Chapter 20
Twenty
The prosecutor rose to his feet, holding her sketchbook over his head. Despite the nauseating suspicion that she knew exactly what page was on display, Marguerite, like everyone else in the courtroom, craned her neck for a better look.
Guttural sounds that might have been shock, outrage, efforts to choke back laughter, or some combination of all three, filled the courtroom. Clearest of all, however, were the shouts of, “Death!”
Because there it was. A sketch of Jean Paul Marat, firebrand publisher and leader of the ruling Jacobin party. Sitting in his tub with his lap desk, tapping his lips with his quill, as he contemplated his latest opus.
No. Not tapping his lips. Tapping his fish lips.
She’d drawn Marat with an enormous fish tail curling over the edge of the tub, a dorsal fin behind his head, and, Heaven help her, fish lips.
“Is this your art?” The justice asked in the same tone her father used to make it clear her work was as far from art as racehorses were from pigs.
“Death, death, death!” The call rose from both sides of the gallery.
It was art. A damned fine likeness of both a man and a fish. Also, a damning one.
“Would you care to tell us, Citizeness de Rouvroy, why you drew Citizen Marat, a leading member of the Legislative Assembly and a defender of the people, as a fish?”
Absolutely not. She’d been in the gallery of Salle du Manège, Louis XV’s former riding hall turned assembly hall, listening to Marat speak. It had been a long day, the gallery hot and crowded, and as his speech wandered off on a rambling tangent, she’d begun to sketch.
When she’d overheard someone behind her mention to his companion that Marat was increasingly working from his tub as a way of soothing his chronically itchy, scaly red skin, she’d looked down at the likeness she’d already captured, at the man’s protruding eyes and fleshy lips, and been unable to resist adding the finny features.
“Citizeness de Rouvroy, have you nothing to say for yourself?”
“Off with her head!” came a cry from the gallery.
“Off with her hands!” came another.
“Speak!” The prosecutor demanded.
There was so much she wanted to say that it was creating a carriage-crash traffic jam in her mouth: How did you get my sketchbook?
Who gave it to you? Can’t you see it was a joke?
A private joke. I would never have published it.
And for the love of God, would you stop using ‘de’ to remind the court of my former titles.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself, Citizeness?”
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Do not tell me of your heart, fair one, but show me your art. The verse rose unbidden in her head. All she’d wanted to do was show her art.
And now her art was going to be the death of her.
“I will speak for her.”
Marguerite turned to see a man with a head of black curls and brilliant blue eyes entering the courtroom. He looked like a Carvaggio painting of the subversive god Bacchus come to life. And she’d never seen him before, much less hired him.
“I’m Citizeness Rouvroy’s lawyer. Andre de Saint-Just.”
In one hand, he held what looked like an official seal, though Marguerite couldn’t be certain, given how quickly he slipped it back into his jacket pocket. In the other, he held a folder stuffed with papers, which he waved at the justices.
“My apologies for my tardiness, citizens,” he said striding forward. He dipped his head to the antenna-browed justice. “Prosecuter Fouquier-Tinville.” Then he dipped his head to her, flashing a brilliant and unsettlingly conspiratorial smile. “Citizeness.”
“Ah, well, the roads these days,” he continued, straightening up and spreading his hands in a what can you do gesture. “I encountered some difficulties...”
Difficulties. What could this stranger possibly know of difficulties?
Marguerite thought she might be losing her mind.
She’d spent three nights in a crowded cell, with nothing but soiled straw on the floor, and a single bucket for waste, her head filled with her own anxieties and the wails of others.
It had taken all her strength to dress herself, stand upright, and repeat her name when she’d finally been called to court.
Still, she was absolutely certain she hadn’t retained a lawyer. Who in the name of heaven was Andre de Saint-Just?