Paris: The Novel (55 page)

“I see that you are a good father,” said de Cygne.

“You mean the commission for Marc? I’m sure you do things for your son too, Vicomte.”

“I lost my wife when my son was a young boy. It makes it more difficult. I worry about him, still. Do you worry about your children?”

“Of course.” He told de Cygne briefly about Gérard and Marie. “They’re all right, I think. But I worry about Marc.”

“You see your children often?”

“At least once a month, the whole family meets for Sunday lunch, either in Paris or at Fontainebleau. They bring their friends. For better or worse, it’s family.”

De Cygne thought of his own quiet house and nodded.

“That is how it should be. Do you ever have older guests?”

“Certainly.” Blanchard looked at him curiously.

“Might I be a guest at one of your lunches?”

“By all means.” Blanchard hesitated. “They are quite informal, you understand. The Blanchard family is entirely bourgeois. It might not be to your taste, you know.”

De Cygne reflected that if Blanchard wanted to, he could probably buy the de Cygne house, château and estate, and have change to spare. But that was not the point. It was another little plan that was framing in his mind, and the Blanchard family was exactly to his purpose.

“If you would invite me,” he said, “I should be delighted to come.”

“Well,” answered Jules, “Christmas and the New Year are almost upon us, but what about the third Sunday in January? The sixteenth. In Paris.”

“Excellent,” said de Cygne. “I shall be there.” Even though, in truth, he hadn’t the least intention of going.

It had never occurred to Roland de Cygne that his father’s life might be drawing to a close. The vicomte appeared to be in excellent health. So he was always glad, afterward, that when his father had suggested he come down to the château and stay with him awhile, he had accepted.

The last couple of months in Paris had passed quietly enough for Roland. His regimental duties kept him busy. Indeed, he sometimes felt that he was being given extra duties. “That’s to compensate for your winning the lottery for La Belle Hélène,” the captain told him cheerfully. He didn’t have time to go out on the town very much. But whenever he did go to the Folies-Bergère, or to see a play, or just to dine out, his brother officers were always eager to accompany him. The captain in particular seemed to want his company. He had no objection, but sometimes he might have been just as happy to go out for an evening alone.

In the middle of December, however, he was due some leave, and he’d been wondering what to do.

Many people, having spent the summer months in the country, would have remained in Paris for the winter season unless, like the fashionable English, they liked to travel down to places like Nice and Monte Carlo on the Mediterranean, or venture into the snowy magnificence of the Swiss Alps, where a few hardy souls would even hike across the mountain trails on skis.

But his father had recently decided it was time he paid more attention to the family estate. “The house needs attention, so do the farms,” he told Roland. “I want to leave things in good order for you. And before I die,
I’m going to sort all the family papers that nobody’s touched in a hundred years.”

“In that case, Father,” Roland answered with a smile, “you may have to live a long time.”

So now, knowing that the regiment would certainly be posted, possibly far away, at some point, and having received his father’s invitation, he’d decided to keep his father company in the country.

The Château de Cygne was not large, but it was full of character. At various times in its history, when the family could afford it, the old building had been altered or added to, so that the final result was a charming mixture of styles. Hidden inside were thick walls belonging to the original little fort, which went back eight hundred years.

But the oldest part visible from the outside dated from the late fifteenth century, when the son of Guy de Cygne, using the moneys from his mother, Cécile Renard, and the noble heiress he’d married himself, had created a small, romantic château, with a steep roof, round towers and pointed turrets at the corners.

This charming little French castle also contained the family’s favorite room—a large hall, with quite a low ceiling that was crossed by dark, friendly old beams, and a huge fireplace that could have held a dozen men. On one wall of the hall, looking as if it had always been there, hung the lovely unicorn tapestry supplied by Monsieur Jacob.

Another wing, equally delightful in decorative brick, had been added a century later, in the rich and cheerful style of the French Renaissance. Finally, in the eighteenth century, yet another wing and court had been added in the classical style. This perhaps was less satisfactory, but a wide ornamental terrace, with a formal garden and elegantly clipped trees, had brought the whole ensemble together in a way that felt pleasing. It was not uncommon to find such places in the lovely Loire Valley region.

During that Christmas season, Roland and his father had time to discuss many things together. Roland told his father about his adventure with La Belle Hélène, which amused and pleased the vicomte greatly. They also discussed ways to improve the estate. The woods could be used for boar hunting. “We could also raise pheasants for shooting, like the English do,” the vicomte believed. “The château itself is in fair shape,” he informed Roland, “but the upper floors need restoring, and in another dozen years we’ll have to reroof the whole place. One day you may need to sell the house in Paris, unless you can marry a rich woman,” he added.

Yet sometimes, it seemed to Roland, his father was troubled by darker thoughts.

“The situation in Europe worries me,” he confessed one evening. “I just hope you won’t have to fight a war, like I did.”

“The great empires have treaties to maintain the balance of power,” Roland pointed out.

“Yes. But Germany is still jealous of Britain’s empire. When old Bismarck was running Germany’s policy, for all his ambition, he knew the limits of power. But the people around the young kaiser now are hotheads. I fear for the future.”

On the state of France itself, however, it was he rather than his father who was the pessimist.

“The corruption of the government is so complete, Father, I can’t understand why most of the deputies don’t shoot themselves in shame. When I think of the Panama Canal … I despair of my country.”

It was true that the catastrophe of the Panama Canal had shocked all France. At first, it had been advertised as a great French enterprise. Its builder, de Lesseps, had triumphantly engineered the Suez Canal some years earlier. Now French expertise would astonish the New World as well. But not only had the plans been misconceived, not only had the entire business gone bankrupt, taking with it the savings of ordinary people all over France, but de Lesseps and his friends had mounted one of the biggest cover-ups the world had ever seen, bribing innumerable politicians high and low to conceal the disaster. Even Eiffel, who’d been called in to try to correct the engineering when it was far too late, had almost been tarnished with the scandal.

Respect for the political class had been destroyed for a generation.

“My son,” the vicomte had replied with a shake of his head, “I share your outrage, but scandals like these have been found in every country, and I suspect they always will be.”

“I do not accept that nothing can be done,” Roland replied. “But I think it’s proof that we cannot trust our elected officials.”

“And you would replace it with a monarchy? A sacred king?”

“I consider the monarch to be sacred. Yes. He is anointed by God. But if not a monarch, perhaps a man who is above mere politics. A man of destiny.”

“That is how Napoléon first portrayed himself, yet you do not approve of him.”

“I mean a religious man.”

“A few years ago, General Boulanger seemed like such a man, yet when perhaps he could have made a bid for power, he shied away from taking up such a burden. I cannot think of any plausible figure in France today. Nor am I so sure that I trust any single man, even an anointed monarch, so much better than I do one who is an ordinary politician.” The vicomte sighed. “All governments are corrupt. It’s just a question of degree.” He smiled wryly. “And whether they’re any good at it.”

And just as he had when he was a boy, while he loved and respected his father, Roland felt a sense of sorrow that the vicomte could not, or would not, take a moral stance when he should.

Sometimes the Vicomte de Cygne wondered if he should have married again. Not so much for his own sake as for his son. The trouble was that at the time when little Roland had probably needed a mother most, he himself had been grieving far too deeply for his lost wife even to think of marrying another.

Since then he’d been fortunate in having a number of romantic friendships. One woman he might have married if she had been available. Another was available, but she would not have been accepted socially by his friends. Others had usually followed a similar pattern—discreet, safe, amusing. He had not been unhappy.

As for his domestic situation, his Paris house was very effectively run by Nanny, even in her old age. And at the family château, where certainly, a woman’s hand was called for, he wasn’t sure he’d really be able to tolerate anyone else’s interference nowadays. He’d long ago decided to keep it the way it was, in somewhat masculine order, until such time as Roland should marry and his wife and children could do as they pleased with the place while he watched, no doubt with horror as well as amusement. He’d supposed that was the natural order.

But as he looked at his son today, the vicomte couldn’t help feeling that he had let him down. Plenty of other boys had grown up without a mother, of course. But Roland’s upbringing had been too masculine. He lacked balance.

I shouldn’t have let Father Xavier influence him so much, either, the vicomte thought.

He’d never objected to the priest, who was so obviously in love with his wife. He’d rather sympathized with him. He had known Father Xavier’s love would remain entirely platonic. The priest was correct, and pure. But perhaps that was why he harbored doubts about him. For during the course of his life, rightly or wrongly, the vicomte had developed a certain suspicion of men who were too pure.

God knows what stuff that priest had put in his son’s head down the years.

Not that the Vicomte de Cygne objected to his son’s being a monarchist, nor a devout Catholic, nor a young aristocrat, proud of his ancestry and with the prejudices of his class. The vicomte shared most of those prejudices himself. In fact, he rather enjoyed these aristocratic snobberies. But he enjoyed them without believing in them too much. Indeed, the very fact that, as an aristocrat, he looked down upon most of humanity—and that he also knew the shortcomings of his fellow aristocrats—made it easy for him not to expect too much from imperfect human nature, nor to judge people too harshly.

But his son believed too much. And a lifetime of observation, including the horrors of the Commune, had led the vicomte to think that when men believed too strongly, it made them cruel.

He was especially concerned by a conversation they had just after Christmas.

It concerned an army officer. His name was Dreyfus and, unusually for an officer, he was Jewish. When a minor spying scandal had emerged, he had been accused of passing secrets to the Germans, court-martialed and sent to prison on Devil’s Island.

Some people had said that the prosecution was badly flawed, and even that Dreyfus was innocent. As one might expect, the military authorities refused to contemplate the idea that there had been any mistake. And there the matter had rested.

The subject had come up quite casually when they were talking about the difference between civilian and military courts, and the vicomte was remarking that no system of justice could ever be perfect.

“That Dreyfus fellow, for instance: I dare say he’s guilty, but it may turn out one day that he wasn’t. That’s just the way it goes.”

“Oh, I think we can be sure he’s guilty, Father,” Roland replied. “After all, the man’s a Jew.”