“That’s what Matthew says,” Marcus replied. “He and Juliette have been together for decades, but my father hasn’t mated with her. Yet.” Marcus worried that Juliette might persuade Matthew to take this irrevocable step, though Ysabeau assured him that if they were going to mate, they would have done so by now.
“Monsieur Marat says that Madame Veronique is quite the revolutionary,” William said as they approached the Kicking Donkey, their last stop before returning home. “You have that in common at least.”
“She is,” Marcus said proudly. “Veronique and Mrs. Graham would get along famously.”
“None of the rest of us would get a word in edgewise, I warrant,” William said, holding the door for Marcus. Warm air beckoned them inside, redolent with hops and sour wine.
Marcus ducked his head to enter the low-ceilinged space. It was dark and smoky, filled with farmers talking in low murmurs about the price of wheat and exchanging tips for the best livestock coming up for auction. Marcus relaxed into the familiar sounds and smells of the rural tavern—something he was never able to do in Veronique’s establishment in Paris, where the cacophony of voices and the press of bodies were so overwhelming.
William acquired two pints of foamy ale and carried them to the farthest corner of the room. The two of them settled into high-backed wooden chairs with stout arms for resting their tankards in between sips. Marcus sighed with contentment and clinked his cup against William’s.
“To your health,” Marcus said before taking a sip. Unlike wine, ale sometimes soured in his stomach, but it was worth it for the taste, which like everything else about Binfield reminded him of home.
“And to yours,” William said, returning the courtesy, “though if we’re to continue taking our daily walks, we’re going to have to come up with something else. Your safety perhaps?”
The escalating conflict in France was the topic of every dinner conversation.
“My father worries too much,” Marcus said.
“Monsieur de Clermont has experienced much war and strife over the course of his life,” William replied. “And Monsieur Marat calls for the death of all aristocrats—even your friend the Marquis de Lafayette. It is no wonder your father is concerned about where all this might lead.”
Last night, Catharine had drawn Matthew and Marcus out about what they thought of the current situation in France, and how it compared to what they had witnessed in the colonies. Marat had erupted into the conversation, waving his arms and crying out for greater equality and an end to social distinctions. Matthew had excused himself from the table rather than allow himself to be attacked by Jean-Paul or appear rude to his hostess.
“Do you agree with your father that the revolution in France will be far bloodier and more destructive than what happened in America?” William continued.
“How could it be?” Marcus said, thinking back to the stained fields at Brandywine and the winter at Valley Forge, to the surgical tents with their amputation saws and the screams of dying men, the hunger and filth, and the horrors of the British prison ships anchored off the coast of New York.
“Oh, humanity is marvelously creative when it comes to death and suffering,” William said. “We’ll come up with something, my friend. Mark my words.”
* * *
—
MARCUS AND MARAT RETURNED to Paris in May. Matthew was called away from Binfield House on some business for Philippe, and, left without a supervisor, Marat hatched a plan for their escape. It was complicated, and expensive, but between Marcus’s allowance (which had increased due to his good behavior in England), Marat’s cunning (which was limitless), and Catharine’s help as co-conspirator when it came to logistics, the plan succeeded. Marcus tucked himself back into Veronique’s life and her new lodgings at the heart of their increasingly radical neighborhood. Veronique had given up her old apartments in the attic of Monsieur Boulanger’s bakery so that a lumpen fellow named Georges Danton and his political cronies could use it as a base of operations for their new political club, the Cordeliers.
His father, who had returned to Binfield only to discover empty rooms and a triumphant Mrs. Graham, wrote a furious letter demanding Marcus return to England at once. Marcus ignored it. Ysabeau sent a basket of strawberries and some quail eggs to the Cordeliers along with a request that he call on them in Auteuil. Marcus ignored that, too, though he would have dearly liked to see his grandmother and tell her about Catharine and William. When Veronique complained that the de Clermonts were trying to interfere in their lives, Marcus promised that the only thing he would respond to in future was a direct summons from Philippe. But that never came.
Marat had now embarked upon a dangerous, clandestine life, one tilted more toward wild flights of fantasy and daemonic outbursts with each passing day. He resumed publishing his newspaper, L’ami du peuple, shortly after he arrived, seemingly working out of a shop on the rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie. During the day, he hid in plain sight, protected by Danton and the other neighborhood bullies while a citywide network of printers, booksellers, and newsagents put their own lives at risk to get the newspaper into the hands of its eager readers. At night, Marat secreted himself in the basements, lofts, and storerooms of his friends, jeopardizing their safety as well as his own.
Marat’s lack of a fixed address, along with the high anxiety caused by the concerted efforts of the police, National Guard, and National Assembly to capture him, did nothing for his fragile mental and physical state. His skin, which had improved during their time away in England, flared into an agony of itchy, red sores. Marcus prescribed a vinegar wash to quiet the inflammation and prevent infection. It stung like the devil, but it brought Marat relief—so much so that he began to wear a vinegar-soaked cloth around his head. The sharp tang announced his presence long before he appeared, and Veronique dubbed him Le Vinaigrier and aired out her back room whenever Marat slept there so as not to tip off the authorities.
While Marat hid, Marcus spent late May and June digging out the Champs de Mars and ferrying wheelbarrows of dirt to the side of a vast oval arena so that Paris could properly celebrate the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille come July. Marat was the only creature of their acquaintance who did not participate in the excavation, pleading a bad back and sore hands due to the many hours he spent crouched over newspaper copy and writing screeds against his political rivals.
With Marat increasingly convinced that there were vast conspiracies at work to undo the Revolution, and Veronique busy recruiting new members of the Cordeliers Club for Danton, Marcus found himself spending more time with Lafayette. As head of the National Guard and author of France’s new draft constitution, the marquis was up to his neck in plans for the July celebrations. He had ordered troops from all over the country into Paris—one of Marat’s conspiracies argued that Lafayette did so to proclaim himself king—and now had to find housing, food, and amusements for them. At the same time, Lafayette was called upon to greet the visitors who were arriving to join in the festivities. Even the royal family was slated to attend the fete.
Given the presence of the king, queen, and heir to the throne, as well as hundreds of thousands of intoxicated Parisians, foreign dignitaries, and armed soldiers, Lafayette was understandably concerned about safety. His anxiety mounted when Marat announced his opposition to the planned spectacle, bringing the simmering animosity between Marcus’s two friends to a vitriolic boil.
“‘Blind citizens whom my cries of pain cannot penetrate—sleep on, on the edge of the abyss,’” Lafayette read aloud from the newspaper. He groaned. “Is Marat trying to cause a riot?”
“Jean-Paul doesn’t think people are listening to his calls for equality,” Marcus said, trying to explain Marat’s position.