Paris: The Novel (60 page)

Gérard Blanchard gave a murmur of approval. So did his wife. Jules too nodded, out of respect and good manners, at the least.

“Do you make any distinction between a Jew and a Christian?” Aunt Éloïse asked quietly.

“Certainly, madame. They follow different faiths.”

“And you think that Zola should be in jail as well?”

“It would not worry me if he were.”

“In America,” said Aunt Éloïse to Hadley, “you have free speech. Your constitution guarantees it. Despite the Revolution, it seems that we in France do not, and I am ashamed of my country.”

Hadley said nothing. But Roland did.

“I am sorry that you are ashamed of France, madame,” he said icily. “Perhaps you and Captain Dreyfus and Zola could find some other country, more to your liking.”

“I don’t think it’s necessary to elevate all this to a question of principle,” remarked Gérard. “I don’t know if Zola had broken the law or not by writing his letter. If he has, then that’s for the courts to decide. And if there’s no crime, then they won’t. That’s all. It’s not so serious.”

For once, Gérard was actually trying to be helpful. It didn’t do him any good.

“My dear Gérard, you run a business very well, I’m sure,” said Aunt
Éloïse irritably, “but I have known you all your life, and you wouldn’t know a moral principle if it came up and smacked you in the face.”

“And you, Tante Éloïse, live in a little world of your own,” Gérard retorted furiously. “May I remind you that it was our family’s wholesale business that made the money that allows you to sit around all day reading books and thinking yourself superior to the rest of us.”

“This has nothing to do with Dreyfus,” said Aunt Éloïse coldly.

“Well, I’m with Monsieur de Cygne anyway,” said Gérard. “I don’t say all Jews are traitors, but this is a Christian country, so they can’t feel the same as we do. That’s all.”

And now, to avoid any more bloodshed before the situation got completely out of hand, Jules Blanchard put his foot down. To be precise, he rapped on the table and stood up, because it was the only way of getting their undivided attention, and then he made a little speech.

It was a good speech. And it proved in the months and years ahead to be more prescient than he could have guessed.

“Monsieur de Cygne, Hadley, Fox and my dear family. This is my house, and for myself and my wife, I demand that this discussion end. Completely. But there is something more to say.

“Today, we have very nearly quarreled. We have not quarreled”—he looked at Gérard and Éloïse sternly—“but we have nearly done so. And let us be grateful that from this we have learned an important lesson. For if the people here—who are all kind, and well mannered—can come so close to blows, then I wonder what will happen when other, less well-disposed people discuss this difficult subject.

“Three days ago, when I read Zola’s letter, I confess that I was surprised and shocked. But I did not understand the effect it would have upon people. Now I believe that this letter is going to create a great chasm in our French society. It may tear us apart. And whatever the rights or wrongs of the matter, I regret the destruction of good relations between honest people.

“So at the least let us all learn”—he looked around the whole table and smiled—“that this is a subject for carefully controlled debate, but that none of us will ever allow ourselves to discuss it at any lunch or dinner party again. Because if we do, we shall inevitably lose all our friends!”

Even de Cygne, furious though he was, could only admire his host. His father had been right. This was a superior man. A statesman. From his end of the table, he gave a polite nod of respect as Blanchard sat down.

Aunt Éloïse was not mollified, but she said nothing. Fox murmured, “Very wise.” And Frank Hadley could not help reflecting that if Aunt Éloïse had been right in assuring him that the French only argued passionately about matters of no importance, then this Dreyfus affair must be the exception that proved the rule.

The rest of the meal passed off without incident. But it was subdued.

As they were leaving, Frank went up to de Cygne and quietly asked, “Is the visit to Versailles still on?”

“Certainly,” said the aristocrat, and quickly confirmed the arrangement to Jules Blanchard.

Frank would have liked to talk to Marc about the whole business after they’d gone out together. But their discussion had hardly begun when Marc clapped his hand to his head.

“My dear fellow, with all this drama, I almost forgot, I have someone coming to sit for a portrait at four o’clock. Let’s have a drink tomorrow evening and discuss everything.”

So Frank decided to turn into the Champs-Élysées and walk up to the Arc de Triomphe for a little exercise. Perhaps, if he felt in need of more, he might walk on as far as the Bois de Boulogne.

When Roland got back to his barracks, he was still furious. His anger was not directed against the Blanchard family particularly, with the exception of Aunt Éloïse, who besides being an intellectual, which automatically made her suspect, was clearly a republican. The very fact of her existence might have put him off the rest of the Blanchard family too, but he’d seen that Marie’s brother Gérard and his aunt were hardly on speaking terms, and this suggested that it might be possible to be one of the family and still keep the wretched woman at arm’s length.

But he still needed someone or something to vent his anger upon. So he was almost glad to see the unfinished reply to the Canadian still lying on his writing table. He sat down to compose.

He put down his pen with grim satisfaction. That should dispose of Monsieur Dessignes, whoever he might be. He signed and sealed the letter and laid it on the desk. A task completed. It was just four o’clock.

At the very moment that he sealed the letter, a pale, well-dressed lady reached the door of the house near the boulevard de Clichy where Marc Blanchard had his studio. She looked about her uncertainly, not having been there before. But the address was correct.

Wondering what it would be like to have her portrait painted, Hortense Ney started up the stairs.

•  1572  •

He was just a very ordinary little boy. No one would have imagined that he’d change the history of his family by opening a window when he had been told that he must not.

On this Monday morning, the eighteenth day of August in the year of Our Lord 1572, young Simon Renard was excited. His father’s cousin Guy was about to arrive. And then Uncle Guy, as he called him, and his father were going to take him to see the royal wedding. He’d never seen such a thing before.

And he was doubly curious after his father had told him: “This is the strangest royal wedding that’s ever been seen in Paris.”

Simon was eight years old, and he lived with his parents, Pierre and Suzanne Renard, in a small house that lay down an alley of storehouses, near the fortress of the Bastille.

Simon liked the old Bastille. He knew that long ago it was put there to protect the Saint-Antoine city gate from the English. But there was no fear of English attacks nowadays.

In the previous century, cunning King Louis XI had seen to that. He’d wanted to make his kingdom into a mighty country, and he’d succeeded. While in England, the Plantagenets had torn each other to pieces in the Wars of the Roses, King Louis, by fighting, and by devious diplomacy, had spun his spider’s web until he’d gathered all the great independent regions—Normandy and Brittany in the north, Aquitaine and warm
Provence in the south, mighty Burgundy in the east—into the huge, hexagonal entity that would be known henceforth by the single name of France. For a while the English had kept one town, the northern port of Calais. But now they’d lost that too. The English threat was over. Paris was safe. And the Bastille just seemed a friendly old place to the little boy.

He’d also grown up with a deeper security.

Pierre and Suzanne Renard were good Catholics, and they loved their only son. Two little girls had been born after him. Both had died in infancy. But Pierre was in his early thirties and his wife a little younger. So they still had every hope of having more children, if it was God’s will. In the meantime, Simon knew, the two baby girls were safely with their Father in heaven.

Apart from his parents, there was only one serving girl to help his mother, and an apprentice. The serving girl slept in the attic; the apprentice in the loft over his father’s storehouse behind the house.

The little family was particularly intimate, therefore. Each day Simon helped his parents. Each night they said prayers together before he went to bed. And thanks to this gentle rhythm of life, Simon knew in his heart that his parents loved him and that his soul was protected by his Savior.

He did wonder sometimes about his wider family. His mother had come from a village the other side of the city of Poitiers, and though they had traveled down there once when he was a very little boy, he hardly remembered them. He knew that his father had relations in Paris, but for some reason, apart from Cousin Guy, he never seemed to meet the other members of the Renard family.

He liked Guy, though, very much. Guy was in his late twenties, not married yet, and lived in another part of the city. He was a handsome young merchant with a short, neat beard and mustache and thick, dark red hair which he wore swept back. Every month or so he would look in, and whenever he did, he would talk to little Simon and make him laugh. Simon was very glad that Guy was taking him to see the strange royal wedding today.