by Yves Jégo
‘Fouquet,’ he whispered almost inaudibly, ‘it’s Monsieur Fouquet, Monsieur …’
Colbert froze. He indicated the church porch with his chin.
As they emerged onto the front steps, a gust of icy wind assailed the two men.
‘So, Fouquet …?’ Colbert prompted.
‘… this evening, at his home in Saint-Mandé, he met the young man we were talking about.’
Colbert smiled unpleasantly.
‘They had a long discussion, apparently about patronage and the theatre. Alas, I was unable to acquire all the details of their exchanges …’
With a wave of the hand, Colbert indicated that this mattered little.
‘And the boy, who is he?’
‘I am still trying to find out, Excellency,’ Perrault replied, bowing his head.
As he listened to him, Colbert thought it over again. His intuition had not failed him! Fouquet was active. Fouquet was trying to find out …
‘But what?’ He ground his teeth in frustration. ‘I must know what!’
He clenched his fists, not realising that he was now talking out loud.
‘Something is being hidden from me!’
Anxiously Perrault, who had heard only these last words, wondered what to say.
Colbert dismissed him curtly:
‘That young man, concentrate on that young man. Go to it!’
He watched Perrault hurry away, trying not to slip on the steps, and disappear round the corner of the church. As he turned back towards the doors, they began to open.
‘Amen,’ he said, hastily crossing himself.
Then he too hurried away before the first of the faithful emerged.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Rue Saint-Antoine – Monday 21 February, five o’clock in the morning
IN the pre-dawn cold, a man sneaked past the closed shops in Rue Saint-Antoine, his eyes feverish. From time to time, unable to control his anxiety and agitation, he glanced around to check if he really was alone in the frozen streets. He had a mallet in his hand and a linen bag beneath his cape. Every ten or twenty yards he stopped in front of a church door or a wooden shutter to pin up a text taken from his pouch. The man with the mismatched eyes was the author of these lampoons, and he had decided to put them up himself in Paris that night. For several days he had been tortured by the knowledge that he had failed to bring back what his leader had needed, and was dejected that the latter refused to take the radical step of assassinating the Cardinal. His attempts to retrieve the lost documents had been unsuccessful, and he had desperately tried to remember the contents of his incomplete booty. He had skimmed the papers before handing them over, and although he did not fully grasp their meaning, he had seen enough to fuel his anger and justify the irrepressible desire for action which he felt rise within him.
The King will have to submit if Paris rises up when it discovers the extent of the Italian’s illegal trafficking, and here is a document which will incite those gentlemen to act, he told himself, furiously nailing his last copy to the door of a cobbler’s shop. Without turning round, he threw the empty bag onto the paving stones and hurried away, disappearing round a corner into a narrow alleyway.
*
When he left his lodgings in rue des Lions Saint-Paul a few hours later that morning, Gabriel de Pontbriand was lighthearted. Louise’s regular visits were not entirely unconnected with this state of mind. His childhood friend had visited several times since their reunion, so that they could share memories. She also recounted her discoveries about life at Court. Gabriel was delighted that they had become close again and overwhelmed that he had become her confidant. Molière, whom he regarded as a benefactor, had contributed to his happiness by telling him about the role he had created for him in the play commissioned by Fouquet to celebrate the completion of his chateau, Vaux-le-Vicomte. So, he said to himself as he came out of his lodgings, I am going to become an actor at last and perform in front of the King. My dream is coming true. This thought made him smile.
‘You look cheerful, Monsieur Gabriel,’ commented the washerwoman who waited eagerly each day for the handsome young man to emerge from his room. ‘But Paris is sad; the city is buzzing with tales of Court intrigue and the news that Cardinal Mazarin will soon be dead. Of course, you’d know more about that than I do, thanks to the company you keep,’ added the girl a little perfidiously, alluding to Louise de La Vallière’s frequent visits.
‘Do not deceive yourself, my dear Ninon, I know nothing and the King does not take me into his confidence! If I am happy, it is at the sight of you,’ replied Gabriel charmingly, stroking the washerwoman’s scarlet cheek.
The young actor made his way to the cobbler’s shop where he had left a pair of old boots in the hope of making them last for a few more months. Gabriel enjoyed strolling along amongst ordinary folk in the noisy, bustling streets of the capital. This contrast between the Court, which he observed in the evenings at the theatre, and the street, in which he felt so at ease, was like a perfect form of alchemy. For him, it was the intoxicating flavour of Paris. Arriving at the cobbler’s in Rue Saint-Antoine, he breathed in deeply, savouring the smell of leather which permeated the entire workshop. The shop was vast and extremely well ordered, with several journeymen and apprentices at work. Master Louvet, a renowned craftsman whose customers included the noblest families in Paris, stopped what he was doing when he saw him.
‘Monsieur Gabriel, what a pleasure it is to see you this morning! Your boots are ready, but I’m not sure I can guarantee that they’ll survive beyond the spring. They’re as worn out as the Cardinal’s lungs!’
‘Thank you all the same,’ replied the young man, taking the parcel the cobbler handed him.
‘On the subject of the Cardinal, have you seen this lampoon now circulating in the capital?’ asked Louvet, presenting him with a sheet of paper. ‘I found this one on my own door this morning.’
Gabriel knew that there had been a proliferation of these kinds of texts at the time of the Fronde, a few years before. Known as Mazarinades, these pamphlets gave voice to those who, with varying degrees of talent, aspired to incriminate their rulers. As he had never come across one before, he was intrigued to see what it was like.
Let us therefore lift up our voices to the Heavens, and cleave the air with the force of our cheering, may birds all fall dead onto tables made ready in the streets, may fountains of Grave, malmsey and hippocras wine be seen at every crossroads. The Sun does not only illuminate the expanses of air, it does not only cause the heat of its rays to be felt on the surface of our Globe, to produce Plants, and to make the animals rejoice, but it also causes its influences to appear in the earth’s entrails, and makes known its virtue by generating metals, minerals and precious stones, the production of which is as admirable as its means are unknown and secret to us. Rejoice, Paris, and console yourself now that your Messiah has come back to visit you. His absence had filled you with sadness, and covered you in mourning, his presence will fill you with joy once again, and enrich you with magnificence and glory: the Abundance which walks in his wake will furnish the material for your delights more than ever, the Justice which accompanies him will return the possessions which belong to you and the force which surrounds him will strengthen more than ever the Columns of your peace; and at last his coming will give you the realisation of your most eagerly awaited wishes and the enjoyment of your most passionate desires …
In a similarly tortuous style, the remainder of the document announced the arrival of the Messiah who had come ‘to punish the powerful who have betrayed their Lord’.
Above all, this long text denounced the ‘unprecedented’ accumulation of wealth on the part of the Cardinal and the King. The argument rested upon figures and dates notably concerning a purchase of weapons on behalf of the State from the well-known merchant Maximilien Piton. This order, claimed the anonymous message, had given rise to double accounting and to the payment of commissions whose amount inflated the real invoice considerably. With its accus
ations strangely backed up by a wealth of precise detail, the lampoon went on to say that the operation had apparently involved a network of agents and multiple letters of credit, which had been cashed all over Europe, as a result of which Mazarin had been able to pocket several hundred thousand livres. The lampoon also detailed another murky affair involving land for building in Paris. Since all vacant land in the city was owned by the King, the royal estate had acquired it very cheaply before selling it on in the same state, but at a vastly inflated price …
‘It was the usual suspects,’ whispered the cobbler, ‘Berryer, that is to say Colbert and therefore Mazarin … This confirms what the common folk have suspected! The author seems well informed, but if I were him I’d watch out for the Cardinal’s police. This kind of literature could lose him his head!’
Gabriel, who had started at the name of Berryer, did not reply. Paying for the repair of his boots, he left the shop with a sombre look on his face. He had been overwhelmed by a feeling of foreboding as he read the lampoon. The death of his father, the coded documents hidden in his bedroom, the police searching the theatre, the attack on the old concierge and this accusatory lampoon were all intermingled in his mind; and although he could not establish the precise link between them, he was somehow certain that one existed. On the sill of an open window a kitten was playing with some wool. Gabriel stopped, took the animal in his arms and began to stroke it.
‘What do you make of it all?’ he asked the animal as it wriggled excitedly.
He allowed the cat to escape from his arms and distractedly watched it scamper off, dragging the tangled skein of wool with it.
‘No matter how much I pull at the threads,’ he murmured to himself, ‘the ball of wool that holds my interest is still as tangled as ever …’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Rue Saint-Merry – Friday 25 February, eleven o’clock in the morning
THROUGH the window of his carriage, Nicolas Fouquet gazed idly at the banks of the Seine and the complex manoeuvring of ferries and boats as they narrowly avoided colliding with each other. The Superintendent was so lost in thought that he did not even notice the crowd outside the Église Saint-Germain, gathered round another copy of that curious anti-Mazarin lampoon which was the talk of all Paris. Protected by its escort, the carriage prudently gave the throng a wide berth and headed down Rue Saint-Merry, coming to a halt outside the majestic entrance of a private residence on the corner of Rue Saint-Martin. The massive double gates swung open to let the carriage through, and a manservant hurried forward. Fouquet allowed his mind to wander for a moment longer, then rather regretfully dragged himself away from his reverie.
‘Monsieur Superintendent, it is a great honour to receive you!’
The short, thin man who had just spoken came forward to greet his guest, with his hands almost clasped and bowing profusely.
‘I am as overwhelmed as I am happy to welcome you,’ he added.
His brown, lined skin and hollow cheeks, thin hands and the simplicity of his dark clothing lent him a curiously oriental air softened a little by his deep voice.
Fouquet bowed too and walked a little ahead of his host, who seemed to hover around him as they moved towards the front steps.
‘Come, come, Monsieur Jabach, you know how much I have wanted to view your collections so that I can judge if they really are more beautiful than those of the Cardinal …’
The little man exclaimed in surprise, his hands flying to his face:
‘Are you mocking me, Monsieur Superintendent? It’s unkind to make fun of an old man! Rival His Eminence? Me?’
Fouquet appeared not to hear his host’s outpouring of excessive modesty.
‘If it were not for work, Monsieur, I would have accepted your invitation months ago.’
Jabach swelled with pride.
‘Come,’ he said, pointing to a stone staircase in the corner of the vestibule, which was tiled in white marble accented with black cabochons.
Nicolas Fouquet pondered the course of the little man’s life as he climbed the stairs behind his host, whose short legs obliged him to hasten, making him breathless. Since he had arrived from Naples twenty years earlier, Jabach had amassed a colossal fortune through his unequalled talent for backing the victors in wars and shipping companies whose boats neither sank nor fell victim to piracy. Whereas many like him had allowed themselves to be compromised in causes which had failed because they were championed by losers, Everhard Jabach had never been mistaken, and had never sought to emerge from the shadows where he prospered. Twenty years after he had opened his first business, and ten years after he had received naturalisation papers in return for services rendered, he was now Paris’s foremost art collector. And the most secretive, thought Fouquet as he crossed the immense ballroom whose walls were hung with dozens of canvases.
‘Superb,’ he commented simply.
With an enigmatic smile, Jabach indicated that these were not his most impressive paintings and that this was not the place to linger. Then, darting little glances behind him, he led the disconcerted Fouquet towards a door which was concealed in the wall next to a monumental fireplace supported by two black stone colossi.
Opening the door a little way by tripping an invisible mechanism, the man stopped and swung round with his feet together, his smile suddenly fixed.
‘Monsieur Superintendent, I am ashamed to speak to you in this way, but for the sake of my family’s wellbeing I must ask you, as you enter this place, to promise absolute discretion, which is the only guarantee of my safety. You know how wicked men can be, what people say, the thousand villainies that are perpetrated for no reason, or out of envy,’ he went on, inviting his guest to enter the hidden room.
Fouquet’s response was amiable but cold.
‘Fear not, Monsieur, I do not spread gossip. I have neither the time nor the desire, and even if one day I did display either of those faults, the years I have lived through as a victim of slander would dissuade me forev …’
He paused suddenly, rooted to the spot. The most wondrous gallery of paintings and sculpture imaginable stretched out before him, illuminated only by the indirect light from gigantic bronze candelabra.
‘God in Heaven …’
The man let out a chuckle of pleasure. Titian, Giorgione, Corregio, Raphael, Bellini, Leonardo … As the Superintendent walked past the canvases, he felt as if his head were spinning.
‘Now you understand the meaning of my words, Monsieur Superintendent. You see also how much I trust you: few men have come in here, entered my paradise. Many see my collection, but hardly anyone sees my treasures. Before your eyes you have my whole life, the quintessence of what pleasure is to me. For the past twenty-five years, ever since the day Van Dyck ushered me through the doors of a similar room in London, my sole ambition has been to acquire one by one the paintings which I consider to be the most beautiful. You see The Entombment of Christ and the Emmaus Pilgrims by Titian?’ He led the Superintendent towards two canvases which gleamed in the half-light. ‘I spent years trying to track them down. They belonged to the unfortunate King of England, Charles I. I purchased them before he died upon the scaffold. Can you imagine a beauty more pure?’
Fouquet was speechless for a moment, and moved from one canvas to the next, unable to take his eyes off them.
‘Thank you, Monsieur Jabach,’ he said at last, turning to his host. ‘There is a feeling of energy in this accumulation of beauty, a feeling which warms the heart. Your private gallery is a place of hope for those who have faith in man and in his ability not to yield continually to his baser instincts.’
In a single sweeping movement he gestured to the canvases.
‘How can anyone not believe in Truth and its strength when witnessing such a sight? What mind can resist the conviction instilled by such absolute balance and harmony? It may well be that you have chosen the wise path by shunning the madness of public life, and tending your secret garden here.’
There was a glint in Jabach’
s dark eyes which was at variance with his smile.
‘I see that you are a true art lover, and I am persuaded that I have done the right thing in bringing you here. Blessed are those places where the great of this world speak like philosophers! I have a rule, Monsieur Superintendent, which applies only to this room. Since I am invariably alone in this room, it is my custom to be totally frank.’
He looked straight into the Superintendent’s questioning eyes.
‘Will you consent to play according to this rule, until we leave through that door?’ asked the banker, pointing to the heavy wooden door he had pulled shut behind them.
Fouquet nodded his agreement.
‘Excellent. So, Monsieur, do you think that I chose this policy of discretion? Not at all. It was imposed on me by my will to survive. I am not well liked, Monsieur Superintendent. People have need of me, my money and my savoir-faire. But I do not receive invitations. People may see me in the evening or at a meeting. But they do not “know” me. Who is aware that I knew Rubens as a friend, in Antwerp? Nobody. What can I say? One does not dine with Jabach …’
Fouquet made an effort to conceal his unease. Was this the mysterious Jabach’s flaw? Did he dream of entering Court society, encouraged by the influence his discretion had earned him?
‘You have shown me your secret garden; I shall be happy to show you my own. Would you like to come to Vaux? I am planning a reception there as soon as the works are sufficiently well advanced – I shall let you know the date.’
Jabach bowed and smiled as Fouquet continued.
‘I too like the rule you have established for the use of this room. Shall we try to talk for a while about the other subjects that bring me here?’
Jabach’s expression took on an element of greed.
‘As you wish, Monsieur Superintendent, but is it really advisable to talk openly about business?’
‘This deal is so simple that the risk is not great: I need one million livres for my account within eight days.’