by A L Berridge
The porter swore and pulled me from the gate, but it was opening and another servant came out, an older man with a kind face. I grasped at his coat and said ‘The Chevalier knows me, you must tell him now, this minute, that the girl from Le Pomme d’Or is here, and I swear to you he will come, I swear it by all the saints.’
The first man was saying ‘I’m sorry, Guillot, I couldn’t stop her,’ but the older man only detached my hands from his coat and looked in my face. He said ‘You know the Chevalier?’
His eyes were honest and I saw his uncertainty. I said ‘I know what he will say if you throw me out into the night when I have pleaded for his protection.’
He laughed. ‘You know him all right, Mademoiselle.’ He placed his hand under my elbow and steered me in, they were letting me in, and the one called Jean closed the gate behind us. My legs felt weak beneath me, but Guillot sat me down on a bench and ran across the cour d’honneur calling for servants, and almost I wanted to be sick with relief.
Moments passed, and there were people running and doors banging, and then a firm tread across the stones and a voice I remembered saying ‘Wake the kitchens, Pierre, and send someone for Jacques, I want him now.’ My head was stupidly heavy, but I managed to lift it to see him standing in front of me, André de Roland himself. His shirt was open, he was without belt or sword, he had the flushed, tousled look of a man suddenly woken from sleep, but they had said it was me and he had come.
I said ‘I’m sorry, Monsieur, but they came for me, and I stabbed one, I had to, he was taking me …’ and to my horror I felt myself starting to cry. I wished to apologize, but it was too late, his arm was behind my back, the other scooping beneath me, and next moment I was in his arms and being carried across the courtyard. My cheek was against his chest, still warm and damp from sleep, and above me his voice was giving orders, he was asking for hot water, I think, and blankets, the word I remember most clearly was ‘now!’ I took in little of it, Monsieur, what I knew then and what I remember now is the warmth of his chest and the strength of his arms and the unbelievable feeling of being safe.
Five
Jacques Gilbert
I hurled my breeches on over my nightshirt, belted down barefoot to the kitchens, and there was my girl of Le Pomme d’Or in André’s arms. He was laying her on a chair with servants milling round bringing wine and heating water but she saw me through the crowd, stretched out her hands and said ‘Jacques.’
I walked awkwardly towards her, the maids all gawping and Charlot’s expression stuck sort of rigid. André straightened to face me, then his eyebrows lifted and he gave me a funny little smile. He said ‘Stay with her, will you, she’s had a terrible shock,’ then stepped aside.
I knelt down beside her. There was a smudge of blood on her forehead and more round her fingernails, and her eyes were even bigger than I remembered. She muttered something I didn’t catch, then looked me full in the face and said ‘I killed a man.’ She was shivering with cold and something else. I stopped caring about the servants and wrapped my arms tight round her. Her dress was clammy against my skin, but inside I felt hot and almost savage, I wanted to hit someone and do it hard.
Somewhere behind me André was talking. He said ‘Charlot, stop looking like a nun in a brothel and get that bed sorted out. Robert, where’s that wine? Well done, Guillot, you and Jean did absolutely the right thing.’ Then he bent down and whispered ‘What’s her name?’
I felt unbelievably stupid, but the girl said quickly ‘Bernadette Fournier, Monsieur,’ then gave me a little smile of conspiracy. Something inside me bubbled up like laughter. I felt it wouldn’t matter if the whole roof fell in as long as I could go on kneeling on that hard kitchen floor with Bernadette in my arms.
I couldn’t, of course, she had to sit up while Perette dressed her torn feet, but she told us her story while it was happening and I stopped wanting to laugh about anything. André was brilliant. He never blamed her for not warning us before, he didn’t even blink when he heard I’d gone and visited, and when she told him about stabbing that man he just squeezed her hand and said ‘Well done.’ When she finished he stood up and told the servants Mlle Fournier was in danger because she’d helped save our lives, and they couldn’t do enough for her after that. They got her washed and fed and put to bed in a little guest room for visitors’ maids, then André threw himself down in a chair by the kitchen fire, kicked the grate and said ‘The filthy, cowardly bastards. I hope she did kill him, Jacques, I hope it really hurt.’
I sat beside him. ‘It’s my fault, isn’t it? It’s because I went to see her.’
He nudged his shoe against my bare foot. ‘At least we’re warned now, we know what we’re up against.’
‘Do we? She doesn’t seem to know much.’
‘Enough,’ he said, and I wondered what I’d missed. ‘It’s too big for us, Jacques, we’ll have to talk to my grandmother. I must warn Anne’s family too, they mustn’t be involved with people like this.’
Agnès hadn’t put much wood on the fire. The last log collapsed and sprayed ashes all over the hearth.
I said ‘I’m sorry I never said …’
He stooped to brush ash off his shoe. ‘Why should you?’
Because he told me everything. Because I loved him. I said ‘I don’t know.’
He stretched and stood up. ‘Don’t be sorry. Anyone can see what she feels about you.’
I thought about that when I got back to bed. I’d had women before, you know I had, but I’d always had the feeling they only really wanted to get close to André. This girl didn’t want my brother, she wanted me. I thought of her lying just one floor below me, and when I finally went to sleep I was happy.
We went into the Comtesse before the hairdresser next morning and she received us from her bed. She was perfectly calm about it, she got Suzanne to bring breakfast, then sat up straight against the pillows while André told her everything we knew. When he’d finished she took a little sip of bouillon and said ‘The girl is sure of the reference to the Sedan?’
André nodded. ‘She heard it quite distinctly. That’s why I think we can work out the names.’
‘Quite,’ she said, almost dismissively. ‘Quite.’
I still didn’t see it, we’d only got code names like ‘Monsieur’ or ‘M. le Comte’ to work on, but the Comtesse said they weren’t code, they were protocol, and then she explained.
She told me about the Comte de Soissons, who was a prince of the blood and so important he was called just ‘Monsieur le Comte’ like there weren’t any others. She told me about Gaston d’Orléans, the King’s brother, who was First Gentleman of France and known simply as ‘Monsieur’. She said they’d got caught plotting to assassinate the Cardinal in 1636, but while Orléans had just been ticked off and was sulking in his estate at Blois, Soissons had had to leg it to the Sedan and the protection of the Duc de Bouillon. He’d been lurking there ever since, but everyone knew he was only waiting for another chance, and the fact these gentlemen were visiting him suggested the time was now.
‘We still need names,’ she said. ‘The Sedan is out of reach, we need the names of their allies in Paris.’
I said ‘There’s Bouchard.’
She gave a graceful little shrug. ‘A figurehead, valuable only for the name of Montmorency. He hasn’t the power to drive a conspiracy.’
‘There’s the gentleman we helped,’ said André. ‘He’s the one they were afraid I’d recognize. Bernadette gives him the name Fontrailles.’
She turned so abruptly a little splash of bouillon flew out of her cup. ‘Fontrailles?’
The boy nodded dumbly.
She took a napkin to the speck of bouillon on her chemise. ‘Then we are on a different battlefield altogether. Fontrailles, Marquis d’Astarac, is a créature of Orléans and formidable opposition. He has no religion and fewer morals and dislikes the Cardinal intensely. More to the point, his closest friendship at court suggests the identity of your girl’s other mysterious
lord. Not “le grand Monsieur”, but “Monsieur le Grand”, the Grand Écuyer.’
I pictured that young pretty face I’d seen on the road outside Amiens. Cinq-Mars, the King’s favourite. André was right, this was too big for us.
I said nervously ‘It’s politics then, isn’t it? It’s nothing to do with us.’
The Comtesse returned to her bouillon. ‘I might agree, if they were not so eager to annihilate my grandson.’
‘It’s our business anyway,’ said André. ‘They’re going to use Spanish help, they’ll bring Spanish troops back into France. We can’t just let it happen.’
She turned to me. ‘This Spaniard you saw. You could not be mistaken?’
I thought about that little dark man with the pointy beard, I heard him saying ‘¡Madre de Dios!’ and remembered voices like that in my own village, men with scarlet plumes on their helmets swaggering into our homes. I said ‘No.’
‘No,’ she said, and put down her cup so delicately it made a tiny sort of ting. ‘Then we cannot allow it. But it will be difficult with Cinq-Mars against us.’
André stared. ‘The King will never be swayed by a mere favourite.’
The Comtesse gave a tiny snort. ‘He will by this one. No, the only man we can trust is Richelieu, and we must speak to him at once. There is a long wait for appointments, but we might manage to see him at tonight’s festivities.’
The idea terrified me. ‘I thought we needed more names.’
She picked up a little bell and tinkled it. ‘This girl of yours knows faces. I can turn them into names.’
We looked blankly at her.
She sighed. ‘These celebrations will draw all the quality in Paris. Do you not realize these gentlemen will almost certainly be there too?’
Bernadette Fournier
I felt such a fool you would not believe. They dressed me in silk and ribbons, and a woman to whom I would normally curtsey dressed my hair, then they gave me into the care of this Charlot and said for tonight I was lady companion to the Comtesse de Vallon. I showed myself to Jacques and said ‘Now see how safe I shall be, for no one in the world would know me like this,’ but he said ‘I would know you anywhere,’ and kissed my hand. And there I was, giddy with his kiss and warm with the love of him, dressed like a lady and going to a party in the Royal Gardens where there would be fireworks, and the world seemed a great and glorious game, for I was sixteen and a woman, and that is how it is and will always be.
We were driven across the Pont-Neuf to the Place Dauphine, where I saw a carriage with bright gilt on its panels as if there were no such thing as a Sumptuary Law. A linkman lit the way to our own carriages, and behind him strutted a short gentleman with an important beard and magnificent clothes. Beside him came a young lady, and oh, she was pretty, Monsieur, her neck so slender you would not think it could sustain the weight of red-gold hair piled above it, and her skin as pale and smooth as china. I watched the short gentleman hand her into our lead coach with M. de Roland and the Comtesse, and became very aware of the redness of my hands and the brownness of my hair and the ordinariness of my face.
‘That’s Mlle du Pré,’ said Jacques. ‘That’s Anne.’
A second group entered the gilt coach, attendants like ourselves, and lastly an elegant young gentleman whom I recognized at once, for he was the shy man with the wispy beard.
I said ‘That is one of them,’ and pressed back in my seat to allow Jacques a clear view.
‘Her brother,’ he whispered. ‘He’s a friend of theirs, that’s all.’
‘He is more than that,’ I said. ‘He left early on the evening you came, but he is as regular at these meetings as Bouchard himself.’
Jacques Gilbert
It was chaos outside the entrance, with loads of carriages arriving all at once, and horses snorting and bumping into each other, and footmen all yelling for everyone else to make way. The guards were trying to weed out the scruffy ones and forbidding entry to anyone in livery, but the linkmen had sort of given up, they were huddled in a lump near the gate and you could see them looking at the crowd and thinking ‘Sod that.’
André was waiting by the entrance with Anne tucked safely in his arm. I told Bernadette to hold on tight and barged through the mob to reach him, but by the time we got there the Baron had joined him with that bloody Florian, and I couldn’t say a word. They were right by the linkmen too, it was like broad bloody daylight and I had to whisper Bernadette to keep her head down. She could fool a casual glance, but Florian was only feet away and no one who’d ever seen it would forget Bernadette’s face. Then a dark shadow fell over her as Charlot planted himself between us and the torches, and gave me a tiny reassuring nod.
October’s not the best time for the Luxembourg, but it was still the most beautiful scene I’d ever walked into. Candles formed shining lines down the straight paths, hanging lanterns turned the spray from the splashing fountains into great arcs of sparkling jewels, and a warm spicy perfume wafted up from copper braziers glowing on the lawns. An orchestra was playing nearby, violins and flutes and aerophones, lilting music sort of melting into the evening air. I couldn’t actually see them, they were probably hiding in the bushes, but that made it somehow more dreamlike, and Bernadette hugged my arm with pleasure. I wanted like anything to just give in and enjoy it with her, but could only say ‘For Christ’s sake keep your head down,’ and fix my eyes on Charlot’s back.
He didn’t let us down. He stepped discreetly to the Comtesse’s side, said ‘Excuse me, Madame,’ and bent like he was untangling her dress from something on the ground. The Baron politely turned to chat to Florian, but I saw Charlot’s head close to my grandmother’s and knew he’d got the message over. A moment later and I saw her whispering to André. He wasn’t as good an actor as she was, the shock sharpened his whole face, but after one glance at Florian he pulled himself together and turned back to Anne. She looked wonderingly up at him, but he managed a smile and folded her hand tenderly back in his arm.
The Comtesse was superb. She kept leading us along, chatting brightly to the Baron and Florian, and leaving us free to do our job. Charlot dropped to the back so we could report what we saw, but we didn’t spot anyone till we came to a huge white marquee in a chained enclosure with Cardinal’s Guards patrolling the perimeter.
‘That’s one,’ said Bernadette, tipping her head at the officer in charge. ‘I think they call him d’Arsy.’
I hoped she’d got it wrong, but then the Guard turned his head and I saw him myself, a thickset man with heavy brows, the dark man I’d kicked back in the alley. I said ‘She’s right.’
They were everywhere after that. Bernadette saw one in the uniform of the Maréchaussée, one of the Garde Française, and another Charlot recognized as an officer who worked on the Porte Saint-Antoine. I only spotted one myself, the plump man in the courtyard André had spiked in the shoulder, but Charlot said that was bad enough, his name was Lavigne and he was in Cinq-Mars’ own entourage.
We started to wander back the way we’d come, and then another face sprang into focus, Bouchard himself sitting at a crowded table opposite the marquee. Bernadette began dutifully picking out his companions for Charlot, but I wasn’t listening, I was looking at Bouchard. He was watching André, following every step of his progress through the crowd, and to my surprise he was smiling.
Bernadette Fournier
The Comtesse was a fine actress. She told the Baron so charmingly that we had a prior engagement for the fireworks that even I who knew she was lying was almost fooled. The du Prés departed at once, though I noticed M. de Roland kept hold of Mademoiselle’s hand even when he had kissed it and wondered what she was saying to bring such light to his face.
But there was no time for such things now, and we hastened to tell the Comtesse all we had discovered. There was still one regular I had not seen, he with the florid face called Dubosc, but she only shuddered and said ‘Thank heavens we are spared that. But I dare not delay, the fireworks will start
any moment and His Eminence will doubtless leave straight afterwards.’
M. de Roland hesitated. ‘You won’t tell him about the du Prés?’
She regarded him with severity. ‘Chevalier, duty is duty.’
He stood his ground as a lover should. ‘Florian is feeble-minded, he can’t realize what he’s involved in. Anne knows nothing, but she’s already begged me to extricate him from his dreadful friends.’
‘It’s too late for that,’ said the Comtesse. ‘The friendship is known, and our honesty will be impugned if we suppress it. I shall say we believe him an innocent tool, and if the facts support it I am sure no action will be taken against him. Will that satisfy you?’
M. de Roland bowed.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now get me into that marquee, my feet are freezing and I want to sit down.’
And there was the problem, Monsieur, for we had first to convey her past this d’Arsy, who as Cardinal’s Guard might deny entrance to any but the King himself. But M. de Roland made a plan, and we gathered near the chain of the private enclosure while he walked alone to the opening. Bouchard and his companions watched warily, for though they could not know what he had learned from me, they perhaps feared he had guessed the identity of M. Fontrailles and was about to disclose it.
D’Arsy squared his feet more firmly as M. de Roland announced himself, then said ‘I regret, Chevalier, but His Eminence wishes no more guests tonight. I will pass the message to his secretary, who will make you an appointment for another day.’
Across the path I saw Bouchard smile.
M. de Roland tilted his head to one side and regarded d’Arsy through half-closed eyes. ‘Don’t I know you?’
D’Arsy must have expected it, but perhaps he hoped the darkness and his hat would disguise his features. He said ‘I don’t think so, Monsieur,’ and looked away.
‘But I do,’ said the Chevalier, ‘and we have business between us, you and I.’