Paris: The Novel (18 page)

Once his school friends had parted from him in the street, Roland unconsciously picked up his pace. He wasn’t going on this mission because he wanted to, and he hoped to get it over with as quickly as possible.

After all, he was going to see a horror.

Roland was a conscientious pupil. It didn’t come naturally, because he often didn’t want to work. It was only because of his mother, really, that he forced himself to do it. “Promise me, Roland, that you will try your best at school.” It was almost the last thing she’d ever said to him. And to his credit, he had always kept his promise. Other boys in the class might be cleverer, but by working hard, he usually managed to get grades that were only a little behind the leaders.

So when, during a history class that morning, the teacher had asked how many boys had been to visit the horror, and he was the only one not to raise his hand, and the teacher had told him to go to see it, he’d decided to go at once. After all, it wasn’t far.

A mile away at the end of the rue de Grenelle lay the great space of the
Champ de Mars, with its western sweep down to the river. But Roland had gone only half that way when his object came in sight.

The great military hospital of Les Invalides occupied a huge open space, once known as the Plaine of Grenelle. In the seventeenth century, Louis XIV had built it in a severe, classical style suitable to a military foundation—though in the middle, for magnificence, he’d added a royal chapel with a gilded dome like St. Peter’s, Rome. From the cold, stern facade of Les Invalides, one could gaze over a long parade of iron-clad lawns, and thence across the Seine to the trees of the Champs-Élysées in the distance. It also housed an artillery museum nowadays, but this was not Roland’s object. Entering the first courtyard, he made straight for the central chapel.

And as he gazed upon the horror that lay within, he understood what the teacher had meant when he’d said: “The chapel of the king has been defiled.”

A square church. Four chapels at the corners made a cross between them. Over the center of the cross, a circular dome. A classic pattern for Christian worship, from Orthodox Russia to Catholic Spain.

But there was nothing Christian about the chapel now. Instead of finding a nave beneath the dome, one looked down from a circular gallery into a marble pit. Twelve pillars of victory encircled this pagan crypt, and in its center, upon a massive, green granite pedestal, rested a stupendous sarcophagus of polished red porphyry, bulging with imperial pride.

The tomb of Napoléon, child of the Revolution, conqueror of God’s anointed monarchs, emperor of France. This was the horror that Roland had been sent to see.

“That vulgar tomb,” the teacher had declared, “that infamous, pagan monument. The sepulcher of Napoléon is an insult to Catholic France.”

“And yet, Father,” one of the class had questioned, “isn’t it true that the emperor Napoléon supported the Church?”

“As an opportunist, yes. But only to get the support of the faithful who did not realize that, in truth, he believed in nothing and mocked them behind their backs. When Napoléon was in Egypt, he supported the followers of Muhammad. ‘If I had a kingdom of Jews,’ he said, ‘I would rebuild the temple of Solomon.’ If,” the teacher warmed to his theme, “you want proof of the wretched man’s impiety, remember that, when he was to be crowned emperor by the pope—like the pious emperor Charlemagne
a thousand years ago—and before a crowd of thousands in Notre Dame, he seized the crown from the hands of the Holy Father and placed it on his head himself.”

Roland had been gazing at the tomb for a minute or two when he noticed an old man arrive. Like Roland, he advanced to the parapet and stared down at the huge red urn, but there the resemblance between them ended. For the old man was behaving in such a strange manner that Roland soon found the visitor more interesting than the monument.

He was old, but how old it was hard to tell. His hair was snowy white, and he had a silky walrus mustache. His skin had a translucence that suggested great age. But he was a good six feet tall and he held himself ramrod straight, as though he were on parade. Indeed, Roland realized, the old man was actually standing at attention, arms by his sides, as though the emperor himself were inspecting him. And he was so concentrated on this business that he seemed quite oblivious of anything else.

It would have been rude to stare, but while he pretended to admire the painted dome above, Roland continued to observe the old man for a good five minutes until, finally, he saw him salute the tomb, and then gravely turn to walk away. As he did so, however, he noticed Roland.

“Well, boy,” he said sharply, like a sergeant addressing a new recruit, “what are you staring at?”

“Pardon, monsieur.”
Roland found himself looking into a pair of blue eyes, proud but not unkindly. “I did not mean to be impolite. I noticed you salute.”

“Certainly, I salute the emperor. So should all those who remember the Glory of France.”

La Gloire
. Many nations had known glory in their history, but perhaps none had felt it so keenly as the nation of France: for monarchists, the glory of the Sun King; for republicans, the glory of the Revolution; for soldiers and administrators, the glorious victories of the emperor Napoléon.

“You are a soldier, sir?” Roland dared to inquire.

“I was. And my father before me. He served in the Old Guard.”

“Your father knew the emperor?”

“He did. And so did I. My father survived the Retreat from Moscow. And when the emperor returned for his great final battle and called upon all France to rise to his aid, my father went, and I went with him, though I was hardly older than you. My mother didn’t wish it. She was afraid to
lose me. But my father said, ‘Better my son should die than fail to fight for the honor of France.’ So I marched with my father. It was the proudest day of my life.”

“And you did not die.”

“No. It was my father who gave his life. At Waterloo, the emperor’s final battle. I was at his side.” The old man paused. “Ever since, on my father’s birthday, I have saluted him, and the emperor, and the honor of France. That’s seventy-two years. And for the last twenty-six years, since this tomb has been here, I have come to Les Invalides to pay my respects.”

Napoléon might have died in exile on the island of Saint Helena, but his legend had lived on. To his enemies, he remained an upstart and a tyrant. But to many of Europe’s peoples, oppressed under their rigid old monarchies, he remained the republican liberator, the hero of the common man. And to many in France, as well.

Even King Louis Philippe, to make himself more popular, had felt obliged to bring the emperor’s body home to Paris; and now, with a magnificence unmatched by any French king, his ashes rested in this mighty mausoleum in the heart of France.

Whatever he thought of the sacrilegious emperor, Roland had to admire the dignity and the nobility of this old soldier, who must be nearly ninety, yet who stood so tall and straight.

The blue eyes under the bushy eyebrows surveyed Roland carefully.

“And who might you be, young monsieur?” he asked.

“My name is Roland de Cygne, monsieur,” Roland answered.

“A noble. Well, there were nobles who served the emperor, too. Promotion was on merit, whoever you were.” He nodded. “Our country was respected then. Not like now. To think that I should have lived to see the humiliation of Paris and Alsace-Lorraine given to the Germans.”

“Our history master says that we must avenge the dishonor of 1870,” Roland told him. Hardly a week went by without the class getting a lecture on the subject. It was a lesson given in schools all over France. “He says we must recover Alsace-Lorraine.”

The old man looked at him, perhaps privately measuring whether this new generation was up to the task.

“The honor of France is in your hands now,” he said finally, and glanced toward the doorway to indicate that the interview was over now.

Hardly knowing that he was doing so, Roland stood at attention as the
old man walked stiffly away. And he waited a little time after he was gone before heading out himself.

As he did so, he noticed a young man, with dark, close-cropped hair and eyes set wide apart, dispassionately watching him. As he drew level, he couldn’t resist sharing what was in his mind.

“Did you see that old soldier?” he asked.

The young man inclined his head.

“He knew the emperor Napoléon,” Roland said.

“No doubt.”

“C’est quelque chose,”
Roland remarked. “That’s something.”

The stranger didn’t reply.

The next day school broke up at noon. When Roland returned home, his father was absent, but had left a message that he’d be returning after lunch and that they were going out.

When his father duly arrived to collect him, however, and Roland asked where they were going, he was only told, “To see a friend of mine,” which made him rather curious.

Was this friend a man, he asked himself, or might this be a lady?

He’d often wondered about his father’s romantic life. Though the Vicomte de Cygne was devoted to the memory of his late wife, whom he’d adored, he was no hermit. A good height, elegant, quite rich and certainly aristocratic, his father kept his military bearing and mustache, but he always moved gracefully and knew how to make charming conversation. He must surely, Roland guessed, be attractive to women.

Like most aristocrats, the vicomte would have considered it beneath him to be an intellectual, but it wasn’t unfashionable to keep up with the goings-on of the literary and artistic worlds, and he would often go to exhibitions and occasionally put in an appearance at one of the salons where writers and artists could be encountered. A few months ago Roland had found a copy of
Les Fleurs du mal
on his father’s library table. He’d heard at school that these poems of Baudelaire were pagan, and indecent. But when he nervously asked his father about them, the vicomte seemed quite unconcerned.

“Baudelaire is a bit of a dandy. But some of his poems are exquisite. Have you heard of the composer Duparc? No? Well, his setting of Baudelaire’s
‘L’Invitation au voyage’ is one of the loveliest things one ever heard. He has perfectly captured the sensuousness of France.”

Such conversations hinted to Roland that there were aspects of his father’s life that might be hidden from him. His father’s occasional absences, the fact that his nanny would say approvingly, “The vicomte is a proper man,” his father’s jaunty manner, sometimes, when he went out, had made Roland wonder if he kept a mistress somewhere. He understood that his father would never bring his mistress, even if she were a fashionable and aristocratic lady, into the home where his son was living and which was still sacred to the memory of his late wife.

But was it possible, Roland wondered, that his father had decided he was now old enough to encounter such a person? Was this the friend they were going to see? It was a prospect that filled him with curiosity and some excitement.

Or was there another, more serious possibility? Was his father taking him to meet someone he meant to marry? A stepmother? What might that mean for his future?

When they left the house, the vicomte had still given him no clue. And knowing that his father liked to tease him a little, he knew that it was quite useless to ask him for any further information.

The Vicomte de Cygne’s favorite coach was a fast, light, covered phaeton. It was drawn by two gray carriage horses—the family had always used grays since the eighteenth century, he assured his son. It was driven by the family’s old coachman who, though always immaculately turned out, liked to wear an old-fashioned tricorn hat. It was an equipage combining sportiness, fashion and tradition; and Roland always felt proud to accompany his father on these excursions.

Soon the phaeton’s large wheels were bowling along the boulevard Saint-Germain up toward the river. Coming out on the Quai d’Orsay, Roland had only a moment to admire the classical portico of the National Assembly and the handsome Foreign Ministry beyond, before the phaeton was briskly crossing the broad bridge that led across the river to the great open space of the Place de la Concorde.

Roland had been ten years old before his father had told him why his family had no love for that huge square.

“They call it the Place de la Concorde now,” he’d explained, “but during the Revolution, it was one of the main sites of the guillotine. That’s where my own grandfather lost his head.”

Hardly knowing they did so, both father and son now averted their eyes toward the Tuileries Gardens, on their right, rather than survey the tragic place.

Straight ahead, just a short distance back from the square’s northern side, lay the Roman columns and wide pediment of La Madeleine. For some reason, the handsome church always seemed cheerful to Roland.

“Did you know,” his father remarked, “that centuries ago there was a Jewish synagogue on that site?” He smiled. “Then the Church took it over. It was Napoléon who built the structure you see now, as a sort of pagan temple for his army. And now it’s a church again.” He glanced at Roland. “So you see, nothing is permanent, my son.”