I've said it before - and I'll no doubt say it again - this all seems incredibly relevant today. I can't help thinking that the dynamics between Kennedy, Musk and Trump might be similar: best buds one day, plotting defenestration the next.
I'm surprised these people had so much time to have portraits painted - they do seem.rather busy with their intrigues. And were they capable of sitting still at all?
And Camilles none-too-private private life is an odd tangent. I mean, something else to fit into his extremely busy diary. Robespierre being slow on the uptake raised a smile with me.
But what's really catching my eye is the disconnect between the revolutionaries (who still seem to be having a fine old time) and the general population (which is starving). Brecht's 'food first, morals later' comes to mind.
We're almost at the end - in more ways than one - and I'm going to miss it.
I found it interesting that in this section we have a passage describing Max having a sleepless night. It’s a nice bookend to the sleepless night he has all the way back on pp103/104 (Fourth Estate paperback). At the time I thought the night he spent prior to sentencing someone to death for the first time was pretty horrific and nightmarish, but it’s nothing compared to the one he has now, on page 781. Then, he had at least attempted the consolation of prayer, now he cannot. He once bolted the door just once, now it’s three times. And when dawn came in the old times, he heard the hustle and bustle of warm-blooded human life, but now beyond his window he sees only shades, ghosts and slinking shadows. Life can always get worse. But Hilary always gives us some comic relief and I absolutely loved the constant references to the ‘new’ months that are never doing what they’re supposed to be doing. 😆 Thank you for guiding us nearly to the end now, Simon.
The last two weeks, reading this has filled me with anxiety- such that I had to break it up into smaller chunks. We all know where this is headed- that makes it, if anything, even more tense.
Agreed, I feel sick with dread knowing what's coming. I've really started dragging my feet with the reading these past few weeks because I don't want it (them?)
About 5 years ago I remember listening to the revolutions podcast and being completely shocked by the shift in Robespierre. I really appreciated Simon’s questioning about the dualities and paradoxes found within Robespierre, as they mirror some of the thoughts I had listening to the podcast years ago.
And I’m not sure that this novel has provided any real clarity either. I remember the Podcaster asserting his personal belief that something shifted inside of Robespierre after the illness (do we know what he had?) and that the final parts of the terror were overseen by someone in the midst of, if not a mania, then sever mental Health issues.
Is there a common consensus about his illness and the impact it had?
Interesting. I don't know about his illness; there is some discussion in the link I shared above. The more times I read APOGS, the less shocked or confused I become. None of it seems out-of-character to me, which is why I remembered him as a student reading the address in the rain – what Mantel does brilliantly is show how all people are made of paradox and contradiction.
For example, very early on Max decided that he should be ready to put his country before his personal friendship. He noted at the time that this was very easy for him because he had no friends, except Camille. It is easy then to see how this became a test of his own terrible theories. And in fact, so much of the Terror is the result of his ideologies rubbing up against the realities of the revolution.
So contrary to your reading Jonathon, I'd say that this novel provides a lot of clarity into Robespierre's transformation, without having to reduce it to mania or mental illness. It's more Shakespearean: Max is undone by his fatal flaws.
It’s as you said in the opening comment of the last post, that you feel like you need to read this 3 times.
Even at this point though, he is fighting for Camille and willing to work with Danton. And Mantell seems to suggest that he had a moment of clarity (mania?) during his sickness.
Do you think he would’ve been as aggressive with Camille and Danton if he didn’t have the illness that kept him out of politics for a month?
Thanks for this response as it offers a wonderful insight into Mantel’s development of character.
I suspect what Mantel is saying is that his illness moved him to action. Danton is always calling him indecisive and it is true, he hates making decisions or taking responsibility. But the sickness changes that. Also, Saint-Just makes sure Robespierre can't ignore Camille and Danton's indiscretions. Max is always trying to insulate himself from knowledge of their immorality, so he doesn't have to act on it. He wants to be ignorant/innocent, but circumstances (and Saint-Just) are making that impossible.
"...now I picture that scholarship student, reading his address to an absent King in the pouring rain, many years ago."
I loved this callback/reminder from the beginning of the book, when I had no knowledge of any of these people or their stories. You and Mantel have been masterful story weavers.
Bonus points for providing insight into two of Mrs. Patmore's side comments from the second Downton Abbey movie that I rewatched this weekend. Her Robespierre reference would have meant nothing to me before this slow read. This time I looked like that Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme :)
And now, the soul crushing chapters - Mantel will have us walk step by step slowly toward the end. The details are back, every conversation that happens in every room of note at the same time is retold in detail. Every thought is written out. Every neurosis and ugliness on display. It’s excruciating and I am sure I will cry in the end. Probably one reason I haven’t finished The Mirror and the Light after 3 years… it is like Mantel sacrifices herself on this pyre of her characters’ devotion. She writes about people whose cause devoured them whole, and I think she was that type of wordsmith - no compromise, to her last breath. It is amazing to think that she wrote it in her 20’s - and I wish everyone who wants a revolution could study history and read this book (too late for some of the revolutions but they could have at least studied history…)
As a tangent, I finally got into focus what the Toulon business was about in War and Peace - when we read it in high school (as brain fogged Russian teenagers many aeons ago) - it was mentioned a bunch of times in regard to Bolkonsky and his quest for glory, but the context completely obscured. It may not motivate me enough to re read the entire War and Peace just yet but I may get to some war scenes eventually with a new understanding…. I really think Mike Duncan’s podcast is invaluable, and yes, it is 66 episodes in Season 3, but I am tempted to continue.
"Forget Marat, and the black distress he bred; he's going to create a new Ultima Thule atmosphere, very plain, very bright, every word translucent, smooth. The air of Paris is like dried blood; he will (with Robespierre's permission and approval) make us feel that we breathe ice, silk and wine."
Ultima Thule: Dedication to G. W. G. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Thule, was the most northern location written about by Pytheas an ancient Greek explorer of Massalia (modern-day Marseille, France). Ultima Thule is a mythological furthest place.
How wonderful! Yes, Ultima Thule came up a couple of weeks ago too & I included a footnote there. And serendipitously, it appeared in Wolf Crawl last week as well. An image so good that Mantel was compelled to return to it.
Wow, what a lovely tragic poem. All the tangents produced by this book seem to be the size of the universe itself - we are at the farthest reaches, I guess that is what outstanding writing elicits in us, the readers… (tangent as well). Thank you for this link!
I believe history’s judgment of Hébert—Le Père Duchesne—is fairly unanimous: he was a thoroughly reprehensible person. But his satirical attack on Camille during the Old Cordelier affair hits uncomfortably close to the mark, at least in Mantel’s telling. He mocks Camille as a cowardly hypocrite suddenly begging the Committees for clemency for 200,000 prisoners: “Here, my brave sansculottes, here is a brave man you’ve forgotten. It is really ungrateful of you, for he declares that without him there would never have been a Revolution. Formerly he was known as My Lord Prosecutor to the Lanterne.”
It’s worth noting how closely this aligns with the Camille Mantel has constructed throughout the novel—petulant, performative, largely devoid of introspection until his sudden (and convenient) change of heart.
Mantel also makes a curious narrative choice: we spend much more time inside Robespierre’s mind than we do Camille’s or Danton’s. We’re privy to Robespierre’s private agonies, his measured ideological justifications, his tortured logic. But Camille remains opaque. I would’ve liked to inhabit his head while he was writing “Fragment of the Secret History of the Revolution.” Did he feel tension? Remorse? Was there any flicker of guilt as he publicly accused old friends of treason—men and women whose only crime was political disagreement with the Mountain? In Mantel’s version, he seems entirely casual. Even when he begins to call for clemency, there’s very little reflection.
As for Danton, his sudden advocacy for due process is depicted not as moral awakening, but as a cynical political calculation—a maneuver to outflank Robespierre. Again, maybe. But it’s also plausible that these men—Camille and Danton—saw the horror of what they’d helped unleash and tried, too late, to pull it back.
Ultimately, “A Place of Greater Safety” locates the tragedy not in the destruction of liberalism, nor in the betrayal of revolutionary ideals—but in Robespierre’s agony over having to sacrifice his disloyal friend. It’s a kind of Michael Corleone reading of the Revolution: the costs of power, the loneliness of leadership, the impossible moral calculus of purification. (Spoiler alert: we won’t even get the satisfaction of seeing Robespierre hoisted on his own petard.)
The novel Mantel could have written:
Camille is not a financial opportunist. He’s a revolutionary idealist who loses his way—morally compromised not by greed, but by loyalty. He slanders the Girondins out of loyalty to Robespierre, even as he quietly knows he’s betraying his own convictions. And when his conscience fully awakens—when he calls for clemency, for restraint—it’s too late. His old friend has become his judge. That betrayal, to me, is the emotional core of the Revolution’s tragedy.
Danton, too, is not a corrupt buffoon. He’s a political realist who tries to save the Revolution from itself, but is swallowed by the very machinery he helped build. And the Girondins—Brissot, Vergniaud, Roland, Condorcet—are not ineffectual moderates or liberal caricatures. They are principled republicans, willing to die for process, law, and the Enlightenment values the Revolution claimed to uphold.
This version of the story may actually adhere more closely to the historical record than Mantel’s.
Back to school this past week so not nearly as much time as the summer months, but my broader reaction to this stretch was an appreciation of how Mantel allows for and really leans into the collapse of the rebellious triumvirate.
Danton is no longer Danton. Max is much less of Max. And Camille, well, even if he's still Camille—so much of who he was depended on the affection of Danton and Max. Which is waning treacherously.
The observation by Lindet makes all the more sense, then, as the rational approach of this moment: "Dogged and clear-headed, he made it his business to survive from day to day; Monday to Tuesday was all he asked."
I know from the Revolutions Pod that Mike Duncan used to do these tours before the pandemic - not sure if he still does. When I was in Paris in 2023, I did visit a few cited locations but definitely did not have the level of detail I have now. All the more reason to come back.
This is getting very grim now, and I'm steeling myself for next week's chapters... As a bit (or a lot) of a tangent, I'm finding it fascinating to view the French Revolution from the vantage-point of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) in Sudhir Hazareesingh's biography of Toussaint Louverture. It's called Black Spartacus, and it's very readable.
I read ahead and finished the book a while ago because I wanted to be done with it for my trip to Paris. I took notes and scribbled into the margins, but am finding it a bit difficult to pull my thoughts together. I thought the ending was done really well!
I have quite a lot of pictures from the Musée Carnavalet and various places around Paris. Would anybody be interested? It‘s too bad we can‘t post pictures here (it worked for W&P), so where would I put them?
The best thing to do is post them as a Note in your Notes feed and link to that note here, or tag me in the note and I'll link them here. Yes, sharing photos is one of the advantages of the Chat that we don't have in the comments.
Oh poodle. I had to make a phone call, and now I come back to Comments and my lovingly-honed draft words have simply vanished! I’m afraid I don’t have the energy to go over it all again, and anyway its main purpose is to clarify my thoughts to myself, and I’ve done that. I’m a week behind—more—as well, so I will read the last harrowing chapters, and come back when I, and it, are done.
The building tension in these two chapters is almost unbearable, especially in moments where Mantel dangles the tantalising possibility of an alternative future, like when Robespierre takes Camille's hands after Claude's arrest and "immediately, imperceptibly, allegiances began to drift".
I also (somewhat belatedly!) developed a sudden interest in who is treated as an adult and who a child - this leaped out at me when Robespierre greets Louise as Citizeness Danton "as if she were a grown up person" before moving on to pat Camille on the head. Later he calls him a "spoiled child" at the Jacobin club, observing "Camille, if you were anyone else, do you think we should treat you with such indulgence." (This closely paraphrases his historical remarks). I feel that I could devote a full re-read just to highlighting every time someone treats Camille like an indulged child...
I've said it before - and I'll no doubt say it again - this all seems incredibly relevant today. I can't help thinking that the dynamics between Kennedy, Musk and Trump might be similar: best buds one day, plotting defenestration the next.
I'm surprised these people had so much time to have portraits painted - they do seem.rather busy with their intrigues. And were they capable of sitting still at all?
And Camilles none-too-private private life is an odd tangent. I mean, something else to fit into his extremely busy diary. Robespierre being slow on the uptake raised a smile with me.
But what's really catching my eye is the disconnect between the revolutionaries (who still seem to be having a fine old time) and the general population (which is starving). Brecht's 'food first, morals later' comes to mind.
We're almost at the end - in more ways than one - and I'm going to miss it.
I found it interesting that in this section we have a passage describing Max having a sleepless night. It’s a nice bookend to the sleepless night he has all the way back on pp103/104 (Fourth Estate paperback). At the time I thought the night he spent prior to sentencing someone to death for the first time was pretty horrific and nightmarish, but it’s nothing compared to the one he has now, on page 781. Then, he had at least attempted the consolation of prayer, now he cannot. He once bolted the door just once, now it’s three times. And when dawn came in the old times, he heard the hustle and bustle of warm-blooded human life, but now beyond his window he sees only shades, ghosts and slinking shadows. Life can always get worse. But Hilary always gives us some comic relief and I absolutely loved the constant references to the ‘new’ months that are never doing what they’re supposed to be doing. 😆 Thank you for guiding us nearly to the end now, Simon.
Great comparison! Well spotted.
The last two weeks, reading this has filled me with anxiety- such that I had to break it up into smaller chunks. We all know where this is headed- that makes it, if anything, even more tense.
The final few chapters of this book are almost unbearable.
Agreed, I feel sick with dread knowing what's coming. I've really started dragging my feet with the reading these past few weeks because I don't want it (them?)
to end!
I know!
Absolutely.. they don’t know yet..but we do. It’s agony!
I’m a bit behind..page 785.. but I’m not giving up. No way. I think I’ve found this more challenging, but more enjoyable than W&P last year.
💪💪💪
Me too🤦♀️
I finished this afternoon and had to go out for fresh air and a walk. My God that woman could write.
Thank you so much Simon for all of this.
You're welcome! And yes yes she could.
About 5 years ago I remember listening to the revolutions podcast and being completely shocked by the shift in Robespierre. I really appreciated Simon’s questioning about the dualities and paradoxes found within Robespierre, as they mirror some of the thoughts I had listening to the podcast years ago.
And I’m not sure that this novel has provided any real clarity either. I remember the Podcaster asserting his personal belief that something shifted inside of Robespierre after the illness (do we know what he had?) and that the final parts of the terror were overseen by someone in the midst of, if not a mania, then sever mental Health issues.
Is there a common consensus about his illness and the impact it had?
Interesting. I don't know about his illness; there is some discussion in the link I shared above. The more times I read APOGS, the less shocked or confused I become. None of it seems out-of-character to me, which is why I remembered him as a student reading the address in the rain – what Mantel does brilliantly is show how all people are made of paradox and contradiction.
For example, very early on Max decided that he should be ready to put his country before his personal friendship. He noted at the time that this was very easy for him because he had no friends, except Camille. It is easy then to see how this became a test of his own terrible theories. And in fact, so much of the Terror is the result of his ideologies rubbing up against the realities of the revolution.
So contrary to your reading Jonathon, I'd say that this novel provides a lot of clarity into Robespierre's transformation, without having to reduce it to mania or mental illness. It's more Shakespearean: Max is undone by his fatal flaws.
It’s as you said in the opening comment of the last post, that you feel like you need to read this 3 times.
Even at this point though, he is fighting for Camille and willing to work with Danton. And Mantell seems to suggest that he had a moment of clarity (mania?) during his sickness.
Do you think he would’ve been as aggressive with Camille and Danton if he didn’t have the illness that kept him out of politics for a month?
Thanks for this response as it offers a wonderful insight into Mantel’s development of character.
I suspect what Mantel is saying is that his illness moved him to action. Danton is always calling him indecisive and it is true, he hates making decisions or taking responsibility. But the sickness changes that. Also, Saint-Just makes sure Robespierre can't ignore Camille and Danton's indiscretions. Max is always trying to insulate himself from knowledge of their immorality, so he doesn't have to act on it. He wants to be ignorant/innocent, but circumstances (and Saint-Just) are making that impossible.
"...now I picture that scholarship student, reading his address to an absent King in the pouring rain, many years ago."
I loved this callback/reminder from the beginning of the book, when I had no knowledge of any of these people or their stories. You and Mantel have been masterful story weavers.
Bonus points for providing insight into two of Mrs. Patmore's side comments from the second Downton Abbey movie that I rewatched this weekend. Her Robespierre reference would have meant nothing to me before this slow read. This time I looked like that Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme :)
I am intrigued about the nature of those side comments now! I haven't seen the film.
And now, the soul crushing chapters - Mantel will have us walk step by step slowly toward the end. The details are back, every conversation that happens in every room of note at the same time is retold in detail. Every thought is written out. Every neurosis and ugliness on display. It’s excruciating and I am sure I will cry in the end. Probably one reason I haven’t finished The Mirror and the Light after 3 years… it is like Mantel sacrifices herself on this pyre of her characters’ devotion. She writes about people whose cause devoured them whole, and I think she was that type of wordsmith - no compromise, to her last breath. It is amazing to think that she wrote it in her 20’s - and I wish everyone who wants a revolution could study history and read this book (too late for some of the revolutions but they could have at least studied history…)
As a tangent, I finally got into focus what the Toulon business was about in War and Peace - when we read it in high school (as brain fogged Russian teenagers many aeons ago) - it was mentioned a bunch of times in regard to Bolkonsky and his quest for glory, but the context completely obscured. It may not motivate me enough to re read the entire War and Peace just yet but I may get to some war scenes eventually with a new understanding…. I really think Mike Duncan’s podcast is invaluable, and yes, it is 66 episodes in Season 3, but I am tempted to continue.
"Forget Marat, and the black distress he bred; he's going to create a new Ultima Thule atmosphere, very plain, very bright, every word translucent, smooth. The air of Paris is like dried blood; he will (with Robespierre's permission and approval) make us feel that we breathe ice, silk and wine."
Ultima Thule: Dedication to G. W. G. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44652/ultima-thule-dedication-to-g-w-g
Thule, was the most northern location written about by Pytheas an ancient Greek explorer of Massalia (modern-day Marseille, France). Ultima Thule is a mythological furthest place.
A tangent I could go down for days.
How wonderful! Yes, Ultima Thule came up a couple of weeks ago too & I included a footnote there. And serendipitously, it appeared in Wolf Crawl last week as well. An image so good that Mantel was compelled to return to it.
I'm behind on Wolf Crawl and I must have missed it before.
No prob, never can have too much Ultima Thule. Here's the previous footnote:
https://footnotesandtangents.substack.com/i/171049459/ultima-thule
Interestingly, it is also the name of the farthest asteroid in our solar system visited by a spacecraft.
Wow, what a lovely tragic poem. All the tangents produced by this book seem to be the size of the universe itself - we are at the farthest reaches, I guess that is what outstanding writing elicits in us, the readers… (tangent as well). Thank you for this link!
I believe history’s judgment of Hébert—Le Père Duchesne—is fairly unanimous: he was a thoroughly reprehensible person. But his satirical attack on Camille during the Old Cordelier affair hits uncomfortably close to the mark, at least in Mantel’s telling. He mocks Camille as a cowardly hypocrite suddenly begging the Committees for clemency for 200,000 prisoners: “Here, my brave sansculottes, here is a brave man you’ve forgotten. It is really ungrateful of you, for he declares that without him there would never have been a Revolution. Formerly he was known as My Lord Prosecutor to the Lanterne.”
It’s worth noting how closely this aligns with the Camille Mantel has constructed throughout the novel—petulant, performative, largely devoid of introspection until his sudden (and convenient) change of heart.
Mantel also makes a curious narrative choice: we spend much more time inside Robespierre’s mind than we do Camille’s or Danton’s. We’re privy to Robespierre’s private agonies, his measured ideological justifications, his tortured logic. But Camille remains opaque. I would’ve liked to inhabit his head while he was writing “Fragment of the Secret History of the Revolution.” Did he feel tension? Remorse? Was there any flicker of guilt as he publicly accused old friends of treason—men and women whose only crime was political disagreement with the Mountain? In Mantel’s version, he seems entirely casual. Even when he begins to call for clemency, there’s very little reflection.
As for Danton, his sudden advocacy for due process is depicted not as moral awakening, but as a cynical political calculation—a maneuver to outflank Robespierre. Again, maybe. But it’s also plausible that these men—Camille and Danton—saw the horror of what they’d helped unleash and tried, too late, to pull it back.
Ultimately, “A Place of Greater Safety” locates the tragedy not in the destruction of liberalism, nor in the betrayal of revolutionary ideals—but in Robespierre’s agony over having to sacrifice his disloyal friend. It’s a kind of Michael Corleone reading of the Revolution: the costs of power, the loneliness of leadership, the impossible moral calculus of purification. (Spoiler alert: we won’t even get the satisfaction of seeing Robespierre hoisted on his own petard.)
The novel Mantel could have written:
Camille is not a financial opportunist. He’s a revolutionary idealist who loses his way—morally compromised not by greed, but by loyalty. He slanders the Girondins out of loyalty to Robespierre, even as he quietly knows he’s betraying his own convictions. And when his conscience fully awakens—when he calls for clemency, for restraint—it’s too late. His old friend has become his judge. That betrayal, to me, is the emotional core of the Revolution’s tragedy.
Danton, too, is not a corrupt buffoon. He’s a political realist who tries to save the Revolution from itself, but is swallowed by the very machinery he helped build. And the Girondins—Brissot, Vergniaud, Roland, Condorcet—are not ineffectual moderates or liberal caricatures. They are principled republicans, willing to die for process, law, and the Enlightenment values the Revolution claimed to uphold.
This version of the story may actually adhere more closely to the historical record than Mantel’s.
Back to school this past week so not nearly as much time as the summer months, but my broader reaction to this stretch was an appreciation of how Mantel allows for and really leans into the collapse of the rebellious triumvirate.
Danton is no longer Danton. Max is much less of Max. And Camille, well, even if he's still Camille—so much of who he was depended on the affection of Danton and Max. Which is waning treacherously.
The observation by Lindet makes all the more sense, then, as the rational approach of this moment: "Dogged and clear-headed, he made it his business to survive from day to day; Monday to Tuesday was all he asked."
Hi all, this is more for the resources page but look what came up in the New York Times travel section. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/travel/paris-revolution-walking-tour-app.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
This may be somewhat paywalled but here is the link to the app: parcours revolution https://apps.apple.com/us/app/parcours-r%C3%A9volution/id1528964667
I know from the Revolutions Pod that Mike Duncan used to do these tours before the pandemic - not sure if he still does. When I was in Paris in 2023, I did visit a few cited locations but definitely did not have the level of detail I have now. All the more reason to come back.
This is getting very grim now, and I'm steeling myself for next week's chapters... As a bit (or a lot) of a tangent, I'm finding it fascinating to view the French Revolution from the vantage-point of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) in Sudhir Hazareesingh's biography of Toussaint Louverture. It's called Black Spartacus, and it's very readable.
I read ahead and finished the book a while ago because I wanted to be done with it for my trip to Paris. I took notes and scribbled into the margins, but am finding it a bit difficult to pull my thoughts together. I thought the ending was done really well!
I have quite a lot of pictures from the Musée Carnavalet and various places around Paris. Would anybody be interested? It‘s too bad we can‘t post pictures here (it worked for W&P), so where would I put them?
The best thing to do is post them as a Note in your Notes feed and link to that note here, or tag me in the note and I'll link them here. Yes, sharing photos is one of the advantages of the Chat that we don't have in the comments.
Where would I find my Notes feed in the browser version?
Here: https://substack.com/home?utm_source=user-menu
Oh poodle. I had to make a phone call, and now I come back to Comments and my lovingly-honed draft words have simply vanished! I’m afraid I don’t have the energy to go over it all again, and anyway its main purpose is to clarify my thoughts to myself, and I’ve done that. I’m a week behind—more—as well, so I will read the last harrowing chapters, and come back when I, and it, are done.
The building tension in these two chapters is almost unbearable, especially in moments where Mantel dangles the tantalising possibility of an alternative future, like when Robespierre takes Camille's hands after Claude's arrest and "immediately, imperceptibly, allegiances began to drift".
I also (somewhat belatedly!) developed a sudden interest in who is treated as an adult and who a child - this leaped out at me when Robespierre greets Louise as Citizeness Danton "as if she were a grown up person" before moving on to pat Camille on the head. Later he calls him a "spoiled child" at the Jacobin club, observing "Camille, if you were anyone else, do you think we should treat you with such indulgence." (This closely paraphrases his historical remarks). I feel that I could devote a full re-read just to highlighting every time someone treats Camille like an indulged child...