Paris: The Novel

by Edward Rutherfurd

  He was in a company of a dozen nobles, three days after the marriage, when they had dismounted to wander through the great market of Les Halles. And he was just standing beside a brightly colored stall that offered herbs and spices when he heard a cry from nearby.

  It was Charles, son of the Comte de Grenache, with whom he’d been riding only minutes before. He ran over to him.

  “What’s the matter?” Guy asked.

  “Someone just stole my purse. It was hanging on my belt, on a strap, and the cursed fellow must have cut it off with a knife. My God he was fast.” Charles de Grenache shook his head. “I had thirty francs in there.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “I’m not certain, but I think so. A fellow with a stoop. Tonsured like a priest. His head bobbed like a pigeon.” The young aristocrat looked around. “He just vanished in the crowd. I’ll never see him again. Or my money.”

  Guy smiled.

  “As it happens,” he said, “I may be able to help you there.”

  It took only a few moments for Guy to explain what he required. One of the party, a young squire, volunteered to go with him. Then, leaving the others in the market, Guy and the young squire set out.

  They moved swiftly and by the most direct way, to a street where they could see the door of the Rising Sun. They hadn’t long to wait. Having taken a more circuitous route, the stooped man appeared from an alley, and having glanced behind him furtively, went in through the tavern door.

  Guy gave him time to get well inside, and then, keeping the squire with him, he strolled casually to the tavern and opened the door.

  Jean Le Sourd was in a good mood. He sat with his son beside him at his table, on which the leather purse had just been placed. He poured out the gold and silver coins and quickly reckoned. Thirty francs’ worth. He scooped the money back into the purse, and nodded to the stooping man.

  “You’ll get your share,” he said.

  “How much?”

  “Whatever I give you,” said Le Sourd sharply. “Sit down.”

  As the stooped man was about to turn away, there was a movement at the door, and Le Sourd looked up in surprise to see the fair-haired young noble who’d come there three months ago enter with a youth.

  Was it possible the stooped man had stolen from him again? He looked inquiringly at the cutpurse, who gave a shrug which said, “I’ve no idea.”

  De Cygne was looking at him and smiling.

  “I hoped I’d find you here,” he said. “I am in Paris only another day.” He paused. “You said I was welcome at your table. Is the offer still good?”

  Le Sourd kept his eyes on him thoughtfully, at the same time taking the purse off the table and placing it at his feet.

  “Of course.” He glanced at the door, and one of his men slipped out.

  De Cygne turned to the youth.

  “Go to my father and say I shall return in an hour or two. Tell him I am dining with friends.”

  He advanced toward the table, gave a friendly nod to young Richard, and addressed his host again.

  “I have not forgotten your kindness to me, you see. And I came to tell you my good fortune. I was married, two days ago, here in Paris.”

  “Ah.” Le Sourd nodded. “To the heiress.”

  “It turns out she is an angel. I am taking her down to our poor manor this week.”

  “An angel of mercy. The fields will rejoice.”

  “No doubt. May I sit down?”

  The man at the door came back in and signaled that the coast was clear, and the visitor had come alone.

  “Of course.” Le Sourd smiled expansively. “Wine for our friend,” he called.

  It seemed he could relax a little. This show of courtesy was more than he’d expected, but one never knew with these nobles. He gave his son a look that told him to take note of this courtesy to his father.

  “Master Villon is not here?” de Cygne asked.

  “No, monsieur. He is away.”

  So they talked of this and that. De Cygne could not ask Le Sourd much of what he’d been doing, since he’d only been robbing people. But young Richard wanted to know about the wedding, and so, without making too much of the disparity between the richness of the scene and the poverty of the tavern, he was able to describe the bright clothes of the men and women, and the food. “A great haunch of venison. A boar’s head stuffed with sweetmeats, a huge pie made from—I don’t know—a hundred pigeons. Ah,” he told the boy cheerfully, “the smell of it …”

  “And wine, monsieur?”

  “All you could drink.”

  “And many guests?” asked his host.

  “I never realized,” Guy smiled, “I had so many friends.”

  “Keep your money, monsieur, that your friendships may last.”

  “I know,” Guy answered quietly. “Remember, I have been poor.” And reading the other’s thoughts: “The estate has value, of course, but not until money is spent on it.”

  They continued awhile. They discussed the doings of the king. Guy even suggested that perhaps, one of these days, he might be in a position to have the verses of Master Villon printed. And this, he noted, seemed to evoke a response of genuine enthusiasm in his host.

  And then the tavern door burst open.

  Le Sourd looked up. Through the door came a young man with a drawn sword. Moving swiftly forward he gave a loud cry: “In the name of the king, nobody move!”

  The man by the door leaped toward his back with his knife, but let out a scream as a second swordsman, coming through the door, put a blade through his ribs from behind. More men were pouring through the entrance now; five, ten, fifteen, fanning out through the room with swords drawn. Even the thieves and murderers who filled the place knew at once that they hadn’t a chance. These invaders were young knights, trained in the use of arms. By coming in the king’s name, they had all the legal excuse they needed. And they had one other advantage also. They were noblemen, and as such they were ruthless.

  When a huntsman killed a deer, he might see the beauty and the nobility of the creature, as he did in much of God’s creation. But when a knight was confronted by such men as kept company in the Rising Sun, he’d kill them with no more compunction than he’d use toward a sewer rat. And Le Sourd’s men knew it.

  While Le Sourd’s attention was distracted by the men who were pouring in through the door, something else was happening at his own table.

  Guy de Cygne had suddenly leaped up from the bench, drawn his sword, and by the time Le Sourd turned back to him, he found that he was looking along a blade whose point was tilted tight under his chin.

  And as young Richard reached for his knife to protect his father, Le Sourd’s voice called out with an urgency and command that could not be ignored: “Leave your knife, my son. Keep still.”

  Then, in the heavy-breathing silence that followed, Guy de Cygne’s voice came crisply: “This is your man, Grenache. The purse is by his feet.”

  Le Sourd watched as the young man who’d been first through the door advanced to his table. Carefully, with the point of his sword, Charles de Grenache felt for the purse, and drew it across the floor until he could see it clearly. Still using the sword point, he lifted the purse and let it fall upon the table.

  “That is my purse,” he confirmed. He turned and surveyed the room until his eyes rested upon the stooped man. “And that’s the fellow who took it,” he added.

  “He works for this villain,” said de Cygne. “They all do. That’s why he’s got the purse now. He’s called Le Sourd.”

  Le Sourd was a hard man. He’d killed many times. He’d been cautious when de Cygne had first arrived, and he cursed himself now, for allowing the young man to ambush him.

  Yet even so, he was taken aback by the completeness of the transformation. The courtesy de Cygne had shown, the confidences he’d shared, had vanished so suddenly, it was as if they had never been there at all. Vicious though he was himself, Le Sourd was astonished. He stared at the young noble w
ith hurt and almost disbelief.

  But then he saw, in a flash, into Guy de Cygne’s soul. The young man had been poor. Now he was rich. But it hardly made a difference. For Guy de Cygne was noble. And Jean Le Sourd was not. And it was that social chasm, more even than the fact he was a thief, that made the difference between them.

  Before, the young man had to wear a mask. Now, backed by his noble friends, the mask was dropped.

  To Guy de Cygne the hospitality of a Le Sourd was nothing. The friendship, the gift: nothing. His honor—for even thieves have honor—nothing. His son, nothing. His very soul—for even thieves have souls to be saved—also, nothing. He was less than a horse, less than a dog. He scarcely had the merit of a rat. Because he was not noble. Jean Le Sourd understood, and he looked at his son, and he knew bitterness.

  “Well, Le Sourd,” said Charles de Grenache, “you and your stooping friend are going to hang.”

  It was a month later that they brought Jean Le Sourd to execution. He and the stooping man had been kept in the Châtelet’s stout jail. Naturally, the provost had ordered them tortured. It was assumed that Le Sourd in particular had murders to his name, and the provost wanted confessions. It took a little while, but he got them. After a certain amount of pain, most men would confess to anything if they knew they were going to die anyway. It was only reasonable.

  The stooping man’s claims to be a churchman had been easily disposed of. He had no proof, and he couldn’t read. They’d hanged him the day before on one of the city gallows. But Le Sourd was special. They needed to make an example of him. And the crowds always liked to see a powerful villain die.

  Early in the morning, they’d erected a gallows with a high platform in the open spaces of Les Halles, his center of operations. The whole market would be there to watch. And it was a sunny day as well.

  But they had let him see his son.

  “Are you going to watch?” he asked the boy.

  “I don’t know. Do you want me to?”

  “They’ll take me from the Châtelet to Les Halles in a cart, so that everyone can see me. You can watch that. Then go away. You know what they’re going to do to me? Hang me for a while, then cut my head off.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want you to see that.”

  “All right.”

  “Go away just before we enter Les Halles. Otherwise you’ll be tempted to stay.”

  “Will you look for me in the crowd? I don’t know where I shall be.”

  “No. I shan’t look for you. Don’t try to wave at me or anything. I shall stand proud. Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Did you see Master Villon?”

  “No. I don’t think he’s in Paris.”

  “He’ll go the same way as me, you know.”

  “You’d have been all right if it wasn’t for that cursed de Cygne.”

  His father shook his head.

  “I’d have swung for something sooner or later. I could have swung so many times before.”

  “If he comes back, I’ll kill him.”

  “No you won’t. That’s an order. I don’t want you to swing as well.”

  “What am I to do, Papa?” The boy’s voice suddenly started to break down.

  “Get yourself apprenticed to a trade. You know where the money’s hidden. Enough there to pay a master to take you on. I was going to get you apprenticed to someone next year.”

  “Why?”

  “Not much money in thieving really. And you never have any peace. And then … there’s this.” He shrugged. “It’s my fault. I’ve taught you all I know about thieving, which is a lot, and it’s still a waste of time.”

  “I dunno, Papa.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I wish I had a mother.”

  “Well you don’t, so do as I say.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “As for de Cygne. Leave him alone. You’ll probably never see him again, but leave him alone. But there’s one thing you’ve got to know. About the nobles—not just de Cygne, all of them. They don’t care. Just remember that. Do what you have to do with them, because they have the power. I don’t know if they’ll always have it, but they do now, and they’ll have it as long as you live, my son. So don’t ever go against them. But just remember, no matter what they say, don’t ever trust them. Because they don’t care about you, and they never will, because you’re not one of them.”

  He looked up. The jailor had come in.

  “Say good-bye to your father now,” he said to his son. They kissed. “Now go.”

  An hour later Richard heard the crowd roar, and knew that he didn’t have a father anymore.

  Chapter Nine

  • 1897 •

  As the month of October began and Jules Blanchard considered his family, he decided that he wasn’t worried about his daughter, Marie. She was everything a young woman of her age should be.

  Her hair had changed. The golden curls of her childhood had given way to light brown hair, parted in the middle and fluffed into soft waves. But her eyes were still china blue. She had a perfect peaches-and-cream complexion, and her father adored her. No doubt she’d be married before long, but he could only pray that whomever she married wouldn’t take her far away.

  The boys were different. They’d both gone to the Lycée Condorcet, near their home, and done well. But after that, their paths had diverged entirely.

  Gérard had been everything his father could reasonably have asked. He’d been eager to go into the family business and he’d worked hard at it. Jules could already rely on him to keep everything running smoothly. Only months ago, he’d married an entirely suitable girl from a good family with plenty of money. He gave his father no worries.

  But his younger son was another matter. He worried about Marc.

  He hadn’t minded when Marc had been accepted by the École des Beaux-Arts. He liked the art school’s classical facade, which stared so handsomely across at the Louvre from the Seine’s Left Bank. The place had prestige. It sounded quite well to say that his younger son had been there. But somehow he’d supposed that after this, Marc would want to engage himself in the business or administration of art, rather than put paint on canvas himself. True, Marc had done a fine portrait of his mother, which now had pride of place in the salon of the family’s big apartment. But Jules would rather see his son as a gifted amateur than a professional painter.

  His wife was of the same opinion. Only his sister Éloïse had stood up for the boy.

  “If he wants a career in the art business,” he’d remarked to her, “I know the Durand-Ruel family. They’ve three galleries in Paris now, and another in New York. They’re starting to make money selling the Impressionists. Or I can easily get an introduction to the Duveens. They handle the Old Masters. They could give him advice.”

  “But Le Bon Dieu may have given Marc a special gift,” Éloïse had pointed out. “If so, it’s his duty to use it. He’s creative, a free spirit.”

  “That,” confessed his father, “is what worries me.”

  “You created the Joséphine store.”

  “Not the same.”

  “Besides,” his sister pointed out, “a painter can become a great man. Think of Delacroix. He was magnificent. You’d be proud to have a son like that.”

  “Hmm.” Jules pulled a face. “Delacroix had Talleyrand to ensure him a great career.”

  It was true that France’s epic romantic painter had obtained important state commissions from the powerful minister Talleyrand—and many believed that Talleyrand, a close friend of the Delacroix family, was actually the artist’s father.

  “Well, you have the resources to help him,” Éloïse pointed out. “And you’re his real father, too.”

  Jules Blanchard considered.

  “I just think it’s all too easy for him,” he complained. “He hasn’t suffered. Think of all those years I had to suffer working for our father.”

  “You didn’t suffer so much,” his sister
said tolerantly.

  “I suffered,” he insisted.

  “He will suffer for his art,” said Éloïse.

  “I doubt it.” Jules Blanchard gave his sister a searching look. “Do you really believe the boy has the passion to be an artist? Do you think he’ll stick at it?”

  “I don’t know, Jules. But if you want my opinion, you should trust him. You should give him the chance to succeed—or to fail.” Éloïse paused. “If he is not good enough, he will realize it himself. But if he never tries, he’ll always regret that he didn’t.”

  That had been two years ago, and soon after the conversation, Jules Blanchard had made Marc an offer.

  “I will support you for five years,” he told him. “But if you have not met with any success by that time, then you will have to reconsider, and find some other employment. During those years, from time to time, I may ask you to do certain small projects for me. I shall not ask for more than one a year. Do you agree?”

  “Yes, Father. That seems reasonable.”

  “Good. Now, you will need a studio. There are a number to be had between the boulevard Haussmann and the Gare Saint-Lazare. Manet had a studio there, and Morisot and a number of our modern painters, and it will be close to our home as well.”

  Marc smiled to himself. The area would be close to home and also to his father’s office. He had no wish to live under the parental eyes.

  “In fact,” he said with perfect truth, “you’re more than a decade out of date. Some of the artists you’re thinking of have moved out of town altogether. A few went across the river. But the place for any artist to be nowadays is just below Montmartre, in the Place de Clichy area.”

  “A bit unsavory.”

  “Not really. And if I’m going to do it, I should be in the community, don’t you think? What’s the first project you’d like me to do?” he asked obligingly, to change the subject.

  “Your mother wants a new set of dining room chairs. I want you to design them. Something striking, out of the ordinary. I’ve got an excellent man who can make them.”