Chapter Text
Monsieur Mabeuf woke at dawn on the morning of June 5, 1832, and disentangled his stiff, rheumatic fingers from his bedsheets. With the mindlessness of a habit reinforced over decades, he groped at his bedside table for a book.
His fingers found nothing.
As he sat up groggily in bed, his memory caught up with him. An awful, empty feeling settled in his stomach when he remembered the doctor’s visit the day before, the expensive medicine prescribed to Mère Plutarque, walking out of his house with his last, precious book and returning with nothing tucked under his arm.
He sat on his bed for a moment, unsure what to do next. Sultan gave a small meow and hopped up next to him, and he absentmindedly scratched the creature’s ears. “I’m sorry, boy, we’ve no meat for you. Best go catch a rat.”
The old man followed Sultan out to his garden, or what remained of it, with the strange feeling that he was sleepwalking. He sank onto the old boundary post he used as a bench and stayed there with his head bowed, staring vacantly at the weeds and wilted flora in his flowerbeds. He couldn’t say how long he’d been sitting there — was it five minutes or five hours? — when he was abruptly shaken from his stupor by the sound of gunfire. He also noticed with surprise that his clothing was damp: It had been raining.
Père Mabeuf looked up. He saw a gardener passing by and asked, “What’s going on?”
The gardener, carrying his spade on his shoulder, replied, as calm as you please, “They’re rioting.”
“What! Rioting?”
“Yes. People are fighting.”
“What are they fighting about?”
“Ah, well may you ask!” exclaimed the gardener.
“Whereabouts?” said Monsieur Mabeuf.
“Over by the Arsenal.”
Père Mabeuf went back into the house, took his hat, automatically searched for a book to put under his arm, found none, said “Ah! Of course!” and set off, looking dazed.
* * *
The rain was coming down heavily when he attached himself to a group of agitated youth on Rue Lesdiguières. He paid no mind to the bullets whizzing and the cavalry amassing a few steps away. One of the rioters — a young man of about twenty-five who looked vaguely familiar — approached him with a furrowed brow.
“Monsieur Mabeuf, go home.”
“Why?”
“There’s going to be fighting.”
“That’s fine.”
“Sabre cuts and gunfire, Monsieur Mabeuf.”
“That’s fine.”
“Cannon-fire.”
“That’s fine. Where are you people going?”
“We’re going to bring the government down.”
“That’s fine.”
Another person in the crowd handed him a piece of tricolor fabric, which he draped across himself like a sash.
Mabeuf had never been one for strong political views, or really any political views at all. He left it to others to worry about the state and society, preferring to bury himself in books or tend to his flowers. But when the young man said “to bring the government down,” something penetrated the fog he’d been living in all day, the fog that had been growing since his brother and old Royol died and he’d begun selling off his books and herbariums one by one. In a rush, he thought not just about poverty that he and Mère Plutarque had endured, but of all the harm that befell others who’d passed through his life, from beggars on the street to that man in Vernon, Pontmercy, kept from his son because of politics and money.
This was not a revolution of his political beliefs, in part because Mabeuf never had any to begin with, but also because he had neither time nor inclination to develop a coherent philosophy on the subject. When he felt himself standing up straighter, walking faster, moving toward the front of the crowd with a sense of purpose, he was not sure whether he was doing so in support of anarchism or empire or republic.
He knew only that he was angry. Angry and so damn tired.
* * *
Despite his earlier moment of clarity, the fog came over Mabeuf again in the tavern. He was vaguely aware of the noise of people milling about, calling to each other, throwing furniture in a pile. But it wasn’t until a flash illuminated the corner of his vision and a volley of gunfire echoed in the night that he stirred, realizing that the tavern was almost empty. The only other people inside were a prisoner tied to a pillar and a man with a sword guarding him.
He heard the confident voice of one of the insurgents — their leader? — asking for someone to raise up the red flag that had evidently fallen off the barricade during the shooting.
Père Mabeuf had only one thought in his mind when he stood and exited the tavern. He was distantly aware of people talking about him as he made his way through the crowd, but it sounded as if it was a long way off, and his brain couldn’t quite make sense of the sounds. He thought he heard something about regicide.
A curly-haired, almost feminine-looking young man was holding the red flag. Mabeuf snatched it from him and began making his way up the barricade. Despite the tremors that often afflicted him, he felt remarkably steady. At the top of the cobblestone steps that had been set into the barricade, he stopped and lifted the flag as high as he could. In the torchlight he could see the glint of countless bayonets.
For a moment, it felt as if the world was holding its breath.
Then Père Mabeuf broke the silence, waving the flag with all the might his frail arms possessed and bellowing, “Vive la Révolution! vive la République! fraternité! égalité! et la mort!”
There was a barely audible susurrus of whispers from the direction of the bayonets, and then:
“Remove yourself!”
Well, that was out of the question.
A frenzy filled Mabeuf as he lifted the flag even higher and repeated, “Long live the Republic!”
The voice cried out, “Fire!”
Père Mabeuf fell to his knees, little points of pain blooming all across his body, but he rose again, determined to put the flag in its place. But he felt it slipping from his hand, and his feet were unsteady, and the last thing he saw was the star-strewn sky.
* * *
The next morning, Monsieur Mabeuf woke at dawn and disentangled his stiff, rheumatic fingers from his bedsheets. With the mindlessness of a habit reinforced over decades, he groped at his bedside table for a book.
His fingers found nothing.
Then he remembered yesterday and bolted upright in bewilderment.