Old Miquel had pointed at the gardens of the Tuileries and the Luxembourg, still filled with greenery on that sunny September day, the golden dome of the Invalides, the huge medieval fortress of the Bastille to the East, the square tower of the Temple, with its four turrets crowned with pointy slate roofs. This brought Roch back abruptly to the present.
“Yes,” said Alexandrine, “so many things have changed: the names of the streets, bridges and buildings. The statues of the Kings were overthrown, the Bastille was demolished . . .”
“But the Tower of the Temple still stands,” said Roch bitterly. “When Father and I looked at it that day, we never thought someday he would be locked there. It was not even a prison then.”
“Well, Roch, I am sure you will set your father free. I am not saying this to soothe you, but because I trust in you.”
Without thinking of it, they had crossed over to the Isle of the Fraternity and found themselves in front of Vidalenc’s stately home.
“Here we are already,” Alexandrine said softly. “Thank you.”
“No. Thank you.”
Roch bent slightly to let his lips brush against her cheek. Of course proper manners forbade such familiarities with a young lady, on a street too, but now these things did not seem to matter anymore.
25
Joseph de Limoëlan was hurrying under the sleet. In spite of the weather, he wanted to speak to Saint-Régent. The two men had a few remaining things to discuss, and Saint-Régent, by the looks of it, might not last much longer. The street was unpaved, and the gutter overflowing, turning it into a torrent of mud. A man in clogs and a patched green jacket had installed a wide plank, fitted with wheels at an extremity, atop the flow. This device allowed passersby to cross without soiling their shoes and clothes.
Limoëlan walked across the plank and put a copper coin in the man’s palm. But the rascal begged for more in a heavily accented, guttural voice. Limoëlan shrugged and went his way. Another Auvergnat. Those scoundrels were little better than beggars, and the whole city was infested with them. A few feet away a woman, unable or unwilling to pay the man’s toll, unceremoniously rolled up her skirts and piggybacked on her companion.
At the Guillou house, Limoëlan was taken aback when he saw his comrade sitting in an easy chair in his bedroom. Saint-Régent was still pale, but his gaze was steady. The man, in spite of his light build, was resilient. He had been wounded on many occasions before, in the King’s Navy before the Revolution, and in skirmishes during his years as a Chouan. Limoëlan frowned. This unexpected recovery might complicate matters.
“You look well,” said Limoëlan thoughtfully. He paused. “I have bad news.”
“You mean more bad news?”
“Francis had a note from Gillard this morning. A man, an Auvergnat, came to the Mayenne Inn last night. And he asked about you and Francis by name.”
Saint-Régent swore. “Francis is still living with his sister and niece, isn’t he? Snug and comfortable, ensconced in that filthy hole.”
“Come, Saint-Régent, you never liked Francis, but this is hardly the time—”
“I don’t see what’s to like in that fellow. And you could think of nothing better than to send him to Bourmont to offer his services as a valet. Bourmont, that traitor who now visits Bonaparte daily at the Tuileries!”
“Precisely. George wanted me to keep an eye on Bourmont. And Bourmont had been Francis’s General before the Pacification.”
“Then unless he is a complete fool, he must have seen through Francis all along. How could you expect a man like Bourmont, who has a young wife, to keep Francis as a servant under his roof ? All the scoundrel got was to work in Bourmont’s stables. The result is that Francis learned nothing about Bourmont, but Bourmont may well have learned the address of Francis’s sister.” Saint-Régent glowered at Limoëlan. “And what if Bourmont tells his new friends about Francis? If arrested, Francis will talk. Don’t try to deny it, you know it as well as I do. You may be willing to take that risk, but I am not.”
“So what do you propose?”
“Bring Francis under some pretext to the Bois de Boulogne tonight. Any secluded spot will do. I guess you are too fond of him to deal with him yourself, but I am feeling better now. I will be waiting for the two of you and make sure he gets what he deserves. A bullet between the eyes.”
Limoëlan flushed with anger. “It is out of the question. I am in charge of this, and I want you to leave Francis alone. At least until I receive George’s instructions.”
Saint-Régent’s breathing became more rapid. There was fear, and anger too, in his eyes. “You really don’t understand, Limoëlan, do you? This is an emergency. There’s no time to wait for George’s orders. Francis is a danger to all of us, to the cause. Why are you always protecting that piece of filth?”
“I simply don’t want him killed at this time. Why draw attention to us?”
Saint-Régent shrugged. “If that’s your only objection, I can kill him somewhere on the banks. I will push the body into the river, and no one will be the wiser.”
“Again, leave Francis alone!” said Limoëlan in a sharper tone. “After all, he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Are you suggesting that I did?”
“You used a fuse to detonate the powder, didn’t you? After I told you to use an ember!”
Saint-Régent’s knuckles turned white as he grasped the arms of his chair. “Are you calling me a coward? The fuse wasn’t the problem. The problem was that English powder you gave me. The best quality, you said! It was garbage, it detonated two or three seconds later than it should have. And since we’re talking of cowardice, pray let’s speak about you. You were supposed to signal the arrival of Bonaparte’s carriage.”
Limoëlan flushed. “And I did!”
“Do you think I am as blind as you? It was all you had to do: signal to me, and from a safe distance too. But no, you couldn’t even do that! What was it? Last minute remorse? Or were you soiling your trousers? Whatever the reason, I didn’t get the advance notice I needed. I only saw the carriage when it turned onto Rue Nicaise. That left me precious little time. One of the guards shoved me against the wall and almost knocked me out. But I still rushed back to the cart to light the powder. The explosion nearly killed me.” Saint-Régent half-rose from his chair. “Now don’t dare say this is my fault, or call me a coward. Mind you, I wrote George about the disaster, and your part in it. If it were not for you, your incompetence, your weakness, Bonaparte would have perished.”
Limoëlan, his pulse racing, drew away from Saint-Régent. “There is no point in quarrelling at this time. This is exactly what the enemies of the cause would want us to do. Let’s wait for George’s decision. For everything.”
Saint-Régent, breathing fast, sat back wearily in his chair. “What about Francis?” he asked, his brow furrowed. “If you want to keep him alive, you must move him to a place that scoundrel Bourmont doesn’t know.”
“What of the Convent of Saint-Michel? Blanche Coudert should be able to help. She could convince her friend the Mother Superior to hide Francis.”
“I wish you would leave Madame Coudert out of this. She is doing enough for the cause as it is.”
Here Limoëlan’s assessment differed from Saint-Régent’s, but there were a few things Saint-Régent did not know. In any event, this was not the time to discuss Blanche’s merits.
“And I don’t like the way Francis watches her,” continued Saint-Régent. “You would think he is ready to pounce on her.”
“It doesn’t mean anything. Francis watches all women like that.”
“But Madame Coudert is not like any other woman. Keep that swine away from her. And another thing: you will need to move Francis’s sister as well. She knows too much. You can’t expect the Mother Superior to house both Francis and his sister. Their little habits might be a bit disconcerting to the nuns.”
“I know of another place for the sister. In fact, I am going to take care of this right
away. Take some rest and don’t worry about a thing.”
He patted a sullen Saint-Régent on the shoulder.
Limoëlan headed for Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, where Francis lived with his sister. On one point Saint-Régent was right. Those two would need to be separated. But it might not be easy to pry them apart. What if, in spite of the risk of arrest, Francis balked? Well, Limoëlan would use Blanche for that as well. Saint-Régent might not like it, but he did not need to know about it.
That ridiculous infatuation of Saint-Régent’s seemed to have begun as soon as the man had arrived in Paris last November. He and Limoëlan would meet Blanche at Mademoiselle de Cicé’s modest entresol on Rue Cassette.
“It was a hard life waging war on the Republic,” Saint-Régent would tell the ladies. “I, as an officer, was dressed in bits and pieces of uniforms taken from the enemy, when I didn’t wear a peasant’s clothes. We all survived on a few francs a month, a pittance doled out by the English government.” Yet now, thanks to the generous funds received in preparation for the attack, Saint-Régent was dressed in the latest fashions.
“When I think of the sufferings you brave young men have endured for the cause!” exclaimed Mademoiselle de Cicé.
Blanche, her face slightly inclined to the side, said nothing. She was content to smile graciously at Saint-Régent and make little sympathetic noises. Limoëlan was sure that the recitation of Saint-Régent’s exploits, though ostensibly addressed to the company, was meant to impress her. Yet Limoëlan very much doubted that Saint-Régent had much of a chance. Blanche accepted his attentions, but Saint-Régent was not rich enough, brilliant enough, handsome enough to tempt her. Actually it was not even a matter of looks.
Certainly, Saint-Régent, with his ferret’s face and narrow shoulders, was no beauty, but it was the grinding poverty of his childhood, the harsh years in the Navy, and finally the horrors of the insurgency that had left their mark. There always remained something rustic, uncouth, unpolished, cruel too about him.
“We would ambush the Republic’s troops in moors, in woods, in villages,” Saint-Régent continued, his gaze fixed on Blanche’s face. “Oh, Madame Coudert, you have no idea . . . Those villages! Once bustling, now deserted, reduced to blackened rubble around the ruins of churches. There was no quarter, for neither side took prisoners.”
Mademoiselle de Cicé blessed herself.
“And after each skirmish,” continued Saint-Régent, “I would retreat to my green château.”
He paused. Blanche asked with mild curiosity: “Your green château? You were hiding in a château, Sir?”
Saint-Régent beamed at Blanche. “Oh, Madame, this is the name I gave my retreat. A matter of derision. In fact, it was a sort of burrow, made of mud and branches, deep in the forest of Récœur.”
Blanche giggled. “You are quite the humorist, Monsieur de Saint-Régent!”
What Saint-Régent was not saying was that, at the time, he kept a concubine, a peasant girl by the name of Lucile, in that green château of his. But, guessed Limoëlan, there was no need to bring that detail to the attention of the ladies.
“Then, last spring,” intoned Saint-Régent, “when Bonaparte declared the West pacified, some cowards among us stopped fighting. Not me. Never! I went from village to village, tearing from the walls of town halls the proclamations that offered us an amnesty.”
Blanche, her mouth slightly open, gave a very good impression of interest in Saint-Régent’s narrative, and the poor fellow clearly believed that he was making progress with his fair listener. Limoëlan watched it all with faint amusement and shrugged.
“But the insurgency was not quelled,” continued Saint-Régent. “We only changed tactics. I took the head of a group of trusted comrades, and we attacked the stagecoaches that carried the government’s gold. That money would otherwise have fed the Republic’s armies and its godless schools. All I was doing was seizing it in the name of the King, its rightful owner. It was all sent to George’s treasurer, except for what I needed for myself and my men.”
“I would not doubt it for a moment, Sir,” said Mademoiselle de Cicé, nodding gravely.
Limoëlan was becoming irritated. To him those stagecoach attacks, though condoned by George, seemed uncomfortably close to vulgar highway robbery. “I heard, Saint-Régent,” he interjected, “that, in the process of confiscating the Republic’s gold for the King’s benefit, you also relieved travelers of their money and jewelry.”
Saint-Régent jumped in his seat and glared at his comrade. His piercing blue eyes, set too close to his pointy nose, flashed with anger. “Only those travelers who were enemies of the cause.”
He returned his attention to Blanche. “I am not the one to sing my own praises, Madame Coudert, but I rather distinguished myself by a series of daring feats. One day, you see, my men and I ambushed the stagecoach on which the newly appointed Constitutional Bishop of Quimper was traveling to his Episcopal See. A renegade, a defrocked priest who had sworn allegiance to the Republic, to the Revolution!”
“Indeed, Monsieur de Saint-Régent,” said Mademoiselle de Cicé, “those so-called constitutional priests make a mockery of the sole true Church.”
Blanche was now paying full attention to Saint-Régent. “So what did you do?” she asked in a low voice.
Saint-Régent grinned proudly. “What do you think, Madame Coudert? I pulled the false Bishop from the stagecoach and shot him right between the eyes.” Saint-Régent, with an expression of childish delight, extended his arm and pointed his index and middle fingers at her. “Like this, point-blank!”
He did not seem to notice that Blanche shuddered and turned pale. That was one of the problems with Madame Coudert: she seemed to believe that one could make an omelet without breaking any eggs.
But she was beautiful enough to turn most men into beasts, which could prove very helpful on occasion. Sometimes one had to use defiled instruments in the service of the cause. Limoëlan had no scupples asking Blanche to take full advantage of her allurements. She certainly had no virtue to lose. Thanks to Mademoiselle de Cicé, he had known from the time of his arrival in Paris that Blanche was no better than a slut. She was utterly depraved, in fact.
She was the very opposite of Mademoiselle Julie d’Albert, Limoëlan’s fiancée. Certainly Julie lacked Blanche’s startling beauty and elegance, but the sweetness of her face matched the purity of her soul. He had seen angels beaming down at him from heaven on the day when his sister Marie-Thérèse had introduced them and Julie had smiled at him for the first time.
26
In Blanche’s bedroom the maids had long closed the shutters and drawn the pink silk curtains, but she could hear the patting of heavy rain on the cobblestones of the courtyard below. She walked to a dainty mahogany and gilt bronze table and picked up a copy of Les Souffrances du Jeune Werther, a present from Roch. Not to read it, for she no longer found any comfort in reading. The leather volume opened at the page where, an hour earlier, she had slipped Limoëlan’s note.
I will be waiting for you in front of Saint-Sulpice at eight o’clock. Be on time.
Already it was past seven. She twisted the scrap of paper between her fingers. The Couderts had received an invitation to a ball at Félicie de Nallet’s tonight, and now Blanche would have to excuse herself. Of course a sudden cold was nothing out of the ordinary in this season, and Félicie was enough of a friend to forgive this transparent last-minute illness. But Blanche worried about Coudert. She would try to convince him to leave her at home, and he would probably insist on keeping her company. There would be a discussion, questions, explanations, lies, and Blanche would never reach Saint-Sulpice by eight.
Her first reaction had been to disregard Limoëlan’s note, and go to Félicie’s as planned, but she had reconsidered. Limoëlan’s tone was not friendly. Oh, he had never directly threatened her, but he had made no mystery of his unhappiness with the failure of her latest mission. Yet what else could she have done? Now she had to buy time
, and the only way to pacify Limoëlan for a while was to do his bidding tonight.
A single silvery chime of the clock on the mantel startled her. Half past seven already. There was no time to change her gown. It was new, of white satin, embroidered in gold at the hem with a Greek pattern, and it would undoubtedly be ruined if she went out on foot in this downpour. But that was of little account. Blanche tossed away her dainty matching shoes across the room and hurried to her wardrobe. She seized a pair of sturdier riding boots, which she promptly laced up. Then she picked at random a red velvet pelisse, threw it on her shoulders and ran down the service staircase. An astonished footman gave way to her.
Now she was on the street, running away from her house. She had forgotten to take an umbrella or even put on a bonnet, and it was too late to return. The rain drenched her black hair, so carefully curled by her maids, and ran in icy rivulets down her neck and between her breasts. She shivered, paused to slip on her pelisse and prayed to meet a hackney soon.
At last one was coming her way. She waved and hailed it at the top of her voice, but if the driver saw her, he made no sign of pulling on his reins. She huddled against the wall of a house and closed her eyes as the carriage passed her by. Droplets of mud prickled her lips. She wiped them with the tips of her fingers and resolved to walk to Saint-Sulpice.
Water oozed out of her boots with each step, but she pressed on. She was out of breath by the time she came in sight of the round towers of the Church of Saint-Sulpice. Her heart quickened when she distinguished, under the bare chestnut trees, a waiting hackney, black and shiny in the rain. She steadied herself and knocked at the window of the carriage.
Indeed Limoëlan was waiting inside. His face was hidden in the shadows, but his lanky frame was unmistakable.
“You are late,” he remarked coldly.
“I couldn’t find a hackney.”
“So I see, Madame.” She detected a hint of amusement in his voice and shivered. It felt still colder inside the hackney. “This is an emergency,” continued Limoëlan.
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