Paris: The Novel (13 page)

The priest’s house lay almost beside the church. It wasn’t large, but it had a pleasant hall with a fireplace and a window, and an area partitioned by a heavy curtain, where a mattress could easily be laid for a guest. An elderly nun from a nearby convent came in each day to act as the priest’s housekeeper, and she quietly laid out a meal for them both. After he had eaten a rich stew, and a little cheese, and drunk a goblet of wine, Roland started to feel very much better.

The priest’s conversation was pleasant. He asked Roland about his family and his studies, and it was soon clear that he was an excellent scholar himself. He spoke about his parish, and its poor. And it was only toward the end of the meal that he gently inquired: “Are you in some sort of trouble, my son?”

Roland hesitated. How he would have liked to tell the kindly priest the truth. Should he make his confession and ask for his help? Could the priest perhaps arrange for his protection? The Church was powerful. He wanted to confess.

But he couldn’t do it.

“No,
mon Père
,” he lied.

The old man didn’t press him. But as the sun was falling he remarked that at the end of each day he went into his church to pray, and suggested that perhaps Roland would like to accompany him.

“I should,” said Roland fervently. And he went to pick up his roll of parchment, so that he’d have his dagger with him, just in case.

“There’s no need to bring that with you,” the old man said. “It will be quite safe here in the house.”

What could he do? Reluctantly he went out unarmed.

The Church of the Saints Innocents was silent. They were alone.

“Each time I pray here,” the priest remarked, “I like to remember that I am in the presence of all those poor Christian souls, the simple people of Paris without even a name by which to remember them, who lie in the cemetery beside us.” He smiled. “It makes our own troubles seem very small.”

Then he went to a small side altar, sank to his knees and silently began to pray.

Roland knelt beside him, and did his best to do the same. The old man’s presence was comforting. He felt a sense of peace. Surely, he thought, in this quiet sanctuary, he must be under God’s protection.

And yet … As the time passed, and the church remained silent, he could not help it if his ears were straining for any tiny sound. He wanted to turn his head to look around, to make sure that no shadowy figures were stealing toward them. But he did not dare, for fear of disturbing his companion’s prayers.

And then, to his shame, came other thoughts. What if the church door suddenly burst open now, and two or three armed men rushed in? He didn’t have his dagger, but the old priest was not heavy. Could he pick him up and use him as a shield? He was just contemplating this possibility when he heard the priest’s voice at his side.

“Let us say a
Pater Noster
, my son.”

Pater Noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur Nomen tuum …
the eternal words of the Lord’s Prayer, murmured softly in the quiet church.

And when it was done, and they had returned to the priest’s house and bolted the door, Roland lay down on the bed prepared, with his roll of parchment beside him, and slept in peace.

The sun was already well up when he awoke. Breakfast was awaiting him on the table. The old priest had already gone out, but had left a message with his housekeeper that he would expect Roland to join him for supper again that evening, and to stay in his house that night.

As he made his way across the river to the Latin Quarter, Roland felt quite refreshed. Whatever the dangers that lurked, he thought, there must be some solution—some way, if he were truly repentant, that God would grant him protection. Perhaps, this evening, he would confess everything to the old priest and ask his advice.

He went up the rue Saint-Jacques. There were plenty of students about. He kept his eyes open, but saw no sign of danger.

He was fifty paces from his lodgings when a student came up to him.

“There’s a fellow looking for you,” he said.

Roland froze.

“A man? What sort of man?”

“I don’t know. I never saw him before.”

“Just one?” His heart was starting to beat violently. “Are you sure there weren’t several?”

“I saw only one,” the student said. And Roland was just wondering whether to make a run for it when the student waved to a poor-looking young fellow up the street and called out: “Here he is.”

Roland began to turn and run. But then he stopped.

No. He wouldn’t run. He couldn’t go on like this. There was only one young man, probably sent as a scout, to check out his whereabouts before the thugs were brought in. If I can just bring him down, he thought, and make him confess … take him to the authorities … It’d be hard for Martine’s uncle to attack me after that.

He reached into the roll of parchment, pulled out the dagger.

And with a shout of rage, he rushed at the stranger, hurling himself upon him. The young man went down. Roland stayed on top of him. He pressed the dagger blade to the fellow’s throat.

“Who sent you?” he cried. The young man’s eyes were wide with terror.

“The lord de Cygne,” he answered hoarsely. “Your father, sir.”

“My father?”

“I am Pierre, the miller’s son, from your village.”

Roland stared at him. It could be true. He realized that the young fellow’s face was vaguely familiar. He hadn’t seen him for a few years. He kept the dagger at his throat, in case.

“Why are you here?”

“Your brother. He has had an accident. He is dead. Your father wants you to return home at once. I have a letter for you from the priest.”

“My brother is dead?” That could mean only one thing. He’d have to take his place back at home as the future lord de Cygne.

“Yes, sir. I am sorry.”

And then, without thinking—for in truth he loved his brother—but in sheer relief at such an unexpected way out of his troubles, Roland spoke the words that, for the rest of his life, would cause his villagers behind his back to call him the Black de Cygne:

“Thank God!” he cried.

The letter from the priest explained the details. His brother had suffered a fall from his horse onto a gatepost, had punctured his lungs and died within the hour. The priest urged Roland to do his father’s bidding and return at once, since his presence was greatly needed.

He well knew, the priest wrote, what a sacrifice it would be to give up his studies at the university, and the religious life. And indeed, Roland thought, he might have felt some reluctance to leave Paris, had it not been for this trouble over Martine with the merchant. But, the priest went on, it was not for us to question providence. One must simply bow one’s head and do one’s duty. It was clearly a sign, the priest explained, that God had decided that Roland should serve Him in another calling.

Roland made the arrangements that very day. He told his teachers that his father required him urgently to go into Normandy, but that he hoped soon to return. He told his friends that he was secretly hoping to study in Italy, at the University of Bologna. To Martine, he sent no message at all. And having, he hoped, left enough confusion to throw her uncle off his track, he spent the night at the house of the kindly old priest and departed the next morning for his home in the valley of the Loire.

Since he made no inquiries, he never knew that, six months later, Martine was married to a merchant named Renard. But had he known, he would have been glad.

•  1885  •

Thomas Gascon found his true love on the first day of June, in the morning. It had rained the day before, and gray clouds were still passing across the open sky above the Arc de Triomphe. But the horse chestnut trees were in their full, white blossom, and the promise of summer was in the air, as the huge crowds gathered.

He had come for a funeral.

Writers were honored in France. And now that Victor Hugo—beloved author of
Les Misérables, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
and a score of other tales—had died at the age of eighty-three, France was giving him a state funeral.

The entire legislature, senators, deputies, judges and officers of state; the leaders of the universities, the academies and the arts, had arrived at the Arc de Triomphe, where the author had been lying in state. More than two million people lined the route the funeral cortege would take, down the Champs-Élysées to Concorde, over the bridge to the Left Bank and along the boulevard Saint-Germain until, at last, it would climb to the summit of the old Roman hill in the Latin Quarter where the mausoleum of the Panthéon now stood, ready to receive the greatest sons of France.

Paris had never seen such a crowd—not in the days of the Sun King, not during the Revolution, not even under the emperor Napoléon.

And all for a novelist.

Thomas had arrived at dawn to get a good view. Some people had camped out in the street the night before to get a good position, but Thomas had been more cunning. He had inspected the place previously
and chosen a spot near the top of the Champs-Élysées, on its southern side, with his back resting against a building.

As the huge avenue rapidly filled, his view was soon blocked, but he didn’t mind. He waited patiently until everything was in place, the police and soldiers all busy lining the roadway and the crowd around him so thick that it was impossible to move.

First, he reached down to the rope tied around his waist and unwound the loose end, to which he’d attached a small hook. Just behind him, at shoulder height, a narrow ledge ran along the stone facade of the building, and above that was a window protected on the outside by a metal grille. Skillfully, he tossed the rope up so that the hook caught in the grille.

Then, suddenly grabbing the shoulders of the two people in front of him, he levered himself up quickly. They hardly had time to protest before he was scrambling up their backs, and a moment later, with a foot resting on the head of one of them, he got his other heel firmly on the ledge, reached up, pulled the hook through the grille and tied the rope off. The two men below were now cursing volubly, and one of them tried to punch him, but the crowd was so close that it was hard for the man to get a decent swing. And after Thomas made a motion as though to kick him in the head with his workman’s boot, he contented himself with a contemptuous
“Cochon!”
and turned away.

Thanks to this arrangement, tethered safely to the grille behind by the rope around his waist, Thomas could lean out to left or right as he pleased and watch everything over the heads of the people in front of him.

Across the avenue, the balconies were crammed with people; there were heads at every window. Some of these folk had paid large sums of money for these vantage points. But he had a view as good as theirs, for free.

To his left, the wide space around the Arc de Triomphe had been cleared for the dignitaries who were all in deepest mourning dress, or uniform. The great arch itself was an extraordinary sight. Three years ago, a huge sculpture of the goddess Victory in her chariot had been placed on top, making it even more dramatic than before. An enormous drape hung like a scooped curtain over one side of the monument; long banners hung from its corners. And taking up most of the great central arch was the ornate and massive catafalque, sixty feet high, in which Victor Hugo had been lying in state.

It was more than a funeral. It was an apotheosis.

The crowds were all in black. The better-off men wore top hats. Thomas
himself had put on a short coat that was dark enough, but he wore a blue workingman’s cap. He supposed Victor Hugo wouldn’t mind.

He was staring toward the arch, where the funeral orations were beginning, when he saw the girl.

She was standing about fifteen yards away, in the front row. He could see only the back of her head, and there was nothing special about that. There was really no reason he should have felt drawn toward this particular head in the sea of people all around. But for some reason it seemed to him to be special.

He could see that she had frizzy brown hair. The skin on the back of her neck looked pale. He couldn’t tell what she was wearing, but he thought that she probably belonged to the poorer classes, like himself. He wondered if she would turn round.