For the King (36 page)

Blanche’s eyes were averted.

“Are you?” insisted Roch.

“Yes,” she answered in a shaky voice, “sometimes he calls me Photis in those sonnets he keeps sending me.”

“Your fondness for us policemen is remarkable.”

Blanche was fidgeting with the bells of the dog collar. “Limoëlan said that, since I had failed with you, I had to get that list of traitors from Piis. I often met him in society and he seemed to like me. I told Limoëlan that I was trying my best to seduce Piis, while in fact I never had any intention of ever becoming his mistress.”

“Always truthful, I see.” Roch looked into Blanche’s eyes. “Did you think all of this was some sort of game?”

Blanche shook her head slowly. “I have always known that I was risking my life. What comforted me was that the late King and Queen perished on the guillotine too. If they bent to that horrible machine, why should I shrink from such a death myself ? At least that is what I used to feel. But now, Roch, I keep thinking of all those people who died on Christmas Eve. I told you of this already. I dream of them at night. Especially that poor little street vendor. I see her, with her biscuit tray, from the corner of my eye, when I least expect it. She startles me. And when I turn my head in her direction, she is not there anymore. And I realize that I am a coward. Oh, Roch, I am terrified.”

Roch gazed at Blanche, at the crimson ribbons that tied her black hair, at the white skin of her throat. He pictured the raw flesh of her severed neck, still pulsating for a few moments after the fall of the guillotine blade. He shuddered. His anger gave way to a feeling of sadness, of hopelessness.

“What will happen now?” she asked. “Are you arresting me?”

“I want Saint-Régent and Limoëlan. Both.”

“I don’t know where they are.”

“So you already said, but you are lying. You are protecting Limoëlan, not out of loyalty, but out of fear. This is a mistake. The man considers you a traitor. While he is free, he can either kill you himself or have one of your friends the Chouans do it.”

“I know it all too well. I am not protecting him, but I truly have no idea of where he is hiding.”

“And Saint-Régent?”

“I told you I don’t know where he is either.”

“Even if I were to offer you a chance to escape the guillotine? It will be your last one, so think well.”

“But you said Francis mentioned my name. How could you save me?”

“Well, you are not the only one who can take liberties with the truth. In fact, Francis hasn’t breathed a word about you. So you see, Blanche, all is not lost for you yet. It is down to your life, or Saint-Régent’s. Your choice.”

She was staring out the window at the beautiful view of Paris.

“I don’t quite follow you,” said Roch. “You tell me you are horrified by what Limoëlan did, by the carnage on Rue Nicaise. But is Saint-Régent any better? He is the one who set off the infernal machine, is he not? Did he not hurt your sacred cause too? I will tell you what it is, Blanche: you are protecting Saint-Régent because it flatters your vanity to be his
lady
. All this seems a bit childish in light of what is at stake here, doesn’t it?”

Blanche remained silent for a minute, then turned slowly towards Roch. “I can leave a note for Saint-Régent to meet me at the Mayenne Inn. I think he will come.”

“Then write it. Now.”

Blanche rose. She sat in front of a lemonwood desk and dipped her quill into a crystal and silver inkwell.

“Write,” growled Roch. “Give him an appointment.”

Her quill scratched the paper.
This is For the King, dearest Pierrot. I need to see you at the Inn
. She hesitated.

“Tomorrow,” dictated Roch. “At five in the morning. And make it urgent. If he doesn’t come, I will have no choice but to arrest you.”

He looked over her shoulder as she resumed writing.
Tomorrow, at five in the morning. My life depends on it. Oh, please come, dearest friend. You are my last hope. Do not mention to anyone and destroy this note as soon as you receive it. I miss you so.

Roch reviewed the note. “Excellent. And it is true enough, for a change: your life depends on it. Have it delivered yourself. Remember, if you play any games, if Saint-Régent is not arrested tomorrow morning, you will be. Now I want you to order your carriage and return to Paris immediately. Once there, do not stir from your house until I tell you so. Do you hear me? Not under any pretext.”

She looked up at him. “Roch, I want you to know that—”

“Enough, Blanche. No need to see me out.”

He let himself out of the house through the back terrace and returned in haste to Saint-Denis. He never wanted to see Blanche or speak to her again. Thankfully their affair had been over long before this last conversation. The only thing that mattered now was Saint-Régent’s arrest, and ultimately the fate of Old Miquel.

55

P
ierre de Saint-Régent, alias Pierrot, was arrested before dawn on the 28th of January 1801, old style, as he was ready to enter the Mayenne Inn. Roch, before leaving for the Ministry, delivered the assassin to the astonished Bertrand. As Roch had guessed, his colleague had never breathed a word of their encounter to anyone, and he did not seem any more hostile than in the past.

Until the last moment, Roch had feared that Blanche had once again deceived him. But no, she had indeed betrayed Saint-Régent, and the man had walked into the trap for her sake. He too must have loved her. Roch had kept his own part of the bargain. He had not disclosed Blanche’s part in the plot, and had ascribed his knowledge of Saint-Régent’s presence at the Mayenne Inn to an anonymous letter.

Roch’s father could not have left Bicêtre yet, and Carbon and Saint-Régent, both of the men Fouché wanted, had been arrested. Now he would order Old Miquel’s release.

At the Ministry, Marain received Roch rather coldly. “No, Citizen Chief Inspector,” said the man, “Citizen Fouché can’t receive you. He went to the Tuileries to give the First Consul a report on the new developments in the Rue Nicaise attack.”

“So he knows of Saint-Régent’s arrest?”

“Of course. We received a note from the Prefect earlier this morning. I understand that you played some small part in it. Congratulations, Citizen Chief Inspector.”

“And about my father?”

“Oh, yes. I was forgetting to give you the good news. The Minister ordered Citizen Miquel
père
transferred back to the Temple.”

Roch closed his eyes and threw his head backwards. At least deportation was no longer an immediate threat.

“And what about releasing him?”

“The Minister didn’t say anything to that effect.”

“I don’t quite understand. Is the Minister not happy with the results?”

“He seemed in an excellent mood, I would say. I am sure he will send the Prefect his instructions shortly.” Marain rose. “Congratulations again, Citizen Chief Inspector.”

Roch bit his lower lip. There was nothing for him to do but to return to the Prefecture. He paused on his way on the Pont-Neuf, the New Bridge. He leaned on the parapet and gazed at the slow river beneath. So Fouché still would not order Old Miquel’s release. Why should he, besides keeping his word to Roch? The threat of deportation had receded, at least for a time, but Old Miquel was not out of danger. He could still be tried before a Military Commission and summarily executed any day. Fouché wanted it this way. Roch shrugged. He had concentrated all of his thoughts, his energy, on arresting Carbon and Saint-Régent, but that was clearly not enough. He had not guessed Fouché’s ultimate purpose.

Once back in his office, Roch wrote General Duroc, the head of the Military Police, an anonymous letter warning of an attack on the First Consul, on the road to Malmaison, by a group of determined men armed with air guns. Hopefully Duroc would double the escort and increase the usual precautions. Without informing his superiors, Roch also sent Pépin to watch Blanche’s Paris mansion, with instructions to follow her whenever she left home.

At the Prefecture, Division Chief Bertrand was now in charge of Saint-Régent’s case. In Roch’s presence, he made the Chouan sit on the same table where his comrade François Carbon had been searched. Naked, Saint-Régent looked almost frail, and the tan of his face and hands contrasted with the whiteness of his body. Yet he was muscular in spite of his slender frame. The witnesses’ descriptions had been accurate: a pointy nose, blue close-set eyes, a high forehead, light brown hair, braided in
cadenettes
.

On the chair lay his clothes: a blue coat with shiny buttons that bore the inscription
guilt warranted
in English, a black waistcoat, striped stockings, a round hat and a light gray overcoat. Oddly enough, he was wearing slippers at the time of his arrest. He must have been in a hurry to respond to Blanche’s call for help.

Unlike Short Francis, Saint-Régent was immediately interrogated by Bertrand. Roch could hear telltale howls of pain, as during the questioning of the suspects in the Conspiracy of Daggers, coming from his colleague’s office.

“Damned fanatic,” grumbled Bertrand to himself in the corridors of the Prefecture.

Saint-Régent must have understood that Blanche had betrayed him, and yet he had not named her. Maybe he loved her to the point where his love survived the awareness of her treason.

But Bertrand was not easily discouraged. The yelling resumed after lunch, before the official questioning by the Prefect. Roch, standing with Piis by the peephole, noted that the prisoner’s fingers were reduced to masses of purplish flesh, and that he walked with great difficulty. Bertrand must have burnt the soles of his feet. Yet Saint-Régent’s face, though tense, was perfectly steady.

“My name is Pierre Martin,” he answered the Prefect, “born in Brest, Brittany, formerly sailor. I arrived in Paris two days ago.”

“How did you come to Paris?” asked Dubois.

“On foot.”

“On foot? You walked over a hundred leagues in these slippers? In the middle of winter?”

“So it is, Citizen.”

“And why did you come to Paris?”

“To find work.”

“Have you a passport?”

“No, Citizen, I have no papers whatsoever.”

Obviously Saint-Régent would not speak, at least not until he was granted a few more sessions with Bertrand.

On the next day, he was presented to his former landlady, the Guillou woman, to her children and husband, for he too had been arrested upon the arrival of his stagecoach in Saint-Denis, and to young Toinette Jourdan. All identified him as the man they had known and housed under the name of Monsieur Pierrot.

The witnesses’ statements seemed to achieve more than Bertrand’s ministrations.

“My name is Pierre de Saint-Régent,” he stated to the Prefect in a weary tone during the second day of his questioning, “born in 1768, in Saint-Régent, Brittany. I used to be an officer in the King’s Navy from 1781 to 1791. I was wounded three times in action during that time. My usual residence is my birthplace of Saint-Régent. I arrived in Paris almost three months ago, for the purpose of having my name removed from the list of the émigrés, where it doesn’t belong. In fact, I never left France, though I took arms against the Republic from 1793 to 1795. I received a pardon for my activities as a Chouan.”

At least the Prefect had obtained from the suspect a truthful statement of his identity. Not bad for Dubois, thought Roch.

“Do you know a man by the name of Limoëlan?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Was he the one who brought a confessor when you were injured on the night of the Rue Nicaise attack?”

“I wasn’t injured. I was sick in bed.”

“Who was that confessor?”

“I don’t know,” answered Saint-Régent.

“Where is Limoëlan now?”

“I don’t know.”

I don’t know
remained Saint-Régent’s stubborn answer to all of the Prefect’s questions, except for the occasional
I can’t remember
. In fact, the man did not appear to know anything, or anyone, apart from a few individuals about whom he had no information to provide. Dubois now looked more tired than the suspect.

“Where did you stay on the night that preceded your arrest?” finally asked the Prefect.

“Outdoors. I have not had any abode since the 17th of January, when I left the lodgings of Widow Jourdan. At night I slept on coal barges on the river.”

“And during the day?”

“I would go for strolls on the embankments.”

“What was your business at the Mayenne Inn when you were arrested?”

“I went there to enquire about a room.”

Not a word about Blanche or her note. Saint-Régent was still shielding her, as had François Carbon and Mother Duquesne. The young woman had been fortunate so far. Would Limoëlan be equally kind to her once he too was arrested? Roch doubted it.

The questioning soon reached the issue of Saint-Régent’s alibi on the night of the Rue Nicaise attack. Yes, he had seen the carriage of the First Consul drive by, escorted by dragoons. No, he had never accompanied any cart on the 3rd of Nivose. He did not know anything of any girl being told to hold the horse’s bridle. No, he had not lit any fuse. Indeed he had not even seen Limoëlan or Carbon that night. The tinder he had asked Toinette Jourdan to buy was to light his pipe, in the manner of the Indians, in America. He had nothing to say about the letter signed
Gideon
that had been seized in his room at Widow Jourdan’s lodgings. It must have been placed there by some unscrupulous policeman intent on compromising him.

The interrogation continued on the next day, and the next, though Roch ceased his attendance. There was nothing to be learned of Saint-Régent. Not only did he persist in his denials, but he became angry, he ranted, he growled at the Prefect. And that, reflected Roch, after the man had been tortured for days. The pain in his hands and feet must now be unbearable, it must linger, relentless, between the sessions in Bertrand’s office. Roch could not help feeling some grudging admiration for Saint-Régent.