Note: I have only 'borrowed' the familiar names herein; Marguerite belongs to the Baroness Orczy, another St Just to history (allowing for 'artistic licence'!) The bones of the story are fact, the flesh is my imagination. Thanks to Kate, Liz and Zeb for their editorial, educational and encouraging reviews!

Comédie

12 Juillet 1789

"Mademoiselle St Just!"

Stood almost into the wings, idly coiling a favourite from her heavy wig around one finger, Marguerite reacted to her name as if she had been slapped and quickly moved out onto the boards.

"I'm sure your colleagues could retire into the green room to rehearse, if that is more comfortable," Elisabeth Joly greeted her from centre stage. "Your gown must be terribly heavy."

Her blushes hidden behind the false bloom of rouged cheeks on white powder, Marguerite faced the sociétaire and gave a small curtsey, inclining her head without upsetting her precarious hair. "I thank you for your concern, but I should not wish to interrupt your concentration. I shall take my place, so that you will be at ease for this final practice."

Joly twitched her lips into a sharp smile, her green eyes challenging the defiant blue gaze before her. "I assure you, it is not I who needs to study my role," she remarked.

"Particularly not in Les Precieuses ridicules," Marguerite replied lightly, casually turning her face to peer out beyond the footlights into the auditorium. "I should imagine such a comedy comes naturally to you."

"If we could let Molière get a word in, ladies," Dugazon sighed, striding forward to intercept Mademoiselle Joly, who had taken a determined step towards her fellow comédienne. "I know we would all rather be taking part in the drama that is even now being played out in the streets of Paris, but we are the King's players and we can only close by Royal command."

Marguerite pirouetted on the heel of her shoe to face her renowned and respected colleague, who was staring steadily beyond Mme. Joly. He raised his eyes to meet hers when he felt her looking at him. "Mon Dieu," she whispered, "if even the celebrated Dugazon cannot concentrate, what use are we here? My brother has gone to the Palais-Royal today, he says that –"

"Mademoiselle!" he barked again, his voice echoing about the sumptuous theatre. He inhaled deeply, his chest expanding above the false stomach of his role, and blew out a sigh of frustration. "Where was I?"

"Perhaps we should move on," Joly offered nonchalantly, whilst resuming her position to the left of Dugazon. "Mademoiselle St Just has a very great speech to give in this act, and I am sure she would like to like to start there." She spoke quickly, risking a glance at Marguerite. "Gorgibus, if you should like to lead Madelon in with: 'What is she talking about?'"

Narrowing her eyes at Joly, Marguerite waited for her cue, which Dugazon wearily supplied. "Here is my cousin, father," she began, her mellow voice sounding clear and loud, "who will tell you as well as I that matrimony ought never to happen till after other adventures." She looked to her 'cousin', and raised her brows. "A lover, to be agreeable, must understand how to utter fine sentiments, to breathe soft, tender, and passionate vows –"

"Or write them in a billet-doux, for the father to find and act accordingly," Joly interjected, flashing a spiteful smile at Marguerite when she caught her glowering with barely suppressed ire.

"What is this?" Dugazon demanded, looking from one woman to the other. "No extemporising! You're neither witty enough to improve on the father of this theatre, and this is the final dress rehearsal."

"Oh, nothing, Dugazon, nothing," Joly supplied, giving a small shrug of her shoulders to set her elaborate jewellery dancing in the footlights; the interlaced strands of diamonds and emeralds hung about her neck were said to be a gift from her patron, a marquis well known at Versailles. "But if the company should ever require an understudy for the role of Horace, I am sure that the Mademoiselle's brother could give a natural performance as the handsome young lover …"

"Why should you mention Armand?" Marguerite demanded, stamping across the stage. Her heart was rapping wildly against the constraints of her stays, and the coarse material of the powdered wig was scratching against her neck and making her head hot. "He has done nothing to you – you don't even know him!"

"I don't know him?" Joly sneered. "He attends my salon with his cousin and some of the other Palais-Royal feuillistes – I've found it's more entertaining to have the news brought to me!"

Marguerite, her tempestuous blue eyes dark with rage, clamped her teeth down on her lower lip, turning pale behind her melting face paint. "I don't believe you," she choked, barely audible.

"Mademoiselle Joly, that is enough," Dugazon intervened firmly, holding the actress in his piercing gaze until she lowered her eyes. "Mademoiselle St Just, your line."

Clutching at her skirts with trembling fingers, Marguerite breathed in until her head grew light and then turned in profile towards the orchestra pit, searching out the detail on the candlelit boxes all around her as she struggled to regain some semblance of composure.

Joly, with her arched brow and twisted smile, must be lying, she thought; Armand knew of her constant battles with the vindictive sociétaire, and would avoid her pathetic little gatherings out of loyalty, if not on principle. And why the taunts about love letters and young lovers - had she learned of Armand's abuse at the hands of the Marquis de St Cyr? The incident still burned in Marguerite's memory, despite her brother's physical scars and individual mortification having long since healed from public view. The last thing she needed was a constant reminder in the smirking features and cutting laugh of her rival.

" 'Soft, tender and passionate vows'?" Joly prompted, hooking her teasing voice into Marguerite's thoughts and tugging at the bait.

"His courtship must be according to the rules," Marguerite finished, giving the actress her back as she returned to Dugazon's side. "In the first place -"

"Stop! Stop!" Talma's distinctive voice boomed across the cavernous expanse of the theatre. Marguerite, lifting her elegant figure up onto the toes of her shoes, craned her neck to search for his location. Shielding her eyes against the comparative brightness of the tin-backed footlights, she caught a movement in one of the first-tier boxes directly opposite. "Stop rehearsals! The theatre is closed!"

"What is this, Francois?" Dugazon called, moving forwards. "Don't be foolish! We cannot close, not even for a Sunday performance!"

They could barely see Talma, who was leaning over the edge of the box in his excitement and urgency, but his powerful voice rang easily across the distance, as if giving a performance in reverse. "The people will not let us open, my friend! Paris is in tumult! Necker has been dismissed, and we cannot sit back and wait for the troops to march in and cut down the National Assembly!"

"I heard of Necker's fate this morning," Joly announced, sounding disappointed. "That's old news!"

"The crowds who are pouring into every corner of the city from the Palais-Royal cafes would not agree with you, Elisabeth!" Talma shouted back. "We must all fight to protect ourselves, every able-bodied man and woman!"

"The Palais-Royal?" Marguerite echoed, speaking aloud her preoccupied thoughts.

The galleries and cafes of the Duc d'Orléans' establishment were Armand's favourite Sunday amusement, and he had been particularly anxious to meet his associates there today. Mme. Joly's awareness of the finance minister's hasty removal was by no means privileged information; knowledge of the King's submission to the demands of his wife and the Court, by replacing the sympathetic Necker with de Breteuil, had gone the rounds even before Marguerite had left mid-morning for the Comédie. Armand had termed it a spark that would ignite the people's fear, a sensational phrase that she doubted he had been the first to coin, and he could barely wait for her to finish dressing before setting off towards the gardens. The table-top orators and pamphleteers who gathered outside the Café de Foy were infamous for spreading hearsay and stoking political fires, but would they actually incite the people to fight the King's troops? It was insanity!

"Fighting? Haven't we seen enough of that lately?" Joly was complaining. "In shops, in the streets, against the people, against the guards – it's quite impossible to go about one's business without being caught up in a riot or a protest."

"Who says that the theatre must close?" Dugazon demanded, still throwing his voice across to Talma. Dancers and dressers, sociétaires and scene shifters alike, were slowly appearing behind the three players, gathering to hear the news that was causing such a disruption. "The National Assembly?"

"The people!" Talma cried, his voice breaking with emotion. "The King is paying to hide behind foreign soldiers when honest citizens cannot even afford a loaf of bread, and with Necker gone, it can only get worse! The King has shown his true colours, and so we must wear ours!"

Marguerite, hearing Talma's passionate words without really sharing his fervour, a curious sense of detachment having suddenly clouded her mind, saw her fellow comédien waving his closed fist in the air, but could not discern what he was brandishing.

"The Comédie is closed until further notice!" he rasped, and then cleared his throat violently before adding: "We are the Théâtre-Français – the theatre of France – and as such we now belong to the people. It is our duty to join with the others in protecting our city – go home! Go into the streets, if you can – there was a call to arms, but the crowd that stormed out of the gardens was blind with anger and fear – however it is done, we have strength only if we fight together. They cannot match the might of a city out for its very life!"

Talma turned and fled, and a great cheer and the rumble of men's voices could be heard filling the theatre's entrance as he descended from the balcony. In the silence that followed, the company and its workers could only stare at each other, seeking unspoken reassurance that they had all heard the same thing, and were feeling the same tingling anticipation.

Dugazon, as the most respected member of the company, found that he was the focus of a sea of wide eyes and tight lips. "It is unprecedented that the theatre should close without word from the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, but –" He shrugged, raising his palms to the gilt arch far above their heads. "Talma is right. I knew that the triumph of the National Assembly would come with a price, and here it is – we shall have to fight to protect our freedom and our city."

Whispers, and then murmured conversation, began to build, carrying with the natural acoustics of the stage until private exchanges were resounding about the empty theatre.

"What do we do?" Marguerite asked.

"Whatever we can," Dugazon answered simply.

"Hurry, Clémence!" Marguerite pleaded, jiggling impatiently as her dresser fought to free her from her costume. Too anxious to sit and properly clean her face of the white powder and rouge tint, she chose instead to stoop awkwardly before the mirror, bobbing and twisting to catch every angle in the light of the solitary candle.

"Then stand still!" Marguerite felt the push of a firm hand against her left shoulder, and she grinned as she met Clémence's frustrated glance in the glass. "I can't reach the laces if you keep bending forward."

"I wonder if Armand knows about the order to close the theatre," Marguerite prattled on, lifting her chin to catch the tidemark of her garish stage mask.

Slowly, as she worked at wiping away the layers of harsh paint, the natural beauty of her features was revealed for her own complacent consideration; with her hair of burnished gold still drawn back, though she had discarded the wig as soon as she stepped backstage, the perfect oval of her face gave up its every contour and shading in the dancing light of the candle. There was classical symmetry in her high, clear forehead, slender nose, and even in the perfect curve of her small round chin; the full lips of her fashionably dainty mouth offered the actress a fascinating range of expression, from a demure moue to the open laugh of unaffected humour. Yet it was the eyes, set beneath fine and mobile brows, that raised Marguerite far above the ordinariness of a pretty face and the average charm of an attractive woman; her wide blue gaze held a fascination all of its own, with the shifting lights in her large eyes capturing the attention of an audience and bewitching individual admirers alike.

Throwing away another greasy and stained rag, Marguerite gave her reflection a final check and then shifted her distracted attention to undressing. As she peeled the satin flounces of her sleeves from her arms, Clémence set to work untying the festoons of her tasselled petticoat and gathering the voluminous material up over the hoops that supported it.

"What if he can't get here to meet you, Mam'zelle?" the dresser fretted. "You shouldn't go about unescorted, you heard what Monsieur Talma said!"

"Nonsense!" Marguerite laughed. "If the roads are blocked, I shall walk, it's not far," she explained simply, releasing the glass beads from around her neck now that her bosom was unadorned by the decorated bodice.

"Arms!" Clémence ordered, and Marguerite, gathering up the front of her skirts, boosted the bulk of her costume over her head and into the practiced catch of her sturdy helper. "It's just not safe, Mam'zelle, you don't know – I got caught up in the factory riots in April, and it wouldn't have mattered if I was the Queen herself … Well, not the Queen, of course, but anybody else … A mob like that, fuelled by the sheer lawlessness of what they're doing, can't see and don't rightly care who they might hurt in the process – you could get trampled, dragged underfoot, and nobody would realise until after – "

"Clémence!" Marguerite snapped. "This is quite different! The Saint-Antoine rioters were all troublemakers, as everybody knows – this is the whole of Paris! We are the heart of this country, and Talma is right – what would be the use of men like Monsieur Mirabeau protesting and acting against the injustices of the Estates-General if we are to merely give in at the first word from the King?"

"And is the faubourg Saint-Antoine no longer a part of Paris? Are the men and women there not represented by Mirabeau's Assembly?" Clémence shook her head, and gave a sharp tug on the laces she was working at, stamping her foot when the loose bow became a tight knot. " 'The heart of the country' – that's your brother talking! Let's not destroy the city just to set an example to the provinces." She paused to free a small knife from the pocket of her apron, before deftly slicing through the taut cord holding up Marguerite's panier. The covered wooden cage dropped to the floorboards, and Clémence crouched to collect the hoops, tapping the backs of her mistresses' stockinged legs to make her step out of the middle.

"And you be careful, Mam'zelle," she warned, slinging the outdated apparatus onto a chaise behind her. "If Monsieur Armand is not waiting, I shall accompany you across the bridge myself."

"Into the hornet's nest?" Marguerite asked innocently, one brow neatly cocked.

"I have to go home, too, Mam'zelle," came the weary reply. "Only I know well enough not to stir the hornets by poking my nose into their nest, and I fear that you would end up badly stung."

Marguerite, giving free rein to the rippling laughter that was like a siren song to her green room attendants, turned to face her dresser. Stood in unadorned dishabille, wearing only her own stays, shift and stockings, her face shining with the vigour of her preening and her hair hastily scraped into a chignon, she grasped Clémence by the arms and drew the smaller yet broader figure of the droll woman towards her, sounding a kiss against both cheeks.

"You think me like the ingénues of my emploi , but I know this city well enough, my dear Clémence," she chided, twirling to face the mirror again. "Help me with my hair, please."

"Then sit down," Clémence replied gruffly, reaching for a light peignoir to drape around the actress' shoulders as she attended to her toilette.

Marguerite wrapped herself in the cover as she sank down onto the buffet before her dressing table, and began stripping pins from the folds in her coppery tresses. When she had loosed the natural curl, Clémence dug a comb out of her apron pouch and began running it through the precious lights of her mistress' glorious hair, separating and twisting the longer tendrils into 'favourites' and fluffing out the front section in the popular style.

"Don't bother to dress it, it will take too long," Marguerite instructed with a listless wave of her hand. "I shall wear a cap, and tie my hat over it with a sash."

"As you say, Mam'zelle," Clémence sighed.

"What is the time?"

"Approaching the hour of two, I should say," the dresser answered around a mouthful of pins. After inserting the last grip into Marguerite's hair, she added in an awed whisper: "Isn't it strange for the theatre to be so unearthly quiet? No voices from the green room, or heavy tread on the gangways – there should be the bustle of preparation, not the hush of fear."

"And who is afraid, Clémence?" Marguerite demanded, pivoting on her buffet to face the other woman. "We are not under siege. Now, help me with my petticoat and then run down to the green room to see if Armand has come."

Dressing quickly upon Clémence's return, Marguerite gave her appearance a final appraisal before leaving her dressing room: she smoothed down the shoulders of her blue velvet bodice, adjusted her billowing buffon, and shook out the folds in her silk petticoat, before nodding to herself in the glass and finally blowing out the candle. After that, Clémence had to rush to make the wooden stairs behind her.

It was not Armand, however, who called to her from across the luxurious backstage reception area as she made her swift entrance ; the pleasant tones that sounded her name struck Marguerite's ears as familiar, but it was another St Just entirely who raised a hand in greeting as her eyes sought to link a face to the voice. There in the public doorway, stood by the marble bust of Moliére, was a sight at once pleasing to her eye and heavy on her heart.

"Cousin Antoine!" she purred in practiced delight, even as she shot a sidelong glance at Clémence beside her. "I did not expect to see you."

Louis-Antoine St Just, the rebellious son of a paternal relation to Marguerite and Armand, inclined his uncovered head as he stepped lightly forward to meet her, regally extending a palm. Smiling a little in spite of herself, Marguerite gently rested the tips of her fingers on his upturned hand and gave a graceful curtsey as he raised her small white hand to his lips.

Sliding her fingers free of his lingering touch, Marguerite asked: "Is Armand not with you?"

St Just straightened his languid form, sweeping a lock of his smooth hair, worn naturally, back into place. "No, dear cousin," he replied. "He sent me to see you safely home."

"He sent you?" Marguerite echoed, disbelieving.

The handsome young man before her gave way to a burst of hilarity, his deep laughter resounding about the nearly deserted room. "Yes, indeed!" He smirked, and then slowly smoothed out his smiling lips. "His urgency was so great that he was forced to entrust his only sister to the protection of her libertine cousin!"

"There, Mam'zelle," Clémence spoke softly to Marguerite, tapping her still elevated forearm. "I told you there was no need to worry about your brother."

Refusing to even look at her wily dresser, Marguerite met her cousin's glittering gaze instead. "What was his urgency? Is he in any danger?"

"Not at all," St Just demurred. "But I was able to get free, and I'm afraid poor Armand was carried along in all the excitement."

"What are the crowds like, Monsieur?" Clémence intoned. "Is it anything like the riots in April?"

St Just shook his head slowly. "Worse, I fear – now, everybody has been drawn into the fray." He glanced up at Marguerite, who had pulled in a sharp breath and was about to speak when he cut her off: "But don't fret – the main body of the people, those who heard the cries for arms in the gardens, were heading in a procession towards the Tuileries, I believe. I doubt there will be much trouble here."

Marguerite regarded him carefully. "The Tuileries? For what end, pray?"

He shrugged, dismissively. "They have found a voice, and want it to be heard."

"Then why aren't you there?" she asked pointedly. "You can be fairly sharp with words, I hear."

"Mam'zelle!" Clémence gasped.

St Just was laughing again, this time under his breath. "So you have heard of my literary debut, have you? And what did you think to my verse?"

"I regret that the supply of printed folios was limited, and I was unable to procure my own copy," Marguerite returned smartly.

"Then I shall transcribe you a personal edition, and sign it for posterity."

"Don't go to any trouble on my account," she told him, a wry smile teasing at her lips. "In any case, you did not come here to promote your poetry – are carriages available? I have promised my dresser that she may ride with us across the river – though of course, I thought it would be Armand coming to meet me. He did hear about the theatres?"

Clémence shot a glance at her, but remained prudently silent.

"Of course – men were being sent out to every company performing this afternoon," he answered readily. "I believe Talma headed a delegation to his own theatre?"

"Yes, Talma was here," Marguerite agreed. "And the carriages?"

Another shake of the head. "I doubt any are running, and any private diligences are being stopped."

Marguerite was suddenly aware of her fluttering heartbeat, but she controlled her voice enough to address her cousin with authority: "Then we shall make the journey on foot – you may escort myself and Clémence, or go about your business, as you please." She flicked her steely blue eyes at the plain creature beside her. "Come, Clémence."

"Mam'zelle, there's no need –" the other woman ventured.

"Really, it is hard enough to navigate the streets in single file," St Just joined in, pouting his small mouth. "Attempting to drive a caravan from here to St Honoré is pure lunacy. Your dresser, I assure you, will be in no danger, if she keeps away from the main boulevards and the squares."

"Honestly, Mam'zelle," Clémence pleaded, drawing her shawl about her shoulders. "I need to start back, if I am not needed here – my brothers will have heard that the theatre is closed, and expect me to return home."

"Very well, Clémence, I was only thinking of your safety," Marguerite grumbled.

"Safety from what?" the dresser inquired blankly. "I shall come to no harm, or my brothers will hear of that and the trouble will begin afresh. God bless, Mam'zelle. Monsieur," she added, dropping a shy curtsey to St Just.

"We had better make a start also," Marguerite announced, staring after Clémence with hard eyes. "If we do not meet Armand on the way –"

"We shan't," her arrogant cousin asserted, presenting her his arm. He was dressed with unassuming neatness, in a plain grey frock coat and buff breeches, but still his presence stood out against the gilt panelling and luxurious furnishings of the room; the many framed portraits on the walls seemed to capture his image, reflecting and magnifying the force of his compelling personality.

Marguerite threw back her shoulders and drew herself up, rising two or three inches above his modest height, before casually draping one slender wrist over the crook of his elbow. "If we do not meet him," she insisted, "then I shall go straight to our apartments and wait for him there."

They left the green room and followed the corridor towards the main entrance, stirring in their wake the attention of lingering players and patrons, who clustered together to stare and whisper after the fascinating pair. There was a similar look about the actress and her charming cousin, whether from the familial bond of blood or the confidence of youthful attractiveness; both held their heads proudly erect, their beautiful faces structured with the same defiant expression, and did not shy from their effect upon an audience. Close in age as well as appearance, Marguerite and Louis-Antoine St Just were also of similar provincial beginnings, and both now found themselves travelling unconventional paths in life – whereas Marguerite had chosen for herself the ambiguous status of a comédienne, Louis-Antoine, fighting against the closed alley of his early youth, was still searching for a niche.

"Why not delay our return, cousin?" he suggested lightly, as they descended the marble stairs into the pillared foyer. "It will be calmer in the Luxembourg gardens than facing the crowds to reach the rue de Richelieu."

Marguerite withdrew her arm and was about to explain why this was not the time for a leisurely promenade, when the main doors were opened and a discordant sound came to her ears, setting her heart throbbing wildly once again.

"I can hear the tocsin of Saint-Sulpice," she whispered, listening to the frantic tolling of the bells. St Just had also turned towards the doorway, but she caught his arm and forced him to look at her. "Were you telling the truth? You said the crowds are contained about the Tuileries, that there is little danger to others?"

He peered down his nose at her. "Do you honestly care so much about the fate of your little maid?" His pouting lips added to the already sardonic set of his refined features, and only his eyes were alive, dancing with wicked humour. "Come now, leave the pretence behind with the stage!"

"Armand is out there!" she snapped, irritated by his mocking attitude. "Isn't he? Where did you leave him?"

"Your brother is in his element, running around with a leaf pinned to his hat," St Just answered cryptically. Marguerite frowned, but would not ask him what he meant.

"And do I dare enquire which glorious beings you sit in conference with, so high above the rest of us?" she scoffed. "I am proud of my brother for wanting what is best for his country, and for being prepared to act when words are not enough. Why aren't you with him, standing by his side?"

"I came to –" St Just began, somewhat abashed by her challenge.

"Yes, yes," Marguerite sighed dismissively. "You came to deliver me safely to my door, after perhaps a brief stroll around the gardens." She slowly raised her eyes, the shimmering depths half-shaded by her lowered lashes, to stare at her cousin. "How gallant of you."

"Do you wish me to accompany you, Mademoiselle?" he asked plainly. "We can leave for St Honoré directly, or remain awhile here on the south bank, as you wish."

Marguerite hesitated, Clémence's words of warning ringing in her head like the tocsin from the nearby church "It is only that I should go to Armand -"

"You would not find him amidst the crowds, and he would hate to think of you risking your safety on his account," St Just spoke softly, his face close to hers. "Let us walk across to the gardens, and I shall tell you of all that happened in the Palais-Royal."

"No," she sighed, tightly shaking her head. "I must go and see for myself. Hear the bells! They didn't sound the tocsin in April."

St Just pursed his lips and said nothing.

"Will you walk with me, cousin Antoine?" Marguerite asked.