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—So he'd left London and boarded a ship, and now he's sitting in a flea-ridden inn at the edge of Calais. The town had felt dirty and tense as he walked through its streets at dusk: now the night is unseasonably icy for late April – what is France calling it now?— Floréal—
—of all the idiotic names. England huddles his coat around him and swallows cheap, sour wine: quickly, as if someone might take it from him.
French wine has really gone down, the past few years.
It's quite safe for him to be on French soil, because France is far too busy with the wreckage of a tottering, blood-soaked capital to care if England happens to have felt like getting away from London for a bit. He's stronger than France – and Martinique is his now – even if France did realise that he was around, it wouldn't matter, not a whit. He can go where he likes.
France has gone mad – or his people have – and if he can't look after his colonies, then someone else will. Someone far more competent and powerful: someone like England.
—England is always going to win, from now on.
"Encore un verre," he says, and they bring him one. He hadn't wanted to sit in his beautiful London parlour any longer, looking at the new porcelain lying coolly before him on the table – thinking about America, bloody America building a navy. As if the land wasn't enough – he has to have the seas as well – the seas that are England's.
The Channel was smooth today, there was little wind. England swallows his thin wine and says, indistinctly, to nobody, "L'excès du vin dégrade l'homme. —Mais enfin, le goût du vin n'est pas un crime. 'M not a – not – l'homme. Wish I bloody was, take arsenic like – Chatterton – be sorry." He spills wine over the table in front of him.
In Martinique, things will be as he wishes. Everything done rightly – the colony will be run just as nature and England have ordained.
He has no time for France's ridiculous bloody cant about égalité. He tries to say, "Encore un verre," but his voice knots up because he is so drunk, so intolerably drunk, and he thinks, I'm seven – no, seventeen sheets to the wind – and starts to giggle, and his eyes burn.
He's damned if he'll weep in this terrible French inn and be laughed at by French peasants, so he throws the money on the table with a clink, and stamps out – but the cold air makes him feel better: he's not, after all, drunk enough for tears. He watches his breath steaming in the silvery darkness, and then a soft, friendly voice says, "Angleterre – how very, very pleasing to have you here."
England says, "What the hell. Why are you – I thought you were in Paris."
It's almost too dark to see France – only the shadowy dim shape of him is visible. "You're always in Paris, these days," England says.
"Oh, England. Do you think me – dull? Unvaried? That is terribly wounding, mon petit." France has come out of the black gaping doorway; now he stands a few feet away from England, voice very clear in the icy air. He hasn't tried to touch England, not yet. "I am in Paris as much as befits me," he says, "But my nation is – you will hardly understand, Angleterre – très grand."
England is drunk enough to be quite frank. "Fuck off," he says. "I'm leaving, all right? I never wanted to see you and I wouldn't have come if I hadn't been sure you wouldn't be here, and I'm going now."
France has closed the distance between them and taken hold of England's arm. He whispers, "When they said I was in Paris – they said they saw me there, but sometimes I had gone to Arras, you know. Or I moved freely in and out of Nantes – I watched Beaurepaire die at Verdun – they said I was never away, that I spent all my days in the Place de la Révolution – whatever I might do at night – that I liked to watch." He lifts a hand to stroke back England's hair from his forehead, a hand that feels much rougher than it once did. "I would expect you to understand me better, Angleterre. I really would. My little – friend."
France kisses England's pursed mouth, and England is so shocked at the sensation of unshaven, prickly skin – suddenly and roughly against his – that he doesn't try to wriggle away. His lips and chin are smarting, and he thinks, I'll have a rash tomorrow, if he keeps this up for long – the bastard.
—He kisses France back, because he can be rough too. Their teeth knock together and France pulls away for a second, then bites England's lip, quite hard.
The inn door opens, because it is late now, and everyone has to go home – tomorrow they must not be incapable of performing the duties of the citoyens of France – and the noise spilling out into the dark street is just like it must have been a decade earlier. France has possessed himself of England's wrist – and of course – of course he knows the way round to the yard at the back, the yard which is dark and empty, and where they will not be interrupted – England has misgivings now, but they've arrived rather late.
His face is uncomfortably cold against the wall: France's weight presses him close to the damp stone and the chill seeps through the cloth of his coat and shirt – his chest gets colder and colder, but he is taking great, deep breaths of the smell of France.
France smells different, like new sweat – the parfumiers must have stopped supplying him – it's more like – more like America.
As England thinks it, France murmurs, "Angleterre." He kisses the back of England's neck. And then his teeth are in England's wrist – and his other hand is down the back of England's breeches. A finger slides into him, and England takes another deep breath of the utterly confusing, utterly upsetting smell of France, or of America, and comes hard, forcing his eyes to stay open through the waves of weakness because he is in France – with France.
France has found the fumbling too slow – for him, that is: it seems to have been good enough for this limp England, sandwiched between him and the wall – so he drags England's breeches down to his knees, and after that everything can happen a lot more swiftly and easily. England hears France spitting wetly into his hand, and then – he hears himself moan aloud into the still Calais night.
Everyone else is safely under hatches: very sensible, very sans-culotte – very un-aristocratic. Only England is being fucked against a damp wall in the dark – with his face to the stone, but somehow it still feels decadent and rather awful.
His knees are trembling and the sticky breeches are colder and colder against his skin. The only warm thing is France behind him, who is taking forever to finish – two nations, England thinks: twice as long. Laughter starts to bubble up inside him, but he bites down on his lip – sore with kissing – because he has realised, suddenly, that he's just a bit afraid of France, actually. Not usually, but now.
His eyes sting again, and he shivers – the extra little movement seems to be what France needed, because he shudders hugely against England and comes, burying his face in England's shoulder. His long, unwashed hair spills onto England's bare neck, and England feels like a moth pinned to a card.
When France lets go of him, he braces himself against the wall with one hand, and tries to arrange his clothing with the other. It's freezing, without France pressed against him. France is knocking loudly and persistently at the back door of the inn, and England, fumbling over the buttons of his breeches, hears the innkeeper cursing as he undoes the bolts. England shrinks back into the shadows, urgently needing to find the handkerchief which must be there – it is certainly in one of his coat pockets, it can't be lost – so that he can clean himself up a bit: and it is there, thank goodness, so he can. Whatever France is up to now, England doesn't want to get involved – he'll settle for a moment of privacy and slightly less disgusting clothes. Perhaps, even, he can leave while France is still inside—
—No, he's coming back. He stands in the doorway, in the lamplight, just as if he knows that England is watching – and he throws an old louis d'or to the innkeeper, only there's something in his other hand – what is it? Something from inside – did that mean he'd been there all along? All the time that England was drinking there? —It's a battered red cap, and France puts it on his head like a diadem, tossing the dirty golden hair over his shoulders.
And he comes forward, out of the light, to where England is standing. The door bangs behind him. "Come to Paris, England," France says. "Come on. Come with me. It will be so much fun." He takes hold of England's wrist again, which hurts, because the wrist has already been bitten, that night – but England can't help it, his hand trembles, not because of the pain, but because France doesn't feel strong like France – he is strong like – like the mob is strong. His nails are sharp.
He says, "Tomorrow – le matin, I must see Maximilien. But tonight – une nuit blanche, non? Paris is so lovely, these days. So much fun for me, so free. Réjouissons-nous, as they say." He tucks an arm around England's waist, leading him out of the dark courtyard, back to the public street.
England breathes the odd, mingled smell again – it is not only sweat, because beneath it, unextinguished, there is still the other scent. He has known it at the Tuileries – and he stood with France in the Salon du Saturne, once, at Versailles, and that scent hung in the air – attar of roses, and irises, he thinks. Still there, although terribly faint, as though France had tried to mask it.
His face is hot, even in the cold air: his sinuses feel heavy and full. Perhaps he is going to cry. He's scared of France, and furious with himself. He wants France to let him go.
—He won't think about America.
He says, "Liberty cannot long exist," and feels France's arm tighten around him. "Among a people generally corrupt," he adds lightly, and France doesn't let go, but uses the other hand to hit him hard across the face.
England's lip splits and he tastes salty blood in his mouth. They've come to a halt in the middle of the road – France is breathing hard. England presses his face into the rough cloth of France's jacket, and his hand curls in under it, at the neck, and finds silk beneath. He twists his fingers in it, tightly, until it starts to tear.
He hears himself whispering against the material, "I want to go home. I really want to go home, now." But France hasn't heard, France is listening to something else – perhaps his people. England disengages himself gently, then, and France makes no objection.
At the end of the street, he turns to look back, and France is still standing there, making no move to follow him.
Oh, the flower of nations in his flowery month – standing there coldly like a painting of himself. And the mists coming up slowly from the sea – the sea which is the only place for England, now, to go.
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England quotes first Rousseau, and later Burke.
France quotes a version of the Ça Ira, from which the title of this story is also drawn.
England captured Martinique in March 1794.
The Indulgents were executed on 16 Germinal (at the beginning of April). Maximilien Robespierre was the dominant political figure in Paris following their deaths, until his own fall later in 1794. He was executed on 10 Thermidor.
Robespierre was born in Arras. Nantes was besieged in 1793, during the War in the Vendée. The defeat at Verdun, in 1792, preceded the better-known Battle of Valmy.