Where the Light Falls(70)
“Believe me, I know.” André nodded, sharing the story of his father’s fate. The menace of his noble lineage was like a serpent he wore around his neck each day. Calm for now, but André would have been a fool not to wonder if and when it might stir to bite him. Particularly as he faced off against a legal team headed by the same attorney who had convicted his father.
Jean-Luc listened to André’s story, his eyes earnest and attentive. Pausing briefly at the end of André’s account, Jean-Luc sighed. “We must assume, since it’s Lazare, that your noble lineage will come up. He will come at you with everything he can muster.”
André rubbed his brow and nodded slowly.
“Just remember that you were present at Valmy; you witnessed what General Kellermann has done for this country. You denounced your own noble birth and you faced the enemies of the Republic and, with the general, you saved it. I would not say that he is above reproach, not these days, but if any man can show that he has sacrificed and risked more for the Republic, then I would like to hear from him. Keep returning to these points: Valmy. Prussians. Imminent defeat. Rallying cry for the army.”
André nodded, trying to absorb each of these pieces of counsel.
After a long pause, both men seemingly lost in their own thoughts, Jean-Luc looked up. “You’re going to be excellent.” The lawyer stared at him with an intensity that the young captain found somewhat unsettling, yet André felt confident all the same. This was a competent man, a passionate man. Even if every fact of fate and fortune were conspiring to work against him.
“All I can recommend now, sir, is to get a good night’s sleep. Wear your uniform. Oh, and if I may suggest, be sure to wear a tricolor cockade prominently on your coat.”
“Yes.” André nodded. He supposed that this lawyer was just a few years older than he himself, but there was a shrewdness about him that André respected. Perhaps this was a man who took himself a bit too seriously; then again, these were not times for the lighthearted. It was undoubtedly encouraging that Jean-Luc seemed to possess a fire within. André hoped it would reveal itself during tomorrow’s trial.
“Very good.” Jean-Luc had already risen and was riffling through a stack of papers on his desk. Sensing the attorney’s urgent need to work, André rose from his chair.
“I would say to you, St. Clair, to get a good night’s sleep as well, but I very much doubt that you would heed my advice,” André said, offering a wry smile.
“I’ll sleep after tomorrow, when, God willing, justice has been served and a good man is set free.” Jean-Luc reached forward to place a palm on André’s shoulder. “Captain Valière.” Jean-Luc paused, looking into André’s eyes. “Thank you. Truly, thank you. On behalf of General Kellermann, and all those who still hold out hope for a tattered nation. God bless you.”
André swallowed, hoping his trembling voice would not betray the true depths of his feeling as he answered: “The man saved my life.”
Jean-Luc nodded wearily. “And perhaps, tomorrow, you will save his.”
Darkness hovered over the narrow streets by the time André reached Sophie’s apartment. It was his first time back in the capital since the death of Robespierre, and the city was now under the control of the new legislature. In a backlash against Robespierre’s gang, now out of favor, the Jacobins were being hunted down or driven from the city. Membership in the club was banned, on punishment of death, and an eerie, tenuous calm had descended over the city.
Bread was still unaffordable for many, and the foreign wars had bled the coffers even drier. With the monarchs dead, the nobility ravaged or fled, and half the leading political party butchered, it remained to be seen who might next pay with their own blood for the grievances of the masses. Not a person in the city, André felt, could take tomorrow’s sunrise for granted.
Sophie stood by the window, awaiting his arrival, when Parsy announced André’s name. “André!” Sophie ran to him, folding herself into his arms in a prolonged hug.
“My darling.” He lifted her chin for a kiss. He hadn’t seen her since his departure for the front in February. Despite his bleak mood, his heart raced, remembering their last night together, so many months earlier—the night they had celebrated his birthday and then returned, the two of them, to his room in the boardinghouse. The memory—along with the hope that they would be together again soon—had sustained him throughout their long separation, when he’d slept outside in the cold, nights so bitter he lost the feeling in his limbs. Mornings when he awoke to musket fire from an unseen enemy. Every day had felt like a week, and every month was a year. Now it seemed almost impossible that he was back, looking into her eyes again.