The Nicolas Le Floch affair

by Jean-FranCois Parot

  Miraculously, as if at the behest of some invisible ballet master, the congestion came to an end. The way now was clear, and the coachman cracked his whip against the rumps of four sturdy horses.

  They passed through the tollgates without hindrance, the postillion having been provided with passes. Once past the faubourgs, Nicolas broke the seal on the letter. It contained a number of reports, one on the general situation of the British kingdom and the other on the position of the British cabinet towards George III’s policies. Much mention was made of the difficulties of the British in India and the misconduct of the East India Company. The unrest amongst the American colonists was also discussed, especially those in Massachusetts whose judicial system was again to be administered from London and whose trade was to be burdened with the most tyrannical restrictions. This unrest had caused tremors in Parliament and brought to the forefront of the anti-ministerial phalanx a brilliant newcomer named Charles Fox. In the cabinet’s estimation, the charter of the colonies was not so sacrosanct that it prevented England from making new regulations to prevent sedition. There followed some portraits and notes on the French in London. Nicolas stopped the coach beside a patch of waste ground, stretched his legs a little, struck a light and set fire to the papers. When they were nothing more than a heap of black ashes, he let the wind scatter them.

  He discovered other papers stuck to the wall of the coach with sealing wax. One listed the various post houses on the route from Paris to Calais. From the faubourgs of Paris, he would proceed to Amiens by way of Saint-Denis, Écouen, Luzarches, Chantilly, Clermont, Saint-Just, Wavigny, Flers, Breteuil and Hébécourt. From the Picard capital, he would then get to Calais by way of Pecquigny, Flixecourt, Ailly-le-Haut-Clocher, Abbeville, Nouvion, Bernay, Nampont, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Cormont, Boulogne, Marquise and Hautbuisson. In terms of cost, it implied that he would have to pay at forty-nine post houses. He calculated mentally that this mission by private post berlin drawn by four horses would cost the Lieutenancy General of Police about nine hundred and eighty livres, that is, twenty livres each post, or, he noted with amusement, the equivalent of about a hundred chickens bought ready-roasted or three good-quality wedding dresses – he knew this last detail because of a recent remark by Master Vachon, his tailor. A small leaflet informed him that the English did not accept French money and that he would have to change his gold coins as soon as he arrived in Dover: at the current rate, a louis was worth one guinea, or twenty-one shillings. But he already had a not inconsiderable number of English coins at his disposal.

  His foot hit an object, which rang at the impact. He bent down and discovered a chamber pot with a white porcelain lid decorated with little flowers, the interior lined with fragrant dried herbs. This thoughtful touch, he decided, was there to tell him that he should not linger on the way: if he needed to relieve himself, he should use the pot, and when it became too full he could simply lower the window and throw out the contents. In this arrangement, he thought he detected the taste for childish pranks that sometimes showed through in Monsieur de Sartine. This was not the only utilitarian object in the carriage: there was also a little metal and wood foot-warmer filled with hot coals. Once again, he appreciated the thoughtfulness of it, and slipped the foot-warmer under the travelling blanket, where it started to give off a gentle heat.

  The swaying of the carriage gradually induced a drowsy torpor. This half-sleep did not, however, stop him from thinking, and his tired mind went over and over the stages of the drama he had lived through since the death of Madame de Lastérieux and the new developments which had led him to become involved in this unexpected mission. A nagging pain resurfaced: not so much the pain of knowing that Julie had been deceiving him as that of not knowing how genuine their relationship, which he now missed, had really been. Desperately, he tried to think of anything that had happened that could explain this betrayal. At other moments, he saw the King’s face, and remembered his elegant ability to maintain his distance while at the same time showing his kindness to those who enjoyed his trust, a kindness accentuated by those dark, gentle and still surprisingly young eyes. In the midst of his distress, Nicolas realised how lucky he was to be able to count on the indulgence of the monarch.

  To get away from Paris gave him a sense of freedom. Like a bird fleeing a storm, he was escaping the cruel torments that had surrounded him for days. He was about to sink into a serene sleep when the carriage came to a halt in a great screeching of hand brakes and scraping of the wheels, as well as the strident neighing of the horses. Before he was able to move an inch – he was somewhat restricted by his blanket and foot-warmer – the door was thrown open, making the curtains fly, and a rider in a hunting costume the colour of dead leaves jumped in and sat down opposite him. When the visitor’s head, which was concealed by a large felt hat with a white feather, was raised, Nicolas was surprised to recognise the almond-shaped blue eyes and gentle oval face of the Comtesse du Barry. She took off her hat, revealing a small white wig tied with an amaranthine ribbon.

  ‘Good morning, Marquis. Forgive the disguise, I hope you remember me.’

  Her nose crinkled and she gave a mischievous pout.

  ‘May it please God, Madame—’ He sat up and banged his head on the roof of the carriage.

  She burst out laughing.

  ‘How could anyone who has ever had the privilege of meeting you ever forget you?’ he stammered in confusion. ‘But to what do I owe this honour?’

  ‘It’s not a question of honour, Monsieur. A close friend, concerned about my interests, revealed to me the mission with which you have been entrusted. The success of your journey to London interests me greatly and I wanted to make sure that my fate was in good hands, that you would take up the cudgels on my behalf and give me back my peace of mind, in short, that I could count on your loyalty.’

  ‘Madame,’ said Nicolas, dumbfounded by this flood of words, ‘that goes without saying. Let me set your mind at rest. As I had occasion to tell you some years ago, I—’

  She raised her hand to interrupt him. ‘Four years, Monsieur, four years! I haven’t forgotten. I was convinced then that an opportunity would one day arise when you could be of service to me.’ She seemed to be questioning herself rather than him.

  ‘I promised you then that you could count on my zeal and my devotion,’ replied Nicolas. ‘I am your servant.’

  She looked deep into his eyes, and he trembled, sensitive to the seductive power that emanated from the comtesse. She held out her hand, and he kissed it.

  ‘Marquis, my eyes will go with you. Remember that you are amongst my friends now. Don’t forget!’

  She left the carriage as quickly as she had entered. He leant out of the door in time to see her disappear in a Court coach escorted by two bodyguards. His amazement faded and gave way, as the berlin set off again, to a kind of irritation. What was Madame du Barry doing, meddling in his business? Why couldn’t she believe that he was content with what the King had ordered him to do without having to pursue him publicly? How could she imagine that these few minutes would encourage him to accomplish his task better? Then he realised that this irritation of his concealed a real sense of apprehension. This supposedly secret mission wasn’t a secret any more. Madame du Barry, a coachman, two lackeys, two bodyguards, and God knew who else had had wind of his departure for London. Who had informed the comtesse?

  He found it hard to believe, having been close to the King for fourteen years and having on many occasions observed his love of secrecy, that it could have been he who had informed his mistress: he would have risked compromising an enterprise he himself had devised to save the reputation of ‘the beautiful Bourbonnaise’4 from slander. Nor would Sartine, who always took care to pay court to the lady, have done something like that, aware as he was of the need to protect his officers’ safety at all times. Saint-Florentin apparently did not know of the mission: Sartine’s embarrassed response when he had questioned him on the subject had convinced him of that. Who, then? The Du
c de Richelieu? It couldn’t be him: no one would have dared tell him, with his reputation for not being able to keep a secret. What about the Duc d’Aiguillon? That was beyond the realm of probabilities, as the King preferred to keep things moving in parallel and never meeting. Nicolas wondered suddenly if the interview between Louis XV, Sartine and himself in a place as public as the council chamber could have been overheard. The crowd of lackeys and ushers must surely contain a few black sheep in the pay of those whose interests lay in knowing the secrets of those in power in order to ensure their position and increase their influence. Nicolas, moreover, was a little disappointed by his conversation with the comtesse, when he compared it with those he used to have with Madame de Pompadour, a jouster of quite another calibre and a much more subtle intelligence.

  Tuesday 11, Wednesday 12 and Thursday 13 January 1774

  The average time it took to get from Paris to Calais, depending on the season, varied between six and eight days by regular mail-coach. It had been calculated that this time had to be reduced by half: he wasn’t travelling, he was flying. Nothing on this journey corresponded to the immutable rules of the mail. He changed coachmen several times: they all had the same surly appearance and the same respectful discretion. Fresh horses were waiting, stamping the ground, at each post house for the arrival of their exhausted predecessors. The most forbidding masters of post houses did their best to change his teams of horses as quickly as possible, however much they were kicked. Nicolas would stop at whatever inns he came across, plundering their reserves and eating in the berlin. He spent his time reading in the sad winter light or, at night, by the dim light of a lantern inside the carriage. In the morning, he would take advantage of a change of horses to wash himself thoroughly in the wells and fountains by the post houses, laughing at the sight of his skin, which was blue with cold, and provoking sidelong glances of delight from the local housewives and maids.

  At Ailly-le-Haut-Clocher, on the way to Abbeville, a pig crossed the road and was hit broadside on by the speeding carriage. The team of horses stumbled and the carriage hit a milestone hidden in a thicket. One of the wheels broke. It had to be repaired and one of the horses, which had dislocated a leg in the accident, had to be changed. The wheelwright and blacksmith had been called away to a nearby hamlet. Weary of waiting beside a stable which was more like a covered dungheap, under the sardonic and curious eyes of the ostlers, Nicolas decided to spend the night in the local inn, which served as a post house. The repairs would take several hours. Night was falling and snow was in the air.

  He insisted on paying a decent price for the pig that had been killed. It was a benevolent gesture – the animal should have been kept locked in and not left to wander on the public highway – and it unleashed a flood of goodwill on the part of the pig’s owner, the innkeeper, who roused the servants to attend to the traveller’s every need. The fire was immediately stoked and a table was laid near the fireplace for dinner. Before long, Nicolas was telling himself that, when conditions were like these, a traveller could be very happy in France. The most wretched inn always concealed something good to eat. His culinary curiosity was soon satisfied. He was brought an earthenware vessel containing a wrapped pâté. Its taste would haunt him all his life and he would strive in vain to rediscover its aroma. He tried without success to obtain the recipe. The host assured him that it was a family secret, which each father handed down to his son on his deathbed. The rest of the meal consisted of offal from the martyred pig, roasted on the hearth, and a robust cabbage soup. This improvised feast was washed down with a pot of beer, which was very bitter but with a lovely white foam, and concluded with a few bruised apples and a comforting glass of genever.

  On the other hand, the room he was offered as being the best in the establishment left a lot to be desired. With its wobbly wooden furniture, its rough whitewashed walls hung with a few old scraps of tapestry, its spiders’ nests and half-eaten moths, it was similar to many others he had encountered in the French provinces. The door was almost impossible to close and its hinges squeaked unbearably. Icy air whistled through the cracks in the shutter, which took the place of a window pane. It was not easy to open – nor, once this feat had been accomplished, to close again. The condition of the sheet convinced him not to get into the bed. The horror its population of creepy-crawlies inspired in him drove him to settle as comfortably as possible in an armchair covered in almost threadbare Utrecht velvet. He would stretch his legs on a stool. It did not take him long to fall asleep, but in the early hours of the morning he was awakened by the creaking of the door. Who could it be? He kept completely still, huddled in his cloak, his heart pounding, not wanting to raise the alarm. A shadowy figure approached the bed, and an arm was raised and came down twice. He heard an exclamation of surprise, hurried footsteps and the door banging. He stood up, grabbed his sword and ran out after the intruder. On the circular balcony, with its view over the central room of the inn, he stopped and listened. No sound disturbed the heavy, almost muffled silence, which reminded him of something long ago. The first light of dawn was starting to chase away the shadows. It suddenly occurred to him that there might be other travellers occupying the other rooms on the upper floor. Cautiously, he opened the doors one after the other: the rooms were empty. The last room was the innkeeper’s. The man was genuinely alarmed that there had been an intruder. He went downstairs with Nicolas. The fire was rekindled and the candles lit, while the innkeeper’s wife warmed up a little soup from the night before. Nicolas went to the open door and looked out. Now he knew why the place was so strangely silent: snow had fallen in abundance during the night. In the pale light of the new day, he saw a man’s footprints on the ground, going in two directions, to and from the inn. He followed them for a long time across the fields, as far as a little copse. He advanced cautiously, listening out for any sound, and came to a clearing where the trail ended beside a great oak, in a confusion of other prints: clearly, a horse had been waiting here for its rider. The intruder seemed to have ridden off in the direction of Abbeville. It was at that moment that Nicolas, numb with cold but his consciousness sharpened, finally realised that someone had tried to kill him and that once again he had narrowly escaped death.

  He went back to his room and discovered a scene of desolation. His open trunk had been tipped on the floor, his effects rummaged through and turned upside down. The bindings of the few books he had brought with him were slashed, the pages torn. Yet nothing had been stolen: the marauder had clearly been looking for something else. He must have been hiding in some corner. Luckily, Nicolas still had on him the gold, his bills of exchange and his papers of accreditation, but this latest incident proved that he was not dealing with bandits, who were always to be feared in open country, but that the attack was connected with his mission and that his attackers would stop at nothing to prevent him from carrying it out. He noticed that his shutter was open. He leant out of the window, but the area to the north was still plunged in darkness and he could not make out anything on the ground. He knew what he would have discovered: other prints leading to another copse where another horse must have been waiting. He folded his spare clothes and his coat as best he could, packed, and paid the grim-faced innkeeper for his board and lodging. His coachman was waiting for him at the nearby wheelwright’s. He had already paid for the repairs. A new wheel had been fixed. The horses were brought and harnessed. No sooner was he settled in the berlin than the team, throwing up a cloud of snow, set off full tilt along the road to Abbeville.

  Notes – CHAPTER 5

  1. Madame de Pompadour.

  2. See The Man with the Lead Stomach.

  3. Madame du Barry had a house here.

  4. One of the nicknames given by pamphleteers of the time to Madame du Barry.

  VI

  LONDON

  We are the only nation the English do not despise. On the other hand, they do us the honour of hating us as cordially as possible.

  FOUGERET DE MONTBRON

 
The wind was chasing away the morning fog, pushing the clouds in an easterly direction, and the sun was gradually coming through. Nicolas looked out, deep in thought, towards the horizon of a flat, ugly landscape whose monotony was broken at times by great forests with serried ranks of trees. Having given up the idea of sleep, he was on his guard and had told the postillion that, if there were the slightest alert, he was not to spare the horses. He continued to speculate on the reasons for an attack evidently intended to kill him. He recalled Monsieur de Sartine’s warnings. The interests involved were so powerful that, now that his mission was no longer a secret, the threats that hung over his head had accumulated. He could understand that – his job had taught him all about the power and hidden influence of certain factions within the State – but what he could not grasp was the connection between the death of Madame de Lastérieux and this hunt in which he was the prey. From now on, his salvation and the success of his mission would depend on his skill in anticipating danger and avoiding it. They were trying to hurt him, to dishonour him, to deliver him into the hands of the law, which, as he well knew, could decide a man’s fate speedily and sometimes indiscriminately. The trap in Rue de Verneuil and the murder attempt at Ailly could not be dissociated, but he was unable as yet to make sense of the context or disentangle the bizarre chain of cause and effect: the thread common to these two incidents escaped him. Monsieur de Noblecourt’s prophetic words echoed in his head like a sinister warning: ‘Just as a river is the result of the convergence of several streams, this crime is the outcome of a number of different plots.’