Den of Thieves

by Julia Golding

  ‘Now I know where we are!’ exclaimed Frank. I resisted the temptation to point out that he had been confidently claiming this for the past hour. ‘That must be Notre Dame, the cathedral of Paris.’

  ‘I thought we were supposed to be at the Opera.’

  He shook the map out with just a hint of petulance.

  ‘Please, Frank, let us ask someone.’ I was feeling exhausted. The thought of driving around in yet more circles held no attraction, not even to save Frank’s pride.

  ‘There’s no one to ask.’

  I had to agree that the streets were almost completely silent at this late hour as Monday night shaded into Tuesday morning. A carriage flanked by uniformed men rattled past our stranded vehicle, too fast for us to stop them. That was no good. It would have to be someone on foot.

  Frank hopped out and approached a man huddled in a doorway. ‘Excusez-moi, monsieur,’ he began in his best schoolroom French.

  ‘Quoi?’ the man grunted.

  ‘Ou est l’Opera?’

  ‘Quoi?’

  Frank was speaking louder and louder as if this would help the man understand him.

  This was no good: we were getting nowhere. Frank would have to learn that, if you want directions, it was best not to pick on a halfwit beggar. I jumped down from the fiacre, determined to take matters into my own hands.

  ‘Look!’ I tugged Frank’s sleeve as I’d spotted a woman standing with her face to the wall, shielding herself from the dust kicked up by a passing carriage. ‘There’s someone else. Let me ask her.’ The woman was now moving swiftly, keeping to the shadows. We had to be quick if we were going to catch her.

  ‘Excusez-moi, madame!’ I called. The woman sped up, perhaps suspecting some assault as I too would have done in her situation. ‘We mean you no harm. We’re lost!’ I called after her.

  She turned, her face shadowed in a deep hood, but I saw the faint sparkle of eyes wide with alarm. She was of middle age and dressed in black, but smelling of expensive perfume and powder.

  ‘Ssh!’ she hissed, glancing over her shoulder as if fearful of pursuit. ‘You are English, yes? Did Count Fersen send you for me? Speak softly now.’ Her accent was strange: French laced with a hint of German.

  None of this made sense to me. ‘Sorry, madame, I don’t know any Count Fersen. I was just saying that we were lost and wondered if you could direct us to the Opera?’

  The woman’s reaction was most strange. She sprang away from me without so much as a word and hurried off into the night.

  ‘Friendly soul,’ I commented sourly to Frank as we got back into the coach. ‘French women are very odd. I mean, what is a lady of her quality doing wandering around the streets at this time of night on her own?’

  ‘She probably had an assignation with this Fersen person,’ said Frank with an air of worldly wisdom. ‘No wonder she dashed off; she probably didn’t want to be recognized and cause a scandal.’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t help us, does it? We’re still lost.’

  Frank gave me a wink and took out the map again. ‘Nothing else for it, eh, Cat? Got to trust me now your plan has failed?’

  ‘If you’d asked at the gate we would never have got ourselves into this mess.’

  ‘Ah, but where’s the adventure in that? You would never have seen Notre Dame by starlight.’

  ‘That’s right. I’d’ve been tucked up in bed, asleep. What a hardship!’ I grumbled though I knew he was right. I would not have missed it for the world.

  ‘Come on, let’s try again. If Captain Cook found his way to Australia, surely we can find our way to the Opera,’ Frank said happily, consulting his map.

  SCENE 3 – TO THE LAMP POST

  To give Frank his due, we did eventually find our way to Madame Beaufort’s lodgings. It was with no feeling of regret that we waved our driver off. I doubted very much if he would make it far without steering into a ditch. Only Joseph’s careful watch had prevented a like accident for us. But mercifully that was no longer our concern – all we needed do was find a bed and sleep.

  The concierge of the apartment was waiting up for us and showed us through to where a cold supper had been laid out in the kitchen. I was almost asleep on my feet but Frank and Joseph managed to make a significant impact on the bread and meat between them.

  ‘Go on up to bed. You look like you need your beauty sleep,’ said Frank when he noticed me nodding over my plate.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked, picking up my candle.

  ‘Well, as my honoured parents know nothing of my arrival, I suppose I’d better wait until morning before I burst in upon them.’

  ‘You can stay here,’ said the concierge in a growl of a voice. He wore a red floppy cap on his sparse white hair and stooped as if perpetually searching for a pin on the floor. ‘In exchange for a small consideration, of course.’

  ‘That would be splendid.’ Frank dug in his well-filled purse and threw the man a coin. The concierge’s eyes twinkled with lively interest as he eyed my friend’s riches. ‘Two blankets and two chairs by the fire are all we need.’

  Leaving Frank and Joseph to catch what rest they could, I went upstairs. Madame Beaufort had lodged her girls all under one roof. Expecting to find myself sharing with one of them, I discovered that I had been allocated a room right at the top of the house – a little cupboard of a place, but as it had a bed with clean sheets I was not complaining. On my bed was a note scrawled in black ink.

  Daily routine for Madame Beaufort’s dancers

  Breakfast at six-thirty

  Ballet rehearsal ten till two

  Study two till three-thirty

  Dinner at four

  Performance six till ten

  Supper

  Lights out midnight

  Performance – well, that was nothing to do with me. I could count on some free time in the evenings then. I would have to negotiate more if I was to do my job properly. Not even bothering to find my nightgown, I tumbled on to the mattress in my shift and instantly fell asleep, plunging into a dream where I was rooted to the spot, arms flailing like a windmill, while butterfly dancers floated elegantly across the stage.

  A bell rang downstairs. Dragging myself out of bed, I rubbed my eyes. I could smell fresh coffee and bread. For the first time in two days, I felt hungry. Dragging a comb through my hair and dressing in my pink gown, I followed my nose down to the kitchen. Frank was sitting with Mimi, Belle and Colette at one end of the long table, while Joseph stood at his shoulder waiting to serve his master. I stood unseen in the doorway for a moment observing them. Frank was flirting outrageously – mussing up his hair and giving Mimi his most twinkling smile. I’d never seen Frank flirt before; it was highly entertaining, though I would have recommended he find a more worthy object for his attentions.

  ‘Good morning, miss,’ said Joseph solemnly when he spotted me. He pulled out a chair. ‘Would you care for some coffee?’

  ‘I’d prefer milk if they have it,’ I replied, taking a seat opposite Frank and winking at him. He blushed.

  ‘A saucer of milk for the cat: I should have guessed!’ declared Mimi, none too pleased that I had come in to interrupt her attempt to hook herself a lord. ‘One forgets that she’s such a baby.’

  Joseph presented me with a beaker of milk as if I were the queen herself.

  ‘Miss Royal is no baby, mademoiselle,’ said Frank loyally. ‘I could tell you tales about her that would soon convince you of her wit and bravery.’

  ‘No need, sir,’ said Mimi primly. ‘She has told the world herself.’

  Mimi was beginning to really annoy me but there was nothing to be gained by exchanging insults with her.

  ‘Shall we call on your parents and Lizzie, Frank?’ I asked, ignoring her. ‘I don’t have to be at practice until ten.’

  ‘Good idea, Cat. It’s a lovely morning – let’s walk.’ Frank rose from the table and bowed to the company. ‘Excuse me, ladies.’

  Emerging into the summer sunshine,
Frank got out his trusty map. Joseph appeared at his elbow and coughed.

  ‘I took the liberty, my lord, of asking directions from the concierge; rue de Clichy lies a little to the north of us.’

  Frank looked downcast to have this opportunity to navigate snatched from him but swallowed his disappointment.

  ‘Lead on then, Joseph. Miss Royal and I will follow you.’

  Paris was already awake. A baker’s boy trotted by carrying a stack of long loaves in a basket. A woman swept her front step, humming to herself. Carts rumbled in from the countryside, heading to the markets. The buildings looked quite grand from the waist up, as it were: windows sparkling in the sunshine, pots of flowers blooming on the sills. However, Paris didn’t bear too close an inspection lower down: the gutters were full of filth and the smell was ripe to say the least. Many of the people we passed had a bleary-eyed just-got-out-of-bed look. One pretty maid was plaiting her hair at a casement, enjoying the good-humoured compliments thrown her way by the messenger boys. As we walked, we caught the occasional whiff of fresh bread and pipe smoke from the street corner cafés.

  ‘Well, this isn’t so bad, is it?’ announced Frank cheerfully, quite in the holiday mood. ‘Certainly beats studying at Boxton.’

  I yawned. ‘You could do with brushing up on your French though. You talked to that beggar last night as if he were the king. No wonder he didn’t understand you.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Frank steered me round a pile of manure. ‘I was never taught the equivalent of “Oi, you, how the hell do I get to that flash place where they sing and dance?”’

  ‘Just as well, as I doubt he’d’ve directed us to anywhere very respectable on the basis of that description.’

  A dog trotted over and sniffed around our feet until called off by a whistle from its owner.

  ‘What do you make of your first proper view of Paris?’ Frank asked me.

  ‘I like it. It seems more peaceful than London.’

  No sooner had these words passed my lips than a rider galloped by, crying something at the top of his voice.

  ‘What was that? I didn’t catch what he said,’ said Frank.

  ‘I didn’t hear him either. Something about the king. He’s not ill, is he?’

  Though we may have not understood, it was clear those around us had. Like a wind passing through a forest came the noise of voices repeating the news, shouting it from one house to the next. It swept passed Frank, Joseph and me.

  ‘The king has fled! The royal family have disappeared!’

  ‘To the palace!’ the baker’s boy shouted and took off at a run down the street, closely followed by the woman bearing a broom. They joined a tide of people all heading south. I grabbed Frank and pulled him around.

  ‘Come on – let’s go and see for ourselves!’ I urged him.

  ‘But Cat!’

  ‘It’s my job to be inquisitive.’ Frank had evidently not been brought up on the streets of a capital city as I had: when there’s a free show, everyone goes.

  Shielded by Joseph, we rushed along with the crowd. It was like being a stick carried by a flooded stream. It didn’t matter that I had not the first clue where the palace was: the crowd were taking me there no matter what.

  ‘It can’t be true!’ cried a woman on my left. She sported a red, white and blue ribbon pinned to her apron. ‘He’s the father of the nation: he won’t have abandoned us!’

  ‘He must have been abducted,’ shouted a man beside her, clearly unable to imagine that the man they had all been taught to revere could leave them. ‘He wouldn’t betray his people!’ He too wore the ribbon. Now I came to think of it, everyone was wearing one – everyone except Frank, Joseph and me. Was there something I was missing?

  ‘It was the Austrians – that evil wife of his,’ cursed another.

  I glanced across at my companions. Frank had his lips pressed in a worried frown; Joseph was concentrating on protecting us from being trampled – neither appeared to be enjoying the experience. But I was. After weeks of feeling low, I felt buoyed up on the surge of people, exhilarated by the shouting, excited by being part of a momentous event. The king gone! When I reported this to Mr Sheridan, he could not deny that my first letter was worth a guinea.

  Bells began to ring across the city. Drums rolled and men dressed in uniforms stumbled out of their houses, still pulling on their jackets.

  ‘The National Guard have been called to arms!’ cried the woman. ‘It must be true then!’

  The crowd slowed as we neared some big iron gates. As people were still pouring in from all directions, the press increased. Being a good head shorter than nearly everyone else, I was in danger of being crushed between a fat country woman and a sweep carrying a sack. Joseph grabbed me from behind.

  ‘Excuse me, miss,’ he said firmly, lifting me up on to his shoulders so that now I towered above the crowd, having a grand view of events.

  ‘What’s happening, Cat?’ asked Frank.

  ‘The gates are locked. I can see some people arguing with the guards. That’s it: they’ve pushed them open.’

  The bottleneck eased, the crowd started flowing again like wine decanting into the bowlshaped gardens of the palace. We splashed and spread over every inch. I ducked as Joseph took me through the archway into a courtyard.

  ‘Put me down, please,’ I called to him.

  He lowered me to the ground. ‘Forgive the liberty, miss,’ he said solemnly.

  ‘Not at all. It was most necessary.’ Taking Frank’s hand, I pulled him towards the tide of people invading the palace building itself.

  ‘You’re not thinking of going in there, are you?’ he asked nervously.

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Cat, you are the most reckless, the most foolish –’

  ‘I know – and don’t you love me for it!’ I called over my shoulder as I towed him after me.

  Hot on the heels of angry Parisians, we entered the Royal Palace. For many of us, it was the first time we had seen such splendour with our own eyes. It felt almost as if we were desecrating a temple – the mystique of royalty trampled by our commoners’ feet. We made our way through a grand entrance hall and into a set of interconnecting rooms lined with mirrors. Rich red and gilt flashed by as we rushed forward; priceless paintings, statues, and frescoes were for the first time on view for the masses. Fine chairs and tables were overturned, turkey rugs sullied by our boots. Servants fled before us like rabbits from a pack of hunting dogs, disappearing further into the building. But it wasn’t the rich furnishings and paintings we had come to view – it was the king’s bedchamber. And there it was: an empty bed, surrounded by heavy drapes, a pair of monographed slippers peeking out from underneath. The curtains had been pulled back to show that the sheets had not been slept in. A set of small clothes lay unused on a chair, abandoned by a valet when he discovered his master gone. A large mirrored dressing table stood under the window, covered in bottles and grooming implements. Among them lay an envelope weighed down by an ornate letter opener. A boy picked the knife up to inspect it, the diamonds in its handle glinting. A woman squinted at the letter but seemed unable to read the handwriting.

  ‘What do you mean, you imbecile?’ a rough-looking man was shouting into the face of a terrified servant who had not managed to escape. ‘“He went to bed as normal” – how could he have done!’

  ‘I swear, m-monsieur,’ stammered the man, ‘I knew nothing about it until I pulled back the curtains. It’s like magic.’

  ‘Black Austrian magic, you mean,’ said the man, shaking the unfortunate valet by the lapels.

  There was a crash over by the fireplace. Two members of the crowd had taken it upon themselves to smash the royal chamberpot.

  ‘You can’t do that!’ squeaked the valet.

  ‘With his high and mightiness gone, who’s going to stop us?’ shrieked a woman as she grabbed a bottle of cologne from the dressing table and threw it on the hearth, releasing a strong odour to mingle with that of the sweaty crow
d. It seemed that not everyone was prepared to give the king the benefit of the doubt: some here were not sad to see him go.

  ‘Let’s get out,’ Frank whispered in my ear.

  More people were coming and the mood was turning ugly. I had to agree that it was time for us to leave. We elbowed a path back the way we had come and out into the courtyard. A detachment of guards was marching briskly towards the building with the look of men come to restore order.

  ‘Citizens, this building is to be closed to preserve the evidence!’ announced the man at the head of the column. He’d better hurry or there would be little left to preserve.

  ‘Where’s the king and his Austrian witch? Where’s the dauphin and the princess royal?’ shouted someone in the crowd at the palace entrance.

  ‘You will learn more as soon as we establish the facts, citizens,’ the guard said with admirable calm. ‘For now, please return peacefully to your homes. Rest assured, the National Assembly is doing all it can to return the king to Paris.’

  With some grumbling, the crowd began to flow back the way it had come, massing outside the gates on a great square, not quite knowing what to do with itself. It did not feel right to be at a loose end on such an historic day.

  ‘So the king really has left Paris,’ said Frank, gazing back at the palace. ‘I wonder why? I thought he had sworn to uphold the revolution.’

  The rough-looking man we had seen in the king’s bedchamber spun round on hearing foreign voices in the crowd. His red cap was pulled low on his brow and he had no breeches, just loose trousers such as all working-men wear.

  ‘I saw you there, didn’t I, citizens?’ he challenged us. ‘I remember you: the little redhead and the rich boy with the buckskin breeches. You were up in the king’s bedchamber.’

  There seemed no point in denying it. ‘Like yourself, monsieur, we wanted to see for ourselves if it were true,’ I replied politely.

  ‘You speak funny.’ He took a step towards me, a couple of burly mates in his wake. ‘Austrian spies, are you?’