Mistress of the Revolution (39 page)

I suddenly noticed Madame de Rochefort lying unconscious on the cobblestones of the courtyard. I ran to her, relieved to have something to distract me from the thought of my own death. A group of workmen gathered around her made way for me. I held my breath as I saw one of them, kneeling by her side, cut the bodice of her dress and the front laces of her corset with the point of his cutlass. I believed for a moment that he was going to violate her. Yet he only shook her by the shoulder. I realized that he had loosened her clothes to allow her to breathe more freely.

I knelt next to him. “Please, Citizen,” I said, “you are very kind to help my friend, but she is extremely timid. Let me attend her instead.”

I slapped her face. It took a long time to revive her, during which the man with the cutlass, now standing behind me and looking down at her, said to one of his comrades: “She’s really pretty. A pity she’s already married. She could’ve wed one of us to save herself.”

The other workman replied, pointing his bayonet at my face:

“True, but her friend here, with the red hair, is even better. And
she’
s a widow, although she can’t be more than twenty. I wouldn’t mind marrying her.”

Still on my knees by the side of Madame de Rochefort, I raised my eyes to my admirer. He was no beauty and would not, under different circumstances, have tempted me in the least. Before I could say anything, a well-dressed man wearing a tricolour sash walked to us and said: “We are here to try these women, not to find them husbands. Leave this one alone, you two.”

I never knew whether he was acting out of kindness, to protect me from unwanted attentions, or to prevent my escape. Regardless of his motives, his intervention put an end to any hope of the kind. The man with the bayonet gave me a resentful look and walked away.

Once Madame de Rochefort was able to stand on her feet, I did my best to rearrange her torn clothes. I brought her to my bench. With her head resting on my shoulder, I resumed my conversation with Martial and the other workmen, trying to delay my appearance before the
people’s court
. Martial would leave from time to time to bring us back the latest news from the “courtroom.”

I saw the Princess de Lamballe escorted to the clerk’s office. After about an hour, it was the turn of the palace chambermaids, one after the other. Madame de Tourzel followed.

A few fortunate prisoners were freed after being claimed by delegates from their Sections and released to them without trial. I dared not ask Martial about the fate of the ladies from the Court. The fact that he did not volunteer any information about them did not seem a good omen. I regretted my suitor with the bayonet. Now I would have thrown myself into his arms without the least hesitation. I even wished Martial would propose, but he did not seem the sort of man to make an offer of marriage to a female under duress.

Madame de Rochefort, when her turn came, clung to me with amazing strength and tenacity. Her whimpers turned into shrill cries. They tore at my ears and put me in mind of the shrieks of a pig being bled to death. I watched with horror her fingers being pried from my skirts one by one. I begged the guards to let her go without trial, but they would not listen to my entreaties any more than to hers. At last she seemed to realize that resistance was futile, went limp and was carried, sobbing, to the tribunal in the arms of one of the workmen.

After her departure, I knelt against the bench, closed my eyes, traced the sign of the cross on my chest and recited the Prayer for the Dying:

I was the last one left in the courtyard from the group of ladies from the Court. At last, shortly after six o’clock, Martial walked back from the clerk’s office.

“It’s your turn, little lady,” he said. “You’ll be happy to hear that your friend, the one who cried so much, was acquitted. She couldn’t even tell the judges her name. I’m taking you now because the tribunal just sentenced a thief to death. This gives you a better chance. They don’t like to acquit two people in a row. Now, don’t lose your head and say anything foolish before the judges. If you do, I’ll squeeze your arm to stop you.”

I hardly needed to be reminded of the possibility that I might soon lose my head in more ways than one. Martial and another workman took me by the elbows to lead me to the clerk’s office. My knees were unsteady and I felt light-headed.

I faced my judges in the room from where I had first entered the prison. I tried my best not to appear frightened, which could have been construed as an admission of guilt, and clenched my fists to hide the trembling of my hands. It is said that courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability not to show it. By that standard, I was brave that afternoon.

I stood before nine men with tricolour sashes around their waists, seated at a long table. I recognized the one in the middle, from Martial’s description, as Hébert. I had imagined, from reading the
Père Duchesne
, a coarse, unkempt
sans-culotte
instead of the well-groomed man I was facing. He was indeed handsome, an opinion I do not mind stating since I cannot be accused of partiality towards him. That did not make him any less fearsome in my eyes. Another man, standing, seemed to act as the prosecutor. I later learned that his name was Luilier and that he too was an officer of the Municipality of Paris. The registers of the prison were open in front of them. The room was full of onlookers, male and female. Workmen, sabres drawn, guarded the door.

“State your name, profession, age and address,” ordered Hébert. He spoke in a polite tone, addressing me formally.

“Gabrielle de Peyre. I am widowed and have no occupation. I am twenty-three years old. I live Rue Saint-Dominique, number 132.”

“Mind what you say, Madam, because the slightest lie will doom you.”

“I have nothing to hide, Citizen President, and no intention of lying.”

“That is what we are going to find out.” He was looking down at the prison register. “Do you know the reason for your arrest?”

“I used to be a lady-in-waiting to the Countess de Provence.”

The crowd jeered. Martial squeezed my arm.

“Did you receive a stipend?”

“Not this year. I resigned my place when the Countess de Provence emigrated.”

“How much was your stipend?”

“Six thousand francs per annum, but as I told you, Citizen President, I have not received anything since last year.”

“Did you keep going to the Palace after resigning your place?”

“No more than once a month.”

“That is enough to participate in the conspiracies of the
ci-devant
Court. Where were you on the 10th of August?”

“I was at the Palace, but only because my little girl had been taken there without my consent.”

“A likely story. Do not expect any mercy unless you reveal the plots to kill the patriots. Name your accomplices.”

“I do not know of any such conspiracies, Citizen President. I have never been involved in politics.”

“You, a member of the Court, a servant of the so-called Countess de Provence, claim be innocent?”

“True, Citizen President, I used to be an noblewoman, but I was arrested in my own lodgings. That proves that I was not trying to flee or hide after the 10th of August. I never had any correspondence with the enemy. I never left France, either before or since the Revolution. None of my family emigrated. Before my arrest, I was living quietly with my little girl without hurting anyone.”

“Enough. You will have an opportunity to plead your cause later. Your turn, Citizen Prosecutor.”

Luilier pointed his finger in my direction.

“Look at this woman, Citizens Judges, and look carefully because you will see the face of evil. By her own admission, she is an aristocrat and a member of the
ci-devant
Court. This, in itself, brands her a royalist conspirator, a traitor, a spy, an enemy of the Nation. But this is not all. You heard her; she tells us herself that she is a friend of the
ci-devant
Countess de Provence. You know what that means. She is a woman of perverted morals, of unnatural, revolting habits, which decency forbids me to describe, but of which you are well apprized.”

Luilier paused. I heard cries of “tribade” and “whore” from the public.

“Raise your skirts, my pretty,” shouted a woman, “we’ll rub you the way you like.”

“You’ll see how good the blade of a knife feels down there,” another chimed in. “That’ll be a change from your other toys, I bet.”

“Hand her over,” said one of the workmen at the entrance. “We’ll strip her and punish her where she lapsed, just like the Lamballe woman. That’ll teach those bitches to despise men.”

I was beginning to doubt Martial’s assurances regarding the treatment of female prisoners. I felt faint. He pressed my arm and whispered: “Don’t worry. I won’t let them do that to you.”

“Citizen President,” I said, “what the Citizen Prosecutor says is not true.”

“Silence,” said Hébert, “let him finish. Quiet in the audience.”

“And if that were not enough,” resumed Luilier, “she also confessed to the heinous crime of receiving a stipend of 6,000 francs a year for no reason. She is a leech, a vampire, sucking the blood of the Nation while the patriots are starving. This alone merits a death sentence. Our brave workmen can be trusted to make the punishment fit the crime, or should I say, the crimes. Do not be fooled, Citizens, by her allurements, her youth, her false look of innocence. She is a menace, all the more dangerous because she appears harmless. We will not be safe until the likes of her have been put to death. That is the only way to prevent her and her friends from destroying the Nation from within. Do your duty and show no pity. Justice demands it.”

Hébert nodded to me.

“I am innocent of any crime and a good patriot,” I pleaded. “I love my country, no less than you do. The last thing I want is the victory of the Prussians or the
émigrés
. I was widowed at seventeen, Citizens Judges, and left penniless by my late husband. My family tried to force me to enter a convent. They wanted to separate me from my little girl. When I refused, they would not take me back. They have denied me assistance of any kind. I accepted the place of lady-in-waiting only for the sake of my daughter. The Citizen Prosecutor is mistaken. I have never shared the tastes of the Countess de Provence. If I am sentenced to die, my little girl, who has no one else in the world, will be orphaned and destitute. I cannot leave her. She is too young. She is only seven. She is innocent. Please have mercy on her, if not on me.”

There was a murmur of sympathy in the audience. Some of the women in the audience, perhaps the same who had hurled insults at me earlier, yelled: “Let her go.”

“Do you swear to uphold liberty and equality?” Hébert asked.

“I do, Citizen President, with all my heart.”

My fate was decided in minutes. The judges conferred between themselves and Hébert said:

“Let Madame be released.”

I could not bring myself to believe that my life was going to be spared until my two guards, who had not left my side during the entire proceedings, warmly congratulated me. They took me outside the front door of the prison.

“I didn’t tell you before,” explained Martial, “but if Hébert had said instead
Let Madame be transferred to L’ Abbaye
, that would have meant a death sentence. That makes it easier for the comrades outside. Most prisoners do believe that they’re taken to another jail and don’t understand until the last moment what awaits them. That way we don’t have to chase them down the street. It’s better for everybody.”

A few yards from the entrance of the prison lay the headless, nude body of a woman, white against the dirt of the street. Her stomach had been sliced open and bright-coloured entrails were spilling out. Her legs were spread apart, her intimate parts had been cut off and the raw flesh between her thighs was buzzing with flies.

“It’s the Princess de Lamballe,” said Martial without any trace of emotion. “The comrades have taken her head to a hairdresser to make it all pretty again, and then we’ll go to the Temple and show the whole thing to her lover, the Capet woman. Don’t worry, I know you’re not anything like her.”