The Radiant Republic

In the afternoon, after André had just sent that unopened relic to Rome aboard an ocean-going merchant vessel, his mood soured at once. Two troublesome uninvited guests had come to his house.

As a Marshal returning in triumph, he ought to have been appearing again and again at glittering salon banquets, accepting the worship of Parisian high society amid the star-like attention of fair-haired women in strapless gowns who looked at him with boundless reverence. Even in a simpler version of events, he ought to have been drinking and laughing with friends—not sitting through the rude interrogation of two self-important fools.

The matter began during the National Convention’s midday recess. Deputy Cambon, a member of the Finance Committee, unexpectedly intercepted Pétion as Pétion was about to leave the Manège Hall and asked whether he was going to visit Marshal André at the villa on the Île Saint-Louis. When Pétion answered yes, the tall, gaunt, unsmiling man merely said, “That suits me. It is on my way,” and then, without the least courtesy, climbed into Pétion’s private carriage.

At that moment, Pétion sensed something was wrong, but being charitable by nature, he did not refuse the request of a fellow deputy. In less than one hour, Pétion regretted it bitterly.

Almost the moment he saw André, Cambon launched into questions with startling impoliteness.

“Why have the Northern Command Headquarters and its four corps still not submitted their draft and final budget reports to the Finance Committee? Why have the fifteen northern provinces refused to accept assignats in circulation since July of this year? Why have you not returned the treasures of the Tuileries to Paris, but instead—”

By the first question, Pétion knew this was turning into disaster. He tried to stop his companion from pressing further against the dictator, but Cambon did not accept the hint. He poured out every question at once, most of them openly or covertly accusing André of obstructing and slighting the Finance Committee’s work.

André, furious, suddenly let out a low, clipped laugh. He rose from the sofa, fixed a bleak gaze on the man who had no sense of limits, and asked, word by word, “Are these questions you want answered for yourself, or are you being sent by Brissot, by Robespierre, or by someone else?”

Before Pétion could explain from the side, André turned his head and barked, “Be quiet. I am asking him, not you!”

The dictator’s oppressive presence badly disrupted Cambon’s composure and train of thought, yet Cambon still refused to yield—stubborn even to the point of the ridiculous. He shouted at André:

“As a representative elected by the people, I have the right to know the financial reports concerning two hundred thousand French troops. Citizen Marshal, remember this: they are not your private army. They are the army of the French Republic!”

“Oh? Is that so?” André smiled again. He stepped out of the room, called loudly for the gendarmes in the courtyard, and pointed at Cambon.

“This honoured deputy-citizen believes I am withholding the soldiers’ pay and rations. Very well. Take him now to the Army of the North and the Army of the Meuse on the Netherlands front, and to the Army of the Moselle and the Army of the Rhine fighting in the German states.

Have this representative personally tally the expenditure of ammunition on the battlefield.

Have him inspect in earnest the exact number of muskets and guns.

Have him question each soldier in detail about the payment of his wages.

And as for the ownership of the Tuileries treasures, I can tell you plainly right now: the Northern Command Headquarters pledged them to the United Commercial Bank as collateral for a war loan of thirty million livres.”

With that, Marshal André waved a hand, ordering the gendarmes to “send” the man—who sought political fame by trying to strike him down—to the front, so that he could be thoroughly tormented there. Whether Cambon was willing, whether he struggled while being dragged away and spewed filth from his mouth, André could not be bothered to look at him a second time.

If Cambon had merely been an ignorant muddlehead who did not understand the facts, André could have tolerated it; ignorance might be pardoned. But this deputy ought to have understood a basic political principle: the victor is not to be put on trial.

Compared with the brilliant achievements of the northern armies, the performance of several field corps in the central and southern regions had been far worse. The Army of the Alps, in particular, had been at war for half a year and still had not resolved even the clothing, shoes, and weapons of half its soldiers. Many men could fight only in civilian dress, using sabres and spears against “enemies” who were little more than free mountain folk and hunters; their results were not worth mentioning. Yet in such circumstances André had heard of no public or private denunciations from Cambon or other members of the Finance Committee directed at anyone there.

“André, you cannot do this. He is, after all, a member of the Finance Committee, a deputy of the National Convention,” Pétion urged softly, once Cambon’s cries had faded into the distance.

When André himself had served on Convention committees, he had been far more aggressive than Cambon—but he had always acted on firm evidence, and at an appropriate moment, against specific targets. Cambon, by contrast, was chasing rumours and shadows.

Moreover, the Finance Committee itself was mismanaging the economy. As for assignats, André loathed the committee’s reckless handling of France’s finances. By late October, the value of assignats had fallen to only 20 to 25 percent of their face value, and that was already the result of the cabinet deploying large quantities of gold to buy them back and prop them up. If nothing unexpected occurred, by early next year the London securities market would formally halt public trading in French assignats, because their value would plunge sharply to below 8 percent of face value and would no longer be suitable for settlement in international trade.

For that reason, André not only restricted assignats in the northern provinces, but also forced through the use of hard currency—livres in silver and sous in copper—to restore confidence. For large transactions, he encouraged the use of bank bills of exchange and acceptances; and the United Commercial Bank, which in practice served as the central bank of the fifteen northern provinces, had, several weeks earlier, sharply reduced—or even abolished—various cumbersome acceptance fees to promote commerce. In addition, André instructed Ouvrard, Perrier, and the chief accountant Bernard to produce a detailed plan to relaunch the franc next year, and to make it the legal currency for the fifteen northern provinces and the occupied territories.

Returning to the immediate matter, André intended to teach the arrogant provocateur a lesson he would never forget. He told Pétion, “If people like this southern fellow are not disciplined once or twice now, more busybodies will come tomorrow to make trouble. Don’t worry. André is tolerant. Cambon will not die, and I will not let him be crippled. At most he will shed two layers of dead skin in the camp and learn how to speak and how to conduct himself.”

Once he had cooled down, André understood that Cambon was merely a probing stone thrown forward by others. In regional terms, Cambon, from the Mediterranean city of Montpellier, belonged to the Girondin camp that favoured free trade. Politically, however, he also echoed certain positions of the Mountain, including the idea that the centre must reclaim part of the provinces’ fiscal authority.

Because the Constitution of 1793 had not yet been produced, France’s eighty-three departments still continued the autonomous condition that had existed since 1789: a loose federation held together by plain patriotism, the memory of honours, and mutual dependence. In politics, war, and taxation, Paris did not possess absolute command over the provinces; it could more often only request cooperation.

It was precisely this division between centre and localities that allowed André, by seizing several historical opportunities—the King’s flight, the northern grain crisis, and the organisation of the War of National Defence—to build, in the end, the political and military foundations of his dictatorship over the fifteen northern provinces. In a centralised state, André’s actions would have been the crime of splitting the nation and would have required suppression at all costs. In the present reality, however, the parliamentary government in Paris—barely holding together the scattered departments of the centre and the south—simply lacked the strength to confront the united northern bloc led by André.

Yet André had no interest in ruling from Paris. Before the moment was ripe, to leap into the capital was to jump into a firepit like a fool. Whether the Mountain, the Girondins, or those who lurked in darkness, André no longer wished to engage in their quarrels. But if they came to provoke him, André would strike back. In the end, peace is preserved by struggle; peace pursued by compromise is lost.

“Pétion, you may tell the executive secretary of the Finance Committee of the National Convention that Deputy Cambon, effective immediately, has accepted an invitation from the Northern Command Headquarters to inspect Belgium”—André deliberately used the name France had once given the Austrian Netherlands—“and western Germany for a period of three months.”

As he saw Pétion to the door, André spoke with blunt sincerity to his friend. “I know your good relationship with Brissot, and I know his influence over you is greater than mine. But I still want to say this: if you ever face danger, remember that you have a friend named André who can shelter you from wind and rain.”

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…

The news that Cambon had been forcibly “sent” to the northern front did not stir much controversy in the National Convention. If André had not done it, that would have been the true sensation. Until the next day, not a single deputy among the more than seven hundred came to the Île Saint-Louis to intercede. Yet after night fell, Danton’s carriage appeared at the villa.

The Minister of Justice, in his great coat with its wide red lapels and in high spirits, told André that he had come on behalf of the Convention to “bail out” Cambon. Only a week earlier, Cambon had attacked Danton fiercely in a Jacobin meeting, accusing him that during his months as Minister of Justice several large accounts were unclear and that he was suspected of embezzlement. Most of these accusations were, in substance, true: the main problem lay with clerks in Danton’s office who lined their own pockets and squandered funds, while Danton himself took the blame onto his own shoulders and allowed Cambon and the Finance Committee to direct their fire at him.

André laughed. “Bail him out? Georges, you are mistaken. You are the Minister of Justice, the chief minister of the republican government. As for me, I am neither a judge nor a prosecutor, so those legal terms do not apply to me. And at times I would rather wait in this drawing-room for Brissot or for Robespierre—not only for you. In truth, a mere Cambon is not worth your coming in person to persuade me.”

Danton replied without concern, “André, do you know that in many people’s eyes, this villa of yours has already become a fortress of despotism, a symbol of dictatorship, a hell despised by every republican?”

André had heard enough of such malicious slander. He showed no displeasure. He understood that abuse is not combat; it is proof of an enemy’s cowardice and impotence. He listened calmly as Danton finished his point, and only reminded his visitor that the hot cocoa on the table was about to go cold.

“But I know—and Robespierre and Marat know as well—that you, André, have no desire to practise despotism in Paris. Otherwise your four corps and your two hundred thousand troops would have been at the gates long ago, and Paris would already have been occupied. You do not love this city in your heart. You do not love an orderless state that cannot be controlled. You think it is filthy, oppressive, chaotic, filled every moment with countless sins.

“But Paris has her own unique charm. She has a long history. She is the true symbol of the French nation, and she leads European fashion. She is fair—fair enough that anyone who comes here to seek a future can enjoy opportunities that are almost equal; that includes you, me, Robespierre, Brissot, and Marat. She is tolerant and merciful. She allows different ideas and different voices to spread freely through the city. She is a shelter for six hundred thousand people, even if certain killings cannot be avoided. So I hope I can do everything within my power to uphold Paris’s authority and prosperity.”

After hearing Danton’s heartfelt words, André remained silent for a long time.

In their approaches to rebuilding France, André and Danton were fundamentally different. Danton insisted on Paris as the cornerstone and core, uniting the eighty-three departments and France’s twenty-five million people, reconciling the conflicts between nobles and commoners, property owners and sans-culottes, and realising liberty, democracy, and fraternity.

André, drawing on the lessons of history, believed in militarised dictatorship: relying on an army loyal to him personally, and, with the steam engine as the emblem, driving a great industrial revolution to create a vast middle class and rebuild a Frankish empire. In French history, the great property-owning class was often the least scrupulous and the least bound by political morality. The masses of the poor were mixed, impatient, and easily misled. Only the middle class born to diligence and perseverance, obedient to law and order—industrial workers and small and medium landowners—could serve as the true backbone of France.

If there was one point on which the two men agreed, it was pragmatism. Neither indulged in slogan-shouting the way Brissot and Robespierre did. Another similarity was political tolerance: neither would lightly strike down opponents. Moreover, Danton supported André’s policy of outward expansion on many occasions. He was not like Brissot and Robespierre, whose export of revolution was often idealism that demanded no return.

In a Jacobin assembly, Danton declared, “I can say with certainty that there is no need to fear Marshal André pushing the northern front into the Low Countries and the lower Rhine, and no need to fear that the Republic’s territory will grow too large. Nature has already drawn France’s natural borders with precision. Let us define them by the horizon: the Rhine, the Atlantic, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. The borders of our Republic should be set there, and no power can prevent us from reaching them.”

After tea, André rose and told the Minister of Justice that the gendarmes would return Cambon from the camp at Soissons to Paris before the weekend. This minor disturbance ended, and no one mentioned it in public.

Until early November, a full week passed without Brissot or Robespierre seeking André out—neither in person nor through intermediaries. At the same time, the Marshal of the Republic had no intention of remaining in Paris out of boredom. The Belgian campaign was entering its final clean-up phase, and many matters required André’s decisions on the spot, including a private meeting in Brussels with Austria’s plenipotentiary envoy.

Two days before André’s departure from Paris, Javert—who was preparing to move—suddenly came to see him, holding the brooch André had once given to the little princess. Plainly, now that the one hundred and forty thousand foreign invaders had been utterly defeated, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had fallen into despair and had begun to consider a path for their children.

All signs suggested that the National Convention and the Paris Commune would not spare the House of Bourbon, the principal enemy that had sought to strangle the Revolution. The revolutionary tribunal under preparation had selected the Palais de Justice as its seat, in the King’s Hall, and Louis XVI and Queen Marie would be the chief suspects brought before the special court. The irony was exquisite.

As for the brooch, it was the “one-way ticket” André had promised to the little princess, Marie Thérèse, a path to a land of freedom. If they could choose, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette wished to grant such a chance to their son Charles. But at present they no longer dared to scheme against André. If they angered him, they feared even Marie Thérèse might lose the opportunity to obtain that freedom.

André, being a man who kept his word, would fulfil his oath. Since he was still in Paris, there was no need to waste the forces Javert had planted within the Paris police and the National Guard on a covert rescue. For security, André had already arranged for Javert and his wife to move north with him into the Netherlands. In the recovered Frankish lands, André needed an experienced minister of police.

The next day, while Georges Danton still held office as Minister of Justice, André submitted a public appeal to the Ministry of Justice and to the National Convention, requesting the release of Marie Thérèse. A child, he argued, was innocent; her existence and conduct could not truly endanger the survival of the French Republic, since French women did not inherit the throne. The last line of the appeal declared that André was willing to stake his personal honour as guarantee. This gave his political enemies a convenient point of attack, but André did not care—perhaps he had intended it.

After five hours of debate and bargaining, with support from the Ministry of Justice, the overwhelming majority of deputies accepted André’s two requests: first, they approved André’s resignation from the National Convention; second, they ordered the immediate release of Marie Thérèse, to be handed over by André to her aunt, Élisabeth, for care and upbringing.

It must be said that throughout the hall, even the most radical Marat did not oppose releasing the child. The most determined opposition came instead from André’s former friend Saint-Just, who rose to denounce the release of any member of the House of Bourbon. He insisted that the family of a despotic king, whoever they were, should be punished by the Republic because they had enjoyed the benefits of despotism, and therefore no mercy could be granted.

That handsome young deputy, neatly dressed and brimming with confidence, became famous overnight through his impassioned speech. Yet with Danton’s support and Robespierre’s tacit acquiescence, the Convention still passed André’s motion by an overwhelming margin: five hundred and ninety votes in favour, one hundred and twenty-one abstentions, and thirty-two against. From that day onward, André would automatically lose his status as a deputy of the National Convention.

In the square outside the Manège Hall, Saint-Just caught up and blocked André as André prepared to depart by carriage. Armed gendarmes moved to intervene, but the Marshal of the Republic halted them with a wave of his hand.

“My friend,” André said with a smile, “have you come especially to see me off?” In his heart, he already knew that Saint-Just had long since broken with him and that their old revolutionary friendship could never be restored.

Saint-Just stared straight at André and shouted, “André Franck, I accuse you of dressing yourself up as an idol of the northern people, a false God-Favoured who is worshipped by the crowd. You preach that among twenty-five million citizens you are the only man capable of saving France. I accuse you of using conspiracy and war to become the dictator of the fifteen northern provinces. You obtained supreme power through slander, violence, and a series of terror actions. André, I will despise you forever, and I will curse you in Paris until you go down to Hell!”

André froze. He had not expected such venom from a former intimate friend. After a brief silence, he locked his eyes on Saint-Just and answered, paying tooth for tooth and eye for eye, “Saint-Just, you will die. You will die horribly. You and your master will be nailed forever to the pillar of shame in the river of history as a warning to the world. I swear it.”

With that, André jumped into the carriage in a rage. Through the carriage window he saw Robespierre standing high on the steps of the Convention building, watching his exchange with Saint-Just with cold attention. André also knew that Robespierre had not ordered Saint-Just to break with him; rather, Saint-Just’s petty jealousy of André’s extraordinary achievements and immense influence had driven him to seek humiliation. Even so, André still came to regard the Incorruptible as an object of hatred.

The next morning, before the Temple Prison, where the autumn wind off the Seine could not reach, André and Javert stood beneath a plane tree whose leaves had turned into a riot of colours. Not far behind them were several long-distance travel carriages loaded with luggage, and more than one hundred armed gendarmes standing guard nearby.

Soon the drawbridge before the prison gate lowered slowly and then dropped with a heavy crash, kicking up dust. A moment later, Marie Thérèse, dressed in a white gown and carrying a small leather case, walked alone across the bridge from the fortress. Almost every two steps, the little girl with beautiful blue eyes looked back. She rose on tiptoe and stared toward a tall tower on one side, wanting one more glimpse of her father, her mother, and her dear, mischievous little brother Charles.

Only two months short of turning fourteen, Thérèse already understood many things. The father who loved her was no longer the King of France. She was no longer a princess of the realm. She might never see her parents again, and even little Charles might not be spared.

So when she looked back and saw the drawbridge being raised high again, the strong girl, tears gathered in her eyes, collapsed helplessly to the ground. Her quiet sobbing quickly became heart-rending cries. Seeing this, Javert’s wife, Anna, hurried down from the carriage and carried the poor girl into her own coach.

Even Javert, hard as iron, was moved by the scene; his nose twitched twice despite himself. André, by contrast, remained composed from beginning to end. Although he had fully broken with Saint-Just, André nonetheless found himself agreeing with one of Saint-Just’s earlier lines: the family of a despotic king should bear punishment, because they had enjoyed the benefits of despotism. Put differently: if you would wear the crown, you must bear its weight.

As the carriage set off again, André glanced once more, almost absent-mindedly, toward the tower of the Temple. In his mind he began to hum an old song from before his crossing—one about a king falling from power and paying the price of rule.