The Châtelet Apprentice
Page 36
2. The doctors and surgeons of the criminal courts of the Châtelet were on duty one week in four.
3. Robert François Damiens (1715–1757). A soldier, then a domestic servant, he struck Louis XV an inoffensive blow with a pen-knife to remind him of the duties of his office. His punishment was commensurate with the fear felt by the Sovereign, who in the moments following the attack thought he had been mortally wounded. The author has taken numerous details from the well-researched study by Martin Monestier, Peines de mort. Histoire et techniques des exécutions capitales des origines à nos jours, Paris, 1994.
4. Casanova, who witnessed the execution from a window overlooking Place de Grève, has left a graphic account of it.
5. Charles Henri Sanson’s words are all the more remarkable since it was he who executed Louis XVI on 21 January 1793. He resigned his office immediately after this execution and set up a foundation for the annual celebration of a Mass of Atonement in the church of Saint-Laurent.
6. The buildings referred to are the symmetrical mansions of the Ambassadeurs Extraordinaires, later to become Hôtel de Crillon and Hôtel de la Marine.
CHAPTER VI
1. A famous eighteenth-century case. The Duchesse de Gesvres attempted to have her marriage annulled because of her husband’s impotence. The case had still not been settled at the time of her death in 1717.
2. Aphrodisiacs used in the eighteenth century. An excessive amount of powder of cantharides (a tropical fly) could prove fatal.
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.
CHAPTER VIII
1. A fashionable Paris innkeeper.
CHAPTER IX
1. During the ancien régime, people who committed suicide were sometimes tried and even sentenced to be hanged on the gibbet and their family disgraced. Even if this practice had gradually disappeared, traces of it remained in the popular consciousness.
2. ‘Since you are a great judge, Monseigneur Saint-Yves de la Vérité, listen to me.’
3. Violinist and composer (1713–1797). he was Superintendent of the Royal Music in 1764 and a member of the French Royal Academy of Music, of which he was three times director.
CHAPTER X
1. A product used instead of soap for doing the washing.
2. ‘Contemptuous of wealth, firm in virtue and steadfast in the face of fear.’ (Tacitus, Annals, Book IV, 5).
3. (1727–1799). A French composer and organist.
4. The most famous dungeons in the Châtelet. As early as 1670 Louis XIV had decreed that ‘the prisons of the Châtelet should be healthy’ but it was Louis XVI who decided to abolish them in 1780.
5. The coat of arms of Antoine Gabriel de Sartine. Recently ennobled (Comte d’Alby) he wanted them to include a representation of the fish formerly sold by one of his ancestors, a grocer, which sounded like his patronym.
CHAPTER XI
1. Glass paste imitating precious stones.
2. (1709–1767). The Comptroller General of Finance in 1759. He launched the fashion for portraits obtained by tracing the outline of a profile and filling in the whole with black.
3. During Carnival children were accustomed to marking passers-by with a piece of cloth cut into the shape of a rat and rubbed in chalk.
4. (1734–1794). Louis XVI’s First Groom, then a farmer-general. He died at the guillotine during the Terror.
5. Just like a corpse.
CHAPTER XII
1. (1725–1793). Son of the Comte de Toulouse, himself the legitimate son of Louis XIV. He succeeded his father in this office in 1734.
2. A cart for transporting a cannon.
CHAPTER XIII
1. Where preliminary torture was carried out during the preparation of a criminal trial, and where those accused of criminal offences were imprisoned.
2. A cheap material made of light wool.
3. Pensées, I, 23.
CHAPTER XIV
1. A convent situated in Rue de Charenton in Faubourg Saint-Antoine, where young foreign girls of noble birth were brought up.
CHAPTER XV
1. (1715–1771). A French philosopher. He was a farmer-general and contributed to the Encyclopédie.
2. At the time there were many rumours of attempts either by Austria or Prussia to bribe Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV’s favourite. Frederick II had asked his sister, the Margravine of Bayreuth, to approach the lady at Versailles via an emissary, her Grand Chamberlain the Chevalier de Mirabeau.
EPILOGUE
1. A hunting coat worn at Versailles. Each hunting ground and each type of hunt would have a particular coat.
2. The Master of Ceremonies.
3. There were two paintings by Van Loo (an ostrich hunt and a bear hunt), two by Parrocel (an elephant hunt and a buffalo hunt), two by Boucher (a tiger hunt and a crocodile hunt), one by De Troy (a lion hunt), one by Lancret (a leopard hunt) and one by Pater (a Chinese hunting scene). Most of these paintings are now on display in the Museum of Amiens.
4. In 1757 the Breton nobility mobilised against raids by the British.
5. The grey hunting coat worn by beginners.
6. Palais Mazarin.
Acknowledgements
First I wish to express my gratitude to Jacqueline Herrouin for all the skill, attention to detail and patience she showed in typing up the text. I also wish to thank Monique Constant, conservateur général du Patrimoine, for her help, trust and encouragement. I am grateful to Maurice Roisse for his intelligent and careful checking of the manuscript. As a tireless walker through the streets of Paris, he was my investigator on the ground. My thanks also to Xavier Ozanne for that indispensable technical touch. Finally, I wish to pay tribute to the historians whose works have constantly accompanied and assisted me in the day-to-day task of writing this book.
Sofia, May 1997
The Second Nicolas Le Floch Investigation
April 2008
THE MAN WITH THE LEAD STOMACH
Jean-François Parot
An unusual death during an evening at the Opera reveals something sinister at the heart of the French court …
October 1761 finds the newly-promoted Commissioner Le Floch on duty at a Royal performance of Rameau’s latest work. Events take a dramatic turn and Nicolas is soon embarked on his second major investigation when the body of a prominent courtier’s son is found. The initial evidence points to suicide, but Le Floch’s instincts tell him he is dealing with murder of the most gruesome kind.
Gallic Books
Paperback April 2008 £11.99
978–1–906040–07–9
About the Author
Jean-François Parot
Jean-François Parot is a diplomat and historian. The Châtelet Apprentice is his first novel, and the first in a series of Nicolas Le Floch mysteries which have been published to much acclaim in French.
Michael Glencross
Michael Glencross lives and works in France as a translator. His most recent translations into English include The Dream by Emile Zola and Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne.
Copyright
First published in 2007
by Gallic Books, Worlds End Studios, 134 Lots Road, London,
SW10 ORJ
This ebook edition first published in 2011
All rights reserved
© Jean-François Parot, 2007
The right of Jean-François Parot t
o be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 9781906040468
Discover the next Nicolas le Floch Investigation