Therefore, a high-profile counterattack against the Tuileries and the conservative cabinet was essential—to force deputies of the Constituent Assembly to read the situation and stand with the people. The premise, however, was to calm the populace first and prevent any further rioting. Regaining his composure, the prosecutor noticed a detail in Javert’s account: unless Jean-Paul Marat had fled abroad, “The Friend of the People” was always edited and reported by him personally—yet this time the byline was Hébert.

  “Paul Marat is ill—caught a chill,” Javert explained. “He’s been in bed for days. Hébert and others are handling the paper’s business.” Marat was a “suspect” under close watch by the Paris Police Prefecture; informants monitored his address and movements around the clock.

  “Oh? Ill, is he? In that case I should certainly pay my old friend a visit,” André replied lightly. Compared with Marat, Hébert’s political weight was far smaller; so long as the “Friend of the People” did not personally take the field, the prosecutor had ample ways to reverse the present disadvantage. His mind settled quickly; he turned and issued a string of orders:

  “Meldar, go straight to the Cordeliers Club. Tell Legendre to contact Georges Danton and say the prosecutor wishes to call on Monsieur Danton, member of the Paris Commune’s General Council, at his residence in the Cour du Commerce… let me see—set it for sometime between 20:00 and 21:00 this evening.

  “Augereau, draft a movement order and send your orderly back to the Versailles barracks at once. Notify Captain Chassé to detail part of the gendarmerie to change into the uniforms of the Paris Mounted Police, arm fully, and muster on the ?le Saint-Louis—the rendezvous is Justice Vinault’s former mansion. Yes, I’ve requisitioned it. Remember: the mounted police entering the city must not exceed thirty men; otherwise we’ll need a permit signed by General Lafayette of the National Guard… good—bring it to me to sign.

  “Javert, send your constables to find Billaud-Varenne. If that muddle-headed judge isn’t dead drunk in a wine cask or on some courtesan’s bosom, bring him to the judge’s house on ?le Saint-Louis. Make sure our magistrate gets some fresh air on the way—and clears his addled head. In my name, invite Brissot as well; he too sits on the Commune’s General Council.”

  …

  Rue des Cordeliers, Marat’s lodgings.

  As André, Augereau, and Javert stepped from the carriage at the entrance, several sans-culottes on guard barred the way. A tall, gaunt man in a red cap shook his pike and shouted at Javert, “Get out! No police lackeys here!”

  Seeing the deputy chief abused, the accompanying agents blew their whistles. In moments five or six patrolmen arrived, pistols drawn and cocked; the sans-culottes leveled pikes and sabers—tense faces, a hair from violence.

  A plainly but neatly dressed young man came down the stairs; one of the sans-culottes ran to brief him. André recognized him at once: Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette, twenty-seven, a physician and loyal follower of Marat—the two had met during the Babeuf case that March. Clearly, Chaumette recognized the prosecutor as well.

  At André’s signal, Javert ordered the patrolmen to lower their weapons and fall back outside the building. At Chaumette’s discreet gesture, the sans-culottes also stood aside and lowered their arms. The tinder-dry moment passed; calm returned.

  Hearing the purpose of the visit, Chaumette answered gently, “I’m sorry, Monsieur André. Marat is ill and needs rest; he cannot receive visitors for the time being.”

  “I am no visitor,” André smiled. “I am a friend of the ‘Friend of the People.’” Seeing a flicker of doubt cross Chaumette’s face, he added, “Only I will go in. Ten minutes at most. I won’t tax him further.”

  After a brief hesitation, Chaumette nodded and stepped aside, inviting him in. André glanced back and signaled Augereau and Javert to remain below.

  In the first room on the second floor, André followed Chaumette through the door. Only a single candlestick lit the parlour—dim and wavering. Even so, he could see into the next room: Marat lay in a shallow slipper tub, only his upper body and face above the water—a broad brow; sallow, green-brown face; grey eyes shot with blood; thin lips fixed in a strange smile; a grimy head-wrap around his temples.

  Marat’s companion, Simonne Evrard, sat by the tub, reading from the Paris papers by candlelight. On the stairs, Chaumette had explained that Marat’s chill was nearly cured, but had sadly brought on an eye inflammation; he could not read or write for long and needed someone to read aloud.

  After a few whispered words, Simonne draped a large bath towel over Marat’s shoulders and left the bathroom with Chaumette.

  “Ten minutes at most—and mind the fire, add wood and keep the room warm,” Simonne said curtly, casting André a glance.

  As the door clicked shut, André rubbed his nose—the medicinal smell from the bath was strong. Not unbearable, just unfamiliar.

  “Apologies,” Marat said, with a rueful smile. “The bloodthirsty tiger—the monster who devours France—must soak in a medicated vat just to get through the day.”

  André only smiled, knelt, and fed a few logs into the blazing hearth. After a time, he turned and said, “Don’t worry—you’ve years yet. You may even live to see a French Republic. And if not—you may still take a turn in the Panthéon.”

  Marat started inwardly, but his face did not change. “So—you back a republic too? Weren’t you once a loyal partisan of the Duc d’Orléans?”

  André made no secret of it; the ailing Marat had seen through him already. “That was half a year ago. Now I would rather see Louis XVII as king. A republic is not impossible either. Even then the king would not vanish; the only change would be that the crowned monarch becomes 700 deputies in tricolour sashes.”

  “Your tone is very Mirabeau,” Marat sneered.

  “Indeed. Deputy Mirabeau is one of my tutors. Only I have gained wealth, power, and rank far faster than the Comte de Mirabeau,” André said, shamelessly.

  Marat sighed; the edge left his voice. He knew the scoundrel before him had earned his swagger. “Well—what do you want? And by the way: Hébert left for the south this morning on urgent business for me.”

  André named his price. “Yes, Marat—I won’t cross the line we agreed on. But the cleric Jacques Roux and his madhouse must face moral censure in ‘The Friend of the People.’ I, in turn, guarantee Jacques Roux will not suffer a heavy sentence—but his followers, especially those who lynched, must mount the scaffold. No more than three.”

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  The quiet bargain was struck. Since Hébert had already gone south, André would not hound him further. Marat designated Chaumette as his temporary spokesman to assist the prosecutor in tidying up the ?le Saint-Louis affair.

  Marat warned his followers again and again: “Keep your distance. Don’t imitate Hébert by provoking André. He’s a mysterious, grasping man, a brilliant shameless scoundrel—and he has an army and the Paris police to shield him.”

  If you asked who in Paris most resembled André in character, Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, would say with pride: Danton—my projection in the Commune; and the other André—my double in the South.

  At the dawn of the Revolution, Georges Danton’s circumstances were anything but rosy. The huge debt from buying his post as avocat to the Conseil Privé still weighed on the Champenois peasant’s son. He had to keep his private residence in the Cour du Commerce and his law practice, and sustain a lifestyle befitting a grand avocat patronised by the court. Meanwhile, during the Revolution his income fell off a cliff.

  Neither the chairmanship of the Cordeliers Club nor a seat on the Paris Commune’s General Council paid a salary. Worse, many of his best clients—grandees and dignitaries—had fled abroad or gone bankrupt. By mid-1790, the law firm’s revenues were near zero.

  Yet the very next year, the Danton household did not sink further; as if by magic, its finances were transformed.

  In early summer, Danton paid off all debts—about 40,000 livres. He then purchased nearly 100 hectares of land near his home town of Arcis-sur-Aube for some 50,000 livres, and a handsome villa for another 30,000.

  Nor was that all. Beyond these 120,000 livres of unexplained income, Danton boasted of buying shares worth 100,000 in some company, and of deposits near 80,000 at the French Discount Bank. Javert’s inquiry later confirmed the claims.

  A nearly bankrupt lawyer making 300,000 livres by legal means in so short a time? The prosecutor could not imagine it—unless Danton was André and had pre-emptively looted church property. But that was impossible; in Paris the church lands had been snapped up by the great Constitutionalists at the start of 1790. There was no soup left for small men like Danton or André.

  For a well-informed man like the prosecutor, however, the truth was no secret. Evidence showed that Danton had received about 150,000 livres in political “donations” from the Duc d’Orléans, in eight instalments; after July, Mirabeau too courted Danton, sharing out “considerations” from the Tuileries.

  On Mirabeau’s advice, the Tuileries—through the Comte de Lamarck and the Comte de Montmorin—set up a new office to watch the major Paris clubs, spend heavily to buy deputies and the leaders of mass groups, and prompt court-friendly journalists to spread pro-monarchy arguments.

  Faced with the Bourbon court’s sugar-coated shells, Danton put on a show—then swallowed the sugar and tossed back the shell. The prosecutor, by contrast, kept up a steady mockery of the Tuileries and refused all material temptations. Only once did he compromise: to the Comte de Lamarck he stated clearly he would not join any violent attempt to overthrow the monarchy.

  He did not oppose monarchy per se; as for the plump Louis XVI, he still despised him. His ideal arrangement was for Louis XVI to abdicate, and for Louis XVII to reign as a puppet under the guidance of Monarchistes like Mirabeau and Lafayette.

  It was idle talk over dinner; he would not put it on the table, much less fight for it—unless Mirabeau lived long and healthy, Lafayette shed his pride, and the three Lameth brothers resigned themselves to second place… very well—none of that would happen.

  That night a black carriage rolled down the Rue des Cordeliers—no heraldic arms, no entourage. It turned into the Cour du Commerce. Cloaked against the cold, André stepped down, spoke a word to his driver Augereau, breathed into his hands, and hurried into Georges Danton’s house.

  Late-October Paris was bitter; the South still had ten-plus degrees, but here it had dropped to 7–8. Back from the South, André felt it keenly. Danton’s new mansion was spring-warm, and his wife, Gabrielle, was a bloom to the eye.

  Handing his cloak to the maid, André teased the hulking, ugly host with the great beast’s head: “Very well—I now believe what 300,000 Parisian men say: a perfect flower planted squarely in a dung heap.”

  The two had met often in public, but were no intimates. André knew Danton’s boisterous humour and paid him back, a little, for the cold shoulder half a year before.

  “Ha! Ha! Ha!” Danton laughed with satisfaction, kissed his lovely wife before the guest, and, as she turned to arrange a generous supper for the two Champenois, gave her a playful squeeze—roué that he was.

  Both men were libertines. And Danton knew much of André’s secrets: greed, women—and a trail of “trouble,” from the judge’s wife now back in Sedan to a countess and a marquise in Bordeaux, and years ago in Reims…

  None of that mattered. What mattered was how much their interests overlapped. Two men of Champagne could work together in Paris and open a new era. On this André agreed, took Danton at his plain word, and accepted the proffered hand.

  Danton had the nurse bring in his seven-month-old son, Antoine, to inspire a bachelor’s envy. To Danton’s surprise, the baby did not cry in André’s arms but laughed and cooed. Danton felt a twinge of jealousy: why did his son bawl for him and beam for a stranger?

  “I’ve more practice than you,” André winked—and accepted his host’s mock contempt. Then he produced from his coat a small solid-gold figurine, half a hand in size—bought near Versailles—as a gift for the child.

  The host led him through the mansion. The ground floor alone had two antechambers, a washroom, a storeroom, a cloakroom, and servants’ quarters; upstairs were six freshly finished rooms: a large and a small salon; a master bedroom with carved fireplace; a broad octagonal dining room with crystal chandelier; and a study with a spiral iron stair to a loft library.

  “You’re not still staying with Legendre, are you?” In the small salon upstairs, Danton handed André a glass of champagne and tossed off his own.

  “No. I’ll stay for a while at Justice Vinault’s villa on ?le Saint-Louis,” André said—and stopped there. “Forgive me, Georges, I must meet with Judge Billaud-Varenne shortly. And with Brissot.”

  Danton understood at once. As chairman of the Cordeliers and a member of the Commune, his political stance naturally aligned with the Special Fiscal Court. Besides, André had helped him more than once.

  “Tell me how I can help,” Danton replied without hesitation.

  Setting down his glass, André laid out his plan. “Within three days, I will challenge the royal cabinet representing the Tuileries. In the Constituent Assembly I will impeach several ministers for corruption and abuse. I want the backing of the 48 sectional electors of Paris, and a recommendation from the Commune’s General Council naming me special delegate to speak the facts on the Assembly floor.”

  “Which ministers?” Danton asked.

  “The Minister of the Interior, Comte de Saint-Prix; the Minister of War, Comte de La Tour du Pin; the Minister of Justice, Baron de Champien; and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Controller-General of Finance, Comte de Montmorin—four in all,” André said. These men had expressed sympathy for the tax-farmers and called for abolishing the Special Fiscal Court.

  Danton weighed the list and said, “This year at least, the Comte de Montmorin must not be attacked by the people. The Comte de Mirabeau spoke to me of this.”

  “Agreed,” André answered at once. “I will indict only the first three and press the Commune to urge the Assembly to dismiss them. Beyond the Cordeliers, I hope you can raise motions of no confidence in the Jacobins as well—against those three.”

  The dinner was abundant, but after barely ten minutes André took his leave; two members of the Commune were waiting on ?le Saint-Louis.

  By the time he reached Justice Vinault’s former residence, it was late. More than twenty gendarmes, now in the uniforms of the Paris Mounted Police, had sealed the grounds under Captain Chassé’s orders. In the salon, a roaring fire drove off the autumn chill.

  The two Commune members—Brissot and Billaud-Varenne—were making small talk. Per the colonel’s instructions, there was no wine—only hot coffee.

  André’s first words as he entered were: “It’s our turn to strike back.”

  “How?” Billaud-Varenne sprang up, energized, his earlier despair gone. Brissot kept his calm and waited.

  André repeated, in substance, what he had told Danton: “The day after tomorrow, I will impeach three ministers for corruption and abuse…”

  Nor did he stop there. Early the next morning he hurried to his next moves. First stop: the home of the Comte de Mirabeau. In the gilded grand salon, Talleyrand, Barnave, Lameth, and Sieyès were already waiting for the prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court.

  After noon he drove to the Palais de Justice to see the newly seated Judge Duranthon and Luchon, soon to depart for the colony of Saint-Domingue—seeking continued support from the Palais de Justice.

  Toward dusk, he returned to the Jacobins to confer with Prieur, Robespierre, and Pétion, preparing the attack to be launched in the debating hall the next day.