Paris: The Novel (84 page)

“Evidently he has not succeeded yet. Tell me all,” said the priest.

When he had finished the story, Roland had one question.

“Did my father ever express to you any regret about this business? I am wondering if it had any connection with his decision to resign his commission.”

Father Xavier paused.

“Had your father ever said anything about this in the secrecy of the confessional, I should not tell you. But it is not a secret that he considered the war of Napoléon III against the Germans to have been a foolish adventure, and that the necessity of Frenchmen killing each other at the time of the Commune was distressing to him.” He looked at Roland curiously. “Do you wish to inform the police about this Jacques Le Sourd?”

“No. His attempt upon me ten years ago would be hard to prove. And …”—he shrugged—“it’s not my style.”

“Personally, I do not think you are in immediate danger from this Jacques Le Sourd,” said the priest. “Though morally I consider him a madman, I do not think he is a fool. If his socialist revolution comes about, however …”

“They will probably kill me anyway.”

“I have always felt,” confessed Father Xavier, “from your infancy, that God was reserving you for some special purpose. One should not seek to guess the mind of God, but I felt it nonetheless. It has seemed to me that the wonderful birth of your ancestor Dieudonné, at the time of the Revolution, was a sign that God had a special love for the family de Cygne. Perhaps we should just await His plan and not concern ourselves too much about the ravings of this atheist.”

“I am glad you say that,
mon Père
. It was my feeling too.”

“Speaking of your family,” said Father Xavier pleasantly, “isn’t it time that you got married? We need another generation, you know.”

Roland smiled.

“Perhaps you are right. I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t wait too long. I should like to see your children.”

Roland gave him a quick look. The priest was thinner than when he last saw him. Was he unwell? Seeing his look, Father Xavier smiled. “I am not sick, Roland, but none of us is getting any younger. Besides, I have already decided how to die.”

“Really?”

“I think that I shall know when it is approaching. And at that time, I intend to go to Rome.”

“Why?”

“Where else to die,” said the priest with a wry smile, “if not in the Eternal City?”

•  1911  •

It was a quiet Sunday morning in September, and Édith and the girls were at Mass when Luc came to his brother’s lodgings.

“Can you give me some help this evening?” he asked. “We’ll need that handcart of yours. I have some furniture to shift.”

“All right. Shall I bring Robert?” His eldest son was a strong young fellow.

“No. I want to talk with you in private.”

“What about?”

“I’ll tell you later,” said Luc. “I must go now. Meet me with the handcart at the restaurant this evening. Six o’clock.”

Thomas Gascon shrugged.

“As you like.”

He’d owned the handcart for half a dozen years now, and it had been a good investment.

The loss of their lodgings at Monsieur Ney’s establishment had been a great blow to the Gascon family. There was rent to pay, and with her six young children, Édith hadn’t been able to earn much. Thomas had been ready to move up onto Montmartre, on the edge of the Maquis, but Aunt Adeline and Édith wouldn’t hear of it. When Aunt Adeline had found work as a housekeeper near the Pigalle district, however, they had moved to lodgings close by.

This brought them into the vicinity of the Moulin Rouge and the foot of Montmartre—hardly a respectable area, and frequented in the evenings by ladies of the night. But Édith wanted to be near her aunt, and Thomas, at least, was not unhappy to find himself near his brother.

As a foreman, Thomas earned good wages. But there had been two more girls born since then, and so money was often tight. Sometimes Aunt Adeline had to help them with the rent.

One weekend, an old carrier living nearby had asked Thomas if he would help him on a Sunday. He did all kinds of odd jobs carrying furniture and delivering goods in the area. After helping him a few times, Thomas realized that this could be a useful way of supplementing his earnings. Soon, complaining of a bad back, the old man had given up his trade, and Thomas had bought a new handcart for himself, which he kept in a local stable yard. Before long, anyone in the area who wanted a piece of furniture moved, or some sacks of flour, or a load of firewood, would probably ask Thomas Gascon if he’d be free on a Sunday afternoon.

When Édith got back from Mass, she wasn’t too pleased to hear about Luc.

“I hope he’s going to pay you,” she said.

“He will if I ask,” answered Thomas.

“Be careful what he wants you to carry. It may be stolen goods.”

“No it won’t.”

“Just make sure it isn’t the
Mona Lisa
.”

It was hardly a month since Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting had been stolen from the Louvre. Apollinaire, a writer thought to be an anarchist, had been arrested; and then a friend of his, a young painter no one had ever heard of, named Picasso. But though they remained under suspicion, no proof against them had been found so far. Nor was there any sign of the painting.

“You always think the worst of my brother, for no reason,” Thomas complained. Some years back, a grateful client had given Luc enough money to expand his bar into a restaurant. “He must have stolen the money,” Édith had declared. “He saved the man’s life,” Thomas assured her. But she only sniffed. “So he says,” she said. “You can believe it. Not me.”

Her unreasonable dislike of Luc was one of the few sources of friction
in their marriage. If she ever regretted her hesitant acceptance of Thomas that magical evening after the Wild West show in the Bois de Boulogne, she had never shown it. If she’d wished she had married a man with a little money—and how she must have wished that, after they suddenly lost their lodgings—her only reaction had been to apologize to him. “I never thought that could happen. We had always counted on Monsieur Ney.”

After ten pregnancies, with six healthy children, she still had a good figure. You couldn’t say that of many wives he knew. Whatever her faults, he counted himself lucky to have married Édith.

After lunch he took all but the youngest two children for a walk up the nearby hill of Montmartre. There was a funicular, nowadays, that ran up the left side of the steep, high slope, but one had to pay. Besides, as he told Monique when she complained, they wouldn’t get any exercise if they didn’t go up the steps.

The sun was out, catching the soaring white domes of the church of Sacré Coeur. High on its hill, it gleamed over the huge oval valley of Paris.

“Most of my life,” Thomas remarked to his children, “this hilltop was just a huge field of mud and wooden scaffolding. I used to wonder if I’d ever live to see the church finished. They didn’t take the scaffolding down from the big dome until you were born, Monique, when I was thirty-five.”

“And you were even more pleased to see me than the church,” she insisted.

“Except when you misbehave,” he answered genially.

The transformation of the site was almost complete. The platform, upon which the great Byzantine shrine stood, had been laid out as handsome terraces and flights of steps, like hanging gardens. A splendid statue of Joan of Arc gazed out over Paris from beside the church door. And though not visible to the eye, a subtler change had also occurred.

As four decades of republican government had gradually weakened the power of the Church, even the message of Sacré Coeur had been altered. Men like Father Xavier and Roland de Cygne remembered that it proclaimed the triumph of a conservative Church over the radical Communards. But most Parisians who nowadays gazed up at the shining white temple on the hill supposed that it was a memorial to the Communards’ heroism—a view which radical governments were glad to encourage.

Since living in Pigalle, Thomas Gascon usually brought his children
up here a couple of times a year, and the ritual was always the same. They would wander over the top of the hill, visit the Moulin de la Galette where their uncle Luc had started work, visit the Maquis to view the house where their father had been brought up, and then complete the circle of the hill, walking by the little school where Thomas had learned to read and write.

For the first five years, the tour had always ended with one dramatic moment in front of Sacré Coeur before they descended.

Pointing across the rooftops of Paris to where the Eiffel Tower soared into the sky, Thomas would cry out: “Take a good look at the tower, my children, and remember. For it won’t be there much longer.”

Everyone had known. In 1909, the twenty-year license that Gustave Eiffel had been granted would be up. The city authorities would then order the tower to be dismantled. Even if he couldn’t be the foreman, Thomas had wanted to apply to work on that job. “I put that tower up, and I’ll take it down,” he used to say. But it would break his heart to do it.

So a chance meeting early in 1908 had brought him great joy. He’d been working on a project to the south of the Eiffel Tower, and if the weather was fine he would walk past the tower at the end of the day. One evening, he saw Monsieur Eiffel just ahead of him in the dusk. He couldn’t resist going up to him to pay his respects; and to his pleasure, Eiffel recognized him at once.

“Well, Gascon, it’s good to see you again.”

“It is possible, monsieur, that you may see more of me next year. For I shall certainly apply to dismantle the tower, although it is a terrible shame to do it.”

Eiffel smiled at him.

“Then I have good news for you, my friend. I have just concluded an extension of the contract, until 1915.”

“Another six years. That is something at least, monsieur.”

“And I have other plans too. Do you realize the usefulness of the tower, my dear Gascon, for radio communications?”

“I had not really thought of it.”

“Well, I can assure you that the tower is the finest radio mast in the world. And I have a few other things up my sleeve. Trust me, my friend, and I believe I can save our tower. Just give me a little time.”

And some time later Thomas had read in the newspaper that the army and navy had declared that the tower was essential for their military communications.

Once again, the genius of Eiffel had triumphed. The tower was now sacrosanct. It was part of the defense of France.

So today, before they returned home, Thomas Gascon could pause, point to the Eiffel Tower and tell his children: “That tower is so well constructed, it will stand as long as Notre Dame. And always remember,” he added proudly, “that your father built it.”