The Châtelet Apprentice

by Jean-FranCois Parot

  ‘This being the case, Monsieur, if I have had the misfortune of displeasing you, or if I no longer enjoy your trust, it only remains for me to return to where I came from. But before doing so, there is something I wish to say to you. Without family or connections, and after being summarily dismissed from a modest position that suited me, I arrived in Paris without anyone to turn to. You gave me a kind welcome and took me into your service. I owe you a debt of gratitude. You placed me in Lardin’s household in circumstances that would suggest even to a fool your desire to keep an eye on him. You entrusted me with an assignment that is in many ways extraordinary: investigating Lardin’s disappearance. But what I was forced to hear just now has made one thing clear to me: you have not placed any trust in me or shared your ulterior motives with me. I know from what you have taught me that uncertainty is the hallmark of subordination, but you must understand that I was finding my way in the dark, without any information that could have helped me avoid certain pitfalls. Before taking my leave of you, Monsieur, it may be useful for me to give you a final report.’

  The Lieutenant General still didn’t react.

  ‘The commissioner had disappeared,’ continued Nicolas, ‘and you gave me full powers to find him. What do we know as of now? On the day he disappeared Lardin was due to attend a rout at the Dauphin Couronné, at the same time as his friend Dr Semacgus. An argument took place between the commissioner and Descart, his wife’s cousin. By investigating Descart we have also discovered an animosity between him and Semacgus – professional or some other jealousy. Descart disguises his presence at La Paulet’s evening entertainment. Then comes old Émilie, the soup seller, whose horrifying story takes us to Montfaucon. The police visit to the knacker’s yard is watched over by a mysterious horseman. The examination of human remains found in the snow proves inconclusive. The corpse is unrecognisable, but Lardin’s cane and doublet are found beside it. Our observations give us cause to doubt where the crime took place. In the doublet we found a fragment of a letter and a token from a brothel. These clues may have been snatched during the brawl with Lardin. I continue my investigation, catch La Paulet off her guard and find out that Camusot and Mauval have been blackmailing Lardin over heavy gambling debts. So, Lardin’s investigation into Camusot was bound to come to an abrupt end. I discover that Lardin is a regular at the Dauphin Couronné, as is Descart, that he met his wife there when she was one of the “residents”, and that she is ruining him financially and is unfaithful to him: most notably she is the mistress of her cousin, Dr Descart. Finally it is confirmed that Lardin asked La Paulet to invite Descart to the evening event, in the course of which he disappeared. In addition I learn that Dr Semacgus did not spend the night with a girl from the brothel and that his black servant, Saint-Louis, has also disappeared. That, Monsieur, together with two assaults against the person of your representative, is the summary of the investigation I submit for your consideration. Today I discover that I was merely a tool for you: I did not know what I was looking for or what lead to follow. I dare to suppose that you have reasons of the greatest importance for treating me in this way. Monsieur, I take my leave of you, begging you to believe that I remain your very humble, obedient and grateful servant.’

  Despite his emotion and the throbbing in his temples, Nicolas felt liberated by his speech. The vice gripping his chest was gradually released as these irrevocable words left his lips. What he experienced just then was not far off jubilation. However accurate his summary may have been, he had left out certain details. He was not especially proud of the fact; this pettiness did not improve his opinion of himself, but having burnt his boats it was his way of getting his own back, his response to the humiliation he had suffered. He still felt an underlying anger at having been trifled with by a man he respected, who had entrusted him with a task into which he had put his heart and soul. It was all over, he could now let himself go. His future, his destiny, the next day, everything that had made up his life in Paris, none of it mattered at that moment.

  He was preparing to leave the room when Monsieur de Sartine made a sudden, improbable gesture. He pulled off his wig and flung it onto the middle of his desk, then ran his hands nervously through his hair. He went towards the fireplace, poked the dying embers and then walked resolutely towards Nicolas, who was taken aback by the speed at which he moved and could not help stepping back a pace. The magistrate seized him by the shoulders and pulled him towards him. The inquisitive eyes stared at him long and hard. The young man withstood this examination without batting an eyelid. Then Sartine led him gently towards an armchair and forced him to sit down. He handed him a fine linen handkerchief.

  ‘Take this, Nicolas, and press it hard to your wound.’

  He stepped aside and went to the door. Nicolas heard him speak to the usher.

  ‘Marie, old fellow, you have your flask, I assume … Yes, your flask. Stop pretending not to understand and give it to me.’

  There were a few vague mutterings. The Lieutenant General came back in and handed Nicolas a small glass bottle that he was already familiar with.

  ‘Take a sip of this poison. It’ll do you good. Old Marie imagines that I’m not aware of his habits.’

  Nicolas felt he was going to burst out laughing. The result was that the alcohol went down the wrong way and made him choke. This produced unstoppable hiccups that set off the fit of laughter. Sartine appeared rather worried. He leant against his desk.

  ‘You can be quite insolent at times for a former notary’s clerk who wishes to return to that occupation. What eloquence! What fiery passion! What talent! My compliments.’

  Nicolas made as if to leave.

  ‘Come on. Don’t be childish and listen to me. I didn’t think, Monsieur, you could rise to the challenge of the assignment I’d given you. A tricky investigation indeed. You have made rapid and effective progress. I am not easily surprised but you have astonished me. Grey areas remain, however … It’s true that with me keeping you in the dark you were unlikely to see the light. The secret purpose of all this … Oh! It’s so delicate to put …’

  Nicolas realised Sartine’s feeling of awkwardness and shared it. To this unease was added his continuing fit of hiccups, only made worse by his attempts to control them. He was convulsed with such an infectious laughter that Sartine joined in. Nicolas had never seen him laugh and he noticed that this outburst made his superior look much younger. He remembered that there were only eight or nine years between them, and this fact reassured him. They became serious again. Sartine coughed, embarrassed at having let himself go in this way.

  ‘It was very wrong of me to underestimate you and to use you as if you were an automaton,’ he said, regaining his seriousness. ‘You have proved your worth. I shall forget about this misunderstanding …’

  Nicolas thought that it was a bit rich for Sartine to talk of drawing a line under this ‘misunderstanding’. However, admitting he had been wrong made up for it and the ‘worth’ he mentioned healed his many wounds.

  ‘I see that I must reveal my most secret thoughts to you. You already know many of them. Now listen.’

  Nicolas would have listened to anything. Now completely in control of himself, Sartine continued:

  ‘I had given Lardin the task of investigating Camusot, whom my predecessor, Berryer, suspected of corruption in the Gaming Division. The aim was to clean up an Augean stable. It didn’t take me long to realise that the commissioner was fobbing me off and that I no longer had control over him. Ranreuil recommended you to me. I placed you with Lardin and what you reported back to me, innocently or not, convinced me of his disloyalty. But there was worse to come.’

  The seriousness of his words encouraged the Lieutenant General to put his wig back on.

  ‘At the end of August 1760 Lardin, together with Commissioner Chénon, was called upon in the course of his duties to affix the seals and make a record of the papers of the Comte d’Auléon, the former plenipotentiary in Saint Petersburg, who had just died. This is
normal practice for all those who have taken part in State negotiations, and the order came from Monsieur de Choiseul. However, we know for sure that Lardin stole several documents, in particular letters in the King’s own hand and in the Marquise de Pompadour’s. A few days before he disappeared I sent for him. He threatened – I repeat, threatened – to divulge these items to foreign powers if legal proceedings were taken against him. In the middle of a war, in circumstances that you are aware of …’

  ‘But, Monsieur, why did you not have him arrested and imprisoned?’

  ‘I did think about it, but it was a risk I could not take. So I, Gabriel de Sartine, Lieutenant General of Police, had to beg this miserable wretch, who has added treachery to the crime of lese-majesty, to attempt no such thing. I was unaware then of what you have now told me, that in addition to all these heinous crimes he had the vile habit of gambling. I imagined that these stolen papers served him just as a safeguard. We now fear that he may sell them for profit to anyone. Hence the importance of finding out whether Lardin really is dead and, if that is the case, what has become of those stolen letters.’

  ‘Camusot and Mauval must be arrested.’

  ‘Not so fast, Nicolas. That would mean losing any further trace of them for the sake of a foolhardy and pointless sense of satisfaction. You will learn that the protection of the State can sometimes take some very roundabout routes. In addition, Camusot has been with us for such a long time that he knows a great deal about a lot of people. There are risks that a servant of the King must avoid taking. That’s not very moral, is it? But remember the words of Cardinal Richelieu: “He who finds his salvation as a private individual is damned as a public figure …”’

  He stopped talking as if at the mere mention of his name the great cardinal’s ghost would suddenly enter the room.

  ‘That is why,’ he went on after a moment, ‘we need to find out with the utmost urgency whether Lardin is alive or dead. Can you tell me for certain that the body found in Montfaucon is his? You seem unsure about this …’

  ‘The evidence is, indeed, incomplete,’ Nicolas replied. ‘The only thing I am sure about is that the remains in question were taken from the scene of the crime to the knacker’s yard and that …’

  ‘That does not satisfy me at all. In such circumstances it …’ Monsieur de Sartine was interrupted by a loud knocking on the door. It then opened and Inspector Bourdeau appeared, red with embarrassment. The Lieutenant General stood up straight, his eyes blazing with anger.

  ‘Well! Just bursting in like that! Monsieur Bourdeau, what do you mean by such behaviour?’

  ‘My sincere apologies, Monsieur. Only something very serious could warrant my interruption. I wanted to inform you and Monsieur Le Floch that yesterday evening Dr Descart was killed and everything points to Guillaume Semacgus being the murderer.’

  Notes – CHAPTER VII

  1. (1702–1766). A French general of Irish descent. After the failure of the siege of Madras, he capitulated at Pondicherry after heroically defending it. He was accused of treason, sentenced to death and executed. His son obtained his rehabilitation with the help of Voltaire.

  2. (1711–1794). The Chancellor of Austria.

  3. The ‘good lady’ here refers to Jeanne Poisson, Madame de Pompadour.

  4. Frederick II, King of Prussia.

  5. A French defeat in which Frederick II crushed Marshal Soubise and the forces of the Holy Roman Empire.

  6. (1684–1770). A financier and friend of Madame de Pompadour.

  VIII

  BETWEEN SCYLLA AND

  CHARYBDIS

  ‘Keep your thoughts to yourself and avoid malice lest clouded understanding mistake one thing for another.’

  THALASSIUS THE AFRICAN

  IMPERVIOUS to Monsieur de Sartine’s obsessive pacing around the room and nervous pokes at the fire, Bourdeau began to recount his day. He seemed proud of the opportunity to address such an audience.

  Charged by Nicolas with the task of finding Catherine after she had been thrown out of the house in Rue des Blancs-Manteaux, he had begun his investigation in that neighbourhood. Luck was on his side because a day labourer had come to pick up a bundle of old clothes that the cook had left with her landlady. Bourdeau had not been particularly surprised to discover that Catherine had taken refuge at Dr Semacgus’s home. Armed with this precious piece of information, Bourdeau drove to Vaugirard but as he explained, somewhat to his embarrassment, he had stayed too long in a hostelry in the faubourg where, to warm himself up, he had had a meal of stewed rabbit accompanied by some table wine that was rather too young for his taste.

  Monsieur de Sartine motioned to him to leave these details aside and get on with his report. Red with embarrassment, Bourdeau described how he had met up with Catherine who was full of praise for the kindness of her host – she said he ‘appreciated her cooking and had welcomed her with open arms’. Although the two cooks were both upset, one at having lost her job and her lodging, and the other, Awa, distraught at Saint-Louis’s disappearance, they soon became close friends. Awa had been won over by Catherine’s jovial ways. They even exchanged recipes and as soon as he’d arrived, Bourdeau had been called upon to judge the success of a poultry pie, a piping hot delicacy that gave off a combined aroma of truffles and nutmeg.

  The Lieutenant General brought the inspector back to the point once more with a threatening nod of his wig. In short, Dr Semacgus hadn’t been there and Bourdeau, who had wanted to speak to him about Catherine’s situation, had waited for him for some of the afternoon. He’d taken advantage of the opportunity to get Catherine to talk and she was quite happy to do so.

  According to her, she would have left her position in any case. Madame Lardin, whom she described in the most unflattering terms, had simply brought the crisis to a head. It was one thing for someone like Catherine, who’d been at the battle of Fontenoy with the Marshal of Saxony, to be treated like dirt but quite another for her to witness the depravity of a woman totally without morals. What Catherine loathed most of all was the way she treated her stepdaughter, sweet little Marie. For a long time the mutual affection between Catherine and the commissioner’s daughter had prevented the cook from leaving her job, and Lardin, though curt with others, had not been so nasty to her.

  In the course of the conversation Bourdeau eventually learnt that not only was Louise Lardin having an adulterous relationship with her cousin Descart and with Semacgus, but also that she had taken up with a sinister-looking womaniser who had been hanging around the house in Rue des Blancs-Manteaux since Lardin’s disappearance.

  On the stroke of six Semacgus had finally arrived, dishevelled and unable to speak coherently, surprising behaviour for a man who usually possessed such self-control. Eventually it emerged that Descart had just been murdered.

  After consoling him, Bourdeau had begged Semacgus to pull himself together and give a detailed account of events.

  The inspector told how Semacgus had received a folded note which had been slipped under his door, with a request from Descart for a meeting. He found the initiative unexpected coming from a man with whom relations were anything but good. However, the pressing tone of the note had convinced him that only a serious matter, perhaps one involving medicine, justified an invitation of this type. It was arranged for half past five. He had spent the day in Paris going about his business, then had taken a cab from the Jardin du Roi to return to Vaugirard in order to be on time for his appointment. He had arrived at Descart’s early, at about five o’clock. Surprised to find all the doors open, the one to the garden as well as the front door of the house, he had felt his way inside; it was already dark and no lights had been lit. He had hardly reached the balcony overlooking the stairs and the main room when he had stumbled against something that at first he thought was a sack lying on the floor. It was in fact a lifeless body.

  Panic-stricken by the turn of events, Semacgus had gone down into the room and found a candle which, once lit, enabled him to recognise Desca
rt’s corpse. It had been stabbed with a lancet used for bleeding. He had stayed there for some time in a daze, then decided to go back to his house to alert the authorities.

  Bourdeau had immediately sent for the watch, left Semacgus under guard and hurried to Descart’s to confirm the doctor’s death and carry out some initial investigations.

  It was pitch dark inside the house, since even the candle stub Semacgus had lit had gone out long before. With some difficulty he had found a source of light and carried out a meticulous examination of the corpse that was lying on its side, stabbed near the heart with a lancet. The body was not yet stiff. The crimson face blotched with blackish marks wore an expression of intense surprise, accentuated by a gaping mouth, as if in his final moments the victim had tried to shout something out or say someone’s name.

  The ground was covered with wet footprints. Bourdeau had given the scene a quick inspection without noticing anything unusual, then had the body removed and taken to the Basse-Geôle, where these gentlemen would be able to see it.

  As for Semacgus, Bourdeau had thought it best to have him temporarily imprisoned in a cell in the Châtelet. He was the only witness to the crime and, unfortunately for him, he was also the main suspect, given the stormy relations that everyone knew existed between the two doctors. Finally Bourdeau had left Vaugirard, but not before carefully closing the doors of the house, sealing the exits with sealing wafer and taking the keys with him.

  A lengthy silence followed the inspector’s account. Monsieur de Sartine had not stopped pacing around the room. With a wave of the hand he indicated to Bourdeau his desire to be left alone with Nicolas.

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur Bourdeau. Leave us. I have some instruc-tions to give to your superior.’

  Hearing this phrase gave Nicolas a pleasure he had difficulty disguising: it was for him the confirmation of his assignment.