The Song Peddler of the Pont Neuf

by Laura Lebow

  “What do you know about Versailles?” I teased. “Have you ever been there?”

  “No, of course not. But I know that it’s the biggest building in France.” She gathered her shovel and ash bin, threw a kiss to the bird, and left.

  When I heard her going into Lacombe’s room a flight down the stairs, I took the papers from my cupboard and sat at my table. Chéron had given me nine pamphlets in all, but several were copies, so there were only three different publications. The first was very short, just four pages. It was unsigned, and there was no publisher’s name on the front. I flipped through it. The subject was how the Emperor of Austria was using his sister, Marie-Antoinette, to argue the interests of Austria to the king. It was nothing I hadn’t seen hawked all over the city.

  The second was eight pages long, again unsigned, with no publisher noted. It was a diatribe against the aristocracy, its author arguing that the nobility should be required to give up its ancient feudal privileges and to pay the same taxes as the commoners of France. I shook my head. The language the writer used was vicious and incendiary, but like the first pamphlet, this sort of thing could be purchased anywhere in Paris.

  I turned to the longer pamphlet, the one that had aroused my attention back in Chéron’s room. Unlike the other two, this one had a proper cover page, with its title, Memoir of Madame Désirée: the Secret Life of a Distinguished Lady, set in fancy script and embellished with curlicues. There was no author attribution, but at the bottom of the cover I found the publisher’s name: Argus Panoptes, rue du Labyrinthe, Paris. I opened the pamphlet and read.

  The Memoir was narrated by a woman, Madame Désirée, who, she assured me in the first paragraph, would not normally reveal her secret life for publication, but who believed that the people of France were entitled to learn the truth about her husband, identified only by his initials, L.R. He was an important man at court. Madame’s husband, she explained, cannot satisfy her emotional and physical needs, so she is forced to find solace with his brother, C.P. But even then, her brother-in-law’s lovemaking does not sate her desires, so she turns to two close female friends, M.T. and G.P. By the third page the story had degenerated into numerous detailed descriptions of the narrator copulating with these friends and various other men and women, sometimes two or more at a time, their activities forming a catalog of all sexual positions the human body could assume. At the end of her story, Madame Désirée revealed her dilemma. Some of her enemies have told her husband about her exploits. She cannot dismiss all of her lovers and condemn herself to a life without passion and fulfillment. Perhaps she could find a way to rid herself of her husband? But how to go about it? Should she conspire with her lovers to belittle her husband, to make him appear weak, so that his political allies would decide to remove him from power? Or should she pay an assassin to kill him? The Memoir ended with Madame Désirée postponing her decision, as she experimented with pleasuring herself in case she must renounce her lovers.

  I closed the pamphlet and went over to my cupboard, where I took out the mysterious list I had found in Bricon’s room. As I had recognized while talking with Chéron, the initials used by the lascivious lady to denote her lovers corresponded to those in the left column of the list. I ran my finger across the page. Madame’s cuckolded husband, L.R., the list told me, was Louis. The king? C.P. was someone named Charles Philippe—perhaps the king’s brother, the comte d’Artois? M.T. was a Marie Thérèse, and G.P., Gabrielle. I did not recognize either of these names. Madame Désirée had to be the queen.

  A shiver of excitement ran down my spine. This must have been the pamphlet that Bricon had been so secretive about, warning Chéron only to sell it to customers who specifically asked for it. Chéron suspected that Bricon had argued with the publisher. Was someone in the rue du Labyrinthe, at the company named Argus Panoptes, involved in the song peddler’s disappearance and murder? I had no idea where in the city the rue du Labyrinthe was. Perhaps my neighbor, Houssemaine, might know. As a bookseller, he probably knew most of the publishers in Paris.

  I separated the Memoir and the list from the rest of the pamphlets, placed the remainders back in my cupboard, and put on my cloak. Taking up the long pamphlet and the list, I whistled a goodbye to the bird, closed my door, and hurried down the stairs and into the street. But when I reached Houssemaine’s shop, the door was locked and the inside was dark. I tucked the papers into my pocket, crossed the rue Saint-Jacques, and went to a tavern in the rue de la Harpe, my mouth watering at the thought of the proprietor’s famous mutton stew. Alas, like everything it seemed these days, the portion was much smaller for the usual price, and the mutton was tough and stringy. I gulped it down with a glass of watered wine, then returned to Houssemaine’s shop. It was still dark and locked, so I went to my lodgings, fed the bird and gave him some water, examined his feet, and then let him fly around the room while I pondered the mysteries of Madame Désirée and the death of an old song peddler.

  Tuesday evening found me in my customary spot outside the café across from the Comédie-Française, waiting for Anton Cobenzl to emerge. Sleet fell steadily on the plaza, and as I hovered outside the café, I swore that when I finished this assignment, I would stop working for the police. I was tired of waiting in the cold for hours on end for foreign boobies. If I solved Bricon’s murder, perhaps I could make a reputation for myself as the man to hire for complex cases.

  Because the weather was so miserable, the plaza was half-deserted tonight. A few coachmen huddled under the portico of the theater, waiting for their passengers, but the usual crowd of vendors and lantern men seemed to have decided that the small amount of money they might earn that night was not worth the trouble of standing out in the cold. The flower girl had set up her wares as the audience had arrived for the performance, but when people had hurried inside, ignoring her posies, she had forlornly pushed her small wagon out of the plaza.

  When my feet felt as though they had turned to blocks of ice, a few people came out of the theater—those who always left early, before the performance was completely over, in order that they might obtain the best seats in the café. As I watched them pick their way across the slippery plaza, a tall, cloaked figure emerged from the rue Racine and took up a position behind a column on the theater’s portico. I squinted in the sleet. From where I sat across the plaza, he appeared to be the same man I had seen Sunday night outside the restaurant in the Palais Royal.

  Soon the rest of the audience poured out of the theater, and in the ensuing commotion of carriages arriving and departing, and of crowds swarming toward the cafés and restaurants, I lost sight of the man. As was his habit, Cobenzl waited until the throng had dispersed before he exited the theater. But tonight he did not linger to approach the actress. Instead, he walked slowly to the corner where I stood watching. I stepped back and turned around so he could not see my face as he passed. I took a piece of charcoal out of my pocket, rubbed it over my face, and pulled my cap low on my head. When I turned back around, I saw Cobenzl trudging down the rue de la Comédie-Française, followed by the tall, cloaked man. I waited until Cobenzl had reached the end of the street and his watcher was halfway down after him. I followed them.

  I stayed well behind the watcher as the two of us trailed Cobenzl up the rue Dauphine. The street was deserted, but shouts and laughter came from the two taverns that sat across from each other near the convent of the Augustins. Cobenzl passed the great convent church and entered the large area where the quai des Augustins and the quai de Conti met at the southern end of the Pont Neuf. As the young diplomat started onto the bridge, he slipped and fell. The watcher, several paces behind him, immediately turned right onto the quai des Augustins. I went left onto the quai de Conti, where I walked down a short block and turned in to a side street. I stopped and peered around the corner at the quai. The watcher stood a block down the quai des Augustins, waiting for Cobenzl to pick himself up and proceed. The man was obviously a professional, I thought, trained to follow a subject without being
seen. Cobenzl brushed off his breeches and cloak and continued onto the Pont Neuf. I waited until I saw the watcher move onto the bridge, and then set after them.

  The Pont Neuf was almost abandoned. A few beggars crouched at the base of the statue of Henri IV, but there were no vendors or singers at all. The café on the north side was closed. The pump at the Samaritaine was not operating, and light shone from only a single window of the building. The few people who were about in this weather hurried by on their own business, bundled against the elements.

  I followed the two men down the quai de l’École and into the rue des Poulies, where the monumental eastern façade of the old Louvre palace sat dark and still, the columns of its grand colonnade arrayed like a ghostly rank of giant soldiers standing at attention. In a few minutes, Cobenzl reached the rue des Bons Enfants. The watcher followed him down the street. I walked only to the corner, where I could see that Cobenzl had already entered his hotel. The watcher stood outside, as I had many times, waiting to be sure the young man was in for the night. I moved into the street, sank to the ground, pulled my cap down low on my forehead, and wrapped my cloak about me. After about fifteen minutes had elapsed, the watcher turned and headed toward me.

  “Please, monsieur,” I croaked as he was but a few steps away from me. “I am hungry. Could you spare a sou?”

  He did not even glance my way, but walked past and turned into the rue Saint-Honoré.

  I pulled myself up and hurried back to the corner, where I watched him proceed down the street. When he had passed the duc d’Orléans’s palace, I started after him. As they had been on the Left Bank, the streets here were almost empty, and we were two lonely figures as I followed him into the rue Traversiere and then up the rue Sainte-Anne. When the watcher reached the small square where the rue Sainte-Anne crossed the rue des Orties, I stepped into a doorway and waited as my quarry turned the corner. I counted to ten and crossed the square after him.

  The rue des Moulins was silent, the windows in the tenements that lined it unlit. At the very end of the short street, light spilled from a tavern. The watcher stopped in front of it, pulled open the door, and disappeared inside.

  As I hurried up the street, I heard fiddle music and loud laughter coming from the establishment. A wooden plaque with a crude picture of a windmill announced the tavern’s name. I stood outside the door for a few minutes, trying not to breathe the fumes of stale beer mixed with piss, and then went inside.

  It was a typical neighborhood tavern, time-worn, mean, and poorly heated, but bustling with customers playing cards or trictrac at battered tables. A harried barkeep poured beer and wine while a boy raced around delivering drinks and taking orders. In the corner on a small dais, a spry old man sawed away at an ancient fiddle. I glanced around, as if looking for a seat, and saw the watcher sitting at a table near the dais. He and a fat man in an old-fashioned wig were bent over a pamphlet of some sort. The fat man looked up as the boy deposited two tumblers of beer on the table.

  I took an empty seat across the room and nodded to my neighbors, who looked me over and then returned to their conversations and drink. I ordered a glass of brandy from the boy and studied the watcher. He had not removed his cloak, but he had dropped its hood off his head, and I could see that my guesses about him had been on the mark—he had the appearance of a soldier. His dark hair was clipped very short, and he wore a mustache with no beard.

  When the boy brought my drink, I took a sip and grimaced. I could not remember the last time I had partaken of wine or brandy that had not been watered down. I rose and wandered to the dais, where I stood watching the fiddler. When he finished torturing the poor instrument and announced that he was taking a break, I sidled closer to the watcher’s table. His back was to me, and as I inched closer, I heard the two men speaking a guttural language with which I was not familiar. I placed my glass on a empty table and stepped over to the watcher.

  “Pierre! Pierre Caloux!” I said, slapping him on the back. He turned, irritation on his face.

  I slurred my words. “It is really you? It’s me, Pierre. Jacques Godot.” I burped loudly to add to the effect. I glanced at the pamphlet at the table. It was not in French.

  “Wer ist dieser Mann?” the fat man asked the watcher.

  The watcher stared at me. If he by chance had noticed me at the Palais Royal the other night, he wouldn’t recognize me now. My face was blackened, and there were hundreds of cloaks and caps similar to mine in Paris. But I saw no signs of recognition in his eyes.

  “You are mistaken,” he said brusquely. “I am not your friend.” His French was heavily accented, his speech clipped.

  I peered into his face and burped again, giving him the full force of my brandied breath. He winced in disgust. He turned back to his companion and shrugged. “Arschloch!” he snarled.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I thought you were someone else.”

  I retrieved my drink and went back to my seat. I sat, sipping my brandy, watching the two men. They resumed their study of the pamphlet. At one point the fat man looked over and, seeing me looking at him, glared. I burped and gave him a little wave.

  Ten minutes later, the two men tossed some coins on the table and rose. The fat man glared at me as they went to the door, but the tall dark watcher never gave me a second glance.

  • •

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “You’ll spend a long time searching for that street, my friend,” Théophile Houssemaine said.

  On Wednesday morning, I’d finally found my neighbor’s bookstore open, and had placed the Memoir of Madame Désirée and the list in front of him. He had riffled through the pamphlet, studied the list, and chuckled. “When did you become a connoisseur of political pornography?” he asked, his eyes twinkling.

  “It’s from a case I’m working on,” I said. “What can you tell me about this sort of thing?”

  “Ah, I see. What you have here is one of many that are circulating through the city, libeling the king, the court, and especially the queen. The pamphlet can be read on its own, but it is only when one also purchases the list of names that correspond to the initials used in it that it becomes seditious.”

  “I gathered that Madame Désirée is Marie-Antoinette,” I said.

  “Yes, and her husband, L.R., is the king. C.P. is Charles Philippe, the king’s brother, the comte d’Artois.”

  “Who are Marie Thérèse and Gabrielle?” I asked.

  “They are both part of the queen’s clique. Marie Thérèse is the Princesse Lamballe. Rumor has it that she is out of favor now. Gabrielle is the Duchesse de Polignac. She and her husband, along with Artois, are working with the queen to make sure that the king doesn’t give commoners too much power in the upcoming Estates General.”

  I pressed Houssemaine for information about finding Argus Panoptes, the publisher of the pamphlet, in the rue du Labyrinthe.

  “All of these publications are illegal, Paul,” he explained. “The real publisher makes up a fictive name and location. I’d be willing to bet that there is no rue du Labyrinthe in the city of Paris. Argus Panoptes is probably one man with a printing press producing these pamphlets in the dark of night and then distributing them to colporteurs and song peddlers, who sell them to those who know enough to ask for them.”

  “Why is it illegal?” I asked. “Because it is pornographic?”

  “No, because of the politics. The pornography is just a vehicle to criticize the monarchy. A knowledgeable reader would understand the true message of Madame’s Memoir, which is that the king is weak, and that he is being unduly influenced by his wife and courtiers, who oppose the Estates General.”

  He flipped idly through the pages of the pamphlet. “It’s also possible that this wasn’t printed in Paris at all, but in London or Brussels. A lot of illegal books and pamphlets are printed elsewhere and smuggled into France. Why are you so interested in finding the publisher?”

  I described the outlines of my case—my attempts to locate the missing s
ong peddler, the old man’s murder, and how I obtained the pamphlet. I omitted telling him about the blackmail letter and Duval’s possible involvement, but told him Chéron’s suspicion that Bricon had argued with the pamphlet’s publisher.

  Houssemaine gave a low whistle. “You think the old man was murdered because he was selling this pamphlet?” he asked. He shook his head. “I’m aware that there is a network of writers, publishers, sellers, and buyers of this kind of material operating discreetly here in the city. I’ve heard lots of stories about them, but never one about murder.”

  “The old man was in some sort of trouble,” I said. “This pamphlet is the only clue I have right now.”

  The bell at the door tinkled and a middle-aged man entered, nodded a greeting to us, and went to the corner where Houssemaine kept a small collection of popular etchings for sale.

  “Do you have Mademoiselle Violette?” he called to the bookseller.

  Houssemaine placed my pamphlet under the counter and hurried over. As the two men negotiated a price, I looked through a leather-bound almanac on the counter. It was a handsome volume, just the size of my hand, designed as a pocket guide for tourists to the city. I saw that it was full of information that might be useful to me in my work, such as opening times of various businesses and attractions, and a calendar of social events occurring throughout the year. I resolved to save a few coins so that I might purchase one before the new year began.

  Houssemaine returned to the counter with the customer. He placed the framed etching on a piece of paper and wrapped it. It was the same picture I had seen with Aimée on Sunday, of the actress with the wariness in her eyes. The customer paid for his purchase and then left the shop, cradling his package as if it were worth a year of his salary.

  My friend rolled his eyes and laughed. “I sell so many pictures of that actress. It seems every man in Paris is in love with her. I really should offer her a commission.”