The Song Peddler of the Pont Neuf

by Laura Lebow

  “But I was told this place is open to the public,” she protested as he took her arm and led her toward the gate.

  “It’s not open to the likes of you,” the guard said.

  Aimée stopped and stared. “Why won’t he allow her in?” she asked.

  “She’s a domestic servant,” I said. “They aren’t allowed.” I took her arm. “Come along, let’s look in the windows of the shops.”

  We strolled along the colonnaded portico that lined the eastern building of the development. Aimée pulled me toward a fashion merchant’s shop. As I did every week, I stood patiently as she gaped at the array of ribbons, hats, and feathers displayed in the window.

  “I’d love to work here,” she said. “Look how elegant the customers are! And such colors!” She grasped my arm. “I wonder—couldn’t I leave Madame Garsault and come to work here? I would make some money. You wouldn’t have to pay for my training anymore.” She glanced out of the corner of her eye at me to see if her pleas were having any effect.

  I laughed. “Sorry, chérie. You must stay where you are. You have a good mistress and a bright future. The last thing I need is to worry about you out on your own in Paris.”

  She stuck her tongue out at me and took my arm. We strolled by a large wineshop and an establishment selling gourmet foodstuffs.

  “So tell me,” Aimée said. “How is your work? Do you have any new cases?”

  “Yes, one. A missing persons case.”

  “You’re not in any danger, are you?” she asked.

  “No. I’ve told you before, I mostly just follow people around and sometimes ask questions. It’s actually very dull.”

  “Have you been out to visit Bernard?”

  “No, not lately. I’ve been busy.”

  “You should go every week,” she scolded. “You two should talk more.”

  “It’s not my fault he’s so—”

  “It doesn’t matter whose fault anything is. All you two do is fight. I want my brothers to be closer. Besides, you know I can’t go to him and he can’t come to me. You’re our go-between. So go see him.”

  I gave a mock salute. “Yes, mademoiselle.”

  “Ooh, look over here, at this picture.” Aimée ran to the window of a bookstore and pointed at an etching that sat in the middle of the display. “I think that is Mademoiselle Violette, the actress. She is so beautiful. She must have lovely clothes and jewels.”

  I glanced at the picture. The actress wore a simple muslin dress and bonnet in the style of a shepherdess. I leaned in and looked closely at the woman’s almond-shaped eyes. The artist had scrupulously drawn in her long lashes, and somehow had managed to capture a calm intelligence, tinged perhaps with wariness.

  Near the garden’s billiard hall, we passed a middle-aged woman walking with a young girl, the child bundled up in scarves against the cold.

  “Come Marie, don’t dawdle,” the woman called as the girl paused to admire a small dog who was leading his master into a long arbor of trees that ran parallel to the arcade of shops.

  “Yes, Maman.” The child skipped to her mother.

  Aimée sighed. “I miss Maman,” she said softly.

  “She’s been gone a long time now,” I said.

  “I can hardly remember her face, or her voice.”

  “You were so small when she died,” I said. I squeezed her arm.

  “Tell me again, what she looked like.”

  I hesitated. Should I describe our mother as I remember her, a worn-out husk of a woman, with a gray pallor, her body stooped from work? She must have been beautiful once, when she was young, when our father had first noticed her working in his family’s kitchen. Should I tell Aimée about the cycle of my youth—about the nights when Father came to visit Maman in the small apartment he had rented for us near his fine mansion, how Bernard and I huddled in our bed listening to him grunting over her? Should I describe her in the months afterwards, as her belly became swollen until she could barely move? Should I tell my sister about the many nights over the years when we boys would hide with our hands over our ears to block out Maman’s screams as the midwife and neighboring women tried to soothe her? Should I mention the invariable wails and weeping that followed her ordeal?

  “She looked just like you,” I said. “She was beautiful.”

  By this time we had neared the southern end of the garden, where a fourth building had been planned. But the duc had run out of money once again, and had instead thrown up a wooden gallery with huts for rent. It had been dubbed the “Camp of the Tartars” because of the swags of drapes and exotic lanterns that decorated the huts. Here was where the underbelly of the Palais Royal operated—its thieves, prostitutes, and gamblers. I steered Aimée away and across the garden to the other side.

  At the Café Corrazza, people sat drinking coffee at outside tables despite the cold of the day. A man had climbed atop a box and was haranguing the crowd about Prussia’s attempts to discredit Austria here in Paris.

  “I know the queen is from Austria,” Aimée said, “but where is Prussia? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “To the northeast, far away,” I said.

  We walked past a waxworks show, where a swarthy man with stubble on his face was hawking tickets. As he leered at my sister, I pulled her closer to me. Aimée seemed deep in thought, and was oblivious to his stares.

  “You are quiet all of the sudden,” I said. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Oh, I just wish I had some money of my own,” she replied.

  I laughed. “What for? To buy some chocolates at La Faye? I can get those for you.”

  She frowned. “No. Not for anything silly like that. No, I’d like to hire you to find someone for me.”

  “You want to hire me? Who do you want to find? Some young man?” I slapped her arm playfully.

  She pushed my hand away. “I am serious. It is my friend, Juliette. Juliette Lesage. You remember, you met her once, that day you came to church with me.”

  I stopped and thought. I vaguely remembered a very young-looking, petite fourteen-year-old girl with a heart-shaped face, curly blond hair, and a strong provincial accent. “Yes, I do remember her. Has something happened to her?”

  Aimée chewed on her lip. “I haven’t seen her in church for a month now. She left her mistress a few months ago. The woman couldn’t afford to keep her, so she released Juliette from her apprenticeship. The last time I saw her, she told me that she was about to start working for a new mistress. I haven’t seen her since.”

  “Chérie, there is probably a logical explanation for that. Maybe the new mistress doesn’t make her go to church. Or maybe the woman requires Juliette to work on Sundays.”

  “But that’s against the law!”

  “Yes it is, but many mistresses do it anyway. They are not all good women like Madame Garsault. Or it’s possible that Juliette goes to a different church now.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” Aimée said. “She told me once that she loves Saint-Eustache.”

  “Maybe she has been in church and you just haven’t seen her. That church is big, with a large congregation. Perhaps she is coming in late or slipping out early, not waiting to meet with you.”

  “You believe she’s avoiding me?” Aimée shook her head. “She would never do that. We are friends. No, I am certain she’s in some sort of trouble. Could you find her for me?”

  “Oh, chérie, I am very busy, especially with this new case,” I said.

  She gave me that look she had learned when she was four years old, the one she knew would get me to do anything she bade me.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll ask around, see what I can find. But don’t be disappointed if I do find her and it turns out she just no longer wants to be your friend.”

  “I’m certain that you are mistaken,” my sister said. “I’m worried about her. Take this down,” she commanded.

  I pulled a pencil stub and a scrap of paper from my cloak.

  “Her new mistress is Mada
me Dupré, in the rue de la Tixéranderie. At the end of the street.”

  I smiled to myself as I made a note. Aimée had remembered the name and address of her friend’s new mistress that she had learned a month ago. She’d make a good inquirer. I shoved the paper into my pocket. She took my arm and smiled.

  “Enough of all that,” she said, pointing to the confectioner’s shop ahead of us. “Now, what were you saying about buying me some chocolates?”

  • •

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  After leaving Aimée in Madame Garsault’s good hands, I went home, rested for a few hours, ate a light supper, and then went to the hotel in the rue des Bons Enfants to wait for Cobenzl. When the young Austrian diplomat emerged, I followed him to the Palais Royal, where he joined a small group of other well-dressed youths in the Café de Chartres, at the northwest corner of the garden.

  The restaurant was directly off the garden’s broad northwestern entrance, a covered area with several rows of tall stone pillars holding up a coffered wooden ceiling. I stationed myself beside a column near the wall opposite the café, where I could easily see the comings and goings at the establishment’s doorway. To my right was a busy theater where popular melodramas and farces were performed several times a day to large audiences. As I settled in for my wait, grateful that for once I was sheltered from the cold night, two young drunken dandies stumbled through the entryway. They passed in front of me, not even noting my presence, and headed to the theater.

  I shifted my position on the hard stone. More people streamed into the theater. After about ten minutes, a guard came out, looked around for any stragglers, and then pulled the doors closed. I sat and watched the windows of the restaurant. Inside, groups of men wearing the latest fashion stood chatting while waiting for tables. Waiters in long aprons hurried to and fro, bearing large trays of food and wine. My mouth watered at the thought of the delicacies the café served. I’d never been inside the place—I imagine that I’d only have been able to afford a small glass of beer, if indeed even that.

  I leaned forward, craned my neck, and looked into the garden. There were not a lot of people strolling through the grounds at this time of night, and most of the cafés at this end had moved their tables inside for the evening custom. I heard shouting and loud singing in the distance, from the Camp of the Tartars over at the other end of the garden.

  The door to the restaurant opened and a gaunt, lanky man in a waiter’s apron came outside. He leaned against a pillar and lit a pipe. I pressed myself back into the wall. He turned his head suddenly and peered into the shadows at me, but then shook his head and turned away. After a few minutes he tamped out his pipe, put it in his pocket, and went back to his work.

  A group of five men came in from the garden and entered the restaurant. Behind them trailed a tall man in a dark cloak, a hood pulled up over his head. He stopped and peered into the window of the café, as if trying to locate someone. Sometimes, when I am waiting for the subject of my surveillance to emerge from his evening entertainment, I like to play a game as I watch strangers go by, speculating about what the man or woman did for a living, and imagining his or her life story. I guessed that this man had served in the military—he had that stiff, erect posture of a professional soldier.

  “Get out of here and don’t come back!”

  I started as I heard a shout at my right. The guard, his beefy hands on the collars of the two drunken dandies, barreled out of the theater doorway. He dropped the youths a few feet away from me and went back inside.

  The young men scrambled to their feet and brushed the dirt off their fine coats.

  “Where to next?” one asked.

  “Let’s go to the Taverne Anglois,” his friend said. “I want to see if that blond waitress is there, the one with the large breasts. I think she wants me.”

  “That one? She’s too expensive for you! Wait a minute, I’ll be right there.” The youth came over to the pillar next to mine, pulled down his pants, and pissed on the stone. I edged away from him, into the shadows. He pulled up his pants, hiccupped, and then turned back to his friend. They walked off into the garden arm in arm.

  I looked over at the restaurant. The tall man in the cloak had disappeared. After a few moments Cobenzl emerged and walked into the garden. I stood and started out of the entryway. I had only taken a few steps when I noticed the tall man in the cloak come out of the arcade on my left and follow Cobenzl through the garden. Keeping my eyes on the two men, I counted to ten and proceeded after them.

  The three of us made our way diagonally across the expanse of the garden, toward the exit on the eastern side. I hung back several paces as Cobenzl and the stranger entered the eastern arcade and walked by its shops. A crowd of people milled around the exit passageway. This was a popular place for prostitutes to find clients. I picked up my pace a bit so that I would not lose Cobenzl as he entered the crowd. A moment later I saw him go into the passageway. The stranger followed him in. As I reached the passageway, I saw a short, waif-like girl with too much paint on her face approach Cobenzl. He waved her off. The girl turned to the tall man in the cloak, who was a few steps behind Cobenzl, to try her luck with him. He shot out his arm and shoved her away. She cried out and stared after him as he hurried into the street.

  I pushed myself against the wall of the passage and sidled my way through the crowd and into the street. Ahead of me, Cobenzl was hurrying past the duc d’Orléans’s stables, the stranger a few steps behind him. I followed them down the short street which led to the rue des Bons Enfants. I paused at the corner and waited while the Austrian entered his hotel. I stood silently and watched as the stranger lingered outside for a few minutes and then continued north up the street, toward the Place des Victoires.

  I woke up groggy from a fitful sleep the next morning, my nose stuffed and my head pounding. I crossed my room and pulled open the window that looked over the rue Saint-Jacques. The day was beautiful, with brilliant sunshine in a blue, cloudless sky and crisp, chilly air. I went to the washstand to rinse my face, trying to revive myself. I pulled on a shirt and a pair of breeches, then sat on my bed to put on my stockings and shoes.

  There was a flutter at the open window, and then a bright chirruping. I looked up to see a small, plump, gray canary on the sill.

  “Go on, be off,” I said, waving my arm as I went to the window. “You are in the wrong place.”

  The little bird cocked his head and studied me, then flew into the room, alighting on the back of my chair.

  I waved my arm at him, trying to get him to fly out the window. He just sat there, looking at me with a quizzical expression on his tiny face.

  I looked at his chubby breast. “You seem well-fed,” I said. “Go on, go find your real home. Someone must be looking for you.”

  A knock sounded at the door. As I opened it, I turned back to the bird. “Go on,” I said.

  “What?” My landlord stood on the landing.

  “I’m sorry, Guy. I didn’t mean you.” I stood aside to let him into the room. I pointed at the bird. “I have a visitor I can’t be rid of.”

  “Where did he come from?” Guy asked.

  “He just flew in the window.”

  “The poor little fellow. He must be lost,” Guy said. He made a sympathetic chirping noise. The bird cocked his head and looked at him. “But you can’t let him go back outside. It’s so cold. He’s not from around here. He can’t survive in this weather.”

  “He did well enough in the cold getting here,” I grumbled. “I suppose I’ll have to try to find his owner.”

  Guy laughed. “Well, you are a confidential inquirer. Maybe he’s come to hire you to find his home.”

  I raised a brow. “Was there something I can do for you?” I asked.

  “Ah, yes. That old man, the one who was here last week, is downstairs asking for you.”

  Montigny? What was he doing here? He should be at work at the cheese market. “I’ll come down with you,” I said. “I’ll leave the win
dow open.” I gestured at the little bird. “Maybe he’ll fly away.”

  I pulled on a waistcoat, buttoned it, and followed Guy down the stairs. The wineshop was busy this morning, as students from the university up the hill, porters from the nearby quais, and workers from the market two blocks to the east enjoyed their morning break with a tumbler of warmed wine. Hubert Montigny stood warming his hands by the fire, his shoulders slumped.

  “Monsieur Montigny?” I asked. “How can I help you?”

  He turned. “Oh, Monsieur Gastebois, finally, I have found you.”

  I was shocked by his appearance. His face was haggard, his eyes bloodshot. He looked as if he hadn’t slept since I had last seen him on Saturday morning.

  He looked around the crowded room. “Please, is there somewhere we could speak in private?”

  I nodded and led him upstairs to my room, which was now freezing cold. My new friend had not left, but instead had moved to the top of my cupboard. I hurried over and shut the window.

  “Please, sit,” I said, pointing the old man to my only chair. He stumbled over and fell into it. I knelt by his feet. “Tell me, what is wrong? Is it Bricon?”

  “Yes,” he murmured. “It is Gaspard. I— I’ve had some horrible news.”

  “What has happened?”

  “I was here yesterday looking for you, but the man downstairs said you had gone out. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Please, tell me. What has happened?”

  The bird flew off the cupboard and landed gently on the old man’s shoulder. Montigny seemed not to notice.

  “It is Gaspard. He is dead.”

  “Dead!”

  “Yes.” His breaths were ragged. “He is dead. He’s been murdered.”

  • •

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Murdered?”

  I rose from the floor and paced the room. “How did it happen? When? How did you hear?”

  “I found out late on Saturday,” Montigny said. “After we parted, I went to work. A boy who works in the stall next to mine lives over by the Châtelet. I overheard him bragging to his friends about something he’d seen on Friday night—two members of the Watch carrying an old man’s body off a cart and into the morgue. I grabbed the boy and questioned him. He told me the dead man had been badly beaten. Somehow I knew it was Gaspard.”