While the citizens of Paris indulged in their days of festivity, André found no leisure of his own.

  Barely had he seen Saint-Just and his sister off when he set out again—this time to the quarters of the delegation from his native Marne Department. Their lodgings occupied a disused monastery on the Left Bank of the Seine, not far from the ruins of the Bastille.

  When André first saw it, the place was appalling: the furniture had long been sold to fund the Paris municipality; even doors and windows had vanished. Cobwebs draped the walls, and dust blanketed every surface.

  Without hesitation, André paid out of pocket to have workers clean and whitewash the place, repair the frames, install beds and mosquito nets, chairs and candleholders, and provide clean water, paper, ink, and quills for over five hundred delegates.

  When the Marne contingent arrived, they thought themselves fortunate to have been assigned to a well-kept inn rather than a ruin.

  He did not stop there. André also covered their daily meals: five hired cooks prepared more than five hundred portions of food each day—simple, perhaps, but filling, with dark bread and meat soup in abundance.

  Afternoon tea included cheap coffee and wine, and baskets of fruit—apples, pears, and sweet Mediterranean oranges.

  Only two other delegations enjoyed such comfort: those of Gironde and Avignon. In both cases, the Paris prosecutor’s generosity was not altruism but strategy—a calculated gesture to court the deputies of those provinces and prepare ground for future alliances in business and politics.

  André, however, did not pay the bill alone. All expenses—some 100,000 livres—were officially borne by the King’s confidential envoy, Comte de Lamarque, the physician-financier who managed Louis XVI’s private purse.

  More than once, Judge Vinault and Madame Marguerite teased André that he had shed his youthful sincerity too quickly, playing the two-faced politician with unnerving skill. André himself knew the distinction well: opposing King Louis XVI was revolutionary duty; accepting money from the Tuileries was simply enjoying life.

  “How much have you really earned in Paris?”

  That was the first question from Professor Thuriot, deputy head of the Marne delegation and member of the Provincial Commune. As a professor, lawyer, and government officer, he was hardly na?ve about business—nor squeamish about minor corruption.

  André, glancing at his grey-templed teacher not yet forty, hesitated, then raised one finger.

  Thuriot laughed. “Ha! 100,000 livres. So Prieur wasn’t lying—your ventures at the Bourse have been fruitful. At least I needn’t worry you’ve gone into debt entertaining us.”

  André exhaled with relief—not because the figure was true (his real profits were far higher), but because his efforts to reconcile his two quarrelling countrymen, Thuriot and Deputy Prieur, seemed at last to bear fruit. Before 1790, the two lawyers from Reims had not exchanged a single letter.

  After exchanging warm greetings with the other delegates from Marne, André invited Thuriot to a small, elegant tavern nearby for private conversation.

  “Thank you, André,” the professor said, raising his glass in salute to his finest student.

  Having resigned his judgeship two weeks earlier, Thuriot was now preparing to run for Chief Provincial Prosecutor in the elections scheduled for early October.

  The 510 delegates of the Marne Federation—each a qualified elector—had already felt the warmth of André’s hospitality and took pride in their connection to him. Their neighbours from other provinces were less fortunate, often arriving uninvited to beg food and wine, which soon became a nuisance.

  André minded it little. He quietly handed 5,000 livres in cash to the delegation’s leaders, telling them to ask for more if necessary.

  With that, Thuriot’s campaign was already half won. And when Deputy Prieur arrived the next day to express the Assembly’s official support, the professorship would all but guarantee his election.

  André accepted his teacher’s praise with calm composure. Helping Thuriot secure the prosecutor’s office was one more of his calculated retreats—a bolt-hole should Paris turn against him.

  For all his current success, André knew how quickly fortune shifted in revolutionary politics: the revenge of the tax-farmers, the pressure of Necker, the jealousy of Danton, the hatred of Marat, the duplicity of Mirabeau—any of these could become tomorrow’s storm. To plan ahead was not caution; it was survival.

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  “There is something curious,” Thuriot said, setting down his empty glass. “The Marquis de Demo? has withdrawn your banishment order. They say Comte de Lamarque acted as intermediary at the court. Yet your letters made it clear you refused to serve the Tuileries.”

  André made no effort to hide the truth.

  “It was Comte de Mirabeau’s arrangement,” he said. “A private bargain between us. In return, I pledged to support Lafayette quietly, and to side with him against the hard-liners when the time came. Judging by today’s spectacle at the Altar of the Fatherland, the Grand Marshal has conquered the King, the people—and perhaps all of France.”

  He did not mention Demo?’s name again, and Thuriot did not press him.

  Instead, the professor reflected on the morning’s oath. “No matter how solemn,” he said, “every oath has its term.”

  André nodded. “A year, perhaps two. Then Paris will turn on its idol, as it always does—just as they once kissed that Marshal’s horse today, they’ll be the first to stone him tomorrow. Since the days of the Fronde, it’s always been the same: Paris worships everything, destroys everything, and in the end destroys itself.”

  He laughed, filled their glasses anew, and toasted his teacher’s health.

  Seeing his pupil’s mind so clear, Thuriot offered no more admonitions. Soon the talk turned to nostalgia—their years at the University of Reims, shared lessons and debates—until politics darkened the mood again.

  André mentioned a topic recently raised in the Assembly:

  “The Commune of Marne must prepare itself. The city council of Reims has banned Jacobin meetings, arrested several of its organisers, and refused to sell off Church lands. Many deputies now demand harsh measures. After the Festival of the Federation, the Assembly will bypass the Minister of the Interior and issue direct orders to the provincial commune: the Cathedral of Reims is to be purged, all resisting priests and monks expelled, and the university closed if its faculty obstructs the National Guard. The city council itself will be dissolved, and Reims divided into several electoral districts for new elections.”

  André was repeating the key points of Deputy Prieur’s recent address—a warning couched as instruction.

  Thuriot frowned, clearly angered. “Those fine gentlemen of Paris think everything simple! Between Marne and Ardennes there’s a band of marauders in the forest—five hundred at least, well armed and elusive. They seldom attack civilians, but they ambush the Guard repeatedly.

  Last winter they nearly wiped out a patrol outside Reims. We begged Marquis de Bouillé’s troops to assist, but every time the regulars arrived, the brigands had already melted into the woods. The game of cat and mouse has gone on for half a year. Losses mount, morale sinks, and we are certain—no, convinced—that the city hall and the clergy of Reims are in league with them. Perhaps even exiled nobles and the frontier regiments of Bouillé himself are complicit. Without proof, we cannot act—but without neutralising Bouillé’s forces, we cannot win.”

  It was new information to André, and he knew why his teacher had never written it—some truths required speech, not ink.

  He had no immediate answer. Matters involving the Marquis de Bouillé and his frontier army were beyond the reach of any prosecutor, however powerful. For now, such problems must rest with Lafayette, Mirabeau, and Prieur in the Assembly.

  As their meeting ended, Thuriot said casually, “Yesterday I visited Justice Vinault on ?le Saint-Louis. He’s aged terribly—two strokes, they say. He may retire before the year’s end and withdraw to his estate near Sedan.”

  André knew the truth better than anyone. The Justice had indeed suffered two strokes. Though his life was not in danger, the tremor in his left hand and his chronic migraines had worsened; the laudanum bought him ever shorter intervals of lucidity. Every reputable doctor in Paris had given the same advice to his wife: relinquish the burdens of office, retreat to the countryside, and perhaps live a little longer.

  André understood perfectly what that meant. Without Vinault, he would lose his greatest pillar in Paris. That was why he had heeded Mirabeau’s counsel—to cultivate Lafayette while there was still time, and to prepare for departure should the tide turn.

  Returning to Reims—or rather to Chalons-sur-Marne, the new departmental seat—was one possible refuge.

  Thuriot, half-hinting, offered to keep the post of deputy prosecutor vacant for him once elected.

  André thanked him sincerely, though in truth he hoped to remain in Paris. The city’s vast opportunities could never be matched by a province of 300,000 souls.

  Two hours later, a pleasantly drunk Thuriot returned to his single room—one of the perks of rank—and discovered a folded bank draft slipped into his coat pocket.

  The amount: 30,000 livres.

  “That rascal,” he chuckled. “He’s made far more than 100,000.”

  Indeed, he had.

  In Bordeaux, André’s broker Charles Ouvrard—armed with nothing more than a letter of introduction—had charmed Justice Duranthon, joined the local Jacobin Club, and plunged into speculation in assignats and confiscated Church property.

  A week earlier, Ouvrard had wired his employer 200,000 livres and hinted at another great venture soon to come.

  With money flowing again, André’s anxieties vanished. In times of peace, he believed, every problem had a price—and if the problem remained, the price simply wasn’t high enough.

  Note:

  "Department" refers to "provinces/states" at the time.