“‘Bursting shell? A time-delay fuse? A wooden sabot that integrates the loading of powder and shot into a single round?’ Colonel Senarmont restrained himself from frowning. He quickly took out the notebook he carried with him; as he wrote without pause, the artillery colonel weighed the string of new terms that kept coming out of Monsieur André’s mouth.

  Taken literally, the “bursting shell” André referred to was ammunition that used a shell with a fuse to explode and then relied on fragments and shock to kill or demolish—what later generations would call shrapnel. Put simply, the powder was sealed inside a separate wooden container (generally a small barrel, which later evolved into a conical form). This not only effectively prevented premature detonation caused by friction between components—thereby avoiding accidental injury to one’s own gun crews—but also remained compatible with existing twelve-pounder guns, removing any need to cast a dedicated “bursting-shell” cannon.

  Once fired, these shells (shrapnel) would carry a soul-seizing whistle as they rushed toward the air above the intended target. At that moment, the fuse would happen to burn down to its end, triggering the powder sealed inside the shell. After a series of muffled blasts, countless small iron balls would burst out from the barrel-shaped body, retaining the lethal velocity of the casing and sweeping mercilessly through every living thing within a radius of twenty meters.

  Among all of this, the time-delay fuse was the key technology. In the earliest era of bursting shells, experienced gunners first had to estimate the range, then consult the artillery manual for the flight time corresponding to that distance and shell type, and only then decide how long a delay fuse to insert into the round. By the time of the American Civil War, the emergence of a wooden-tube fuse with precise graduations solved the technical problem of allowing gunners to determine the detonation time quickly.

  However, André did not explain all of the above very clearly; some details and figures even contradicted one another. Thus, Colonel Senarmont could only rely on his own understanding—breaking the ideas down and converting them into a series of professional technical indices—before passing them on to the engineers at the armaments works, so that the specialists could slowly experiment and feel their way forward.

  …

  Paris, the Rue de la Samaritaine, the residence of the Minister of the Interior.

  This building belonged to the French Chancery: a luxurious, exquisitely made palace constructed in the age of the Sun King, standing within a single step of Place Vend?me. Its outer walls were adorned with late-Baroque statues and reliefs. Two years earlier, this detached mansion had belonged to the then head of the cabinet, Jacques Necker

  Manon Roland was descending the splendid marble staircase. In the tall, bright Venetian-glass wall, she saw the rich beauty of her own reflection. Her fine silk dress had been cut to conceal her shoulders on purpose, yet that only made her collarbone look more abrupt, which left Madame Roland feeling uncomfortable. The mistress of the house frowned, then at once smiled again, lightly massaging the skin at her forehead and at the corners of her eyes, where faint lines had begun to form.

  The corridor led to a door into the reception room, shut tight, with two sword-bearing attendants guarding it. Her husband, Monsieur Roland, was likely inside discussing state business with his cabinet colleagues; in recent days the main topic had largely been diplomatic negotiations with the Austrian court. Out of political sensitivity, Manon Roland never interrupted ministers’ gatherings midway, nor did she long to receive their obeisance there—though, as the wife of the Minister of the Interior, she possessed that privilege.

  After her husband became Minister of the Interior, Manon Roland had once declared with pride: “As a minister’s wife, I shall accept no social calls, nor shall I invite any woman to dine at the residence… Three times a week I invite ministers, deputies, and other persons connected to my husband’s work to dine. During their talk, I sometimes sit quietly at the meeting, but I shall never speak of my own accord, nor shall I interrupt their discussion; nor do I keep by me any friend who is not worthy of trust. I have no need to plot any conspiracy, nor to entertain any improper thought or act…”

  And yet, despite those words, Manon Roland still had a small study built in secret beside her husband’s office—elegant and restrained—separated from the ministers’ meeting place by only a single wall. Under ordinary circumstances, the lady of the house would sit quietly against a chaise, her bare feet set at ease upon a Persian carpet, tasting Bordeaux red or the finest Champagne, and listening attentively to whatever drifted through from the next room…

  Today, the voice of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Scipion Champbonneau, was especially loud. He vented his deep dissatisfaction with the Austrian court, particularly its arrogant language and dilatory posture at the negotiating table. From early March to the present, after five bilateral and multilateral diplomatic consultations over the course of six weeks, Austria still stubbornly opposed France’s revolution and the alliances formed against it; it openly sheltered the émigré group at Coblenz, and had never ordered the dissolution of the émigré noble army…

  “On the very day before I was to depart for Paris, Sch?nbrunn dared to present a series of shameless demands—among them the restoration of France’s monarchy; the return of Church property; the handing back of Alsatian lands to the German princes together with the restoration of all their feudal rights; the return of Avignon and Vaucluse to the Pope; and so on—declaring that this was Austria’s final ultimatum. That Austrian prince told me without the least concealment that if France did not comply, there would be no possibility of any further understanding, and peace could no longer be expected…

  “So, gentlemen, France is under grave threat. She will suffer the fate that has just befallen the Netherlands, and may even suffer Poland’s fate. The question now is whether we wait to answer the challenge, or strike first; whether we seize the fervor of public feeling and make use of it, or let it cool through neglect. We must remember: the true author of war is not the one who declares it, but the one who forces men to take up arms!”

  As a noble aligned with the Constitutionalists, Comte Champbonneau had long devoted himself to diplomatic reconciliation between France and Austria. He was, one might say, one of the few doves within the “war cabinet” (also called the Patriot Cabinet), and had consistently opposed foreign war. But now, having apparently suffered a great humiliation at Sch?nbrunn, this gentleman-pacifist changed his original stance and began to urge a declaration of war among his colleagues.

  “A clumsy performance with no imagination,” Madame Roland pouted, judging the weather-vane Minister of Foreign Affairs in her heart. For there were reports that the Tuileries had secretly instructed the Comte Champbonneau to break off the diplomatic negotiations with Austria; his conduct was merely an attempt to satisfy the shared demands of King, cabinet, and Assembly.

  Speaking of the Assembly, Madame Roland could not help thinking of Deputy Brissot—a respected old friend, an old comrade-in-arms. Without him, the Rolands would not have what they now possessed; it had been Brissot who had insisted on inviting the couple back to Paris. Today was the day of an internal gathering of the Legislative Assembly; as the rotating presiding officer, Brissot had already sent word to the Rolands that he and Vergniaud and the others expected to come to the ministerial residence after eight o’clock in the evening.

  When time allowed, Manon Roland would accompany her husband to an apartment at No. 5, Place Vend?me, to visit Vergniaud. The large house belonged to the widow of a deceased banker. Many rumors claimed that this wealthy, beautiful widow had become the mistress of the forty-one-year-old Vergniaud, but Manon did not much care for other people’s private affairs.

  To be fair, Vergniaud did not match the handsome image of popular rumor. His pale, heavy face bore some pockmarks from smallpox; between a large nose, a broad face, and small eyes, his features lacked harmony. Yet when he mounted the tribune, he became another man altogether—graceful as a hereditary nobleman, his voice resounding and shaking the hall, every gesture commanding a natural respect.

  Thinking of speeches, the Jacobin Club’s member most enamored of the platform was perhaps Robespierre. At times, for a topic that was meaningless—or not in dispute at all—that pale man of Arras, wearing green spectacles, could stay at the tribune for two or three hours, speaking at length without the least regard for anyone else.

  Before 1792, the Rolands’ relationship with Robespierre had been very close. On the day of the Champ de Mars affair, the couple had risked their lives to search for Robespierre in the chaos of the crowd. That night, Monsieur Roland even bribed two prison guards to find out whether Robespierre had been seized by soldiers or police.

  A week earlier, Manon had heard the following appraisal of Robespierre from an English composer:

  “He is a serious man, strict with his principles and his pride. He is plain in appearance; his manner shows no emotion; his dress has not the least trace of foppishness. He is not corrupt; he detests wealth. In truth, nothing in him suggests the innate lechery that is said to belong to Frenchmen… I have observed him at close range in the club. Robespierre’s character truly invites reflection; he uses every second to pursue the result he desires.”

  But now, because Robespierre persisted in opposing Brissot’s foreign war—and because of his inborn political suspicion and extreme hostility toward those who differed from him—their relations drifted steadily apart. In fact, in Parisian political life in 1792, Robespierre was almost isolated: those willing to follow Maximilien Robespierre

  Manon Roland was certain there was yet another reason for Robespierre’s isolation: his landlord, the Duplay family. After he moved, Robespierre’s ambition began to swell. At his earlier lodging on Rue Saintonge, he and his friends could meet often; after he moved into the Duplays’ home, he slowly vanished from the circle. The Duplays cut Robespierre off from real society; they loved him, revered him, and immersed him each day in adoration—until his pride and self-importance inflated without cease…

  The only consolation Robespierre had was that Georges Danton, the public prosecutor of Paris, had spoken in support of Robespierre’s half-true views at several meetings in Paris City Hall and at the Jacobin Club. This gave the L’Incorruptible—who had lain ill in bed for many days—some measure of comfort. Yet most people understood that Danton was venting his dissatisfaction with Deputy Brissot, for Danton had failed to obtain the post of Minister of Justice in the March cabinet.

  From the day she returned to Paris, Manon had never liked Danton. His manners were rough, his speech coarse; he liked to tell vulgar jokes without regard to place; his disgusting large face, scarred with an ugly slash, and the crude habits of a Champagne peasant, made Madame Roland avoid him whenever she could.

  “Only those who have willingly sunk low would choose to be Danton’s friends,” Manon Roland commented.

  Yet Brissot had smiled and retorted: “Then what of André? He is very close with Danton; both are sons of Champagne. And you, it seems, think highly of that orphan of Reims.”

  “Think highly of him? Perhaps,” Manon laughed.

  After the “Lyon affair,” the faint thread of sentiment between her and André had been cut off by everyone. What she called “thinking highly” of him now was more an emphasis on André’s immense influence in French politics. From last November to this April, during the five months André spent away from Paris, every movement of his still tugged at the sensitive nerves of Parisian politicians. No one dared ignore André any longer, for those who had done so had already been punished—and the Rolands were among them.

  At that thought, Manon Roland grew restless. She set down her glass, intending to take some air in the back garden, when she noticed a sealed letter slipped through the crack beneath the door. This had been the Rolands’ rule: while the cabinet ministers were in session, any letters had to pass first through Madame Roland’s little study.

  Manon Roland picked up the letter from the carpet and broke the seal. At once her face changed. She turned and strode forward, pushing open with both hands the door that connected her study to the cabinet meeting room.

  Madame Roland said a single sentence to her husband—his face full of shock—and to the ministers, who looked displeased.

  “André has returned to Paris!”

  Her voice was mournful; her face had gone pale.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  …

  André arrived in Paris on the afternoon of April eighteenth. As usual, though he was already a great personage, he did not make a public show of entering the city; he simply came quietly to the villa on ?le Saint-Louis. After washing and dressing, and enjoying a lavish dinner, André waited until evening before driving to The Manège Hall to report and render his account to the Legislative Assembly.

  The moment he entered the chamber, André saw that more than half the deputies had risen. They applauded in unison and then shouted slogans: “Long live André!” “Long live sugar!” “Long live coffee!”

  Plainly, the noble deputies were short of money as well. They had been tormented half to death by the sky-high prices of coffee and sugar; now, meeting the benefactor who had saved them from their distress, they naturally wished to give their thanks—at the cost of a few extra cheers. Besides, given André’s many achievements in the Legislative Assembly, such respect was deserved.

  André, for his part, was openly pleased with himself. He waved again and again to the cheering deputies, smiling broadly as he returned to his seat. Only after five minutes did the applause and cries gradually subside.

  Danton and Pétion also received news of André’s return to Paris. The Mayor of Paris therefore hoped that Danton, as the city’s public prosecutor, would go and invite Deputy André—whom he had not seen in half a year—to visit Paris City Hall.

  But Danton refused at once, declaring that André was too busy to attend another gathering of the “three great men.” Pétion could only shrug helplessly, a wry smile rising in his heart. He understood that Danton’s jealousy had begun to overflow again—because the previous night, most of the deputies had collectively shouted, “Long live André!”

  Jealousy was not confined to Danton alone. When Robespierre, lying in his sickbed, learned that André was being warmly received in the Assembly, he remarked with a touch of sarcasm: “When a public man is hailed by countless cries of ‘Long live!’ and yet still keeps an air of self-satisfaction, then he is only one step away from dictatorship and despotism.”

  Robespierre seemed to have forgotten that last year, in Arras, he too had enjoyed countless cries of “Long live!” from patriotic citizens—so many that, returning home that night and lying down in bed, the L’Incorruptible tossed and turned, unable to sleep for a long while from sheer agitation.

  Brissot had felt jealousy toward André as well, but more than that he felt private envy. In matters of foreign war, André’s position aligned with his own; the two remained firm allies bound by common interests. André had not only eased the grain panic in the northern provinces through the promotion of potatoes; he had also, as a special commissioner to the Army of the Moselle, stabilized morale and greatly raised spirits. More important still, André maintained a remarkably rational and restrained grip on power. In short, he never ate alone; when there were benefits, everyone shared.

  Thus, when André rose and left the chamber, Brissot—who was the rotating presiding officer—also departed in advance, temporarily handing his authority to an elderly secretary of the Assembly. The latter then had to shake the bell with vigor, or slap the table in exasperation, or shout “Order!” at the top of his lungs—indeed, even resort to pounding his chest and stamping his feet in “brutal” fashion—to maintain discipline in the hall.

  A few minutes later, Brissot found André in the office of the Committee of the Interior. The large room held only the executive secretary, who had already poured two glasses of Champagne. In André’s eyes, Brissot still looked like a Puritan: neat in dress, impeccable in manner.

  “To your health!” They raised their glasses and drained them.

  “Tell me, Brissot—when do you and your friends mean to persuade Louis XVI to declare war on Austria?” André set down his empty glass and asked with casual ease. By “your friends,” he meant the hawks of the “Patriot Cabinet” supported by Brissot: the Minister of the Interior, Roland; the Minister of Finance, Clavière; and the new Minister of War, Servan (after the previous minister, Grav, stepped down). The other three ministers were less firm in their stance: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Scipion Champbonneau, and the Minister of Justice, Duranthon, were Constitutionalists whose relations with Brissot’s group were fairly good; the Minister of the Navy, Lacoste, belonged to the soft-natured Royalist Party.

  Brissot did not conceal anything. “Tomorrow afternoon, the full cabinet will go together to the Tuileries to report the final result of the government’s deliberations to the King. If nothing unexpected occurs, the day after tomorrow—April twentieth at ten o’clock in the morning—the King and the cabinet will come to the Legislative Assembly and, before seven hundred and forty-five deputies, more than three hundred guests, and a great number of auditors, formally announce the declaration of war on Austria.”

  As he spoke, Brissot’s excitement showed plainly. He strode quickly to the balcony, facing toward the Tuileries, and turned to André. “When the European war is won, we will hold a great assembly in the palace!”

  André followed him onto the open terrace and laughed. “Do you mean to abolish the monarchy?”

  “Perhaps,” Brissot’s hesitation flashed for an instant; then he smiled again. “Heh—monarchy or republic… who can say what the future holds, can one, André?”

  André did not answer. They fell silent for a moment and then turned the conversation to the war that was about to begin.

  “If this war is lost,” Brissot suddenly asked, “what do you think will happen to those of us who remain in Paris?” In truth, in all earlier settings he had never spoken the word “failure.”

  André replied without the slightest hesitation: “If that happens, I will already have died in battle at Reims or Chalons-en-Champagne—but not in Paris. So I am sorry: I will not see the miserable end of you and your friends at all.”

  Brissot burst out laughing; André added two dry “heh-heh”s that were not quite a smile. They were all intelligent men, seasoned politicians, who understood where each other’s political interests lay. For the moment, neither Brissot nor André would permit the war to be lost; at most, their public line would be that the offensive had gone poorly and suffered a temporary setback—a wave-like advance, a spiral rise. And if, in the worst case, the situation truly reversed and the flames of war reached French soil, then one needed only find a scapegoat that could not be refuted.

  As for who that unlucky scapegoat would be, it would certainly not be Brissot and his friends: the revolution’s prospects were bright, and it was far from the last hour for martyrdom. Nor would it be André, for that would only provoke infighting among allies and open chances for others. As for the anti-war Robespierre and Marat, they were not suitable either; their shoulders were too narrow to bear such a towering burden of guilt.

  Plainly, both Brissot and André meant to push the responsibility onto the Tuileries. In the palace there was, besides the simple-minded King, a natural traitor—the Austrian woman raised at Sch?nbrunn. If evidence was needed, one could search the Palais des Tuileries; surely something would be found. And if nothing was found, it did not matter: one could forge a few decisive documents, whether Brissot or André, both were thoroughly practiced in that craft.

  …

  When Brissot left the Legislative Assembly, it was already eleven o’clock at night. He had intended to go straight home, but he saw Madame Roland, wrapped in a black cloak, waiting outside the hall with her attendant.

  Ten minutes later, they were again in the reception room of the Minister of the Interior. Only five people were present: Brissot; the Minister of the Interior, Roland; the Minister of Finance, Clavière; the Minister of War, Servan; and Madame Roland (Manon Roland). Brissot, as the leader, recounted to his friends the substance of his earlier conversation with André, which immediately triggered a dispute—of which the loudest opposition came from the Minister of War, Servan.

  Servan, an engineer by training, leapt to his feet in anger. “Why? André wants us to hand him the entire defensive line from Dunkirk to Metz—the whole front, including the five provinces of Nord, Aisne, Ardennes, Meuse, and Moselle—so that all their defensive forces will be placed in his hands? No. That is impossible. Impossible!”

  The Minister of the Interior, Roland, and the Minister of Finance, Clavière, remained silent, yet their unmoved expressions suggested that they had already acquiesced in the political bargain reached between Brissot and André.

  In fairness, André’s demand was not excessive. He was not asking for the supreme command of the Army of the North on the left—one hundred thousand strong—nor of the Army of the Moselle; he asked only for the authority to direct the defensive mobilization of the city National Guards in the five border provinces. Even if the cabinet refused, André had in fact already used the recent grain crisis to penetrate the National Guards in those provinces. The present “transaction” was simply a bid for a legitimate title.

  Monsieur Roland did not wish to clash with André directly. In truth, André was still the executive secretary of the Legislative Assembly’s Committee of the Interior; if he wished to find trouble for Roland, it would be effortless. As for Clavière, a Swiss banker who had taken French nationality, his financial business was closely tied to André’s joint commercial bank, and he likewise would not rashly offend such an important client.

  Servan’s worry was of another sort: André’s interference in the Ministry of War, for beginning next month, André would serve full-time as the executive secretary of the Military Affairs Committee.

  Madame Roland took in everyone’s reaction and made her decision. She rose lightly, smiling at the Minister of War. “In fact, is it not an excellent thing for us to have André stationed on the northern front? At the very least, we will no longer have to see him and his committee endlessly obstructing the cabinet government in every way. Besides, it is also a measure of self-protection in view of the war that is about to break out.

  “Among us, there have been those who suspected Marshal de Rochambeau, Marquis de Lafayette, and Marshal Luckner of their loyalty to the revolution, to the constitution, and to the nation. But no one has ever suspected André. You may call him shameless, dictatorial, greedy for money—even brutal and bloody—but no one accuses him of betraying the revolution or the Assembly, because his struggle in Paris is itself a miracle wrought by the revolution.

  “And likewise, when the Austrians, Prussians, Spaniards, and Swedes threaten France’s national security, André will be the first man standing on the front line—and he must be. For the foreign interventionists will not spare him; the royal couple will not spare him; the émigré nobles will not spare him.”

  As she finished, Madame Roland placed a brimming Champagne glass into Servan’s hand…

  The next morning, out of the close friendship they had once shared as comrades, André went to the Duplays’ house on Rue Saint-Honoré to visit Robespierre in his sickbed. A sudden cold snap in spring had severely damaged the L’Incorruptible’s lungs. It seemed that from 1790 onward, almost every spring—whenever March and April arrived—Robespierre fell gravely ill. This continued until 1794.

  As André entered the courtyard, he saw nothing but burly carpenter-workers. They all glanced instinctively at their employer, Duplay, and then returned to their work in silence, without making a sound. André motioned for his two Spanish bodyguards to remain in the yard and went alone up to the second floor.

  Robespierre’s room was as bare as André had seen it half a year earlier. All the furnishings were old, worn, and shabby; the only new piece of furniture was perhaps the unusually large bookcase.

  “Maurice Duplay had it built for me,” Robespierre said with evident pleasure between fits of coughing. The hair on his broad forehead had grown even thinner; his face was pale, his eyes deeply sunken. André believed that Robespierre had come to regard the Duplays as confidants and family.

  The shelves were almost entirely filled with Rousseau—Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men, The Social Contract, Emile, Confessions, Letters Written from the Mountain, Julie, or the New Heloise, Letters on Botany, and so on. There were not many other authors: chiefly a few volumes of Cicero and Tacitus, most of them already worn and tattered.

  When the patient’s tearing cough sounded again, André offered a few concerned words, saying he hoped soon to see his old friend healthy again at the Jacobin Club. Before leaving, André deliberately set a jar of red medicine—sealed in glass—on the writing desk, and claimed that it had been specially prepared by Surgeon Larrey and was very good for the lungs.

  After the visitor went downstairs, Duplay’s eldest daughter, éléonore, entered and asked softly of the tenant in the bed: “Shall I throw it away?” For Robespierre usually accepted no gifts from anyone.

  éléonore was a young woman with long black hair and a severe face. By looks alone, she could not be called beautiful—merely neat. Now, tending to Robespierre’s daily needs had become her appointed duty, as naturally as a wife nursing a gravely ill husband.

  Robespierre shook his head. When the coughing eased, he added breathlessly: “Though André and I disagree, he would never harm me—at least, not now. Besides, this red medicine truly is effective. That time, it was André’s special medicine that cured your brother’s pneumonia.”

  …

  Just as Brissot had envisioned, on the afternoon of April nineteenth the cabinet ministers persuaded Louis XVI in the Tuileries to order a declaration of war, though many understood that it was Queen Marie who pushed the King toward war.

  On April twentieth, Louis XVI came to the Assembly accompanied by the full cabinet. At the center of the dais still stood the King’s chair: gilded and magnificent, covered in silk brocade, embroidered with the white fleur-de-lis of the House of Bourbon. When the King entered the chamber, all rose in solemn silence; Brissot, as the rotating presiding officer, addressed the whole Assembly on behalf of the deputies to receive the French monarch’s arrival.

  Wearing a deep blue coat, the King climbed to the rostrum with cautious steps. Louis XVI stood before his special throne, trembling as he drew from his breast the text he had long since memorized. Facing the deputies, the guests, and the citizens present, he delivered his address.

  “Gentlemen, I come to the National Assembly upon a matter of the utmost importance, a matter that ought to engage the attention of the nation’s representatives…”

  In a long speech, Louis XVI set out a series of reasons—based on the hostile actions of the King of Hungary and Bohemia (Francis II had not yet become Holy Roman Emperor); on the grave circumstances in which the French nation found itself; on the nation’s clear will not to permit its rights to suffer any violation; and on the honor and loyalty of Louis XVI himself, bound to the dignity and security of France—before reaching his conclusion: a declaration of war upon Austria.

  At this point, the King’s voice changed slightly. The poor King, with tears in his eyes, said: “Gentlemen, you have just heard the result of my negotiations with the court of Vienna. The conclusion of this report represents the unanimous opinion of my ministers of state, and I too have assented to it. These decisions accord with the wishes the National Assembly has expressed to me on many occasions; they accord with the sentiments of the majority of citizens throughout the kingdom, each of whom would rather step forward to fight than see the dignity of the French people and the security of the nation once again violated and threatened. I have previously exhausted every effort to preserve peace. Today, in accordance with the constitution, I propose to the National Assembly that war be declared against the King of Hungary and Bohemia.”

  The moment the King finished, thunderous applause rose through the hall. The solemn atmosphere and the weight of a decision that would affect all Europe, left everyone present intensely stirred and tense. Soon, as the applause subsided, it turned into hysterical cries of “Long live France!”—which naturally became the loudest slogan of all.

  After the King and his ministers departed, the Legislative Assembly resolved to hold a special session that evening. In that session, the decision for war passed almost unanimously: of seven hundred and forty-five deputies, only seven voted against it.

  Thus, on April twentieth, 1792, the French nation—bearing the mission of a great European revolution—deliberately opened a “war of liberation” against the major monarchies of the European continent.”