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one of my chief concerns. Then, as he talked on, my own viewpoint gradually shifted; in another five
minutes I was wishing that I could have served in some army under his command.
He told me that he had been in Paris since May, chafing at the delays of the new bureaucracy (at least as
capriciously stupid as the old) while being considered by the National Assembly for one post or another,
and I believe he mentioned that he was staying at the Hotel de Cherbourg.
Still, my senses were by far the keener, and suddenly I raised my head. "But it appears that the action is
moving on." The bulk of the distant mob was again in motion, fitful and mindless, like a swarm of bees,
leaving a litter of mangled bodies in its wake. "Are we to follow?"
He surveyed the scene, hands clasped behind his back, then nodded decisively. "There may be
something of value to be learned. If you will follow me, M'sieu Corday?"
Chapter Nine
My new companion had a way of putting questions that made them more compelling than direct orders
from any ordinary man.
And I had no reason to decline the invitation. Stubbornly I remained determined not to leave the vicinity
of the palace as long as the instinctive feeling persisted that my brother was somewhere nearby. So much
spilled blood would have drawn him almost irresistibly, I thought, were he anywhere within miles of the
scene. I felt sure Radu was somehow involved in the slaughter going on across the street. Or, if not
actually on the scene as yet, he was likely to show up at any moment. I resolved to stay, even if this
meant having to risk some sharp discomfort from the sun. If necessary I could get through the remainder
of the bright day with the help of my hat and the garden's numerous trees, a great many of which were
still sufficiently intact to offer shade.
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They were no longer as numerous as they had been, many having been hacked down to satisfy the
general appetite for destruction. The gunfire had been desultory for some time, and eventually died away
altogether. But the screams of bloodlust and of terror continued sporadically, hour after hour for the rest
of the day and even, with lesser frequency, into the night. The Swiss Guards had quickly ceased to exist
as a fighting force, and now, for the short balance of their miserable lives, found themselves ideally
situated to play the role of victims, scapegoats for several hundred years of oppression in a country few
of them had even seen until six months ago.
At this point I believed it possible that the king and queen of France remained in the palace and were
hiding with their two children somewhere within that labyrinth of corridors and rooms. Most of the people
in Paris still thought so, and earlier in the day most people had been right. But later, by the time I arrived
on the scene, the royal family, opting for a kind of protective custody that almost amounted to arrest, had
gone to join the Assembly.
As we began to follow the mob, I asked Bonaparte if the royal family were still in residence, and he
declared decisively, on what basis I never learned, that they were not.
When I inquired of him, tentatively, if he was a monarchist, he smiled and remarked: "France is less
suited for democracy than a good many other countries."
And once Bonaparte felt sure that I was something of an unreconstructed monarchist myself, or at least
no agent of the new regime, he related the story of the day's earlier events, as he had been able to piece it
together.
In the early morning of that same day, King Louis had felt sufficiently confident in the loyalty of his troops
to call them out into the heavily fortified courtyard of the palace for a review. The Swiss Guards cheered
him boldly, but the Parisian National Guard, present in greater numbers, were in a sullen mood. Now and
then a cry of "Vive la Nation"rose from their ranks.
Only a few hours later, serious fighting had broken out.
Napoleon had been able to identify a few of the individuals who played key roles in the day's events.
There was the Marquis de Mandat, commander of the loyal National Guard an organization of
doubtful loyalty to say the least; there was George Jacques Danton, Revolutionary leader with a massive
presence and a booming voice, given to intimidating military commanders; there was the brewer Santerre,
and others, each leading his own militia, or some segment of the faceless Mob& all in all, there was
much confusion. The Swiss Guards were first ordered to fight, and then to fraternize and then fighting
broke out again, after many of the Swiss had apparently discarded their weapons.
I was really not much interested in the political, or even the military, details; we vampires tend to take the
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