Free Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly Page A

would care to help me?” Lili says, with an edge to her voice.
    “I’ll help you,” Dad says, following her into the kitchen.
    “Is it true, G? Dad’s involved in this for a publicity angle?” I ask. It doesn’t sound like my father. He’s famous but he doesn’t care. All that matters to him, all that’s ever mattered to him, is the work.
    “Yes, it’s true,” G says. “But it’s my publicity angle, not his. The museum will include a permanent exhibition on the story behind the heart and the process of testing it. Your father knows how much the museum means to me. That’s why he agreed to lend his name to this project. With his participation, we are certain of generating huge interest. From the newspapers, television, and the Internet. And interest brings money.”
    “So what’s the story? You still haven’t told me.”
    “No, I haven’t,” G says. “What you have to understand about the French Revolution, Andi, is this: though it was powerful enough to topple a centuries-old monarchy, it was also extremely fragile. Always under attack. And those who led the rebellion, those who fervently believed human beings deserved something better than the tyranny of kings, tried to defend it. Often quite ruthlessly.”
    “Um, G?” I cut in. “I meant the story about the heart. I pretty much know the history part.”
    G raises an eyebrow. “Do you?”
    “Yeah. I studied the French Revolution in school. And the American, Russian, Chinese, and Cuban revolutions. Revolutions are really big at St. Anselm’s. I mean, even the preschoolers wear Che hats.”
    G laughs. “So tell me, then,” he says. “What do you know?”
    “Well, um … France was bankrupt, the workers were starving, the aristocracy was pissed off, yada yada. So the three estates—representatives from the commons, the clergy, and the nobility—banded together, called themselves the National Assembly, and overthrew the king. Austria, England, and Spain didn’t like that, so they attacked France. Some of the French didn’t like it either, so civil war broke out. Maximilien Robespierre took advantage of all the chaos to consolidate power. Then he sparked up the Terror and guillotined his enemies, which was pretty much everybody, including more moderate revolutionaries who tried to stop him—like Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins. When the rest of the Assembly finally woke up to the fact that he was a psychopath, they guillotined him. A new government was formed, the Directory, but it didn’t last long. Napoléon Bonaparte made a power grab and declared himself emperor. And then it was kind of back to square one for France. So, yeah, that’s it. In a nutshell.”
    “In a nutshell?” G says, wincing. “A nutshell? This is the French Revolution! There is no nutshell!”
    G hates shortcuts. He hates synopses, sound bites, and short attention spans and blames them all on America. His book on the Rev is eleven hundred pages long.
    “Come on, G, tell me about the heart,” I say. It’s so wrong, that tiny heart in a glass urn. I want to know how it got there.
    “Very well,” he sighs. “We take up the story in 1793. The monarchy has fallen. War is raging. France has declared itself a republic and the royal family has been imprisoned in Paris, in an ancient stone fortress called the Temple. The king is convicted of crimes against the republic and guillotined. The queen soon follows him. After their deaths, their son Louis-Charles is kept in the Temple. He is a child, only eight years old, but as heir to the throne, he poses an enormous threat to the Revolution. There are those who want to free him and rule in his name. To prevent his escape, Robespierre essentially has him walled-up alive. He’s isolated in a cold, dark tower with little human contact. He has no fire to warm himself and only rags for clothing. He is lonely and terrified. He becomes weak and sick. Eventually, he goes mad.”
    “That’s horrible! How could people let