The Nicolas Le Floch affair

by Jean-FranCois Parot

  ‘Perhaps she rejected what she had eaten?’ suggested Sanson. ‘Does what you observed in her house bear that out at all?’

  ‘No. The excreta were liquid. Nor did we find any traces on the clothes in her wardrobe. Doctor Semacgus, I’d like you to examine the liquid in question with the greatest care, as well as the left-over food in this basket.’

  ‘So,’ said Semacgus, ‘it seems as though the solution lies in the liquid. I’ll analyse it as soon as possible, along with the food you recovered. I think we’ve done all we can this evening. Let’s meet again tomorrow at about three in the afternoon, and I’ll let you know what I’ve found.’

  Semacgus had cleaned his instruments under the water in a brass fountain, and was now putting them in a leather case. His haste indicated to those who knew him that he was late for a rendezvous and had no wish to linger. He bowed and disappeared beneath the arch of the staircase, his steps echoing in the distance. Sanson was also getting ready to take his leave when the inspector drew him into a corner of the cellar and whispered in his ear. They both turned to Nicolas, smiling.

  ‘Commissioner,’ said Bourdeau, ‘I’ve found you a refuge for the night. Our friend has agreed to offer you accommodation in his house. No one would ever think of looking for you there.’

  He coughed, embarrassed by the words he had just spoken, which might have appeared wounding to Sanson.

  ‘I’ll meet you at about midday tomorrow outside the Hôtel des Menus Plaisirs1 and we’ll continue with the investigation. For the moment, nothing seems in any way conclusive. Of course, we now know that the victim was poisoned, but the cause and the circumstances remain unclear.’

  Nicolas removed his spectacles. ‘I am reluctant to impose on our friend, for fear of getting him into trouble.’

  ‘Monsieur,’ said Sanson, ‘it will be an honour for me. Have no fear, I shan’t be running any risks. One cannot lose a position one does not hold. And even if one could, I wager there wouldn’t be a large number of people fighting to claim it!’ ‘What do you mean?’ Nicolas said. ‘Isn’t the position yours? Everyone knows you as Monsieur de Paris!’

  Sanson gave a bitter smile. ‘My father is still alive and has never relinquished a position which only His Majesty can authorise him to leave. If and when that happens, the King will confirm me in my functions with a lettre de provision.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Bourdeau.

  ‘My father, Charles-Jean-Baptiste Sanson, was paralysed in the arm in 1754 and retired to the country. That’s why, as I once told you, my uncle Gabriel, executioner of Rheims, joined me for the execution of the regicide Damiens in 1757. He never recovered from that appalling event.’

  ‘I thought,’ Bourdeau said, ‘that your father still officiated at the execution of Monsieur de Lally, the Baron de Tollendal.’

  ‘That’s correct. My father had known the baron for a long time. When he was a young officer in the Royal Irish, he took shelter in our house after a torrential downpour. For some reason, he asked to see my father’s instruments. As he passed his finger over the double-edged blade, he observed that the condemned man’s head must be cut off at a single blow, and then uttered these striking words: “If ever fate were to place me in your hands, promise me you’ll remember.”’

  ‘And what happened?’ asked Nicolas.

  ‘When he was condemned after the surrender of Pondicherry, supposedly for betraying us to the English, my father remembered the promise he’d made the young officer. He left his home in the country and returned to Paris. He was in despair when he realised that he no longer had the strength to lift the heavy sword of justice. He gave me that honourable but terrible task, but …’ – Sanson bowed his head, his chest heaving with emotion – ‘… the condemned man was sixty-four years old and his long white hair came loose. When the blade came down, it slipped and cut through his jaw. The crowd on Place de la Grève jeered. Monsieur de Lally was writhing in pain on the ground. I no longer knew what to do. My father, with a nimbleness and a power that were quite unexpected in a man of his age, snatched the weapon from my hands, raised it, brought it down, and cut off the condemned man’s head at a single stroke. Then, overwhelmed with emotion as well as failed by his strength, he fell to the ground in a faint.’

  ‘I don’t imagine you’ve had to perform that kind of execution again, have you?’ said Nicolas.

  ‘Alas, yes! The Chevalier de La Barre, accused of sacrilege for not taking his hat off when a procession passed, and for mutilating a wooden crucifix on the great bridge at Abbeville, had the misfortune to be placed in my hands. Even though the evidence was far from conclusive, he had been condemned to have his hand cut off and his tongue torn out before being burnt alive. He appealed to the Parlement of Paris, which commuted his sentence. He was to be decapitated before being burnt. The poor young man was nineteen …’

  ‘Wasn’t he the one whose rehabilitation Monsieur de Voltaire has been clamouring for?’ asked Bourdeau.

  ‘That’s right. So far without success.’

  ‘But surely Abbeville is not in your jurisdiction?’

  ‘True. However, the local executioner of that town had fallen ill and, although there were colleagues in Amiens and Rouen, Chancellor Maupeou ordered me to officiate. He was no doubt hoping to lend more prestige to this execution and please the Church. It went off without mishap, but ever since I’ve been praying to heaven for the salvation of the unfortunate victim. People always imagine we exercise our profession because we like seeing lives destroyed … It’s an absurd fabrication, and we should do all we can to combat it.’

  ‘We all know that,’ said Bourdeau. ‘But it’s getting late, and I think we must part. How did you come?’

  ‘I have my carriage, driven by one of my servants,’ said Sanson.

  ‘Can we trust him?’

  ‘As you trust me.’

  As Bourdeau and Sanson were already moving away, Nicolas walked to the stone slab. With two fingers, he touched his lips then placed them on the shapeless sack, where the head was. He stood like that for a moment, his face expressionless, then joined his friends, who were slowly climbing the stairs. They passed Old Marie, who cast a curious glance at the false clerk.

  ‘My dear Sanson,’ Bourdeau hastened to say, ‘perhaps you’d be so kind as to drop our clerk, Monsieur Deshalleux, in Rue Saint-Denis. It’s on your way.’

  ‘I’d be pleased to,’ said Sanson, drawing Nicolas towards the entrance.

  In the carriage, Nicolas was unable to find words to keep a conversation going. Respecting his silence, Sanson closed his eyes and appeared to doze off. The carriage turned into Rue Trop-Va-Qui-Dure, opposite the exit from Pont au Change, and went around the Châtelet by way of Rue de la Sonnerie before rejoining Rue Saint-Denis. Paris seemed deserted this winter evening: even the market and the cemetery of the Saints-Innocents, usually so animated, only made their presence felt through the mephitic odour that rose from the area in spite of the cold weather. Gradually, the windows of the carriage misted over with their breaths. Nicolas, too, closed his eyes, appalled by the horrible vision of a ravaged body superimposed over that of his mistress in all her ravishing beauty. He suddenly remembered one of the observations made during the autopsy. Julie had been with a man that night … Not only been with him, but made love with him, if the experts were to be believed. She had been deceiving him. He felt a retrospective pang of jealousy, which he hoped might dispel the grief of his loss. In vain: the two feelings – the bitterness of grief and the raging anger of betrayal – rather than cancelling one another out, simply combined. A pointless question crossed his mind: what would he have done if he had surprised Julie in his rival’s arms? In truth, he did not know, but the uncertainty tortured him. He took a deep breath, making an effort to regain the calm and serenity appropriate to a police officer.

  In his disguise, Nicolas had not been in a position to contribute to the discussion during the autopsy. But now his thoughts fell into place with the greatest cla
rity. If Madame de Lastérieux’s stomach was empty, that was explained by her habits. In order not to further inflame a generous temperament, she never ate meat. What was more, she hated chicken, and in particular chicken cooked in the West Indian manner, with all its spicy seasoning. Eggs and dairy products, fruit and vegetables constituted the basis of her diet. The plate found at her bedside could not possibly have been intended for her. Everything pointed to the fact that she had not been alone. Logically, then, the dish in question would seem to have been intended to appease the hunger of her new lover. But Nicolas knew that this dish was usually prepared for him, and that its presence in the room could mean only one thing: that someone had wanted to make it seem as though he had spent part of the night with his mistress. That supposed a good knowledge of the customs of the house, and the aim of it all had evidently been to make him the prime suspect if the cause of death was indeed established as premeditated poisoning. Personally, he did not believe it had been an accident. There were too many curious details, too many things that had been done to create a web in which to catch him, the powerless victim of a mysterious, invisible predator.

  The circumstances were highly unfavourable to him. For a long time now, the law of the land had considered poisoning to be the most serious of crimes, and had punished it with particular rigour, with the aim of putting an end to a form of murder of which the previous century had offered a number of examples still present in many people’s memories. King Louis XIV had reacted with great firmness to this violation of the fundamental laws of nature, especially as the culprits had been so close to the throne. Nicolas knew how harsh the procedure was, as was the punishment: repeated torture, death at the stake, and posthumous infamy. He remembered that in his home province, Brittany, the suspect was made to wear sulphur shoes during questioning: a particularly horrible torture.

  After Porte Saint-Denis, the carriage took the left-hand side of the boulevard as far as Rue Poissonnière. Nicolas noted in passing the dark mass of the Hôtel des Menus Plaisirs, where he had an appointment next day with Bourdeau. As they were heading for the corner of Rue d’Enfer, where Sanson lived, it struck Nicolas, as an old Paris hand, that there were actually two streets of this name in Paris, one within the walls, in the Montparnasse district, and the other in this suburban district known as New France, where the nouveaux riches built their houses around the vast holdings of the Saint-Lazare monastery. Monsieur de Sartine’s attention had often been drawn to the frequent accidents along this perimeter.

  ‘You see,’ said Sanson, who had been thinking along the same lines, ‘this is a highly dangerous place. It is where all the market gardeners come, mostly women carrying baskets full of produce for the city. Every week, several of them break their arms and legs on this narrow strip of muddy, slippery ground along which they’re forced to walk if they don’t want to be hit by the carriages.’

  ‘I’m very well aware of it,’ replied Nicolas. ‘The monks are reluctant to pay for a decent pavement out of their own pockets.’

  Nicolas could still hear Monsieur de Sartine, a Freemason and a Voltairean, ranting against the Priests of the Mission, who were immensely rich, owned some twenty streets in Paris and nearly twenty-five villages in the suburbs and, it was said, ‘begrudged their écus without charity or any sense of the public good’.

  As he was thinking this, Sanson’s servant was lifting the heavy knocker at the carriage entrance of an opulent-looking house. It opened and they entered a cobbled courtyard. Sanson beckoned to him to climb the few steps leading to the front door of his residence. Entering the house, Nicolas felt, for the first time in two days, a sensation of well-being, as if someone sympathetic had hugged him. The place had a pleasant smell of wax and wood. Paris and its crimes were suddenly a long way away. Two children, the elder barely more than eight, were standing by the staircase. The elder was holding his brother close round the shoulders and scowling, as if ready to defend him against the intrusion of a stranger, clearly a rare occurrence in this house. Sanson took off his cloak, and burst out laughing when he finally got a good look at his guest’s costume.

  ‘In that disguise, you’re going to scare away my sons!’ he said. ‘Children, I want to introduce a friend. Don’t let his appearance mislead you about his station. It was absolutely essential that he pass unnoticed. Don’t worry, he’ll get changed. Monsieur, I present to you Henri and Gabriel. Now, come give your father a hug.’

  Still intimidated, they bowed to Nicolas, then rushed to Sanson and clambered all over him, covering him with kisses.

  ‘Come on now, behave yourselves! Run and tell your mother we have a guest. In the meantime, I’ll show him his room.’

  He led Nicolas up the stairs and into his quarters, a room redolent of rustic comfort and reminding the commissioner of his childhood.

  Sanson left him for a moment, then returned with a shirt, stockings, a lace cravat and a grey cloak which, although a little large for him, made Nicolas look more like his usual self. One of Sanson’s servants brought him a pitcher of hot water, which he poured into the porcelain bowl on the washstand. Beside the stand stood a swing mirror on wheels. The face which confronted Nicolas, once he had removed the layer of dust disguising his features, struck him like a sudden shock. It was no longer a young man’s face. The ordeal he was living through had given his countenance a tragic cast, accentuating the increasing number of lines, and bringing out all the marks left by his open-air childhood and his eventful life as a man.

  Sanson returned and they went down to the dining room together. In the doorway, a woman wearing an immaculate lace bonnet and a dark-red serge dress protected by a starched apron gave him a kind of curtsey. She was plump, slightly older than her husband, and with a welcoming air that did not conceal a real sense of authority. Nicolas soon realised that it was she who laid down the law to the members of the household, beginning with her husband. Nevertheless, there was a real look of kindness on her benevolent face.

  ‘Marie-Anne,’ said Sanson, ‘this is you-know-who. Madame Sanson, my wife …’

  ‘Monsieur,’ she said, ‘please believe me when I tell you how honoured I am to receive you in this house. I trust you’ll forgive our simple family fare. We were somewhat taken by surprise.’ She threw a stern look at her husband, who bowed his head. ‘Monsieur Sanson should have warned me you would be coming this evening. He’s told me so much about you over the years …’

  She gave him a gracious smile, which made dimples in her round cheeks.

  ‘Madame,’ said Nicolas, ‘I’m terribly sorry to impose on you in this way. However, I thank the circumstances that have given me the opportunity to meet you. It is a privilege for me to be received by my friend Sanson in the bosom of his family.’

  He emphasised the word privilege and Marie-Anne blushed with pleasure.

  ‘Well now, shall we sit down?’

  Sanson took his place at the head of the rectangular table, with Nicolas to his right and his wife on his left, and the children on either side. Marie-Anne hesitated for a moment, then stood up, looked Nicolas straight in the eyes, and asked him if he would like to say grace. They all rose. Nicolas, moved to rediscover a custom of his youth in Guérande, recalled the words he had so often heard spoken by Canon Le Floch. This memory revived the shades of the past: his father the marquis, his half-sister Isabelle, Père Grégoire, the apothecary of the Decalced Carmelites – now recalled to God – and all his scattered friends.

  ‘Benedic, Domine nos et haec tua dona quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi. Per Christum Dominum nostrum.’

  ‘Amen,’ they all replied.

  Madame Sanson again favoured him with a smile. ‘It’s a sacred custom in our family,’ she said. ‘I find it surprising that at tables where everything is in abundance, and where there is such a great variety of meats, people refuse to pay due homage to the Lord, from whom they have received all these things and to whom they should be indebted.’

  The two servants brought in a steaming tu
reen, and the master of the house set about serving its contents.

  ‘This is a soup made with capons, knuckle of veal and white onions,’ said his wife. ‘I spent the afternoon skimming it to make sure it would be thin enough.’ She turned to one of the servants. ‘Bernard, serve our guest some of my father’s cider. I remember hearing that he likes it.’

  Nicolas thanked her for her kindness. He knew that Madame Sanson’s father was a farmer in Montmartre, and that it was while he was out hunting that Sanson had made the acquaintance of his future wife. Clearly, he was well known in this friendly house. After a moment’s embarrassment, the conversation turned to matters of cooking. Madame Sanson told Nicolas that she knew his good taste and knowledge in this field. The soup was followed by eggs à la Tartufe. The name intrigued Nicolas.

  Marie-Anne laughed. ‘It’s because the white conceals the black just as false devotion conceals hypocrisy!’

  ‘And how on earth do you make this dish?’

  ‘Oh, it’s simplicity itself! I cut bacon into thin slices and cook it with a little water in a saucepan over a low flame. Then I throw away the juice, to get rid of the salt and the slightly rancid taste. I put it on an ordinary clay plate and add a little wine from a good bottle of red which I’ve first steamed. Over the whole thing, I crack a dozen well-chosen eggs and, for seasoning, add salt, thick pepper and grated nutmeg. The whole thing must be cooked over a low flame, taking great care not to over-cook the yolks, which should be eaten soft.’

  ‘It’s delicious,’ said Nicolas. ‘I love the combination of flavour and consistency.’

  The meal continued peacefully. Nicolas observed that the host did not say much, but that his wife, who never lost her good humour, had an answer for everything. A dish of puréed peas accompanied by a braised pork loin chop was served next, followed by what was left of a huge Twelfth Night cake, and a pot of jam.