Page 50 of A Fierce Wind

Chapter 12

La Conciergerie, on the Île de la Cité, Paris, early May, 1794

Despair settled in the dungeons of the Conciergerie like a thick fog, permeating even the cold stone walls. At one time, the palace above had been the home of kings and perfumed air. Not so the prison below where Freddie was confined. Here, the stench of rats, disease and urine made it nearly impossible to draw breath.

Moans of misery surrounded him yet even here there was hope, not so much for life as for what human kindness the prisoners could show each other in the face of death. Oddly, the equality the revolutionaries preached on the streets of Paris but never achieved was demonstrated in the Conciergerie every day. Here, nobles, clergy, merchants and peasants, even sans-culottes out of favor, had become one family and looked out for each other.

Beside Freddie languished the orphan boy he had managed to rescue from a drunken turnkey’s humorless joke the day he’d arrived.

“Hungry, are ye?” The turnkey’s slurred words and sardonic smile aimed at the starving lad had warned Freddie to rise. The rags the boy wore for clothing revealed his frail skeleton, tearing at Freddie’s heart.

The lad’s soot-covered face looked up at the too well-fed guard with eager anticipation. “Oui, sir. J’ai faim. Is there food?”

The turnkey withdrew a fish he’d been hiding behind his back, and tossed it at the boy. From where Freddie stood a few feet away he could see maggots devouring the long-dead fish where it lay at the boy’s feet. Amidst the other foul smells, the reek of the decaying fish rose to Freddie’s nostrils causing him to wince.

Summoning courage that must have been long buried, the boy picked up the fish by the tail and grimaced. Hurling it at the guard’s face, he spat back, “’Tis not fit for us; you eat it!”

The turnkey bellowed his rage and grabbed the boy by his shirt, ripping away what little cloth remained. Rearing back, he was about to ram his heavy fist into the small lad’s face when Freddie stepped in, shielding the boy with his body. Keeping up the ruse of a naïve Englishman engaged in comedy theater, he said, “Mon bon ami, surely this is not necessary. He is only a boy and cannot be faulted for failing to observe your kindness in providing him food.” Taking a coin from his pocket, Freddie offered it to the fat guard. “Have an ale on me. ’Twill soothe your understandable anger.”

Muttering an oath, the turnkey cursed to Hell rude boys and idiot Englishmen. “He’ll meet the guillotine for this, see if he don’t.” But, as Freddie had hoped, the turnkey took the coin and stumbled away.

The fish lay on the stone floor, untouched by the watching prisoners. The jailor’s dogs sniffed at the carcass and turned away.

The boy looked up at Freddie. “Merci.”

“I am happy to help a fellow prisoner.” He offered his hand and a smile. “I’m Freddie. What’s your name?”

The boy placed his small hand in Freddie’s. “Pascal, but most call me Pax.”

He was near the same age as Jack but thinner and his eyes were old and haunted. As Freddie was to learn, the boy had been living on the streets when he was sent to the Conciergerie for insulting a republican soldier. Now, he would be sentenced to death. But then, wouldn’t they all?

With the money he had kept in his boots, Freddie could afford the bribes paid to the abusive jailors for food and a comfortable bed, but he preferred to share the large cell with the others and use what money he had to buy food for those who could ill afford to pay.

He and his fellow prisoners endured all the horrors, physical and mental, of Robespierre’s heartless régime. Cast aside and left to shiver in dark and naked cells, they were sick, hungry and cold, many suffering untreated wounds. They arrived with cuts and gashes from the republicans’ bayonets that only festered in the wretched conditions of the Conciergerie. Even if they arrived unscathed, they would soon have wounds inflicted by the ever-present rats that gnawed on their exposed flesh while they slept.

Worse than the physical wounds were the wounds to their souls. They had no hope of a fair hearing by an upright judge for the guillotine’s blade hung suspended over all and the prosecutor, the sinister Fouquier-Tinville, did not even pretend to be impartial. Instead, he taunted the condemned, then happily sent them off to be executed.

But the prisoners had each other for company and stories to inspire them while they waited for the end. They still talked of the silent courage of Charlotte Corday as she went to the guillotine.

For Freddie, the golden moment he clung to was the kiss he had given the woman he loved, a sweet memory of Zoé he would take to his grave. He did not allow his mind to linger on her tear-filled eyes or her protests when he had sent her away. He could not have done otherwise. In time, she would find another to love. There would be many men eager to take Freddie’s place in her heart. A frown creased his brow when he realized that Boisguy, if he survived the war, would be one of them.

To occupy their time, some of the more learned prisoners had brought books with them, which they read aloud to an enraptured audience. And, in what Freddie thought a macabre effort to prepare them for what was to come, a mock court dubbed “Tinville’s Tribunal” was arranged. Eloquent arguments were made on both sides, a decision rendered and a guillotine of chairs and laths set up with a wooden blade.

The game went on most of the day.

Freddie nervously watched the entrance to the dungeons expecting to be summoned. He had yet to come before Robespierre or his inquisitors. Perhaps the man was too busy to deal with a mere Englishman, even a spy. According to one prisoner, who had learned it from a guard, having ended religion in France, Robespierre had decided faith might be important. Now he was busy introducing a new Cult of the Supreme Being, henceforth to be the civic religion of France.

In the Conciergerie, the prisoners fared better; they had the devoted priest abbé Émery to see to their souls.

How ironic it was that the celebration of Robespierre’s new religion was to take place on the Champ de Mars, the same place the Fête de la Fédération had been held four years earlier where hundreds of priests had said Mass.

The Donet Townhouse, Paris

As the simple black carriage drove through the arched porte-cochère of her uncle’s townhouse, Zoé noted how unchanged it was from four years before. The fawn-colored stone, tall paned glass windows and scrolling wrought iron balconies bespoke a France untouched by revolution and chaos. Built in a rectangle with an inner stone courtyard decorated with potted topiary, the Paris townhouse was the most fashionable of her uncle’s three homes. Her spirit brooded when she recalled how Freddie had loved it when they came for the Fête de la Fédération.

Trying not to show her grief, she asked her uncle, “How have you managed to keep the Paris house?” He was sitting across from her with M’sieur Bequel. “I should have thought it gone with your title.”

“It might have been were it not for the fact I deeded the townhouse to Gaspar, my former carpenter on la Reine Noire, at least for the time being. And Flèche, who you’ll remember as my butler and former gunner, still reigns supreme over the household. I sent word for them to expect us.”