Hilary Mantel
Three-Book Edition
A Place of Greater Safety
Beyond Black
The Giant, OBrien
About the Author
Hilary Mantel is the author of thirteen books, including A Place of Greater Safety, Beyond Black, and the memoir Giving Up the Ghost. Her two most recent novels, Wolf Hall and its sequel Bring Up the Bodies, have both been awarded the Man Booker Prize. Bring Up the Bodies also won the Costa Book of the Year.
Also by Hilary Mantel
Bring Up the Bodies
Wolf Hall
Beyond Black
Every Day is Mothers Day
Vacant Possession
Eight Months on Ghazzah Street
Fludd
A Place of Greater Safety
A Change of Climate
An Experiment in Love
The Giant, OBrien
Learning to Talk
Non-fiction
Giving Up the Ghost
Table of Contents
Title Page
About the Author
Also by Hilary Mantel
A Place of Greater Safety
Beyond Black
The Giant, OBrien
Excerpt from Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Copyright
About the Publisher
A Place of Greater SafetyHilary Mantel
A Place of Greater Safety
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Authors Note
Cast of Characters
Map of Revolutionary Paris
PART ONE
I. Life as a Battlefield (17631774)
II. Corpse-Candle (17741780)
III. At Maître Vinots (1780)
PART TWO
I. The Theory of Ambition (17841787)
II. Rue Condé: Thursday Afternoon (1787)
III. Maximilien: Life and Times (1787)
IV. A Wedding, a Riot, a Prince of the Blood (17871788)
V. A New Profession (1788)
VI. Last Days of Titonville (1789)
VII. Killing Time (1789)
PART THREE
I. Virgins (1789)
II. Liberty, Gaiety, Royal Democracy (1790)
III. Ladys Pleasure (1791)
IV. More Acts of the Apostles (1791)
PART FOUR
I. A Lucky Hand (1791)
II. Danton: His Portrait Made (1791)
III. Three Blades, Two in Reserve (17911792)
IV. The Tactics of a Bull (1792)
V. Burning the Bodies (1792)
PART FIVE
I. Conspirators (1792)
II. Robespierricide (1792)
III. The Visible Exercise of Power (17921793)
IV. Blackmail (1793)
V. A Martyr, a King, a Child (1793)
VI. A Secret History (1793)
VII. Carnivores (1793)
VIII. Imperfect Contrition (1793)
IX. East Indians (1793)
X. The Marquis Calls (1793)
XI. The Old Cordeliers (17931794)
XII. Ambivalence (1794)
XIII. Conditional Absolution (1794)
Note
Dedication
To Clare Boylan
Authors Note
THIS IS A NOVEL about the French Revolution. Almost all the characters in it are real people and it is closely tied to historical facts as far as those facts are agreed, which isnt really very far. It is not an overview or a complete account of the Revolution. The story centres on Paris; what happens in the provinces is outside its scope, and so for the most part are military events.
My main characters were not famous until the Revolution made them so, and not much is known about their early lives. I have used what there is, and made educated guesses about the rest.
This is not, either, an impartial account. I have tried to see the world as my people saw it, and they had their own prejudices and opinions. Where I can, I have used their real words from recorded speeches or preserved writings and woven them into my own dialogue. I have been guided by a belief that what goes on to the record is often tried out earlier, off the record.
There is one character who may puzzle the reader, because he has a tangential, peculiar role in this book. Everyone knows this about Jean-Paul Marat: he was stabbed to death in his bath by a pretty girl. His death we can be sure of, but almost everything in his life is open to interpretation. Dr Marat was twenty years older than my main characters, and had a long and interesting pre-revolutionary career. I did not feel that I could deal with it without unbalancing the book, so I have made him the guest star, his appearances few but piquant. I hope to write about Dr Marat at some future date. Any such novel would subvert the view of history which I offer here. In the course of writing this book I have had many arguments with myself, about what history really is. But you must state a case, I think, before you can plead against it.
The events of the book are complicated, so the need to dramatize and the need to explain must be set against each other. Anyone who writes a novel of this type is vulnerable to the complaints of pedants. Three small points will illustrate how, without falsifying, I have tried to make life easier.
When I am describing pre-revolutionary Paris, I talk about the police. This is a simplification. There were several bodies charged with law enforcement. It would be tedious, though, to hold up the story every time there is a riot, to tell the reader which one is on the scene.
Again, why do I call the Hôtel de Ville City Hall? In Britain, the term Town Hall conjures up a picture of comfortable aldermen patting their paunches and talking about Christmas decorations or litter bins. I wanted to convey a more vital, American idea; power resides at City Hall.
A smaller point still: my characters have their dinner and their supper at variable times. The fashionable Parisian dined between three and five in the afternoon, and took supper at ten or eleven oclock. But if the latter meal is attended with a degree of formality, Ive called it dinner. On the whole, the people in this book keep late hours. If theyre doing something at three oclock, its usually three in the morning.
I am very conscious that a novel is a cooperative effort, a joint venture between writer and reader. I purvey my own version of events, but facts change according to your viewpoint. Of course, my characters did not have the blessing of hindsight; they lived from day to day, as best they could. I am not trying to persuade my reader to view events in a particular way, or to draw any particular lessons from them. I have tried to write a novel that gives the reader scope to change opinions, change sympathies: a book that one can think and live inside. The reader may ask how to tell fact from fiction. A rough guide: anything that seems particularly unlikely is probably true.
Cast of Characters
PART I
In Guise:
Jean-Nicolas Desmoulins, a lawyer
Madeleine, his wife
Camille, his eldest son (b. 1760)
Elisabeth, his daughter
Henriette, his daughter (died aged nine)
Armand, his son
Anne-Clothilde, his daughter
Clément, his youngest son
Adrien de Viefville
Jean-Louis de Viefville} their snobbish relations
The Prince de Condé, premier nobleman of the district and a client of Jean-Nicolas Desmoulins
In Arcis-sur-Aube:
Marie-Madeleine Danton, a widow, who marries
Jean Recordain, an inventor
Georges-Jacques, her son (b. 1759)
Anne Madeleine, her daughter
Pierrette, her daughter
Marie-Cécile, her daughter, who becomes a nun
In Arras:
François de Robespierre, a lawyer
Maximilien, his son (b. 1758)
Charlotte, his daughter
Henriette, his daughter (died aged nineteen)
Augustin, his younger son
Jacqueline, his wife, née Carraut, who dies after giving birth to a fifth child
Grandfather Carraut, a brewer
Aunt Eulalie
Aunt Henriette} François de Robespierres sisters
In Paris, at Louis-le-Grand:
Father Poignard, the principal a liberal minded man
Father Proyart, the deputy principal not at all a liberal-minded man
Father Herivaux, a teacher of classical languages
Louis Suleau, a student
Stanislas Fréron, a very well-connected student, known as Rabbit
In Troyes:
Fabre dÉglantine, an unemployed genius
PART II
In Paris:
Maître Vinot, a lawyer in whose chambers Georges-Jacques Danton is a pupil
Maître Perrin, a lawyer in whose chambers Camille Desmoulins is a pupil
Jean-Marie Hérault de Séchelles, a young nobleman and legal dignitary
François-Jérôme Charpentier, a café owner and Inspector of Taxes
Angélique (Angelica) his Italian wife
Gabrielle, his daughter
Françoise-Julie Duhauttoir, Georges-Jacques Dantons mistress
At the rue Condé:
Claude Duplessis, a senior civil servant
Annette, his wife
Adèle
Lucile} his daughters
Abbé Laudréville, Annettes confessor, a go-between
In Guise:
Rose-Fleur Godard, Camille Desmoulinss fiancée
In Arras:
Joseph Fouché, a teacher, Charlotte de Robespierres beau
Lazare Carnot, a military engineer, a friend of Maximilien de Robespierre
Anaïs Deshorties, a nice girl whose relatives want her to marry Maximilien de Robespierre
Louise de Kéralio, a novelist: who goes to Paris, marries François Robert and edits a newspaper
Hermann, a lawyer, a friend of Maximilien de Robespierre
The Orléanists:
Philippe, Duke of Orléans, cousin of King Louis XVI
Félicité de Genlis, an author his ex-mistress, now Governor of his children
Charles-Alexis Brulard de Sillery, Comte de Genlis Félicités husband, a former naval officer, a gambler
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, a novelist, the Dukes secretary
Agnès de Buffon, the Dukes mistress
Grace Elliot, the Dukes ex-mistress, a spy for the British Foreign Office
Axel von Fersen, the Queens lover
At Dantons chambers: