Hilary Mantel Quote
Camille said, Your trouble is, you’re backtracking. I heard you, saying the Estates would save the country. Two years ago you said nothing was possible unless we got rid of the monarchy first. Which is it, which is it to be? No, don’t answer. And will there be an inquiry into the cause of these riots? No. A few people will be hanged, that’s all. Why? Because nobody dares to ask what happened—not Louis, not Necker, not even the Duke himself. But we all know that Réveillon’s chief crime was to stand for the Estates against the candidate put up by the Duke of Orléans. There was a hush. One should have guessed, Charpentier said. One never anticipated the scale of it, Brissot whispered. It was planned, yes, and people were paid—but not ten thousand people. Not even the Duke could pay ten thousand people. They acted for themselves. And that upsets your plans?
Camille said, Your trouble is, you’re backtracking. I heard you, saying the Estates would save the country. Two years ago you said nothing was possible unless we got rid of the monarchy first. Which is it, which is it to be? No, don’t answer. And will there be an inquiry into the cause of these riots? No. A few people will be hanged, that’s all. Why? Because nobody dares to ask what happened—not Louis, not Necker, not even the Duke himself. But we all know that Réveillon’s chief crime was to stand for the Estates against the candidate put up by the Duke of Orléans. There was a hush. One should have guessed, Charpentier said. One never anticipated the scale of it, Brissot whispered. It was planned, yes, and people were paid—but not ten thousand people. Not even the Duke could pay ten thousand people. They acted for themselves. And that upsets your plans?
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About Hilary Mantel
Mantel won the Booker Prize twice: the first was for her 2009 novel Wolf Hall, a fictional account of Thomas Cromwell's rise to power in the court of Henry VIII, and the second was for its 2012 sequel Bring Up the Bodies. The third installment of the Cromwell trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, was longlisted for the same prize. The trilogy has gone on to sell more than 5 million copies.