Memory of Flames

CHAPTER 13

ON 20 March Margont paid an errand boy to take a note to ‘Monsieur Lami’. The message was coded, using a method he had perfected with Lefine in the past to while away the hours of boredom in the bivouac. The note, when decoded, simply said, ‘Meet me at midday chez Marat.’

They met at the appointed hour on the outskirts of Paris, at the foot of the hill of Montmartre, ‘Mount Marat’, as it had sometimes been called during the Revolution. Lefine still mockingly used the old-fashioned appellation. Margont was delighted to see his old friend. He felt himself again.

‘Are you sure you weren’t followed here?’

‘Certain, and you?’

‘I’m certain as well. I’m expert now at complicating my route — needs must. Well, it’s happened! I’ve met them!’

He recounted the events that had led to his admission to the organisation, and what Charles de Varencourt had told him. ‘And

what about you? What have you learnt about our suspects?’

Lefine sat down and leant against a tree, in the shade. Margont followed suit. The birds were singing at the tops of their voices, as though to hurry the arrival of spring.

‘Everything I’m about to tell you comes from the police files that have been “enriched” by Charles de Varencourt’s reports. Sometimes I was able to add to the information with my own research.’ ‘Which police? There are so many ...’

‘Joseph’s personal police. They’re the ones controlling the investigation. But they’ve also used information gathered by Fouche’s police when he was Minister of Civilian Police but had also developed his own networks, and by the civilian police—’

‘What do they think of Charles de Varencourt?’

‘They think he’s trustworthy and worth listening to. He’s furnished information that the police have been able to double-check against information they already had. So they know he doesn’t feed them nonsense.’

‘Right. I’m listening.’

‘Let’s start at the top with the leader, Vicomte de Leaume. Varencourt has already told you a good deal about him. But do you know how he escaped?’

‘No, tell me!’

‘He pretended to be dead. It sounds simple when you say it like that, but when the gaolers see a prisoner is apparently dead they stab the body with a lance or bayonet. All the fakers yell immediately or writhe in pain. But Louis de Leaume didn’t move a muscle. As it was during the Terror, when there was killing and maiming left, right and centre, the guards thought he had succumbed to his injuries. He was thrown into a communal grave with the guillotined bodies of the day and the bodies of the poor wretches who had died of starvation in the streets. When night fell he pulled himself out from under the dead bodies.’

Margont could not help imagining the scene. He saw the man extricating himself from the decomposing dead bodies — his silhouette, illuminated by the pale light of the moon, looking more like a ghost than an escapee. The thought was chilling. ‘Where did the gaoler wound him?’ he asked.

‘What a question! I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘The scar would be a way of identifying him. Because where’s the proof that the real Louis de Leaume climbed out of that mass grave? Someone could have usurped his identity ...’

‘I asked myself the same thing, but the police dossier backs up that version of events. And what’s more, the description you’ve just given me corresponds to the one the Revolutionary Tribunal gave at the time of his trial.’

‘I see. Co on.’

‘He was believed to be dead. But instead of adopting a new identity and changing his life, Leaume once more joined a royalist group, the Alliance, and under his real name! He eventually came to the notice of the Commune police three years after his death. There was an investigation into the exact circumstances of his demise, which concluded that he had in fact escaped alive.’

‘That was all he had left: his real name. He had no family, no house, no money, and not even any country ... I don’t know if he’s

an impostor or if the real Louis de Leaume did escape and keep his real identity, through pride, to defy his enemies and humiliate them by letting them know that he had fooled them. But I can tell you this. If someone pretends to be dead, is wounded, thrown in a communal grave and spends hours entombed under corpses, when he finally gets out of the charnel house, he’s no longer the same man. Perhaps that’s the reason Louis de Leaume kept his real name. He wanted to keep a link with the man he had been before his ordeal.’

Margont had spent his childhood steeped in religion, and now he thought of Christ, who had also been ‘dead’. To confirm it, a legionary had wounded his right flank with his lance. Could one consider Louis de Leaume like a sort of perverted Christ, resurrected not to love, but to avenge himself?

Lefine disliked speaking of death. He therefore moved swiftly on to the next phase of Louis de Leaume’s life. ‘In 1796, he left the Alliance because he found its members too moderate. He emigrated to London where he spent at least two years. The police lost track of him until he reappeared in Paris in January 1813, where he formed a new group, the Swords of the King. That’s all I can tell you about his past. As you know, I have many “friends”, some reputable and others less so. But I have not managed to hear any mention of him. So this Leaume knows the capital extremely well!’ ‘If he’s the murderer, you can understand why he left the symbol of his group on the corpse. If you had seen them dithering about me ... He would be the type to cut to the chase to force them all into action. But why the fire?’

‘They wanted to cut his head off, he burns their faces ... And I do agree with you: after you’ve escaped from a grave, your ideas must become somewhat warped.’

‘That’s not what I said. I was only emphasising that an ordeal like that would change you.’

‘Well, anyway, I wouldn’t trust him if I were you. Because if he finds out who you really are ... He’s sure to have left his mercy behind in the communal grave. That’s all I’ve found out about him.’ ‘You don’t know anything about his stay in London?’

‘No. All our suspects live very secretly, so the facts are incomplete.’

The facts are like the people: you just have time to glimpse them in silhouette before they disappear again into the shadows. Tell me about Charles de Varencourt.’

‘Again, almost nothing is known about his past. He was born in 1773, near Rouen. His family belonged to the Norman nobility. Nothing else is known about them. In 1792, he emigrated to England. And after that we have very little. He claims to have lived in London. In January 1814, he contacted the police and offered to sell them information. As he distrusted the civilian police, he approached Joseph’s personal police force. He knew the names of some of them because the royalists kept tabs on the people hunting them. Joseph’s agents accepted his offer. He had to provide them with a variety of his own documents. He showed them his passport, which stated that he had returned to France in 1802.'

‘Ah, the great amnesty of 6 Floreal, year 10. Just like me.’

‘Exactly. And, as you know, it is widely acknowledged, given the level of corruption at the time, that many of those passports were handed out to royalists who did not actually return to France until much later. As Varencourt did not tell them anything concrete about what he did in France between 1802 and 1814 - he said he travelled around the country earning his living by playing cards -it’s quite possible that the documents are fake. That’s what the police suspect. In any case, thanks to that “valid” passport, which “proves” that he was pardoned for his crime of emigration, he lives comfortably at home, whilst Louis de Leaume, Honoré de Nolant and Jean-Baptiste de Chatel are on the run and spend their time moving from house to house.’

‘Right. And what have you found out about the Charles de Varencourt of today?’

‘I arranged for two men to take turns keeping an eye on him day and night, as agreed. I went back to see Natai - I wish you’d seen his face when I asked him for a hundred francs to pay the men.’

‘A hundred francs? That’s going it a bit. You’re taking a cut, I assume?’

‘You misunderstood when I said “I wish you’d seen his face”. He recognised that this was an extraordinary situation and found my bill quite normal — I just had to sign a receipt in the name of Gage, the pseudonym I use when I go and see him. For months now soldiers have not been paid, yet any old spy employed for less than ten days can walk away with a hundred francs! That’s nearly five months’ sergeant’s pay!’

‘Fernand, for heaven’s sake! The Swords of the King might come across you. If you have all that money on you, they’ll know immediately who you’re working for!’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve already spent it all. I may be greedy, but I’m not stupid. I paid the men - four in all, because there were also two men watching Catherine de Saltonges - and I bought a present for a lady friend.’

He smiled disarmingly. Margont, who was always in a ferment of projects and ideals, sometimes envied his friend his nonchalant approach to life.

‘Let’s go back to Charles de Varencourt,’ continued Lefine. ‘No one ever visits him. But he often goes out, so he’s almost never at home. Unfortunately, he is practically impossible to follow. For example, he will suddenly begin running and, obviously, the person who’s following him can’t do the same ... He sometimes manages to lose my men. Sometimes I go myself to keep watch outside his house. I’ve tried to follow him three times but lost him. But yesterday I got Natai to tell me that Varencourt was coming to see him that day, to collect his traitor’s salary. Natai refused to say exactly how much it was, from which I gathered that Varencourt is even greedier than I am. I hid opposite Natai’s office. Varencourt came to get his money and immediately went off to gamble. He was so impatient that he wasn’t as cunning and careful. He was trying quite hard, like the other times, but he must already have been thinking about the hands he was going to play, and this time he didn’t manage to lose me.’

‘Are you sure he didn’t spot you?’

‘When I follow someone, they only see me if I want them to! First he went to Quai des Miramiones, opposite Tie Saint-Louis, to a

cabaret, La Gueuse du quai. He seems to be very well known there. Everyone greeted him by the name Monsieur Pigrin. And his nickname seems to be King Midas because he’s so lucky at cards that everything he touches turns to gold! I wish I was like that. He joined a table of whist players and began betting, betting, betting ... I was having a drink with a bunch of drunkards who were all telling me their misfortunes, either real or imagined, and I was able to watch him discreetly. You should have seen his face as he looked at his cards. Such nervous excitement, such impatience, such rage ... Oh, yes, the card-demon has him in its grip. And it’s a hell of a demon, I can tell you! He won more often than he lost, and left with his winnings. He didn’t seem worried about being set upon for the money - he must be armed. He didn’t go far, only to a second bar, very small, Le Louveteau. I didn’t go in there; it would have been too risky. So instead I asked a passer-by where I could find a game of cards. He gave me a few addresses of the best-known ones, La Commere, Le Sultan du feu ... I went to the closest, which was Le Sultan du feu. What a strange name!’ ‘That’s what the Mamelukes called Bonaparte during the Egyptian campaign, because our infantry fired on all the devils opposing them.’

‘Who do you think came in half an hour later? He joined the other players like a starving man feeding his hunger. The more he plays, the more the card-demon reinforces his hold over him.’

‘Like eau-de-vie only makes a drunkard thirstier and thirstier...’

‘But this time he didn’t play whist. He played vingt-et-un and he took huge risks. At first he accumulated winnings. But as he was pushing his luck, he began to lose. I did notice one thing. There was something that gave him more pleasure than winning. It was when he began to win after having lost a lot. It was very striking. When that happened, he was exultant.’

‘Interesting. As if he prefers climbing back up a slope to climbing it in the first place.’

‘That’s a complicated way of saying what I’ve just explained clearly. That’s you all over, that...’

Margont could easily imagine Charles de Varencourt busily

studying his cards. When he spoke, he always seemed to be bargaining, to be engaged in a game.

‘What did he do next?’

‘At about six o'clock, he went to Faubourg Saint-Germain, Rue de Lille. Having played with the poor, he then went to play with the rich. He knocked on the door of a baroque-looking abode with moulded columns and statues of naked beauties supporting a large balcony — exactly the kind of house I dream of! A valet opened the door to him and greeted him with a bow, but not a deep bow. I had the impression that the owner of the house considered himself superior to Varencourt but that he nevertheless enjoyed his company. The servant said: “Monsieur le Comte would be delighted to play cards with you today but he would like to make clear that this time he will shuffle the cards himself” Varencourt agreed and went inside.’

‘Perhaps he cheats sometimes and that’s why his host wanted to deal the cards himself...’

‘Other players arrived. There was an old aristocrat in a powdered wig, his face whitened with make-up, with one of those horrible tufts of hair on his chin. You could have sworn that he had inadvertently fallen asleep at Versailles and woken up twenty years later thinking, where the devil is Louis XVI? What’s happened to the court and the Swiss Guard? Next to arrive was a captain of the National Guard, jingling his money in his hand. Finally a couple of bourgeois arrived at the same time, boasting of their success in the games they had just played.’

They must have thought that swaggering would bring them luck. As if they were saying to Luck, “You remember us, don’t you? We spent such good times together the last time ...” What superstition!’

‘I think they were all addicted to gambling. I did some research on the owner. He’s the Comte de Barrelle. Imperial nobility. Sixty-three years old and never leaves the house. Varencourt came out th ree hours later looking depressed. Not bitter or angry, more despairing. I’m sure he had lost everything. He went home and sat up late. When every other house in the street was in darkness,

there was still a candle burning in his bedroom window.’

‘What’s his house like?’

‘He rents an attic. As small as a pigeon house/

‘I’m living like a pigeon too. How can he bear to live like that when he doesn’t have to? The police are giving him vast sums of money!’

‘He prefers gaming. And all this time soldiers aren’t receiving any pay!’

‘Everything froze during the retreat from Moscow ... Going back to Charles de Varencourt. Why is he addicted to gambling?’

‘Is there always a reason?’

‘Not always. But sometimes. If he’s the murderer, why the fire? There are too many blanks, too many gaps in what we know about the suspects. Time is not on our side, and yet we mustn’t fail! The situation is already bad enough.’

Margont looked up the hill of Montmartre. From up there, the whole of the capital could be seen. It was the key to Paris. If the enemy captured it, they would mount large-calibre cannons on the top of it and they would be able to bombard the city. There should have been swarms of crack soldiers on the hill, building redoubts. When an ant hill is threatened, it covers itself in ants. The same should have gone for the heights at Saint-Germain, at la Villette, at Buttes-Chaumont and at Nogent-sur-Marne. From 1809 to 1810, when Wellington, the commander-in-chief of the British troops, had been operating in the Iberian Peninsula, he had erected fortifications at Torres Vedras to protect Lisbon. Margont had seen them with his own eyes. Ditches, pre-ditches, traps, bastions overlapping each other, entrenchments flanking the assailants, little fortresses ... More than a hundred redoubts and four hundred and fifty cannons, all in three stacked lines! A triple line of defence, three raised fists, warning the French to stop! When Marshal Massena came face to face with them, leading his sixty thousand men, he had indeed stopped short. He and his general staff had spent entire days trying to find ways through the blockade, had reached the conclusion that ... it was impossible, and had ordered his troops to retreat. Wellington had triumphed without even

having to fight. He had prepared for battle so comprehensively that he had won before it had even started! That’s what should have been happening here! Paris should have been encircled by a triple line of defence like at Torres Vedras, and Montmartre should have been made into a great redoubt, more fearsome than the famous redoubt at the Battle of Borodino! But instead, the only activity came from the first butterflies fluttering around the five windmills on the hill.

‘I’ve discovered some surprising things about Mademoiselle de Saltonges,’ said Lefine, continuing with his report. ‘I can’t really believe that a woman would have the guts to burn off the face of a corpse, but—’

Margont burst out laughing. But it was a disturbing, desperate laugh; he was laughing instead of crying. His friend looked at him uncomprehendingly as he tried to shake off a childhood memory. He was thirteen, walking in the streets of Nimes, gradually rediscovering the world after four years being shut away in the Abbey of Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert. But the ‘real’ world was nothing like the paradise of his imagination. Without explaining why, his mother was taking a series of back routes. She was trying to hide the guillotine from him. The Terror was raging at that time and people were being executed in their thousands - for not being revolutionaries, or for not being revolutionary enough, or for being revolutionary but not in the correct way. Alas, she did not know that the residents of the Esplanade, where the ‘National Razor’ was normally set up, had complained about the smell of blood, so it had been moved. And that was how his mother came to lead him to the very spectacle she had tried to spare him. The sight he had briefly glimpsed would haunt him for ever. He saw women going up to the heads. Heads without bodies, bathing in bright-red blood. And these women, who calmly knitted as the executions were carried out, were aiming the points of their needles at the eyes of the freshly decapitated heads. A black screen suddenly cut off his vision. His mother covered his eyes with her hand to prevent him seeing any more. She fled, pulling her son by the hand, running as if the guillotine itself were chasing them. It was

the only time in Margont’s life when he had briefly wondered whether he should not return to the Abbey Saint-Guilhem-le-Desertle-Desert of his own accord ... He thought again about Louis de Leaume extricating himself from his shroud of corpses. Had he also seen those decapitated and mutilated heads? Yes, certainly! But no hand had descended to protect him. He had looked at them, his gaze searing into their unseeing eyes.

‘My dear Fernand, it’s usually me who’s the naive one. But this time, it’s the other way round. Your misogyny is misleading you. Catherine de Saltonges is as much a suspect as the others, believe me. When I met her, she seemed to want to avoid being present at my ... at any violence towards me.’

He still could not articulate exactly what he had been through, as if the ordeal of his admission to the Swords of the King had become an absess that was going to go on getting worse.

‘But it was obvious that she was just pretending. Had any violence occurred, she would happily have produced her knitting needles.’ Lefine grasped the reference. He had heard about ‘the tricoteuses’.

Although the nickname was used generally to mean the women who had come, during the Revolution, to listen to the debates at the National Convention, to keep an eye on the elected representatives and to participate in the debates with cheers or booing, it also evoked a much more sinister group, tiny but bloody ...

‘She married Baron de Joucy in 1788 at the age of seventeen. Her family were keen on the marriage because the Baron was a good catch. And she was keen on the marriage because she was in love. A good marriage and a love match! But the dream was short-lived and the awakening brutal. The Baron was an inveterate seducer, a regular Casanova, and he cheated on her endlessly - with her friends, her servants, with mothers, with their daughters, with prostitutes ...’

‘Surely that’s a slight exaggeration?’

‘Well, it’s probably true that the rumours were exaggerated. But I managed to find a former servant of the household, one Guer-loton, who had thrashed the Baron when he found him in bed with his wife! The Baron didn’t press charges, for fear of publicity. He

merely terminated the employment of the valet and his wife. Happily for the Baron, he now lives in London, because were he to return he would find someone waiting for him who would not stop at thrashing him this time ... The saddest thing was that Catherine de Saltonges was oblivious. She didn’t think that her pregnant servant was anything to do with her husband. He came home at all hours because of his “business affairs”. Her husband flirted constantly with beautiful women. But she saw nothing, suspected nothing.’

‘Her education can’t have prepared her for such things. It must have been all crochet and the Bible ...’

‘All Parisian nobility was laughing at her behind her back, which delighted her husband, making him all the more desirable in the eyes of certain women. But one day in September 1792, Catherine de Saltonges cancelled a shopping trip unexpectedly because of a storm.’

‘A storm that was the prelude to an even more violent tempest. I suppose she went home and discovered her husband in the arms of another woman.’

‘That’s exactly what happened. In her own bed, what’s more. She ran away to her parents, who tried in vain to send her back to her legitimate husband. In their eyes, as in his, the couple had been married before God for better and for worse.’

‘She being the better and he being the worst ...’

‘She changed completely after that. She had previously been shy and self-effacing; now she was transformed into a formidable woman. She decided to divorce! She was one of the first to make use of the famous law of October 1792 permitting divorce. Her grounds were her husband’s “notorious disorderliness of morals”. Can you imagine the reaction of the two families? Not to mention her husband’s reaction. Up until that point the Revolution had not troubled the Baron much. Of course, he feared the revolutionaries, but he would never have thought that the Revolution might harm him because of his wife! She was brave enough to appear before the district tribunal; since it was not a case of divorce by mutual consent and since the Baron denied the accusations she brought

against him, there had to be a trial. A baroness who wanted to divorce! It caused hilarity amongst the revolutionaries and there was a hue and cry amongst the aristocracy. To his horror the Baron became the laughing stock of his peers! Catherine de Saltonges had succeeded in reversing the roles. She pressed on with the trial despite pressure from her friends and family. The revolutionaries make an example of the case, the newspapers wrote about it endlessly ... I was able to track down a witness at the trial, an old soldier who had been allocated guard duty at the district tribunal. He told me that the trial became a spectacle. When the baroness was expected, reinforcements of soldiers were called in. The crowds grew ever thicker and had to be pushed back to let her through. On the one hand there were some daring priests and hordes of anxious husbands come to boo and hiss. On the other there were revolutionaries and hundreds of women of all ages! Catherine de Saltonges arrived, outwardly serene. She advanced through a barrage of insults, spitting, cheering and applauding. Then she answered the questions put to her. She repeated to the tribunal everything her so-called friends had hastened to tell her after she had discovered her husband’s true nature. Each of her husband’s infidelities became a weapon for his spouse to use against him! She repaid blow for blow. Several times the sessions degenerated and the tribunal had to be evacuated. But each time, she returned, composed, as if she had forgotten the threats and brawls of the previous session.’

Margont was perplexed. Lefine’s description did not fit at all with his memory of her. He had the feeling that the more he learned about the woman the less he knew her. ‘I don’t know if I would have had her daring, in the same situation.’

‘Well, I know that I wouldn’t. I would have left with the silver. The district tribunal found in her favour. Her husband emigrated to London, officially because of revolutionary fury, which was set to increase, but also to escape public derision.’

‘Well done, Fernand, good work!’

Lefine looked pleased. When he was complimented, he thrust his chest out like the fabled crow, though he would never have

opened his beak and let the cheese fall out...

Margont grew thoughtful.

‘What you’ve told me explains some of her behaviour.

When I met her, I had the impression that I disgusted her. I had never encountered such a reaction before. Having been deceived for such a long time made the betrayal she suffered much worse. She must have developed a hatred of lies. I think she’s on the lookout for lies everywhere and in everyone she meets. And she’s discerning - she picked up that I was not being honest with them. I’m going to have to be very careful when she’s there!’

‘If she poses the most danger to you, why don’t you seduce her?’ ‘What a despicable idea!’

‘If she’s in love she will be blind to—’

‘I don’t like the way you treat people like pawns.’

‘And how do they treat us?’

‘You can’t see her burning off the face of a corpse ... but I’m not so sure ... In any case, she’s certainly a strong character. She introduced herself under her maiden name and none of the members dared call her “Madame de Joucy”, even though they probably all disapprove of the divorce.’

‘She’s the only other member whose address we know. She doesn’t seem to be aware that the police are investigating her. She lives in Faubourg Saint-Germain - I’m having her house watched.’ ‘Are you using trustworthy men, as I asked?’

‘Yes, I can vouch for them. They haven’t discovered anything very interesting about her daily life.’

Margont rose. ‘Let’s go and stretch our legs.’

They went towards the hill of Montmartre and started to climb it slowly. It was so easy at the moment ... but should the Allies arrive at the gates of Paris, they would inevitably attack Montmartre. And so with every step, Margont imagined he was already stepping over the enemy corpses that would litter the slopes.

‘What did you find out about Honoré de Nolant? I know nothing about him, other than that he was the one the group had allocated to slit my throat, if necessary. So obviously he is capable of killing. Perhaps he has already done so ... He’s the one I know the least,

but at the same time he’s the most dangerous.’

‘You’re right to fear him, because he has done some unpleasant things. The police reports contain some interesting facts about him. His family belongs to the nobility of Champagne. As an adolescent he was part of Louis XVI’s entourage. He used to read to the King and perform other similarly useless services. Nolant really was a good friend. But he was quick to spot the change in the prevailing wind, and after 1790 he began to pass information secretly to the members of the National Assembly who were drawing up the new constitution. He passed on the details of the lives of the King, Marie-Antoinette, the dauphin ... According to what I read, he was the first to reveal the disappearance of the King and his family on the night of 20 June 1791 ...’

The flight of the King, that ended at Varennes, when a postmaster, Jean-Baptiste Drouet, recognised Louis XVI.’

‘Honoré de Nolant was cunning. By the time he had raised the alert, the royal family was already on the road. He claimed that he reacted as soon as he had noticed that the King was no longer there. But I think he was hedging his bets. Had Louis XVI been able to escape abroad, Nolant, who was certainly aware of the plan and had perhaps even helped with arrangements, would have been rewarded. But once the King was arrested, the revolutionaries stopped treating Honoré de Nolant as merely a spy and welcomed him as a real revolutionary. He changed his name to “Denolant” and had a dazzling career. In 1793 he spied on behalf of the Committee of Public Safety, the bloodthirsty alliance - Robespierre, Couthon, Saint-Just - that wanted to guillotine every Frenchman!’ ‘Another spy? Varencourt, me, now Nolant...’

‘If you stick your hand in the hornets’ nest, you shouldn’t be surprised if you keep coming across hornets.’

‘The Swords of the King must be unaware of all that. They would never have accepted such a man into their ranks! They must know only part of his history.’

‘Afterwards he worked for the Revolutionary Tribunal. So he might well have had reason one day to write out the name Louis de Leaume, adding after it, “Condemned to death by guillotine.”

When Bonaparte was proclaimed emperor, Honoré de Nolant became an imperialist and denounced the partisans of the Republic. He had gathered many contacts during his time as part of Louis XVI’s entourage, and then amongst the higher revolutionary echelons. Which was why Fouche, when he was head of the civilian police, decided to take him into his ministry where apparently he was very useful. He helped put together dossiers on the royalists, on revolutionaries and on republicans who were opposed to the Emperor. But in January 1810 people started to suspect that he was embezzling money. Honoré de Nolant immediately disappeared -from one day to the next! The police realised he had been making fools of them. He had claimed to have numerous informants who would only deal with him. But most of them did not actually exist and Nolant simply kept the sums he was supposed to pay over to them for himself. In exchange for the money, he invented republican plots, assassination plans ... it was all hot air. Expensive with it. The civilian police hate him.'

‘He can’t have walked away empty-handed, and I’m not only referring to money. He must have joined the Swords of the King complete with dossiers of information. That’s why he was accepted onto the committee! He’s the reason they are so well informed. Thanks to him they continually avoid detection by the police! He must have given them the names of the investigators in charge of tracking royalist organisations, and the names of their informers ... Perhaps he still has friends in the Ministry of Civilian Police, who continue to keep him informed. Now I understand why Joseph and Talleyrand chose me. It’s because I have nothing at all to do with any of the imperial police forces.’

‘That’s all I have on Honoré de Nolant.’

‘The group must be suspicious of him. They make him pay for his treachery by giving him the dirty jobs. He’s obliged to prove his loyalty by spilling blood. He’s a professional traitor: a royalist, a revolutionary, a republican, an imperialist and then a royalist again ... It must have been he who realised that the best way to disrupt the defence of Paris would be to murder those in charge. He understood the situation from the inside. He must have been the

one to suggest Colonel Berle! So at the very least, he was an accomplice to the crime!’

‘Calm down ... you’re in a state!’

‘At least the others are following an ideology. Even Charles de Varencourt is loyal to his passion for gambling. But Honoré de Nolant...’

‘If he’s arrested, the police will hang him. Unless the army has him shot before that.’

‘I can’t see any connection between him and fire.’

They reached the summit of Montmartre and Paris stretched out before them. Louis XIV had stamped his mark on the city with his grandiose architectural schemes: the golden dome of the Invalides shimmered like a second sun — sparking off dreams that were immediately quenched by fear — Place Vendome ... Napoleon had done the same, to tell the world that he was as great as the Sun King: with the column in Place Vendome, the Arc de Triomphe still under construction, the Eglise de la Madeleine imitating a Greco-Roman temple, the opening up of Rue de Rivoli, the bridges of

Austerlitz, lena and des Arts ... Paris was starting to look like a vast chessboard on which the rich accumulated palaces and other playthings like so many sumptuous pawns.

‘And finally, there’s Jean-Baptiste de Chatel. He was born in 1766,

to a noble family from Orleans. He entered the Cistercian Abbey of

Pagemont in the Loiret at an early age. He wasn’t like you: he really

wanted to become a monk. But he soon got himself expelled by

the Abbey, discreetly, on the pretext of ill health, because the

Church wanted to avoid a scandal. Why do you think he did that?’

‘I spent four years in an abbey and you’re asking me why? I could

talk all day on that subject! Because he wanted to see the world,

because he had fallen in love, because he wanted to have children,

because he was attracted to women, or men, or he’d lost his faith »

‘No, it wasn’t any of those things. It was because he wanted to reform everything: the running order of Mass, the ordination of priests, the functioning of the Vatican ...’

‘A reformer?’

‘Yes, but a conservative reformer. He found the other monks didn’t pray devoutly enough to God and that Pope Pius VI and Louis XVI were too moderate.’

Margont shook his head, incredulous.

‘Pius VI, too moderate? You mean that Jean-Baptiste de Chatel was more royalist than the King and more Catholic than the Pope? How is that possible?’

‘Well, here’s an example. He wanted to ban all religions other than Catholicism.’

‘Wonderful! He wanted to ignite religious wars! What else?’

‘He was adamant that atheism should also be banned, and that education could only be provided by priests; he campaigned for renewed crusades to liberate Jerusalem.’

‘Oh, so that’s why the other members refer to him as “the crusader”. He’s a bigot!’

‘In 1791 he was keen to escape revolutionary France and considered the French clergy were too soft, so he went to Spain. He made an impressive start there: he was admitted to the Abbey of

Aljanfe, near Madrid, where he became the heir apparent to the abbot. In fact, many of the Spanish clergy shared his views that the French religious community was too moderate. His intransigent sermons were very appealing.’

‘But I wager he rapidly overtook even the most fanatical Spanish.’ ‘Fie did indeed. In Spain, you don’t take liberties with Catholicism, and in 1797 he was imprisoned by the Inquisition, accused of heresy because some of his interpretations of the Bible diverged from dogma. For example, he stirred up controversy about Christ’s poverty. According to the Bible, Christ had no personal or shared possessions. And it follows from this that the Catholic Church should also take a vow of poverty.’

‘That’s a long-standing debate that worries the Catholic Church a great deal. In the Middle Ages, Franciscans were frequently burnt at the stake merely for raising the question.’

‘His trial lasted three years.’

‘That’s incredible!’

‘It’s because he defended himself so vigorously. He used his

theological knowledge to confound the Inquisitors, he contested every point and argued ceaselessly. He kept going back to what he called the original Bible — that’s to say the most ancient texts in old Hebrew, in Aramaic and Ancient Greek - and referring to what he considered translation errors.’

Margont was astounded. He himself was quite capable of insolence - it was a typically revolutionary characteristic - and so he was always impressed when he heard about someone even more daring than he.

He said, as much to himself as to Lefine, ‘So in fact, he was saying to the Inquisitors - the most fanatical of fanatics - that they had the wrong Bible and he had the correct one, so he was the only man on earth to have access to the word of God.’

‘I would have loved to see that! And because inquisitorial trials are scrupulously recorded, the Inquisitors were obliged to answer him. Besides, Chatel drew attention to the irregularities in his trial. He knew all about inquisitorial proceedings because he believed that the Inquisition should be re-established in all countries.

During his time at the Abbey of Pagemont, he had worked on updating the proceedings - although no one had asked him to. Apparently he was already assuming that he would be the new inquisitor general of France.’

‘But where did he find the time? Monks are busy all day long: praying, listening to sermons in the chapterhouse, working, praying again, reading the Holy Scriptures, listening to the word of God ... They rarely have even short periods of free time.’

‘It doesn’t say in police reports how he found time.’

‘He must have done it at night...’

‘At the end of the trial the Spanish Inquisition condemned him to death. But the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after an appeal was made to the newly elected pope, Pius VII. Chatel rotted in a Madrid gaol, dying a slow death while reading the Bible the Inquisitors were happy to let him have. It was Napoleon who eventually saved his life in 1808 when he suppressed the Inquisition after he besieged Spain.’

‘Chatel wasn’t very grateful. He thinks the Emperor is the

Antichrist. I thought he was joking when he said that, but now I’m sure that everything he said he meant literally.’

The police lost track of him after he was freed, and I haven’t been able to do much better. He only reappeared in 1813, in Paris, as a member of the Swords of the King. I can’t see any link between him and fire either.’

‘He doesn’t get on with Louis de Leaume. He can’t accept anyone’s authority, so he’s uncontrollable. I think even waging a campaign of murders would be too mild for him. What are his real aims, I wonder.’ Margont was lost in thought for a moment. They all have lives that reflect the period we’re living through: turbulent, full of confusion, contradictions and periods of wandering ... And we all believed that after the Revolution, everything would get better ... What do you know about the other members who aren’t on the committee?’

‘Not very much. They are a mixed bunch: monarchists, rabid believers whom Jean-Baptiste de Chatel convinced to join the Swords of the King with his sermons, refugees from other

dismantled royalist groups ... The biggest group are opportunists who’ve become royalists because they can see the tide is turning.’ ‘What did Charles de Varencourt really tell Joseph’s agents?’ There’s a whole police report on the subject. Very little on the committee members, because he claims they all keep their life stories to themselves. He only supplied new information on Vicomte de Leaume, whom he said had spent at least two years in England, living with friends in the Strand, the heart of the French royalist community. Paradoxically, what Varencourt really gave away was himself. The police had managed to identify all the members of the group - except him! Varencourt had believed that they already knew about him before he betrayed himself, but it wasn’t true.’ That was clever of him!’

‘He confirmed what the police already suspected - that the Swords of the King were planning to foment a popular uprising in favour of Louis XVIII.’

‘It’s a fashionable idea. Especially amongst monarchists. A bloodless revolution that would sweep away the republican-inspired

empire and restore the King. A sort of inverted Revolution, which would overturn all that the revolutionaries had put in place. Although that seems to me pie in the sky, just a way of refusing to face reality.’

‘And the group’s emblem. There again the police had their suspicions. The white cockade is deemed too popular by aristocrats, so the secret royalist societies like to develop their own devices of recognition. But Charles de Varencourt gave a detailed description of their emblem. And finally he revealed their proposed campaign of assassinations. But you’ll be furious when I tell you that although Varencourt supplied a list of eleven victims, Natai didn’t give it to me. He told me that his superiors were adamant that you shouldn’t discuss it with Varencourt.’

Margont managed not to lose his temper. ‘What?’

‘Look, it’s not surprising if you think about it. Joseph must judge that it's not necessary for your investigation and he wants to limit the risk of the list of names circulating ... especially if his is on it! Right, that completes my report/

Thanks, Fernand! Your help is invaluable! Try to continue finding out more about our suspects. The first one of us who has something new should get in contact with the other.’

Lefine left. Margont stayed for a while, lying on the grass at the foot of one of the windmills, enjoying the gentle breeze and looking out across Paris.

When he went into his room Margont noticed that it had been searched. He was always careful before he went out to put some of his possessions in designated places. Some of these had been moved. His books were no longer piled up in the same order as he had left them; his mattress was touching the wall, although he had left a small gap. The intruder had been very careful and nothing had been stolen, so without these little indicators Margont would not have noticed anything. And the more he thought about it, the less sure he became ... Had his books and mattress really been moved? He could not ask his landlord, who, even had he noticed anything, would have denied seeing anyone enter. He ran his hand over the pile of books, trying to prove to himself that their arrangement felt different since his meeting with Lefine. He often believed he was being followed when he was outside. By one of the Swords of the King? By a policeman who took him for a royalist? Or maybe someone with personal motives? He could not tell if he was imagining it all.

He hurried over to his chest. He had hammered a little nail inside it, right at the bottom, on the left, and had attached a thread to it. Before leaving, he always took the thread out of the chest and attached it to a notch on the lid. Once he was back he would untie it. This time the thread had been broken. So someone really had ^rummaged through his room. He felt strangely comforted by the knowledge - he was not losing his mind. Not yet anyway ... His grip on reality seemed to be hanging by that thread.