An epic historical novel of the French Revolution and the men and women who shaped it, Children of Saturn by John Neeleman vividly chronicles the dramatic conflict of social unrest that haunts France—and the world—to this day. Here is an exclusive excerpt from the novel.
Prologue
It is the afternoon of Sunday, July 12, 1789, and Camille Desmoulins is in the Palais-Royal. He is alone. Camille is vain and mindful of his appearance. He is wearing a blue coat with gilt buttons, buckskin breeches and well-polished boots, a perfectly white waistcoat, a shiny hat, and he holds a cane with mother-of-pearl and a gold knob. He has a dark complexion and an ambiguously feminine essence. His big dark eyes are extraordinarily bright and expressive, below a smooth and prominent forehead. His mouth is large and sensuous, his curled black hair so long that it falls over his shoulders, loose and unpowdered—as is the custom now among the republicans—and he is slightly built and not tall, though athletic in his movements and bearing.
Irresistibly, the public is drawn to the Palais-Royal, a public space built to appear like a magnificent rectangular château. Within there are vast and majestic courtyards and gardens surrounded by arcades, beneath which there are innumerable shops resplendent with treasures of the world displayed in a most alluring fashion, lit up by lamps that enhance their bright and dazzling colors. Crowds of people are flowing through these galleries; they are walking up and down for the sole purpose of looking at each other. So, too, there are coffee houses, taverns, pubs, and cafés, the foremost in Paris, which are all full of people.
There is a terrible din; people are quarreling and making speeches, reading aloud at the tops of their voices the latest news and argumentation from the newspapers concerning the movement that is now called the French Revolution. Along the promenade that fronts the boutiques and galleries, professional escorts, legs and arms bare and with feathery headdresses, are strolling and making contacts and assignations.
Here, then, is also a gathering place for thieves, crooks, cheaters, fornicators, and the men and women who plot the royalty’s very destruction—just across the Rue Saint-Honoré from the king’s Tuileries Palace (it is vacant, for the royal family is ensconced in Versailles).
More irony: the man who imagined and financed the development of this place is the king’s estranged cousin, Louis Philippe Joseph, the Duke of Orléans, who has now renamed himself Egalité, and here he holds court among the enemies of the king. Within the House of Bourbon, the Orléanses are the pedigree’s inferior branch; they would succeed to the throne only if their more exalted cousins die out. Philippe and Louis XVI have never gotten along. But if Philippe has designs on the throne, the motive is hidden, for overtly he is in thrall of the ideas of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and a member of the Jacobins, the revolutionary political club. He has made the Palais-Royal into the club’s nerve center and, as such, the bastion for the people’s rebellion. Is his aim, as rival royalty, to replace King Louis XVI, or, as a true revolutionary, to destroy the monarchy altogether? Time will tell.
Now Camille is outside the galleries, making his way within the columns of chestnut trees of a Palais-Royal garden, where calm and shadows are to be found. He hears from within the arcades the sensuous sound of fine music; a gentle breeze makes the bright green leaves on the trees rustle and brings relief on this warm afternoon.
“What now, Camille?” These words are spoken from the shadows. The words have a singsong, unpleasant, pedantic edge. Camille’s reverie is broken. Marat. He stands a few paces away—slovenly in appearance, posture bent, a dirty red kerchief binding his scalp, two pistols on his belt, and diseased, blistered skin. Camille braces himself. He knows that Jean-Paul Marat is a good judge of Camille’s character and plays upon his vanity and insecurity. Marat is called the “Friend of the People,” the same name as his newspaper, which competes with Camille’s. But Camille does not regard him a friend. It is Marat’s sardonic jabs more than the hideous appearance that put Camille ill at ease.
Camille gazes at him, his look asking, What do you mean?
“Necker,” says Marat. “Haven’t you heard? The king has dis missed Necker. Foullon will replace him.”
Suddenly, Camille’s mind is ablaze. Swiss Minister of Finance Jacques Necker, the lone liberal among the king’s ministers, is now gone. Necker, who wished to reform the French monarchy to resemble the British constitutional monarchy. But he is now replaced by Joseph Foullon, who said, Let the people eat grass.
Camille’s thoughts race, yet he is silent. Stricken by intense emotion, his stutter is insurmountable. He is trembling, his eyes misty.
“Struck dumb, eh, Camille. Don’t concern yourself. Notwithstanding the boldness and originality of your pen, you are ever under the ascendancy of others. Now is the time for a coup d’état. Leave that to men of action. Men who express, arouse, and also act upon the will of the people. Revolutions cannot be made with rose water, after all. Adieu.” Marat is gone as suddenly as he appeared.
Camille arrives at his destination; he is in front of the Café de Foy. It is about half past three. The news is released and on every one’s lips: Necker, the people’s minister, the savior of France, has
been dismissed by the king! His replacement is Joseph Foullon, who said, Let the people eat grass.
All of his friends who are prominent Jacobin Club members are here. His boyhood friend, Maximilien Robespierre, is with Philippe, Duke of Orléans (Egalité), and the lawyer Georges Danton. They are not seated at their usual table. They are standing. Camille sees that they are too anxious to sit. Monstrous Danton, with rampant black mane, billowing linen shirt, arms spread, and fingers splayed, is howling emphatically at Robespierre—Robespierre erect in his usual blue waistcoat; arms folded; his hair neatly drawn, ponytailed and powered; a pale grimace. These three men are among those to whom Camille subordinates himself—as Marat would put it. Robespierre is a delegate to the revolutionary legislature now known as the National Assembly.
Yet today Camille is heedless of the great men. For now is not time to deliberate, but to fulminate. He is enraged, and rage is the surest counteractant to obsequiousness. Camille is suddenly rushing about outside the Café de Foy, face ablaze, hair streaming, shouting, pumping his arms. He has discarded the cane, lost his hat, seized two pistols; he does not think where from. They are now brandished in each hand. In his eye corner Camille sees a dark and red colored smear, musketed Gendarmerie, bayonets aloft; he is unafraid. The king’s police are numerous here today, but they cannot take him, not if they want to remain alive.
Friends (not the great men themselves) help Camille climb up on a table and then onto a chair placed on the table. Someone holds the chair while Camille stands upon it, holding the pistols aloft and crying out to the milling crowd. This time, he speaks without stammering.
“Friends! Shall we die like hunted hares? Like sheep bleating for mercy, hounded into their pinfold where there is no mercy to be had, but only a whetted knife? The hour is come; the supreme hour of Frenchman and Man; when oppressors have dared to drive their oppression to conclusion. And for the oppressed, the choice is this: swift death, or deliverance forever! Let such hour be welcome! For us, it seems to me, one cry only befits: To Arms! Let universal Paris, universal France, sound only: To arms!”
And “To arms!” yells one great responsive voice, the combined innumerable voices.
Camille looks upon the multitude now gathered before him, and he sees the rage, and he feels its energy. He has, he sees, evoked elemental powers in this great moment.
“Friends,” cries Camille, “we need some rallying sign! Cockades; green ones; the color of hope!” Always, there must be some sign. Thus do the people snatch green tree leaves, green ribbons from the neighboring shops, all green things, to turn into cockades—a flight of locusts!
Camille descends from his table and he is stifled with embraces, wetted with comingled tears. He is handed a bit of green ribbon, which he sticks in his hat. Now the multitude spills from the Palais-Royal, and they smash through the streets, armed with muskets, axes, staves, farm implements, anything that man may devise as weapon.
Camille sees that somewhere the multitude has seized a waxbust of Necker, and a wax-bust of Egalité, erstwhile Duke of Orléans, advocates of the people, now covered with crape, as in funeral procession, or like supplicants appealing to heaven. For always there must be idols. And now, to the Bastille, all intrepid Parisians!
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