What has this to do with the commission, the small commission transacted that night of Nivôse in the Saint-Nicolas church? You ask me who, in that climactic scene in the fifth act, could have wanted the painting? What lead or supporting role wanted to make that phantom committee into a real committee, theatrically real? I am coming to that, Sir. Let me tell you about one more party, one more caste or occupation, and I will be finished.
This last party, this caste, those great leading roles distributed throughout France, sent out by the Convention and the Committees for brief mandates, were the Représentants en Mission; the men of the great missions of 1793, the ad hoc warriors, peacemakers, proconsuls, the amateur generals who had complete power over the generals; the spearheads for the Jacobin plan of action who, forged in the midst of storms, were to have the force of lightning; who had returned from their missions, or their tours as we say of actors, who were returning, in the months of Ventôse and Nivôse, after victories; who, on their missions, had worn the costumes and accessories à la nation, that is, the three colors, the extravagant tricolored silk waistband, silk an inch thick, three or four yards long, wound four times around the waist, sumptuous, clerical; the costume à la nation that Corentin himself had designed, under David, and which I think, even more than the Sibylles, is his true masterpiece, before The Eleven: triple collars high at the nape of the neck, alla paolesca, in the style of Paul, that is, Paolo Veronese, not Paul of Tarsus, although those who wore them had more in common with Paul of Tarsus than with Paolo Veronese — thus in the Veronese style, since it was Veronese, via Tiepolo, who had thought of it in paintings before Corentin thought of it on actual impetuous young necks; woolen cloth in national blue, erstwhile royal blue; white cravat, frothy, high, lavish, phallic; hat à la Henri IV and rosette, plume à la nation. Young men of flesh and iron wore that plume, Sir, which History, luck, fortune, the muse of the theater, perhaps God as well, because God is a dog, remember with tenderness and terror: that plume that did not tremble running up the hill, sword drawn, under fire at Fleurus, at Wattignies, at Wissembourg, because the young man who wore the plume had it on good authority that the canon fire could not touch him, that its rumbling was a sound effect, a zinc plate rattled backstage by the Great Machinist, that the cannonballs falling like hail around him were flies — the great magic, Sir, the pocket of luck. And neither had the plume trembled when its wearer, camped under the torches on the Quai de la Fosse in Nantes at the end of the Loire at midnight, wild, trembling with wine, trembling with joy, with terror, watched, melancholic, as the barges set off on his order, rotten traps that would open in the middle of the Loire and send shrieking to the bottom their cargo of nuns, rustic priests, Jean-Chouans, and beggars from the Vendée, erstwhile hussies with their brats — because all that, Sir, hussies, brats, priests, they were flies, and the Loire was a famous republican torrent; and in Lyons at dawn on the Brotteaux plain the plume in the mist did not tremble either, or only mechanically so in the wind of the grapeshot when the marine canons fired, even though the one who wore it trembled with wine, with joy, with terror; not the least trembling either when from the back of the famous oxblood carriage hurtling full speed through the phantom city of Bordeaux with a company of dragoons at full gallop, the plume’s wearer gave the order to fire randomly in the night at windows, trees, stars; and likewise in Avignon, Marseilles, Toulon, Moulins, Arras, everywhere. Some of them returned with stolen gold filling their pockets and their oxblood carriages, so that indiscriminately Robespierre called them all rogues; while others returned as poor as before, having forgotten in the beauty of the gesture that gold itself possesses a beauty more lasting. Thus the plumes had returned to Paris, were returning or were about to return, the borders and the cities were secured, the Vendée quelled, the mission accomplished, the tour completed; in Paris they had taken off the plume with the uniform and changed back into civilian clothes: Collot of Lyons, Tallien of Bordeaux, Carrier of Nantes, Carnot of Wattignies and Saint-Just of Wissembourg, and Rovère, Fouché, Fréron, the two Prieurs, the two Merlins, called Merlin of Douai and Merlin of Thionville, the almost twins Lequinio and Laignelot, Mallarmé of the Meurthe, the other Bourdon, not Léonard Bourdon but Bourdon of the Oise, and Barras, Jean Bon, Baudot, Lebon, Le Bas, among others. These men, these fine names, all these generals, had even more blood on their hands than the others; better than the others they knew the meaning of the word expeditious; they had the epic halo, the gloria militar, the plume; thus they were extraordinarily popular, celebrated as heroes, larger than life. And the civilians, Danton, Hébert, Robespierre alike, Robespierre above all, feared them, feared that one of them, in the wake of Fleurus or riding the Republican wave of the Loire, might seize power with the support of the masses or the armies. But that would be for later; in its pocket, luck was keeping warm that most professional plume and enchanted sword of the general Bonaparte.
So you can see, Sir, that I am coming back to the painting. The plume appears there three times. So consequently, three times the three colors. And the collars alla paolesca, eleven times.
Let us review them, from left to right: Billaud, Carnot, Prieur, Prieur, Couthon, Robespierre, Collot, Barère, Lindet, Saint-Just, Saint-André. The commissioners. Billaud, civilian clothes and boots; Carnot, the greatcoat, civilian clothes and boots; Prieur of the Côte-d’Or, à la nation, wearing the plume; Prieur of the Marne, à la nation, plume on the table; Couthon, civilian clothes and useless buckled shoes on his paralytic feet, in the sulfur chair; Robespierre, civilian clothes and buckled shoes; Collot, the greatcoat, civilian clothes and boots, no cravat; Barère, civilian clothes and buckled shoes; Lindet, civilian clothes and buckled shoes; Saint-Just, in gold; Jean Bon Saint-André, à la nation, plume in hand.
And all the collars, alla paolesca. It is a Venetian painting, Sir, do not forget that.
III
What has become of the night, Sir?
It has not moved. All four of them are still there in Nivôse in the sacristy lit only by the square lantern since the fire has died. They are under the triple screen of darkness, Nivôse, the Terror, the extinguished fire. The horses can no longer be heard. Corentin is still standing, he has finished closing the sack and is weighing it in his hand, he is not yet facing the sacrosanct canvas of The Eleven, to tell the truth, he is not thinking about that, he is thinking that it is heavy, that it is good; he is thinking of similar sacks passing long ago from Marigny’s hand to his own, he is thinking of the vanished beauty of maman-putain and the more lasting beauty of gold; he is thinking that it is all an excellent and profitable farce. He is wearing the crocodile’s smile. And still sitting in the radiant armchair, Proli is thinking similar thoughts, but from the perspective of the one who is paying and thus risking his head, wearing the crocodile’s smile as well, but more worried and as though already duped; his protruding eyes gleam a bit, Proli is closest to the glow of the lantern, almost visible. The bishop’s armchair bears him. Bourdon is there as well, no doubt wearing a nasty smile in the dark, he does not like the erstwhile manners of this Corentin, he does not like his little old wig, he does not like it that beneath the wig Corentin’s face slightly resembles his own, he would gladly reduce him, too, to the level of equality, as he said of the French church steeples when he wanted to have them all razed to the ground. And Collot is not in Shakespeare, he is here. Nevertheless he is a little in Shakespeare, necessarily, because all of this is nocturnal, Caravaggesque or Shakespearean, villainous. Gold gleams from Collot’s ear. And as always in these scenes where the men’s faces are finessed, shifted into the dark, suspended in shadow, the square light is falling squarely on the symbols, the holy table of the contract, from which the bones and gold have disappeared, and on the holy table what remains of bread and wine; also perhaps the cards and the dice tossed there as they left by the Sans Culottes, the good old extras, whose role is always to leave in place a few obvious symbols before clearing out. Corentin has already taken three steps, he is getting ready to put on his greatcoat before clearing out himself.