The Man with the Lead Stomach
Page 29
As soon as he arrived at the chateau of Bellevue he was shown into the marquise’s apartments. The lady received him in a white and gold boudoir, far too hot for his liking because of the roaring fire. She sat in a large bergère swamped by her flowing grey and black dress. Nicolas remembered that the Court was in mourning for the Tsarina Elizaveta Petrovna, who had passed away in St Petersburg the week before. When she saw him she languidly held out her hand, only to withdraw it immediately as she was seized with a violent coughing fit. He waited for her to recover.
‘Sir, I must congratulate you on the case that you have solved so successfully. You are entitled once more to our gratitude. Monsieur de Saint-Florentin has told us the story in detail.’
He made no reply but bowed, noting the ‘we’. He wondered if this included the King …
‘You wished to see me, I am told.’
‘Yes, Madame. Monsieur Truche de La Chaux, a Life Guard who has just been sentenced for the crime of lese-majesty in the second degree, asked to see me. In the course of our meeting he handed me a letter to be delivered to you. I did not think I could refuse a favour to a man who was living his last hours.’
She shook her head vigorously. ‘Is it not extraordinary, sir, that such a faithful servant of the King should agree to be the go-between for such an undesirable person?’
But a man desirable enough for the Marquise de Pompadour to entertain him, Nicolas thought. He needed to tread carefully now, but he felt the favourite was being disingenuous. He decided to challenge her.
‘The fact is, Madame, that this person acted for you at certain times in certain missions.’
‘This is too much, sir. I will not allow you—’
He interrupted her. ‘I therefore felt it to be in your interest, and that of His Majesty, for me to agree to pass on to you the note in which the guilty party might reveal some useful information.’
She smiled, patting the arm of her chair. ‘Monsieur Le Floch, it is a pleasure to cross swords with you!’
‘I am at your service, Madame.’
He handed her the letter. She examined it carefully without opening it.
‘You know what it contains, do you not, Monsieur le Floch?’
‘Certainly not, Madame. I gave Monsieur Truche de La Chaux the means to ensure beyond any question that its contents remained secret.’
‘So I see.’
She opened it with a flick of her fingernail and immersed herself in reading it. Then with a sudden gesture she threw it into the fire, where it burnt instantly.
‘Monsieur Le Floch, I thank you for everything. You are a loyal servant to the King.’
Without holding out her hand, she nodded farewell. He bowed in turn and withdrew. As he galloped along the banks of the Seine he had the feeling that it would be some time before he saw the favourite again. The burden of what had not been said would now weigh too heavily upon them for any future meeting to have the same levity and openness as in the past.
Tuesday 5 February 1762
Nicolas was drinking chocolate with Monsieur de Noblecourt, who was reading a newssheet, his spectacles perched on his nose. Cyrus sat on his lap, trying unsuccessfully to get between his master and what he was looking at.
‘What are you reading?’ asked Nicolas.
‘Ah! My dear fellow, it’s the Gazette de France. It’s a new publication that first appeared on 1 January and now comes out every Monday and Friday.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Well, it’s supposed to inform the public what’s going on and about all sorts of discoveries, and secondly it’s supposed to provide a collection of memoirs and accounts for the historical record. That at any rate is what the prospectus claims.’
‘And what information is there today?’
‘There’s one item that will particularly interest you. Your Truche de La Chaux, Nicolas, was granted a rather strange privilege. In the end his sentence was commuted and instead of being broken on the wheel he was merely, if that’s the right way to put it, hanged …’
Nicolas was startled. ‘I told you in confidence about my last meeting with him. I am still convinced that he had a secret agreement with Madame de Pompadour. You know how everything was made so easy for me. Perhaps she pleaded on his behalf. Oh! Not directly, of course …’
He could not bring himself to go on. For days a terrible suspicion had been haunting him. Nicolas had thought long and hard about the real role played by the favourite in the whole business. He had been struck by the way in which the Life Guard had immediately confessed to his heinous crime. Everything had happened as if he had felt sure that he would not be prosecuted and that his crime would be overlooked. Or perhaps he entertained the hope of obtaining a pardon from a higher power. It was likely that the message that Nicolas had taken to the favourite had resulted in indulgence of a kind, if it could be considered any kind of indulgence to be hanged instead of broken on the wheel.
In what final act of bargaining had Nicolas been the innocent go-between? Truche de La Chaux must have known that although he could not save his life the circumstances of his execution were still negotiable. But it was terrible to harbour a suspicion deep down that the Marquise de Pompadour might have organised behind the scenes a fake assassination attempt against the King. Spurred on by her hatred of the Jesuits, driven by her jealousy towards the King’s young mistresses and sincerely concerned about the real threats to her lover’s life, she might have been trying to pin the blame on the Jesuits and the pious party. Yes, that was just possible. He tried to banish these dreadful thoughts from his mind and concentrated on what Monsieur de Noblecourt was saying.
‘He might have revealed something incriminating; torture does make even the most hardened talk. That is perhaps the secret behind the lessening of his punishment. Anyway, the Ruissec case and the derisory attempt on the King’s life are not going to make the Jesuits’ situation any easier. People say their fate is sealed, and even if they are innocent in this, calumny will do its work!’
‘There is a great deal of unfairness in the criticisms levelled against them.’
‘I agree. There is more enlightenment in them than amongst all those musty Jansenists who have been addling our brains for the last forty years. They will be driven out of the country, Nicolas, you’ll see. Their educational work will be destroyed. And we are all their pupils! In the end the person to benefit will be the King of Prussia.’
‘In what way?’
‘Consider the great-grandfather of our present king. He revoked the Edict of Nantes. What was the result? The most brilliant and the most useful young men of the reformed religion went into exile, in Prussia in particular. You’ll see, the same will be true of the Jesuits. They will go recruiting in the lands of the North and will teach generations to come to hate us.’
‘Who will replace them in France?’
‘That is a pertinent question, but I fear it is not the one that will be asked … But, Nicolas, you were at Versailles yesterday. Tell me about it.’
‘Monsieur de Sartine took me to see Madame Adélaïde, so that I could give her back in person the jewels that we found in the Life Guards’ barracks.’
‘That was a noble gesture on the part of the Lieutenant General of Police and one that does not surprise me coming from him. What of Madame?’
‘Madame was very kind. She invited me to her hunt.’
‘Good gracious! You are on the way up! Provided,’ he said with a smile, ‘that you manage to stay in your saddle.’
Nicolas was gazing at Rue Montmartre, which was gradually filling with the morning crowd. The sounds of passers-by and carriages in the street reached them. He thought of all those individual destinies. He himself would soon forget the protagonists in this sinister case, even if the sad figure of Truche de La Chaux in his cell would long linger in his memory. Soon the old capital would be alive again with the masks of Carnival. Other tasks awaited him. He finished his chocolate. The final mouthful had a bitter-sweet tas
te, much like life itself.
Sofia, July 1997–February 1999
NOTES – CHAPTER XII
1. The author reminds readers that Truche de La Chaux is an historical figure. The circumstances of the fake attack in Versailles on 6 January 1762 are recounted by the memorialists of the time, Barbier and Bachaumont. He was indeed hanged after his trial.
NOTES
CHAPTER I
1. It was submitted to Louis XV on 30 November 1761.
2. Victoire de France (1733–1799), the second daughter of Louis XV and Maria Leszczyńska.
3. The names given to the two opposite sides of the auditorium where supporters of the French or Italian styles of opera gathered at the time of the ‘quarrel of the corners’.
4. The comic sequence of the opera Les Paladins that was strongly criticised at the time.
5. A tragic opera in five acts by Jean-Philippe Rameau, first performed on 5 December 1749, in which, amongst other innovations, the composer replaced the prologue with an overture.
6. This suggestion of Nicolas’s was in fact implemented by Sartine in 1764.
7. Lenoir, the Lieutenant General of Police, improved the lighting of Paris by introducing streetlamps to replace candle lanterns.
8. See The Châtelet Apprentice, Chapter I.
9. A fine, hard-grained limestone.
10. It was common practice at the time to send precautionary letters to the Lieutenant General of Police.
11. The morgue, situated in the cellars of the Châtelet (cf. The Châtelet Apprentice).
CHAPTER II
1. Saint-Florentin (1705–1777), Louis Phélypeaux, Comte, then Duc de la Villière, Minister of State in charge of the King’s Household, a department that included among its responsibilities the administration and the policing of the city of Paris.
2. Cf. The Châtelet Apprentice.
CHAPTER III
1. ‘Formerly in France, one who held lands from a bishop as his representative and defender in temporal matters’ (Oxford English Dictionary).
CHAPTER V
1. Literally ‘Pickpocket Street’ (Translator’s note).
CHAPTER IX
1. ‘[T]he breadth of a plank used as a unit of vertical measurement in a ship’s side’ (Oxford English Dictionary).
CHAPTER XI
1. Jacques Clément, a Dominican friar (1567–1589). A fanatical member of the Catholic League, he assassinated Henri III.
CHAPTER XII
1. The author reminds readers that Truche de La Chaux is an historical figure. The circumstances of the fake attack in Versailles on 6 January 1762 are recounted by the memorialists of the time, Barbier and Bachaumont. He was indeed hanged after his trial.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First I wish to express my gratitude to Sandrine Aucher for her competence, carefulness and patience in typing the text. I am also grateful to Monique Constant, Conservateur en Chef du Patrimoine, for her unfailing help and her discoveries in the archives of the period. Once again I am indebted to Maurice Roisse for his intelligent and detailed checking of the manuscript and for his useful suggestions. Finally I wish to thank my publisher for the confidence he has shown in this second book.
About the Author
THE MAN WITH THE LEAD STOMACH
Jean-François Parot is a diplomat and historian. His Nicolas Le Floch Mysteries have been published to much acclaim in French. The first novel in the series, The Châtelet Apprentice, was enthusiastically reviewed on its publication in English. The Man with the Lead Stomach is his second novel.
Michael Glencross lives and works in France as a translator. His most recent translations into English include The Dream by Emile Zola and Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne.
By the Same Author
Also by Jean-François Parot
The Châtelet Apprentice
Copyright
First published in 2008
by Gallic Books, Worlds End Studios, 134 Lots Road, London,
SW10 ORJ
This ebook edition first published in 2011
All rights reserved
© Jean-François Parot, 2008
The right of Jean-François Parot to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 9781906040499
The First Nicolas Le Floch investigation
THE CHTELET APPRENTICE
Jean-François Parot
Translated by Michael Glencross
France 1761. Beyond the glittering court of Louis XV and the Marquises de Pompadour at Versailles, lies Paris, a capital in the grip of crime and immorality …
A police officer disappears and Nicolas Le Floch, a young recruit to the force, is instructed to find him. When unidentified human remains suddenly come to light, he seems to have a murder investigation on his hands. As the city descends into Carnival debauchery, Le Floch will need all his skill, courage and integrity to unravel a mystery which threatens to implicate the highest in the land.
‘A terrific debut … brilliantly evokes the casual brutality of life in
eighteenth-century France’ Sunday Times
‘Jean-François Parot’s evocation of eighteenth-century Paris is richly
imagined and full of fascinating historical snippets …’
Mail on Sunday
‘Has all the twists, turns and surprises the genre demands’
Independent of Sunday
‘An engaging murder mystery that picks away at the delicate power
balance between king, police and state.’ Financial Times
GALLIC BOOKS
Paperback February 2008
978–1–906040–06–2
£7.99
THE OFFICER’S PREY
A Grande Armée murder featuring Captain Quentin Margont
Armand Cabasson
June 1812. Napoleon begins his invasion of Russia leading to the largest army Europe has ever seen.
But amongst the troops of the Grande Armée is a savage murderer whose bloodlust is not satisfied in battle.
When an innocent Polish woman is brutally stabbed, Captain Quentin Margont of the 84th regiment is put in charge of a secret investigation to unmask the perpetrator. Armed with the sole fact that the killer is an officer, Margont knows that he faces a near-impossible task and the greatest challenge to his military career.
‘Combines the suspense of a thriller with the compelling narrative of a war epic’ Le Parisian
‘Cabasson skilfully weaves an intriguing mystery into a rich historical background’ Mail on Sunday
‘… an enthralling and unromantic account of Napoleonic war seen from a soldier’s perspective’ The Morning Star
‘… vivid portrayal of the Grande Armée …’ Literary Review
‘Cabasson’s atmospheric novel makes a splendid war epic …’ The Sunday Telegraph
GALLIC BOOKS
Paperback October 2007
978–1–906040–03–1
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WOLF HUNT
A Grande Armée murder featuring Captain Quentin Margont
Armand Cabasson
May 1809. The forces of Napoleon’s Grande Armée are in Austria. For young Lieutenant Lukas Relmyer it is hard to return to the place where he and fellow orphan, Franz were kidnapped four years earlier. Franz was brutally murdered and Lukas has vowed to avenge his death.
When the body of another orphan is found on the battlefield, Captain Quentin Ma
rgont and Lukas join forces to track down the wolf who is prowling once more in the forests of Apern …
Winner of The Napoleon Foundation’s fiction award 2005
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Paperback May 2008
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THE SUN KING RISES
Yves Jégo and Denis Lépée
1661 is a year of destiny for France and its young king, Louis XIV.
Cardinal Mazarin, the prime minister who has governed throughout the king’s early years, lies dying. As a fierce power struggle develops to succeed him, a religious brotherhood, guardian of a centuries-old secret, also sees its chance to influence events.
Gabriel de Pontbriand, a young actor, becomes unwittingly involved when documents stolen from Mazarin’s palace fall into his hands. The coded papers will alter Gabriel’s life forever, and their explosive contents have the power to change the course of history for France and Louis XIV.