The Gods Are Athirst — Chapter 8

Chapter 8 of 29 · Review of The Gods Are Athirst

On the eve of the festival, in the calm, clear evening, Élodie walked upon the Field of Federation with her arm in Évariste’s. Workmen were hastily completing columns, statues, temples, a mountain, an altar. Gigantic emblems—the people’s Hercules brandishing his club, Nature suckling the universe at her inexhaustible breasts—had suddenly arisen in the capital, which lay in the grip of famine and terror, listening for the sound of Austrian cannon on the road from Meaux. The Vendée was making good its failure before Nantes with daring victories. A circle of iron, flame, and hatred encompassed the great revolutionary city. Yet she received with magnificence, like the sovereign of a vast empire, the delegates of the primary assemblies that had accepted the constitution. Federalism was vanquished: the Republic, one and indivisible, would vanquish all her enemies.

Stretching out his arm over the populous expanse, Évariste said:

“It was there, on 17 July ’91, that the infamous Bailly ordered the people shot down at the foot of the altar of the fatherland. The grenadier Passavant, who witnessed the massacre, returned home, tore off his uniform, and cried: ‘I swore to die with liberty; liberty is no more: I die.’ And he blew out his brains.”

Meanwhile, artists and peaceable bourgeois examined the preparations for the festival, and upon their faces could be read a love of life as dreary as life itself: the greatest events, upon entering their minds, dwindled to their measure and became as insipid as they were. Each couple went along carrying in their arms, dragging by the hand, or sending scampering before them children no more beautiful than their parents and with no promise of greater happiness, children who would in turn give life to others as mediocre as themselves in joy and beauty. And now and then there passed a tall and lovely girl who inspired in young men a generous desire, and in old men regret for the sweetness of life.

Near the École Militaire, Évariste pointed out to Élodie some Egyptian statues designed by David after Roman models of the Augustan age. Just then they heard an old, powdered Parisian exclaim:

“One might fancy oneself on the banks of the Nile!”

During the three days in which Élodie had not seen her friend, grave events had taken place at the Amour Peintre. Citizen Blaise had been denounced to the Committee of General Security for fraud in the supply contracts. Fortunately, the print dealer was known in his Section: the Watch Committee of the Section of the Pikes had vouched for his civic virtue before the Committee of General Security and fully cleared him.

After relating this occurrence with some emotion, Élodie added:

“We are easy now, but it was a dreadful alarm. My father came very near being sent to prison. Had the danger lasted a few hours longer, I should have gone to ask you, Évariste, to appeal on his behalf to your influential friends.”

Évariste made no answer. Élodie was far from fathoming the depth of that silence.

Hand in hand, they walked along the banks of the Seine. They spoke of their mutual tenderness in the language of Julie and Saint-Preux: the good Jean-Jacques supplied them with the means to depict and adorn their love.

The municipality had accomplished the prodigy of bringing abundance for one day to the famished city. A fair had been set up on the Place des Invalides, beside the river: in booths, merchants sold sausages, saveloys, chitterlings, hams wreathed in laurel, Nanterre cakes, gingerbread, pancakes, four-pound loaves, lemonade, and wine. There were also stalls selling patriotic songs, cockades, tricolour ribbons, purses, brass chains, and every kind of trinket. Pausing at the display of a humble jeweller, Évariste chose a silver ring bearing in relief the head of Marat, a scarf wound about it. He slipped it onto Élodie’s finger.

That evening Gamelin went to Citizen Rochemaure’s house in the Rue de l’Arbre-Sec; she had summoned him on urgent business. He found her in her bedchamber, reclining on a chaise longue in an alluring undress.

While the Citizen’s attitude expressed voluptuous languor, everything around her proclaimed her accomplishments, her diversions, and her charms: a harp beside the half-open harpsichord; a guitar upon an armchair; an embroidery frame holding a piece of satin; on the table, an unfinished miniature, papers, and books; a library in such disorder that it seemed to have been ravaged by a lovely hand as eager for knowledge as for sensation. She gave him her hand to kiss and said:

“Greetings, Citizen Juror!… This very day, the elder Robespierre gave me a letter on your behalf for President Herman, a most elegantly phrased letter, which said approximately: ‘I commend to your attention Citizen Gamelin, a man distinguished by his talents and his patriotism. I have made it my duty to bring to your notice a patriot whose principles are sound and whose conduct holds firmly to the revolutionary line. You will not neglect this opportunity to be of service to a republican…’ I carried the letter straight to President Herman, who received me with exquisite courtesy and immediately signed your appointment. It is done.”

After a moment’s silence, Gamelin said:

“Citizen, though I have not a morsel of bread to give my mother, I swear upon my honour that I accept the office of juror only to serve the Republic and avenge her upon all her enemies.”

The Citizen found his thanks cold and his declaration severe. She suspected Gamelin of lacking grace. But she loved youth too well not to forgive it a certain harshness. Gamelin was handsome: she saw merit in him. “He can be fashioned,” she thought. And she invited him to her suppers: she received guests every evening after the theatre.

“You will meet people of wit and talent at my house: Elleviou, Talma, Citizen Vigée, who composes verses to prescribed rhymes with marvellous skill. Citizen François read us his Pamela, which is now in rehearsal at the Théâtre de la Nation. Its style is elegant and pure, like everything that comes from Citizen François’s pen. The play is moving: it brought tears to our eyes. Young Lange is to play Pamela.”

“I defer to your judgment, Citizen,” Gamelin replied. “But the Théâtre de la Nation is scarcely national. And it is unfortunate for Citizen François that his works should be performed upon a stage degraded by Laya’s wretched verses: the scandal of The Friend of the Laws has not been forgotten…”

“Citizen Gamelin, I surrender Laya to you: he is no friend of mine.”

It was not from pure kindness that the Citizen had used her influence to secure Gamelin a coveted post: after what she had done for him, and whatever else she might happen to do, she intended to bind him closely to her and assure herself of support within a court of justice with which, sooner or later, she might have dealings; for, after all, she sent a great many letters throughout France and abroad, and such correspondence was suspect in those days.

“Do you often go to the theatre, Citizen?”

At that moment the dragoon Henry, more charming than the boy Bathyllus, entered the room. Two enormous pistols were thrust through his belt.

He kissed the beautiful Citizen’s hand, and she said to him:

“Here is Citizen Évariste Gamelin, for whom I spent the day at the Committee of General Security, and who shows me no gratitude whatever. Scold him.”

“Ah, Citizen!” cried the soldier. “You have just been to see our legislators at the Tuileries. What a distressing spectacle! Should the representatives of a free people sit beneath the gilded ceilings of a despot? The very chandeliers which but lately shone upon Capet’s conspiracies and Antoinette’s orgies now illuminate the vigils of our legislators. Nature shudders at the sight.”

“My friend, congratulate Citizen Gamelin,” she replied. “He has been appointed a juror of the Revolutionary Tribunal.”

“My compliments, Citizen!” said Henry. “I am happy to see a man of your character invested with such an office. But, to tell the truth, I have little confidence in this methodical justice created by the moderates of the Convention, this indulgent Nemesis that handles conspirators tenderly, spares traitors, scarcely dares strike the federalists, and fears to summon the Austrian woman before its bar. No, it is not the Revolutionary Tribunal that will save the Republic. Great indeed is the guilt of those who, in our desperate situation, have checked the momentum of popular justice!”

“Henry,” said Citizen Rochemaure, “pass me that flask…”

On returning home, Gamelin found his mother and old Brotteaux playing piquet by the light of a smoking candle. The Citizen was shamelessly declaring “a three-card sequence to the king.”

On learning that her son was a juror, she embraced him rapturously, reflecting that it was a great honour for them both, and that henceforth they would both eat every day.

“I am happy and proud to be the mother of a juror,” she said. “Justice is a fine thing, and the most necessary thing of all: without justice, the weak would be wronged at every turn. And I believe you will judge well, my Évariste; for from your childhood I have always found you just and kind in all things. You could not endure iniquity, and you opposed violence as far as your strength allowed. You pitied the unfortunate, and that is the fairest jewel in a judge’s crown… But tell me, Évariste, how are you dressed in that great tribunal?”

Gamelin replied that the judges wore hats with black plumes, but that the jurors had no prescribed costume and wore their ordinary clothes.

“It would be better,” the Citizen replied, “if they wore robes and wigs: they would look more worthy of respect. Though you are most often carelessly dressed, you are handsome and lend distinction to your clothes; but most men need some ornament to give them an air of consequence. It would be better if the jurors wore robes and wigs.”

The Citizen had heard that the office of juror at the Tribunal brought in some money; she could not refrain from asking whether one earned enough by it to live respectably, for a juror, she said, must make a good appearance in society.

She learned with satisfaction that jurors received an allowance of eighteen livres for each sitting, and that the multitude of crimes against the security of the State would oblige them to sit very often.

Old Brotteaux gathered up the cards, rose, and said to Gamelin:

“Citizen, you are invested with an august and formidable magistracy. I congratulate you upon lending the light of your conscience to a tribunal perhaps surer and less fallible than any other, because it seeks good and evil not in themselves and in their essence, but solely in relation to tangible interests and manifest feelings. You will have to pronounce between hatred and love, which is done spontaneously, not between truth and error, which the feeble human mind is powerless to distinguish. Judging by the impulses of your hearts, you will run no risk of being mistaken, since the verdict will be good provided it satisfies the passions that are your sacred law. Nevertheless, were I your president, I should do as Bridoie did and leave the matter to the cast of the dice. In questions of justice, that remains the surest way.”