Jacques was approaching. Laure slid herself before him – hip and head cocked at opposing angles, fingers splayed along her collarbone – and attempted to launch into a flirtatious exchange. His response, although friendly enough, presented her with an unmistakable dead end.