Excerpt of Scarlet Angel by Elizabeth Thornton

Paris, September 2, 1792

The Prison Massacres, The Abbaye

He stood transfixed at the small turret window overlooking one section of the prison courtyard, unable to drag his eyes from the appalling scene of slaughter. The latest batch of prisoners to be forcibly pried from their cells was dragged before their “judges.” God, and what judges! The rabble of Paris, butchers in their red caps and leather aprons, their bare arms covered in blood; sans- culottes, those illiterate dregs of society; and federés, citizen-soldiers from the provinces, an undisciplined gang of cutthroats who would murder a man as soon as look at him.

The executions had been going on for hours. They’d known what was coming. Even in prison, word traveled fast. It had started in the afternoon when gangs of armed men had attacked several coaches of priests who were being conveyed to prison for, predictably, refusing to take the constitutional oath. From there, the mob had moved to Carmes prison and systematically murdered the total population imprisoned there. When night had fallen, and there was no one left to murder at Carmes, the same rabble, their ranks now swollen to two hundred or so, had surged en masse to the Abbaye. No one tried to stop them. And now the executions had become indiscriminate.

Sickened, his heart pounding in his chest, Cam closed his eyes to shut out the frightful spectacle made all the more hideous by the presence of poissardes—fishwives and other market women who, on request, were feeding the executioners brandy mixed with gunpowder to aggravate their fury for the unending task. He had never before seen women in the throes of bloodlust, could not take in what his eyes told him—that they were totally immune to the growing pile of mutilated corpses and the suffering of those who were not yet ready to meet their end.

His turn was coming. He knew it. No one would be spared, except, pray God, the women and children. His stepmother and twelve-year-old sister were in another part of the building. He could not believe that even this canaille would stoop to murder such innocents.

Another man jostled him aside to take his place at the window. Cam moved to one of the filthy cots against the wall. How ironic, he thought, that when they had finally been captured and incarcerated— was it only a fortnight before?—he had been glad that they had been taken to the Abbaye and not to one of the other prisons, where his sickly sister might be shut up with women of the street or worse.

Three months in France, and two of those in hiding, and it had come to this! Oh God, how naïve they had been in England to welcome the first reports of the Revolution! They should have known from their lessons in history that moderation and restraint were not part of the human temperament once blood had been spilled. And France’s bloody past did not bear thinking about.

Hindsight was a wonderful thing! And so was the English Channel! How could they know, how could they possibly imagine in England, what it was like to live in terror of the mob?

Shutting his ears to a bloodcurdling scream that came from below, he stretched full length on the cot and forced himself to think of anything but the fate that was rushing to meet him.

Recriminations pressed in to scourge him. He should never have allowed his stepmother to remove to her family in France on the death of his father five years before. He should have kept his sister with him in England, in spite of the doctors’ advice that a more temperate climate would benefit her delicate health. He should have defied his guardians sooner, before he reached his majority, and come to France himself to see what was afoot. He should have insisted that they quit Paris in the first days of his arrival, even supposing his stepmother was right in averring that Marguerite would never survive the journey.

He stirred restlessly and turned his face to the wall. Oh God, how could he have done any of those things? He had been only a boy of sixteen when his father had died. There was no panic in England when the Revolution began. His stepmother’s family was close to the French throne—God, and who knew what had become of them?—and therefore as powerful as any. His sister’s health had completely broken down. There was no question that she would survive the rigors of the kind of journey they would be compelled to endure. What else could they have done but go into hiding until the worst of the storm had passed?

And who could have foreseen this sudden turn in events? It was the massacre of five hundred of the king’s Swiss Guards at the Tuileries two months before, that and the appointment of their archenemy, George Jacques Danton, as minister of justice, that had finally convinced the French aristocracy that their days were numbered.

The royal family was now under heavy guard in the gloomy fortress of the Knights Templar. The atmosphere in Paris was suddenly transformed. Foreign governments had withdrawn their ambassadors. Embassies were closed. And the aristocrats, long since stripped of their titles, were leaving their houses in droves and going into hiding or making a dash for freedom across the Channel.

All Paris had been waiting for something to happen, for the bloodletting to begin. And it had started with reprisals against the defenseless populations of the overcrowded prisons. Most of the inmates were classified by the mob as dangerous opponents of the Revolution— priests, lawyers, journalists, ordinary citizens who had criticized the conduct of their new masters, and those unfortunate members of the aristocracy, men, women and children, whose hiding places had been discovered in the house-to-house searches.

“When they take us out, we should offer no resistance.” The comment came from one of the Carmelite priests who had been hearing the confessions of some of the prisoners.

Cam raised himself to a sitting position and surveyed the shadowy figures of the other dozen or so occupants of the small cell, most of whom were priests on their knees, praying for the dying and for the suffering to come. He understood the priest’s reference. Perhaps everyone did, for no one asked the old man to explain himself. The condemned prisoners who tried to protect themselves with their hands were first dismembered before being stabbed or decapitated. But there was no question in his mind of going docilely to his fate like a lamb to the slaughter. He could not to it.

The man he knew as Rodier, a lawyer by profession, joined him on the cot, and Cam made room for him.

“Good advice if you’re an old man and already have one foot in the grave,” said Rodier in an ironic undertone for Cam’s ears only.

In the weeks since they had been incarcerated, the two men had developed something of a friendship, despite the disparity in their ages. Rodier was in his early thirties, eternally an optimist, and as ugly as sin, though he possessed a certain charisma that stood him in good stead whatever the circumstances. He was also a member of the more moderate Girondist party, which, for the present, had been discredited. But on the morrow, who was to say which clique would hold the upper hand?

“You’re not thinking of following the old man’s advice?” asked Rodier, eyeing the younger man with a considering eye. He liked what he saw and knew of the young English aristocrat; approved of the ungallic, stoic reserve; admired the devotion to family that had propelled the youth to his present, perilous course of action; and, not least, was gratified by the boy’s grasp of French language and letters. In his experience, the majority of the English nobility was a herd of ignorant asses, just like their French counterparts, and proud of it. But then, the boy had been raised by a French stepmother, an unhoped for happenstance, in Rodier’s opinion.

Still, the boy sorely needed guidance, which was why Rodier had taken him under his wing from the moment they had been unceremoniously thrust behind the gloomy walls of the Abbaye. The youth had given his gaolers his correct name, with no thought of subterfuge. Thankfully, many English surnames were French in origin. “Camille Colburne” had passed without comment. Thank God the boy had had enough sense not to reveal his title! It would never do to let the authorities know that they had a member of the English aristocracy, a duke no less, in their hands. And from the boy’s appearance, apart from the intelligent, startlingly light-blue eyes, he was swarthy enough to pass for a Spaniard, let alone a Frenchman.

Those blue eyes had learned to be guarded in the weeks since Rodier had first befriended the boy. In that small, overcrowded cell with the only light coming from the pitch torches in the prison courtyard, it was too dark to read his expression. But his hesitation in answering the lawyer’s question left no doubt in Rodier’s mind that the deep-set eyes would be cautiously half-hooded.

“You’re not thinking of following the old man’s advice,” Rodier prodded.

“When hell freezes over,” drawled the boy.

A laugh was startled out of Rodier. He clapped Cam on the shoulder, and several of the priests crossed themselves as if to protest some obscene profanity that had just been committed.

“Young men were ever hotheaded,” said Rodier good- naturedly. “I like you, Camille.” In a more serious vein, he went on, “Listen! If you perish, you will be of no use to your mother and sister. Use your head, man! Resistance will gain you nothing. There’s always tomorrow if we survive this night’s work.”

“I mean to die happy,” said the young man.

“What? By taking a couple of those canaille with you?”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“I make no promises, mind, but I suggest that you follow my lead. I’m not a lawyer for nothing, you know. Before they dispatch us, they’re giving us a chance to defend ourselves.”

“You’re referring, I presume, to the makeshift tribunal presided over by that rabble-rouser, Maillard?”

A strange smile touched Rodier’s lips. “Maillard may be their leader, but there is someone else who holds the real power.”

“Oh? Who?”

“Someone who is keeping very much in the background. Danton’s right-hand man. He’s there in the shadows. You didn’t notice him?”

“No. Who is he?”

“Mascaron.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“Few have. He doesn’t want to be known.”