29. You Opened Your Eyes. Close Them Again.
July 14, 1778, Bastille Prison.
Robespierre arrived at the Bastille Prison wearing a star-shaped brass medal pinned to his chest. The brass medal was engraved with the words "Royal Human Rights Lawyer." It was an octagonal star, blunt at the edges.
"Welcome. I've heard all about it."
"Yes. I am Robespierre, the Royal Human Rights Lawyer. I have come in His Majesty's name to halt this reckless judicial murder."
"Hmph."
The Bastille jailer gazed off at distant mountains with a sour expression. Robespierre said nothing about the man's rude demeanor. Though Robespierre outranked him by far, the jailer looked to be at least fifty years old.
"I know it must irk you. But it must be done. We live in the present, yet the law lives on with France."
"Is that so."
Robespierre left the jailer—who kept avoiding his gaze—to his own devices and spoke as if to himself.
"Still, I'm grateful His Majesty heeded my counsel. And so, I wish to bring this state of emergency to a perfect close."
"What do you mean by 'perfect'?"
"Well..."
Robespierre couldn't settle on the precise word—not out of ignorance, but because he didn't know how to phrase it.
"Whatever it is, it's His Majesty's will, isn't it?"
As Robespierre stood blankly at the entrance, the jailer changed the subject.
"My job is to watch over these condemned prisoners, and yours is to defend them, isn't that right, Counselor?"
"Yes, quite so."
"Follow me. With this week's and next week's executions looming, time is of the essence."
*
Robespierre went to a specially prepared interrogation room for one-on-one meetings with the condemned. There were five to see today—nobles who should have been sentenced to death at the previous trial. Thanks to Robespierre's meddling, their lives had been extended.
"Pleased to meet you. I am Robespierre, the Royal Human Rights Lawyer."
The condemned noble eyed Robespierre warily.
"Minion of the dictator."
"Please, that's no way to speak. I'm here to save you."
"Scoundrels always say that. Pretending to care while plotting to stab you in the back."
The former noble bristled at Robespierre like a cornered, furious cat.
"Let's start with introductions. I am Maximilien de Robespierre. As I said, my title is Royal Human Rights Lawyer."
"Viscount Choujours. From southern Brittany."
"Very well, Viscount Choujours. To defend you, there are a few things I require."
Robespierre pulled several documents from his leather satchel and handed them to Viscount Choujours.
"First, you'll need to sign this conversion form."
"Conversion? Never heard of it. Convert to what, exactly?"
"To commoner status, of course. Haven't you heard His Majesty's proclamation?"
Bound in ropes, Viscount Choujours leaned forward to read the document.
"It's the proclamation issued after last month's state of emergency."
The content was utterly ordinary. All are equal under the king. That was it.
"France now has only two classes: the king and the commoners. No serfs, no nobles, no clergy. There are only professions—farmer, capitalist, cleric."
"Anyone can see it's a dictatorship. Does he think he's Caesar?"
"And didn't that Caesar build Rome?"
"True Rome was built by Augustus."
"The man who found a city of brick and left one of marble."
"If you're just here to chat, why not leave?"
Hearing the noble's sharp retort, Robespierre straightened up.
"You don't seem to grasp it yet. If you don't sign the conversion, you'll die."
"Let me die. History will remember him as a tyrant."
"And you'll be dead. Right now."
Viscount Choujours crumpled the form and threw it at Robespierre.
"All men die eventually. I'm just going a little early."
"Even if that 'little' is half a lifetime?"
"Who in this world dies precisely when they wish?"
"Yours won't be peaceful."
"No death is."
Robespierre carefully smoothed out the crumpled form and offered it back to Viscount Choujours.
"Shouldn't you uphold your honor?"
"Honor? Where's the honor in abandoning the title and lands passed down through generations? It's just begging for your life."
"It's a dog's death. Your lands and title are already confiscated. But the honor I speak of isn't that. Even if confiscated, shouldn't you resist by declaring you did nothing to deserve it?"
Robespierre emphasized personal honor, for he believed it the most vital kind.
"Robespierre, was it? You look young."
"Yes. Twenty this year."
Bound in ropes, Viscount Choujours adopted an air of arrogance. He perched on the edge of his chair and cast his eyes downward.
"Youth may not understand, but for an old man like me, everything is what I've built and guarded all these years."
"I understand fully. But—"
"Twenty. I'm forty-three. Inherited the title at thirty-one."
Viscount Choujours closed his eyes, lost in reminiscence.
"I remember it well. My childhood, exploring natural sciences, as befitted the heir to a viscountcy. My father died screaming. Smallpox took him before fifty."
"My condolences."
"I've heard plenty of empty words like that. Anyway, do you know what I did after becoming viscount?"
Robespierre swallowed the word luxury that rose in his throat.
"Managed your lands?"
"Yes. I tended our Choujours lands, handed down for centuries. If I drowned in vice, how could I face my ancestors in death?"
Robespierre opened his notebook and jotted it down. It was prime defense material.
"But I'm human too. I need rest."
Robespierre hesitated a moment but quickly regained composure and took the words down.
"The charges—state mismanagement, plundering the people, hoarding. I can't make sense of them."
Robespierre wrote in his notebook: No signs of remorse.
"Do you know how many hours I worked a day? Sixteen!"
Robespierre wrote: Excessive labor.
"Eight hours sleep, eight touring the lands and handling papers. The remaining eight building ties with neighboring lords."
Robespierre erased excessive labor and wrote lavish lifestyle and minimal labor.
"I held banquets now and then, went hunting. All for the good of my people. If relations soured with neighbors, our lands would be prey."
"What were the titles of those neighboring lords?"
"Choujours is backwater. Neighbors too. Barons or viscounts."
Robespierre wrote: Tendency to self-justify.
"So I had to stockpile essentials. Banquets need pepper, meat, fruit—all costs money. Hunting requires servants and beaters, plus their wages and food. You don't think I ate all that wheat alone, do you?"
"Of course not. A loaf of bread is one sou; a single slice for yourself drops to a denier."
"A young man with common sense. Exactly. That's why I can't comprehend it. Peasants need only feed five or six family members, but a noble? The scale is different. A noble isn't one man—he's a vast entity unto himself."
"So the hoarding was unjust. Is that it?"
"Yes. You need five years' grain to prepare for the worst. In bad harvest omens, even more..."
Robespierre wrote: Admits to hoarding.
"And where did the money come from?"
"Taxes from the lands, naturally."
"Taxes? Don't tax farmers collect them?"
"Tax farmers are good folk. They always donate to the voluntary land development fund."
Robespierre wrote: Bribery.
"Do you know the source of that money?"
"The people, of course."
"Didn't His Majesty abolish lords' rights to arbitrary levies upon taking the throne?"
"Then how do I live?"
"Don't you get a salary?"
"It's a pittance compared to taxes."
Robespierre wrote: Admits to plundering the people. Below it: Admits to illegal taxation.
"One more thing. You remember the great Qing trade fraud last time."
"How could I forget? It signaled my ruin."
"I heard all your assets were seized then."
"A crisis for our lands."
"Yet the emergency verdict said your warehouses overflowed with wheat, your vaults stuffed with gold."
"Voluntary donations."
"From tax farmers?"
"No. A gift from a friend in the Treasury. Not a high post—got in through purchase."
Robespierre's pen hovered, unwilling to write. He'd thought them wrongly condemned to death. But inscribing this word would sap his will to defend them.
"When a friend's in trouble, you help. Natural, isn't it?"
Robespierre wrote: Embezzlement of public funds.