Paris: The Novel (49 page)

His brother officers liked Roland. He’d shown a fine aptitude for a military career right from the start. When he’d attended the military
academy of Saint-Cyr, he’d come out nearly top of his class. Perhaps even more important to his aristocratic companions, he’d shown such prowess at the Cavalry Academy at Saumur that he’d almost made the elite Cadre Noir equestrian team. He was a good regimental soldier, respected by his men, a loyal friend with a kindly sense of humor. He could also be trusted to tell the truth. And he certainly looked the part of the cavalryman. He was a good height, a little taller than his father. His fair hair was parted in the middle, from which it marched out in close-trimmed waves. He wore a short mustache, brushed outward but not curled. The effect was handsome and manly.

Yet sometimes one might notice a quiet thoughtfulness in his blue eyes, even a hint of proud melancholy, and his brother officers thought it was their job to tease him about this too.

“There is an air of mystery about you, de Cygne,” one of them now remarked. “Like Athos in
The Three Musketeers
, I think you have a hidden past. A secret sorrow. Is it a woman?”

“Of course it is,” the youngest cried. “Tell us, de Cygne. Your secret is safe with us. For at least ten minutes!”

“No,” the oldest of them, a captain, corrected. “Hidden in that handsome cavalryman’s head, I detect an idealist. One day, de Cygne, you will be a hero, as famous as the great knight Bayard,
sans peur et sans reproche
. Fearless and beyond reproach. Or you’ll surprise us all and enter a monastery.”

“A monastery?” cried the youngest. “What are you talking about? We’re at the Moulin Rouge, for God’s sake!”

“I agree,” Roland responded with a smile. “Anyone wishing to become a monk will be reported to the management.” It was time to end this probing into his character. He glanced around the table. “I think we need more champagne.”

The captain signaled to the waiter, who was at his side in an instant.

“More champagne, Luc.”

“At once,
mon capitaine
.”

A few minutes later, the floor show began.

It had to be said, Roland thought, the Moulin Rouge did what it did supremely well. The cavernous space had room for dozens of tables, but the view of the stage was excellent. Part of the atmosphere of the place was created by its particular light. There were numerous gaslights, which provided a warm glow, but the owners had supplemented these with the
latest electric lights, which provided a sparkling overlay, magnified in the huge mirrored glass by the stage that reflected the whole scene. The effect was both risqué and magical at the same time.

The orchestra was excellent. And then there were the dancers.

They danced a medley of arrangements that night. There were exotic dances, gymnastic dances with one dancer after another dropping down dramatically to do splits, and then, of course, the dance that had become the Moulin’s signature: the cancan.

“I’m sorry you never got to see La Goulue perform this,” the captain said to Roland, who nodded. In the space of five years, La Goulue had made herself a legend. Now she’d gone off with a circus on her own. But her replacement, Jane Avril, already made famous thanks to a poster by Toulouse-Lautrec, was quite as good. And where La Goulue was loud and outrageous, Avril was a little more elegant.

The troupe came on, in silk dresses, black stockings and extravagant, frilly petticoats. They began in a line, swishing their skirts, and performing half kicks. Then they broke up into a complex choreography. The kicks grew higher. One did a cartwheel. Two others dropped into the splits. They formed back into two lines. And then Jane Avril made her entrance.

If the troupe was athletic, Avril was something more. If the girls had formed a line to support each other as they performed the high kicks, Avril could balance on one leg, like a ballerina, performing half kicks and high kicks one after the other as she made a pirouette. Minute after minute, while the troupe performed all the cancan moves and the tempo increased, Avril was out in front of them, dancing a sort of descant to their tune, before sinking at last, in a single, fluid fall, into a split that made it look like the most natural thing in the world.

It was the cancan, yet beyond the cancan. It was a work of art.

When it ended, no one rose to their feet faster than Roland.

“Magnificent!” he cried as he applauded.

When the audience had finished applauding, the master of ceremonies announced that there would now be a pause for the orchestra to take refreshments before the general dancing began.

For the officers at the table, the moment had come. The captain took command.

“On this sheet of paper,” he announced, drawing it from his pocket, “are written the twenty names of the officers in the draw. Against each
name is a number. On each of these small cards”—he produced them with a flourish—“is written a single number from one to twenty. Please inspect them.” He laid them ceremoniously on the table. “Very well. To ensure absolute fairness, I have here a blindfold.” He produced a black silk bandana. “Luc!” he called to the waiter. “Come here and bring me a large soup bowl.”

Luc obliged at once.

Roland noticed that the waiter was quite a handsome young man, with a broad, intelligent face and dark hair, a lock of which fell down over his broad brow. He might be French or possibly Italian, Roland thought. But his age was hard to guess. He had a lithe way of moving that suggested he might be only twenty, but there was a smoothness and worldliness in his manner that belonged to an older man.

“Luc,” announced the captain, “I am going to blindfold you.” And he began to tie the black bandana around the waiter’s head.

As Jacques Le Sourd entered the Moulin Rouge, he did not see the officers at first. He certainly wasn’t looking for them. He’d come there to dance.

Jacques was a busy man. After a brief spell as a teacher, he had turned to his father’s trade as a typesetter. The work was hard, but he still found time to write articles for the various socialist journals that had sprung up. Today had been a free day, and he’d spent it working on an article he was writing for
Le Parti Ouvrier
about the anarchist movement.

It had been a long afternoon. He’d been up on Montmartre, in the Lapin Agile bar, a picturesque establishment on the back slope of the hill, where artists and people with anarchist views liked to congregate. He had interviewed three anarchists. By the time he was finished, it was well into the evening.

He had wanted to write on the anarchists for a while. During the last few years there had been a number of incidents in France that were supposed to be their work. Bombs had exploded, quite a few people had been killed. There had been a government crackdown, and a number of anarchists had fled to England.

But what was anarchism for? What did it achieve?

There were so many groupings on the Left. If radicalism was a tree that had grown from the ideals of the French Revolution, the mid-century
graftings of Marx and Engels had now produced a plant of many branches. There were kindly utopians, trade union men, socialists, communists, anarchists and many variations in between. They all opposed the monarchy. They were all suspicious of the Church. And they all longed for a perfect society of free men. But what that society would be, and how to achieve it, was the subject of endless discussion. And no subject was more disputed than the role of the anarchists.

Le Sourd knew that the true anarchist movement, the anarchism of men like Proudhon in France, followed by Bakunin and Kropotkin, called for the overthrow of the state, which would be followed by a utopian world of friendly collectives. For these men, the violent outrages, the bombings and terrorist acts were only a catalyst—the shock needed to trigger a huge reaction—in which the state, which lacked all moral validity, would collapse. After that, miraculously, poverty, exploitation and human suffering would end.

Jacques was not an anarchist. He thought that even the original anarchist philosophers were utopian dreamers, and that most of their followers were dangerous fanatics. And the three men he’d talked with that day had confirmed all his worst opinions.

Hadn’t they learned anything from the Paris Commune? The Commune for which his father had fought and died? During its brief reign, it had run Paris successfully. But it lacked a proper army. The Communards hadn’t gotten an organization outside the capital, and the forces of reaction had been able to march into Paris and break them. The present regime, republican but corrupt, had been in power ever since.

The more he’d listened to the men this afternoon, the more he had appreciated why his father’s Commune should be his guide. The anarchists he’d spoken to wanted to throw a bomb and run away. There, they seemed to think, their responsibility ended. But his father and his friends had stood up for their beliefs, fought for them, tried to construct something concrete, and been killed for it.

Compare these anarchists with that other heroine of the Commune, still living, Louise Michel. She’d fought for the Commune up in Montmartre. Afterward, at her trial, she’d challenged the government to execute her. “Put a bullet in me,” she had cried, “for if you don’t, I’ll go straight back to opposing you.” And if she hadn’t been a woman, no doubt they would have shot her. But she’d been as good as her word. Deported, in and out of jail ever since, she’d taught, preached revolution, even taken
up arms again. People called her an anarchist, but properly speaking, in Jacques Le Sourd’s opinion, she was a revolutionary.

Perhaps, he thought, this comparison might provide the structure for his article.

For Jacques had long ago concluded that the Marxists were right. There must be central organization. There must be a proper power base. Just days ago, the Jewish Workers in Russia and Poland had formed a party to promote socialism and equal rights for women. They were calling it the Bund. This was the sort of well-established development that would be needed, years of it, before the revolution would be ready.

And who knew, when the revolution did come, it might be worldwide. He hoped so. Until then, the anarchist bombs were as useless as they were cruel.

After four hours of listening to these men in the Lapin Agile, who thought that outrage was an end in itself, he’d come to the conclusion that they were vain, self-centered lunatics and artists, and he’d left in disgust.

So having walked down the hill to the boulevard de Clichy, and seeing the bright lights of the Moulin Rouge, he had decided to go in there to relax a little. He might be a revolutionary, but he still loved to dance.

The big hall was packed as usual. Here and there he saw tables where groups of women sat. Some were there to look for clients. Others were just there to have a good time. Either way, since he was tall, and dark, and danced well, he always found women happy to dance with him. And if he wanted more, he could often find that too, without having to pay for it.

Of course, when the revolution finally came, scenes of bourgeois decadence like this would surely have to go. Most of his friends said that even the small café owners would be swept away, and be replaced with cooperatives. There were already quite a few food cooperatives operating in Paris. Whether a family was operating an emporium or a tiny café, they were still profiteering, and exploiting the workers.

He shrugged. That was for another day. His eyes began to travel around the tables where the women sat.

And then, from over on his right, there was a roar. A waiter wearing a blindfold was standing by a long table of young men, who were starting to applaud. People were turning to look. The young men were laughing.

“Bravo, de Cygne,” one of them cried out.

“Bring champagne.”

“No. Oysters. Bring oysters.”

“The honor of the regiment is in your hands.”

“The honor of the regiment is between your legs!”

“Oysters for de Cygne!”

One of the officers had got up to take the blindfold off the waiter, who was smiling broadly. Now the waiter made a congratulatory bow to one of the seated men.

A few moments later the waiter came past him, still smiling to himself.

“What was that about?” Jacques asked.

“Oh, something very amusing, monsieur. A party of young cavalry officers clubbed together so that one of them could pay a visit to, one might say, the most desirable woman in Paris. I had the honor of making the draw.” He nodded. “It must be said, the cavalry has style.”

“I thought I heard the name de Cygne. Would that be the son of the Vicomte de Cygne?”

“I couldn’t say,” Luc replied discreetly.

“It’s an ancient name,” Jacques remarked casually.

“No doubt, monsieur.”

Jacques would have liked to ask the name of the lady in question, but there was no need. For at that moment, a young officer rose unsteadily to his feet, and raising his glass cried out: “To our noble friend de Cygne, and La Belle Hélène.”

Jacques Le Sourd smiled.

“Lucky man,” he said to the waiter. All Paris had heard of La Belle Hélène.