men intent on killing her, but had found the king in time. Lafayette, trying to control his National Guard that had insisted on marching in solidarity with the women, had cleverly saved the day by convincing the king and queen to speak to the crowd. And then, the king seeing no other way to save his life and that of his family, gave in to their demands and returned to Paris. Accompanying the king, the throng—sixty thousand strong—sang songs and drank wine, riding home on cannons or sitting in front of the guardsmen on their horses: victors at last.
Numbly, Camille stared as Sophie finished telling what she’d heard from her customers at the shop. “The crowd forced the royal family to come to Paris?”
“A customer had it from one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. They saw no way out. Once the king had agreed in principle to sign the constitution, it was either return to Paris, or die.”
“And where are they now?”
“In the old palace, the Tuileries. Under the watchful eye of the people of Paris.”
Agitated, Camille stood. Her mind was a storm of thoughts.
Sophie regarded her carefully. “Are you going to bed?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to print.”
“Shouldn’t you rest? You look awful, Camille.”
“I cannot,” she said, deathly quiet. “If I let my eyes close for a moment, I see that little boy. Murdered! His body broken. Legs bent as if he were trying to run, trampled upon as if he were grass!” She exhaled. “Tomorrow there will be a deluge of writing about this march and soon after, one story will come to dominate. And what if it doesn’t mention that boy?”
With a weary nod, Sophie gave up trying to convince her. After she went upstairs, Camille made her way to the printing room. As she opened its doors, she inhaled the sharp bite of ink and the soft, warm scent of paper that lingered in the air. Comforting and familiar. She lit another candelabra and the room flickered into being: an antidote to darkness.
But when she stood in front of the press, she hesitated. Her fingers hovered over the cases of type. Before her she saw again the swaying pike, the gruesome head, its long hair clotted with blood. And worse—if anything could be worse—the cheering, baying crowd. Thrilled. Ecstatic.
She’d loved their righteous anger. But she did not love the violence, nor the way it spread, like a wave, crushing everything in its path. She was a writer, a pamphleteer for the revolution. And yet she didn’t know what to do. How to write about what she’d seen.
Thousands of women had marched six hours or more in the rain, all the way from Paris to Versailles, to demand bread from their sovereign. Women and girls who had taken life in their fists and shaken it, who’d said, “I will not lie down and die. I will fight! I will make change happen, no matter what it takes!”
All of that was what she’d hoped.
But not the deaths.
What mattered, and how? How would she put what she’d seen into words? She could describe it—this happened, and then this—but it wouldn’t be what she had felt. In her ear, she heard Papa’s ghost whisper:
Be clear and simple with the words you use. The goal of any pamphlet is to persuade.
But what simple words could convey what she had seen?
And persuade her readers of what? That had never been a question before. The girls’ lives had been riddled with pain, sorrow, crime, and abuse, but she’d known it was right to tell their stories. To tell them true. But this?
What was this truth?
She gripped the wooden beams of the press. The smooth oak was warm under her touch. It steadied her. The fever—the magic—ran along her skin like its own fire. Feeding her, strengthening her. And as she set the letters for the first sentence, her magic rose.
VIVE LA RÉVOLUTION
Papa had lived—and died—for this idea. Freedom and justice, equality between men. He’d given up their family’s livelihood because of his beliefs.
She gritted her teeth. That little boy.
Angry tears scorched in the corners of her eyes. Picking up a tiny piece of type, she held it up to the light.
It was a question mark.
In the wavering candlelight, it curved like a snake. A river. A scythe.
Magic, hot and wild, slithered along the back of her neck, igniting her mind and racing down her arms into her fingers as the words gathered in her. Sentences unspooling, words laid out in rows like marching