bodyguards, each wearing the red liberty cap that had become the badge of the revolutionary poor.
The man who entered was exactly as history would one day remember him: small, stooped, his hair wild, his beard unkempt, his coat filthy, his shirt open and stained. Yet his eyes—sharp, restless, and mercilessly intelligent—cut through the air like blades.
Even before André reached him, a strong, acrid scent filled the hall. Vinegar. Of course—Marat’s self-prescribed cure for his chronic skin disease. Fortunately, André had grown up with that smell; his father in his former life had owned a modest vinegar factory, and the sour sting of acid no longer turned his stomach.
“It is an honour to meet you, brave Friend of the People,” André said warmly, extending his hand. Smiling, he led the doctor upstairs to the attic room, private enough for their conversation. The two bodyguards were left below, where the housekeeper and her young nephew Meldar were already setting out wine and food.
An old writing desk served as their dining table. It groaned under the weight of the dishes: tender lamb, slices of halibut seasoned with bay and thyme, aubergines roasted until their black skins cracked and the buttery flesh oozed beneath. Two bottles of champagne gleamed among the plates.
For André—who since his strange arrival in this century had lived in almost constant poverty—it was the first true meal he had tasted in months. He ate eagerly, scarcely noticing that across the table Marat sat motionless, his expression severe, his knife and fork untouched.
When André raised his glass for another toast, the doctor abruptly spoke first.
“To the generosity of Monsieur Paulze—and of Madame Lavoisier!”
The words froze the air. André coughed twice, set down his glass, and dabbed his mouth with the napkin to disguise his embarrassment. “Your information travels fast,” he said dryly. “Are there Friends of the People stationed on every corner of the Left Bank?”
Since the dawn of the Revolution, Marat and had been names that divided France. To his enemies, he was a madman—a beast of blood and ink. To the destitute, he was a prophet and defender. To the Mountain, he would become a martyr of the Revolution.
So it was no surprise that Marat knew of the lawyer’s encounter that morning. He emptied his glass in one long swallow, set it down, and declared with solemn fire: “Not only on the Left Bank, my friend—our cause stretches north to the very fields of Picardy. Wherever there is oppression, wherever there is exploitation, there must sound the cry of Paul Marat!”
André nodded slowly. The man was half-mad, perhaps; vain, certainly; yet for all his fury he had never once betrayed his oath. Even at his most vicious, Marat’s hatred was reserved for enemies, not for those who stood beside him.
And that, André thought, was a rare virtue in a revolutionary.
He knew that Marat’s world was full of treachery. Georges DantonCamille Desmoulins
had mocked Marat’s grotesque appearance, calling him more demon than doctor. Hébert of the Cordeliers had stolen from the club’s treasury, leaving Marat to repay the missing funds out of his own pocket. Yet the Friend of the People had never struck back—not even with words. He complained, but he did not conspire.
This, more than ideology, was why André had sought his acquaintance. Open enemies could be handled; hidden knives could not.
“If you ever require assistance,” André said frankly, “you may count on me.”
Marat’s hand went to his breast pocket. He drew out a crumpled sheet of paper and slid it across the table. “This,” he said, “is a copy of the letter you delivered today to the daughter of the tax-farmer Paulze.”
André’s eyes flicked over the page.
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Marat watched him closely. “Do you know the man’s story?” he asked.
The name stirred some half-forgotten memory in André’s mind. Babeuf… Gracchus Babeuf
Born in Picardy, son of a poor peasant, Babeuf had lost his father at sixteen and made his own way as clerk, scribe, and registrar of land deeds. Self-taught in law, he opened a tiny rural office where he helped villagers draft petitions and contracts.
When news of the Revolution reached the countryside in 1789, he rushed to Paris and there met Marat, whose fiery zeal infected him. Returning home, he urged peasants to resist the salt and wine monopolies and to refuse feudal taxes.
“Last year,” said Marat, “the local court charged him with inciting revolt. The people protested, the Constituent Assembly intervened, and he was acquitted. But while I was in exile in England, the tax-farmers struck again. The merchant Paulze and his allies within the Palais de Justice have contrived to accuse him of murder. By the time I returned, it was too late. Babeuf had already been taken to Paris, and the trial had begun.”
Marat’s voice darkened. “The villains know his eloquence. They poisoned him—so he could not speak in his own defence. His lawyer is a traitor, bought and paid for. Therefore I ask you, André Franck, to take his place.”
André had half expected it. Still, he hesitated. Surely Danton, Marat’s protector and the most formidable barrister in Paris, would have been the natural choice. For years Danton—the “Mirabeau of the People”—had thundered through the courts with his booming voice and iron logic, cowing judges and juries alike.
But André understood at once why Danton could not appear. The Chatelet Court, at the insistence of Mayor Bailly, had issued a warrant for Danton’s arrest only months earlier, accusing him of sheltering the fugitive Marat. Though the order had never been enforced—thanks to Robespierre’s defence of Danton in the Assembly and Desmoulins’ attacks on the court in the press—his presence there would be too great a risk.
“Why me?” André asked at last. “I am not even attached to a law office. I have argued only one case in my life.”
Marat smiled faintly. “Danton recommended twelve names. Eleven refused. You are the twelfth.”
For a moment, André sat speechless. So he was the last resort. Then he laughed softly. “To be chosen by Danton at all is honour enough.”
He thought for a moment, then said firmly, “I’ll take the case—but on one condition. Whatever happens, you and your friends must forget the part Judge Vinault played in this business.”
By now, they had dropped the formal
for the familiar . Gratitude demanded discretion: without Vinault’s guidance over the past year, André would never have found footing in Parisian law. He would not see his old mentor destroyed for another man’s corruption.
Marat inclined his head. He knew the connection well—Vinault had once been Danton’s first employer when both were young men at the Reims prosecutor’s office.
“Then it is agreed,” Marat said. “Whatever the verdict, you shall have Marat’s friendship—and his gratitude.”
The two men clasped hands across the table: the Friend of the People and the People’s Lawyer.
After the doctor departed, André returned to his attic and sat in silence. His plan had been simple—to leverage Vinault’s influence, secure a post as assistant prosecutor, and build a reputation solid enough to stand for the Legislative Assembly of 1791. Now, that plan lay in ruins.
Still, regret would serve no purpose. To win Marat’s trust and Danton’s approval—two of Hugo’s future “Titans”—was reward enough. Even if it cost him comfort in the short term, it promised protection in the storms ahead. When the year ’93 came, he thought wryly, he would have two stout legs to cling to.
As for poor Babeuf—guilty or not—André cared little. A lawyer, after all, earns his keep by freeing the client, not by judging him.
“Oh, right,” he muttered suddenly, “who’s paying my fee?”
The question was answered three hours later. The bookseller from the Rue Dauphine—the same who had first delivered Marat’s message—arrived with a large sealed envelope.
Inside lay eight , the paper notes newly issued by order of the Constituent Assembly. Each was the size of a playing card, printed with intricate patterns and guaranteed by the confiscated lands of the Church.
Five were marked at 300 livres, the remaining three at 400, a total of 2,700 livres—worth nearly a year’s income even after the early depreciation. Before 1792, the had lost less than ten percent of its value; by 1798, it would be little more than wastepaper.
André whistled softly. “So,” he murmured, “the revolutionaries were never as poor as they claimed.”
He was not wrong. Since the first days of the Estates-General, Marat’s incendiary writings had brought him repeated persecution; the police had raided his press nine times, costing him over 10,000 livres in lost equipment alone. No doctor, however skilled, could have sustained such expenses on fees alone. The money, André thought, did not come from the .
It came, as always, from those who claimed to despise wealth most of all.
Note:
- Tax farming is a system wherein the right to collect certain taxes owed to the state is auctioned off to the highest bidder.
- assignats: paper currency issued during the Revolution, backed by confiscated Church lands (and which would soon depreciate catastrophically)
- The Mountain: the radical Jacobin faction in the National Assembly, so called because its members sat on the highest benches