But what about Bailly, the originator? Bailly the astronomer and man of letters; Bailly the former mayor of Paris; Bailly the godfather of the Revolution, the man who had presided at its birth in a Versailles tennis court. Bailly who had ordered the National Guard against protesters in the Champ de Mars, and so fallen from revolutionary grace, and was now fled to Fouché’s own Nantes. Did that make the letter more suspicious? Or might Bailly come back to prominence, in which case doing him a courtesy would have been neat work?
Either way, one trod carefully. You try to follow a man upwards, and find too late he’s on the steps of the guillotine.
After due consideration, he’d had the notes and the ledger sent on to Lavoisier, on behalf of Joseph Fouché of the Cabinet of the Minister of the Interior. But for now he was keeping the letter from Bailly to Lavoisier, one among a small but growing collection of papers that interested him.
The coach to Nantes was a tiresome necessity for Fouché. He was a young man from the provinces, without connections or reputation, particularly not in Paris. Roland would serve to get him a little influence, but he needed a base as well. So back to the provinces he must go – briefly, anyway – to be able to return with more strength. He needed election to the National Convention; and probably a wife, too – for revolutionary France is deeply conservative, and a brief and inconsequential ceremony may transform one of a thousand unknown young men on the make, vulnerable and undependable and unpredictable, into a man of reassuring respectability. They will not notice – they will not worry about – such a Fouché. It’s becoming a dangerous time to be noticed, to be worried about.
His box was small – the minimum necessities for a the briefest visit; a new shirt, a token for a bride, and papers to study – and came up easily in his hands and on up to the postillion. He watched it strapped into place.
‘Your pardon, M’sieur.’
Fouché turned. A man his own height, close enough that the words had carried in a murmur.
‘You are Monsieur Joseph Fouché, I think.’
A screech, and a child raced past chased by another.
For some reason Fouché hesitated; sometimes, in these days, to admit a name is to admit an accusation.
But this is not an official, and surely Fouché is too insignificant for an assassin. He nodded.
‘Your pardon, but I seek two minutes’ private conversation with you before you depart. There is time before the coach.’
A slight man, apparently – but, on second glance, not at all frail. In the cheeks, in the jaw, in the neck there was a fleshless strength. The mechanisms of this man’s body are visible. An active man. Fouché had always mistrusted them.
Something about the voice appealed, though: the quietness, the intensity to match the eyes; this is a discreet man.
Again, Fouché nodded. With a second glance up to his box, now secure on the coach roof, he followed the discreet stranger into the shadow of the inn doorway. What should I – ?
But the stranger spoke first. ‘My name is Saint-Jean Guilbert. I am . . .’ – for a moment Fouché felt disappointment, waited for the tale, the beg – ‘I am a servant for hire.’
Frown. ‘I already ha-’
‘Not that kind of servant, Monsieur. A . . . political servant.’ Still the frown. Fouché waited. Guilbert took a breath; prepared himself. Not a man of words. ‘Monsieur Fouché, these are difficult times. A man of ability – a man of ambition – he wishes to rise. He has some friends. He buys a good coat. He makes some speeches. He gets a reputation in the salons.’ The voice was still flat. ‘But such a man is in the clouds, Monsieur. He hasn’t his boots in the street. He knows nothing of what happens in the street, what is said there. The Paris street, Monsieur, is destroying many a salon reputation.’
Somehow a melancholy man. The low steady voice, the ominous message. Not for the first time, Fouché felt his inexperience in an unfamiliar world.
‘Such a man cannot get his boots dirty, Monsieur. He needs a trusted servant to walk the streets for him. He needs the little errands that such a servant may do for him.’ Oddly, Guilbert folded his arms together, hands at elbows. ‘He needs the information that such a servant may bring.’
Now he unfolded his arms, and as his hands passed each other a knife appeared in his right, short and vicious. It stood erect between his thumb and forefinger, it dropped and disappeared into his fist, and then it reappeared and flicked and flashed finger by finger over his hand and then the arms came together again and it had gone, and Fouché could not be sure he had even seen it.
Guilbert’s hands were by his sides again. In the background, another squeal from one of the children.
A witticism to reclaim control: ‘And, Monsieur Guilbert, do you make this offer to every passenger on the coaches?’
A tiny private thrill: Fouché knew the answer before it came – hoped it. ‘You are . . . you are spoken of, Monsieur.’
Fouché took a breath. He had the sense of being on a threshold.
‘I must leave Paris for a few days, to – ’
‘To Nantes, Monsieur; yes.’
Fouché nodded; wondered a little. ‘Yes. I hope to return within the week.’ He tried to muster an appropriate formality for the step. ‘I would be pleased if you would call on me as soon as I return.’
No more words were required. Guilbert gave a brief nod and stepped back farther into the doorway. Watching him, Fouché noticed a faint scar pulling down the skin next to his left eye.
Not a melancholy man; a dangerous man.
‘Monsieur Guilbert – ’ It was out before he’d thought of what to say. Guilbert waited. ‘I am surely not the only man who is . . . spoken of.’
And Saint-Jean Guilbert smiled. The smile did not touch his eyes; it did not touch the scar. Truly, a dangerous man.
‘Loyalty and service will be repaid, Monsieur Fouché.’ Guilbert’s eyes were harder still as he spoke; then another nod.
Fouché stepped back quickly into the sunlight. He looked around him, found the coach again, glanced back into the shadowed doorway. He could no longer see Guilbert.
Who has given his soul to whom?
As he stepped up into the coach, Fouché took a last look at the Paris street around him; up the overbalancing house-fronts, from cellars full of filth to attics full of plots. The wind had retreated again, and the stench was filling the street. The air felt warm – fat – pregnant. The Paris climate: a storm forever about to break.
The doorway was still in shadow. He knew that Guilbert was watching him.
I cannot be away from this place for long.
The relative successes of his father and then himself had left the apothecary Gérard, of St-Denis, a good house and no ability to maintain it.
Lucie Gérard was in the kitchen, on a stool close to the window that gave light for her darning and a hint of life in the view of the chickens pecking indifferently at the dirt.
From the front of the house the bell rang – once, before jamming. ‘Lucie!’ – her father, muffled through the wall – ‘door!’
She trod soft along the passageway. Perhaps if she was soft enough she wouldn’t be here at all. Perhaps the floorboards wouldn’t give way.
When she opened the door the stranger was gazing into her face again, the man from Greene’s rooms; a nightmare she couldn’t escape.
Lucie was stone. Let me not be here. Let this remorseless mad existence not be real.
The stranger started to speak; stopped, reconsidered. ‘Is the master of the house at home, please?’
She stepped back, trying to disappear into the gloom. She nodded to the room where a message might be left or a potion collected.
The world had ceased to hold promise for apothecary Gérard. But a visitor – good boots; tidy coat – might represent enough for a meal, or at least a drink; and with a meal or a drink another day might pass. Humble bow, thoughtful smile. ‘You’re most welcome, sir.’
‘Bonjour, maitre.’ The twittered courtesi
es of welcome, of concern. ‘A double interest, maitre. A small malady, and I find I might ask your further assistance.’ Wariness. ‘A persistent headache.’ The stranger touched the offending temple. ‘Perhaps you have some – ’ But of course! Apothecary Gérard’s movements suddenly perked up, became smooth, and he was turning, clearing a precise space on the marble block at the centre of his desk – the cleanest whitest space in St-Denis – and reaching for a small paper packet and placing it there. A preparation of bark and certain herbs, most efficacious and quite tasteless in the gentleman’s glass of wine . . . The apothecary waited.
‘I’m a stranger here.’ Strangers are dangerous. The apothecary’s face showed polite interest. Strangers don’t know the prices of things. ‘I am here on business, looking for an old acquaintance, but he is not to be found, and knowledge of him would be most helpful for my business.’ The apothecary waited. ‘I thought perhaps you, as a man of affairs in the town – or even your daughter, who is often out on errands . . . ’ The stranger’s eyes narrowed. ‘Naturally anyone who helped me should properly benefit from my advantage.’
Apothecary Gérard’s lips smiled obligingly, as yet another grain of his soul ossified. A meal, a drink, and life will pass.
Lucie had stayed in the kitchen, listening. She heard the stranger step out of her father’s room, and waited for the front door to open and close.
Soft footsteps in the passage, and at the last moment Lucie understood what they meant and pulled away and the door opened and once again the stranger was gazing at her.
She waited, dumb.
‘Pardon me, Mademoiselle. Your father gave me permission to ask for your help.’
It felt like betrayal. ‘How much did you give him?’
‘I – ’
‘How much?’
‘Ten livres.’
She sniffed. ‘For a gold Louis he’d have sold me to you.’
The stranger seemed to consider this.
‘But I did not wish to purchase you, Mademoiselle.’
She shrugged. Somehow, bizarrely, she felt insulted.
‘May we sit?’
Another shrug.
The stranger in the sunken bursting armchair, the terrier Jacques relegated to a surly consideration of the stranger from the foot of the back door, and Lucie retreated to her stool.
‘It is important that I find my friend, Monsieur Greene. For this, it seems I will need more detailed information. More systematic. Perhaps help to talk to other people who knew him.’
Lucie said sulkily: ‘You pay me, maybe.’
‘I have already – ’
‘What’s spent at the tavern brings no benefit here.’
His face hardened, weary. ‘Of course, Mademoiselle.’
With great focus Lucie had picked up her darning and examined it in the light from the kitchen window.
But the stranger had stayed silent, and eventually her eyes came round to his.
His were so dark, and watching her.
Eventually he said, ‘My friend Greene asks you to send messages, you say.’ She didn’t reply. He waited for a moment. ‘I need to learn whom he does business with. Perhaps these people know where he is. Perhaps I need to act for him while he is away.’
She shrugged.
‘Can you tell me whom he sends messages to?’
She shrugged.
‘What sort of people?’
She shrugged, and she saw his face stiffen. ‘People of affairs: merchants, bankers. Sometimes writers.’ More like a skull than ever.
‘And . . . for a share of the benefits, you can name these people and I can contact them also?’ She didn’t bother shrugging. ‘Does he have any particular friends – people he takes a drink with, people he visits?’
‘Different people. It’s a mixed-up time. St-Denis is a mixed-up place. There is a group of British – British and some others – he passes time with them often.’
He was silent again. She considered him more openly. He sat stiff, which was a challenge in the old sagging chair. Against the fading plaster and old wood, he seemed to blend in.
Her father had told her of a creature that changed its colour to match the place it stood. Or maybe dust just suited this man.
He didn’t stop watching her. She felt uncomfortable, and she didn’t know . . . Yes, she did know. Most men would have been across the kitchen by now. A stool conveniently close; leaning against the counter. Standing strong, words beginning to drawl.
‘Can you please describe the last time you saw him?’
Lucie shrugged.
‘The last time you saw him.’
She tried to look more attentive. ‘One of the first days of the month.’ She forestalled the frown. ‘Tuesday maybe; I think it was drying day at the mill.’
‘Tuesday?’
‘Maybe not.’ The stranger took a long breath. ‘There was a party that night. At Madame Lavalier’s house.’
‘Lavalier, you say? That’s helpful; thank you. And what . . . what was the conversation? The last time you met him.’
‘He asked to meet me. Said he’d have a message. There’s a place near the river. But he didn’t come.’
‘He didn’t come?’ She shook her head. ‘Had that happened before?’
‘Sometimes. Your friend . . . he’s not always reliable.’
He considered this; nodded.
‘So . . .’ Still the eyes dark and level. She waited. ‘So that wasn’t the last time you saw him.’
Lucie scowled. ‘Earlier that day, maybe. Day before.’
‘Had he said whom he would want the message to go to?’
She considered.
And shook her head. The shortest answer to keep the world out.
She followed the stranger along the passage, to check that this time he really did go.
At the doorway he stopped, and reached up and freed the doorbell. Then he turned, bowed his head to her, and was gone.
‘You look troubled.’
Pieter Marinus does look troubled. ‘I look at you,’ he replies.
The object of his consideration sits across the table from him, lifting delicate chunks of goose from plate to mouth with remorseless rhythm. Delicacy ensures that the knife and fork make only the faintest of taps on the plate – not as loud as when an elaborate ring, heavy at the edge of the left hand, happens to touch it. A big man – running a little to fat, but it’s more the bones of shoulders and chest that fill him out; and a big face above, high bare forehead and a heavy jaw. It sits over a lace stock and a high coat collar that are rather old-fashioned now. At the centre of this arrangement, and gazing at his guest, the man’s eyes are small – and very blue.
‘Neither the action nor the sentiment is seemly.’
Karl Arnim touches his napkin to his lips, grandly, precisely. He’s near the end of his second plate of goose, and surely a full bottle of wine by now. Every mouthful is small, savoured, and bidden farewell with the deliberate flourish of the napkin.
Marinus says, ‘I wonder about you.’ He tries to invest it with the warmth, with the admiration, that he feels. ‘I worry about you.’
Now his host’s cutlery rattles. ‘Must we?’
Marinus’s face jerks away in frustration.
His arrival was discreet. The room is shuttered. There are no others at table. The servant is trusted, which is nice, and deaf, which is better.
And still Pieter Marinus looks troubled. He’s fiddled with his portion of goose, tried it, winced at a succulence he is incapable of appreciating today. He seems to experiment with knife and fork as if introduced to them for the first time.
‘They’re cutting throats in the street now, mein Herr.’ He was born to the subtler languages of the Low Countries, but sometimes – now – the weight and sharpness of German feels right. ‘You don’t even need to be arrested to be murdered by these criminals. No need even for one of their sham trials.’
‘What of it? My cellar is excellent, and Theodor may be induced to vent
ure out and find me the occasional goose, and if time by time you will visit me I shall never go in the street again and yet be content.’ The defiance, and the affection, seem without warmth.
‘The Duke of Brunswick is advancing on Reims with the Prussian army. France is afraid – Paris . . . Paris boils with this fear – and Prussia is their devil. The object of all their hate. And here, in the centre of Paris – here, drinking wine and discussing chess barely two paces from the gutter and the blood – is a Prussian. Among a million Frenchmen, a single Prussian.’
‘Well.’ Napkin at lips. ‘At least they wouldn’t expect it.’ And Arnim leans back, satisfied.
Marinus drops his fork onto the plate, another attempt at a mouthful abandoned. ‘You’ll pardon me, mein Herr, but that’s mere bravado.’
Something in Arnim’s face changes. It seems to harden. Somehow stone. Somehow brittle.
He seems even taller. The word comes out in a long hiss. ‘Naturally.’
Marinus swallows his non-existent mouthful. ‘Naturally,’ he repeats. ‘Forgive me. Forgive me. I – I cannot imagine what it requires to endure as you do. But – ’
‘But what is the alternative?’ Anger now. ‘What would you have me do? Fly?’ Anger gives each word extra gravity, a pebble become a rock, but they still emerge at even pace and volume. ‘Do as precious Louis tried to do? Dress up as a shepherd, or a nursemaid, and swim back across the Rhine and present myself to the Duke and advise him to proceed as he thinks fit in my absence?’
Marinus shakes his head. And it is indeed inconceivable that Karl Arnim could show the weakness – or, frankly, the emotion – necessary for flight. He sits across the table larger than ever.
‘No . . . No, now is when we live, my dear friend.’ A little smile after the rolling words. ‘Not die, you hear me? Now is when we must most live.’ With two hands he pushes his plate away, and the hands fold together and rest on the tablecloth. ‘These Frenchmen, these clerks and peasants, will forget their fever soon enough.’
‘They’re fanatics.’
The Prussian’s lip twists up in a sneer. ‘So much the better. Around a calculating man I am careful; but one who has put his reason second to his obsession does not impress me.’ Again the smile. ‘And besides, my dear friend, in these difficult times are there not revolutionaries enough who are willing to forget their principles in return for a coin or a promise of friendship?’ He shakes his head. ‘Their future is as unpredictable as mine; except that I have Brunswick’s army at my shoulder.’
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