A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel - Review by Mark Cornelius
When asked what the impact of the French Revolution had been, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai observed in the 1970s that it was too soon to say. It is possible that he misunderstood the question, or that he was being academically circumspect. That period of French history has had a massive impact on the history of the world. Subsequent revolutions were shaped by it. Moreover, the National Assembly’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens in 1789 has underpinned the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while the European Convention on Human Rights was full of the provisions and language of 1789. More generally, it seems likely that the pace of social and political change would have been much slower in Europe, if the French Revolution had never happened. In trivial ways too, the Revolution has left its mark. The terms left and right wing come from 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left. The tricolour also became a symbol of liberty in Rome, Mexico City, Bucharest, Brussels and Dublin.
It is perhaps surprising then, given its importance, that the Revolution has not figured more prominently in literature. It is at this point that the review could turn into an ersatz Monty Python sketch. What about “War and Peace”, I hear you say. Well, that was sort of about Napoleon, wasn’t it? “Tale of Two Cities”? I’ll give you that one. “Les Miserables”? No, that started in 1815. “The Scarlet Pimpernel”? But that wasn’t really literature, was it?
Hilary Mantel’s 1992 book “A Place of Greater Safety” begins to fill that literature gap. And arguably it fills quite a large bit of that gap, because it is 872 pages long. It tells the stories of three main characters in the Revolution, Camille Desmoulins, Georges-Jacques Danton, and Maximilien Robespierre. It follows them almost from birth to death. Spoiler alert: the book does not end well for any of the main characters.
I loved this book. It was always difficult to put down. There are many things to recommend it. These are larger than life historical figures who are engaging, and Mantel tells their story well. The narrative is mostly in the third person, past tense. But Mantel sometimes uses the first person, and also, she sometimes shifts to pure dialogue. That doesn’t disrupt the flow, in fact it makes it more readable.
The story is not unlike a play. Most of the action takes place indoors, where people are talking to each other. Very few historical events are described directly by the author. Rather they take place “offstage” and are subsequently described by the main characters. One notable exception is when Desmoulins incites the mob that storms the Bastille – impressive for a man with a stutter.
Another reason that I loved the book was the scale of the intellectual effort that it took to write it. How much research do you need to do in order to understand the lives, loves and ambitions of three revolutionaries from the 18th century? Probably more years’ worth of reading than the Revolution itself lasted. Even physically writing the book must have taken some considerable time.
It’s not the perfect book. It is not easy to understand Danton and Robespierre’s rise to the top of Revolutionary France. Yes, they are charismatic characters. But one minute they are quite unimportant lawyers and then the next minute they are recognised leaders. Their rise no doubt is explained by their offstage actions, which we never see. Perhaps Mantel could have toyed with describing a bit more of that action. It is much easier, for instance, to accept Desmoulins’ rise to fame following the description of his part in the fall of the Bastille.
It is also not self-evident why Robespierre turns on Desmoulins and Danton. Robespierre is always described as a man of principle, and yet he turns on one of his best friends and sends him to the guillotine. Maybe it wasn’t easily explained, even at the time. Indeed, Desmoulins seemed quite put out by it!
These are small wrinkles. It is an excellent book, and good value for money with its 872 pages.