For the King (4 page)

Roch drew a chair by Platel’s bedside. “I am Chief Inspector Miquel,” he said. “Can you tell me what you saw?”

“I was walking down Rue Nicaise with my landlady, Widow Lystère, when the carriage of the First Consul drove by. We were returning home after visiting friends who live near the Palais-Egalité. We saw the guards and carriages coming our way and we huddled against the houses on the right side of the street to let them pass. And then all I remember is the explosion.”

“Are you on leave from your regiment, Citizen Captain?”

“I was wounded in the leg in Egypt, at the battle of the Pyramids, eighteen months ago, and received a discharge.” Platel sighed. “I have yet to see the first
sol
of my pension.”

“This must be quite a hardship. Have you a family?”

A deep blush overcame Captain Platel’s pallor. “My wife lives fifty leagues away, in Lille, with our four children. I came to Paris, alone, to find employment. With little success.”

“So how do you manage?”

Platel’s blush deepened. “Not very well. I owe Widow Lystère 850 francs for room and board.” The man paused. “Actually she is not widowed. She divorced her husband. On grounds of insanity.”

“Very sad indeed. Please tell me about the explosion. What time was it exactly?”

“We left the Palais-Egalité shortly after eight o’clock, so it must have been ten or fifteen past the hour. There was that dreadful noise. Then, when I came to my senses, Citizen Lystère was no longer there. What happened to her?”

“Did you notice anything unusual before the explosion?”

“Yes, we had passed a cart stopped in an awkward manner, midway down Rue Nicaise. You could say it blocked the traffic, and we had to walk around it. It was covered, down to the hubs of the wheels, with a gray tarpaulin. And a girl was holding the bridle of the horse.”

“A girl? Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. I remember her skirt, with blue and white stripes. And she wore a blue kerchief on her head. I didn’t see her face, for she had turned away.”

“Did you notice the plate number of that cart?”

“I didn’t pay attention to it. I guess it was covered by the tarpaulin.”

“Anything else unusual, Captain?”

“I saw a man standing at the corner of Place du Carrousel, a dozen yards ahead of us, just before the explosion. He wore a loose blue jacket, of the kind worn by stallholders. But he didn’t look like a stallholder. I caught a glimpse of the gold frame of his spectacles in the light of a lamppost. He had a distinguished bearing, like a former aristocrat. I paid attention to him because I was surprised to see such a man dressed in this manner.”

“How would you describe that man?”

“Rather tall, slender. Long face, long nose.”

“What about the color of his hair? His eyes? His complexion?”

“He wore a cap, low on his forehead. That is all I can tell you. It was dark. I wouldn’t even have noticed the man at all but for his spectacles.”

“So apart from the girl in the striped skirt, did you notice anyone around the cart?”

“No, no one in particular. The street was busy.” Captain Platel drew a sharp breath and winced. “I am sorry,” he said. “When you think I narrowly escaped having my leg amputated after the battle of the Pyramids. And now this . . . The surgeons here haven’t told me yet what they intend to do, but it’s all too easy to guess.” He hesitated. “What about Madame Lystère? She is so brave, trying her best to earn a bit of money. She gives English and piano lessons to support her infirm mother and her three little children.”

And you too
, thought Roch. Then he chided himself. Captain Platel did not look like a vicious man. Maybe he had loved Citizen Lystère. Maybe he had been kind to her, to her mother and children. Maybe he would have paid her the back rent as soon as his pension arrived at last. Who was Roch to pass judgment on that pitiful little happiness, now that it was all over?

“So you don’t know anything about Citizen Lystère?” insisted Platel. “She was on my arm at the time of the explosion.”

“She must have been sent to another hospital. We will track her down, I am sure. You have been most helpful. You should take some rest now.”

Roch was in no mood to tell the truth. In fact, the name of Citizen Lystère was written down in his booklet. He had seen her body at the police station among the other corpses. She seemed asleep, and her pretty dress, brown with white dots, was not even soiled. Roch hoped she had met a quick and painless end.

5

F
ouché, Minister of Police, was still at his desk when an usher handed him Roch Miquel’s note. He pursed his lips as he read on. He called back the man just before he had reached the door of the office.

“Order my carriage, please. Right away.”

Not a word from the Prefect about the attack, of course. The scheming imbecile would no doubt wait until the next day to send him a detailed report. Fouché walked to the mirror above the red marble fireplace and pulled a horn comb from his coat pocket. He deliberately combed his thinning, graying hair towards his temples and forehead. It was easy to guess what was happening now: Bonaparte had gone on to the Opera, as Miquel wrote in his note, to quash any rumors of his death, but he would hardly be in the mood to enjoy
The Creation of the World
. He would promptly return to the Palace of the Tuileries.

Fouché saw no need to visit the crime scene. Miquel and Sobry were both competent policemen, and between themselves they would take all appropriate measures. The Minister’s presence, however, was urgently required at the Tuileries. Bonaparte’s generals, his other ministers, his courtiers, all the parasites whose lives and fortunes were closely tied to his, would hasten there to offer the great man their heartfelt congratulations on his miraculous escape, laced with much flattery and advice. Maybe Dubois, the Prefect of Police, was already there, drooling at the idea of being appointed Minister. But no, thought Fouché as he put the comb back into his pocket, Dubois was too much of a coward to face the brunt of Bonaparte’s wrath tonight.

The carriage was ready. It crossed the Seine River and stopped in front of the Tuileries. Fouché paused a moment to look up at the stately façade and the high central cupola. Once the Royal Palace, then the National Palace, now the official residence of the First Consul. What came next? Many things had happened in such short time. Barely over ten years ago, Fouché had been a monk, a teacher at the School of the Oratorian Friars in the seaport of Nantes. France had a King then, but soon it also elected an Assembly and in short order found itself in the midst of a Revolution. How fast Fouché had embraced the new ideas and discarded the habit!

He had married, very well. A rich, rational, fertile, thrifty, devoted woman. And his fortunes had risen. He had been elected a Representative, he had become a leading Jacobin. He had even voted for the King’s execution. There was still far more to Fouché’s revolutionary record, things he never mentioned anymore. There had been compelling reasons at the time, and anyway, why dwell on the past? He had atoned for any excesses by several years of retirement from politics, which he had put to good use. He had sold hogs to the Republic’s armies, and made millions. For whatever Fouché did, whether it was teaching, marrying, dealing in livestock, being the Minister of Police, he did very well.

When he entered the Throne Room, in what had been the King’s apartments, all he saw at first was a crowd of men in uniforms. The room was abuzz with whispers and indignant cries. All conversations stopped abruptly at his sight, and all faces, unfriendly faces, turned to Fouché.

The crowd parted in silence to make way for a sallow man with an angular face. His First Consul uniform, a red velvet coat and white breeches embroidered in gold, stuck to a thin body, all bones and sinews.

“Ah, here you are!” cried Bonaparte. His blue eyes had an icy glare. “Are you still going to tell me now the Royalists did it?”

“Oh, yes, Citizen First Consul, without a doubt the Royalists did it,” replied Fouché quietly. “Not only do I say so, but I shall prove it.”

The courtiers stared in astonishment, and Bonaparte’s lips only tightened more.

“Nonsense!” he exclaimed. “Can you not see the obvious? This atrocity is the work of the Jacobins. If they had only sought to kill me alone, I might have been inclined to show some leniency. But this is an attack on the people of Paris, on the Nation itself. The Jacobins will pay for this. They have been tolerated, even protected, too long. By
you
! That vermin conspires night and day under your nose, and you do nothing!”

It took more than Bonaparte’s tirades or the stares of his entourage to intimidate Fouché. “As I said, Citizen First Consul, this is the work of the Royalists, the Chouans. All I need is a week, one single week, to prove it.”

“A week! When your so-called police could not even prevent this!”

“I agree, Citizen First Consul: the police could be more efficient. It would certainly work better if it were united under one command, instead of being divided into several forces. We have the
Gendarmerie
here, the Military Police there, and now the latest, the Prefecture for Paris . . .” Fouché paused to look around. “Speaking of which, I do not see our good Citizen Prefect here tonight. Hard at work in his office, no doubt. An outstanding functionary, Dubois . . . In any event, of this grand patchwork of polices, my Ministry is but a modest part. Yet, in spite of the limitations imposed on it, you may remember, Citizen First Consul, that I recently pointed out in some detail the activities of certain Royalist agents. As much as some would like to blame the Jacobins for everything, this is simply not reasonable.”

Fouché paused to look around at the crowd of courtiers. “Too many resources have been wasted watching the men of the Revolution. Dangerous though they may have been in the past, they are now disarmed, powerless. In the meantime the émigrés, the Chouans, the agents of England have been allowed to roam Paris freely despite my warnings. If one had listened to me, this horror would never have happened.”

Bonaparte, still frowning, bit the nail of his little finger. He now seemed more preoccupied than furious.

General Lannes cleared his throat and said, “Well, Citizen First Consul, perhaps the Minister has a point. If there is even a remote possibility that the Royalists may be responsible for this atrocity, they cannot be allowed to escape.”

The only woman in the room, an elegant brunette in a white satin dress embroidered in silver thread, rose from a sofa. Madame Bonaparte moved with the quiet grace, the poise of a queen. In fact, she was already queen in all but in name, and she seemed to find herself quite at home in the late Marie Antoinette’s apartments at the Tuileries. The only thing poor Joséphine lacked to quite fit the part, reflected Fouché, was the ability to bear her husband an heir.

She gently put her hand on Bonaparte’s arm and whispered into his ear. He shook his head, frowning. Fouché waited without betraying any emotion or meeting her eye. Joséphine and he were better friends than most, including Bonaparte himself, imagined. The 1,000 francs a day Fouché paid her to keep him apprised of what went on within the Tuileries, within the First Consul’s bedroom itself, was not wasted, and at this very moment her help was more precious than ever. She was a spendthrift, always desperate for her next
sol
, and she gladly accepted the flow of the Minister’s gold without putting any malice in it.

The glare of Bonaparte’s eyes was once more fixed on Fouché. “All right, Citizen Minister, you have a week to bring me proof of the Royalists’ guilt.”

6

J
oseph de Limoëlan was walking briskly towards Saint-Régent’s lodgings. He still wore his gold spectacles, but he had traded his stallholder jacket for an elegant blue coat. Blond curls fell loose on his shoulders.

It seemed that everyone in Paris was on the streets now, and Limoëlan had to elbow his way through the crowd. He was not a happy man. All the preparations, all the care and trouble, all the expense, all had been for naught. He had seen Bonaparte’s carriage drive away, intact. He had talked to people on the street. Everyone said the First Consul had gone on to the Opera as though nothing had happened. Now George would be waiting for an explanation.

And George was not famous for his patience. He was the only man in France known to his followers and enemies alike by his given name alone. He was Georges Cadoudal, the supreme commander of the insurgents in the West, the Catholic and Royal Army, the Chouans, as they called themselves, after the name of one of their early leaders. George was a peasant’s son, fair-skinned, fair-haired, hefty, very tall, almost a giant, amazingly strong. Legend had it that he could bend a silver coin of six francs between two of his fingers.

Limoëlan, who had served under George’s direct command in the Catholic and Royal Army, knew that it was not true. George was simply the kind of character about whom people liked to tell such tales. He was more than a man, he was a legend. But much of the legend was true. For instance, George believed in only one penalty against his enemies, and those of his friends whom he suspected of incompetence, or of betraying the cause.

Months earlier, during the spring of 1800, at the time of the so-called
pacification
of the West, George had been granted safe passage and a private audience by Bonaparte. He had believed, like many Royalists at the time, that the First Consul was intent on bringing the King back from exile and transferring the reins of government to the legitimate monarch. But no, all Bonaparte had to offer George was the rank of general in the regular army, along with a bribe of 50,000 gold
louis
, if he abandoned the Royalist cause and rallied to the new regime. Actually, Bonaparte had not made an offer, he had
ordered
George to accept those things. And George took his orders from the King, not from some uniformed Corsican upstart. He had declined with contempt, of course. His sole regret was that he had failed to seize the moment. “I could have easily choked him to death with my bare hands, that shrimp of a man, and I did not,” he had told Limoëlan.