After these initial tortures, the condemned man’s limbs were tied to four horses, and he was torn apart. Several attempts were necessary, and even with his limbs torn off, Damiens was still alive. Sombre and pensive amid the vast crowd that had packed Place de Grève, Volnay watched the execution in silence, noting sadly how many aristocratic ladies applauded the spectacle from the balconies of townhouses rented for the occasion, at one hundred livres apiece. Not one of them looked away, he noted, while Damiens, in possession of barely half his body, continued to howl and scream like a soul in perdition.
In recognition of his bravery, Volnay had been knighted by the king. Since then, His Majesty’s Inspector of Strange and Unexplained Deaths had held a special place in the king’s police force. Legend had replaced fact, and the scar on his face led everyone to believe that he had thrown himself between Damiens and the king, and received the knife wound in the latter’s stead.
Nothing of this mattered to Volnay, in the end. All that tormented him now was the nagging question: should he have allowed the king to be killed?
Volnay was on his way to pay a call. Eager not to arrive at mealtime, rather than to satisfy a hunger he did not feel, he stopped at an inn with a tumbledown roof and a curious-sounding name: the Singing Rabbit. The floor was strewn with dirty straw, but bundles of juniper twigs burnt in the hearth, casting an agreeable glow around the room. A cauldron placed on a tripod released a sour, meaty smell mixed with cloves, cinnamon and the green-grape acidity of verjuice. In a corner of the room, a group of diners ate chicken livers wrapped in bay leaves, dipped in a brown sauce floating with croutons. Volnay ordered a baked hare terrine and a piece of cheese, with a glass of bitter wine that scorched his throat.
After eating, he rode his horse through the narrow, filth-strewn streets, thronged with the eternally noisy, restless Paris crowd. The populace was incapable of keeping quietly indoors. Paris lived, hollered and died in the street. Artisans kept their doors and windows open all day long, and passers-by could see the masters and their apprentices at work. Gradually, the din of the crowd subsided. The streets were broader; stone replaced wattle and daub. Volnay rode past carriages and crowds of well-dressed gentlefolk.
He stopped outside the superb, marble-clad mansion that was home to the family of the Marquis D’Ancilla. A liveried servant asked him to wait in a small salon. Volnay paced to and fro impatiently. The ceiling was painted with garlands of flowers highlighted in silver against a white ground dotted with gold. The luxurious decor announced the residence of a fine aristocrat: a Murano chandelier, silk carpets, varnished woodwork and panelling, mirrors reflecting into infinity the image of a young man of twenty-five, with a pleasant if austere bearing, solemn and utterly determined.
‘Chevalier de Volnay, what a surprise!’ exclaimed Chiara on entering the room. ‘I left you only a few hours ago. Are there any developments in your investigation, so soon?’
Volnay paled imperceptibly under the dazzling gaze of her magnificent, dark eyes. She had changed her clothes and was no longer bejewelled, but wore a simple gown of blue satin that showed her slender waist and marble-white bosom to marvellous effect. Lowering his eyes, he saw with surprise that her tiny feet were in slippers. He allowed a few, precious moments to elapse in silence, under the young woman’s amused gaze. Recovering himself, he heard Chiara explain that she had been working on an experiment in her laboratory. She even offered to take him to see it. Politely, Volnay declined.
‘But what is it you do in your laboratory?’ he asked nonetheless, seeing her disappointment.
The young woman’s dark eyes glittered with unexpected fire.
‘I observe nature, I calculate the distance from the Earth to the sky… I am most interested in volcanic rocks at present.’
‘Indeed?’ asked Volnay, politely.
She laughed lightly.
‘Yes, indeed. You are aware that the Earth owes nothing of its creation to God? It was a mass of burning, molten rock and then, as the heat diminished, the first mountains rose up. Imagine the mists floating gracefully all around the globe, enveloping it in a mantle of gauze. They settled, at length, and covered the whole planet in one, great ocean. The first inhabitants of our world emerged in those waters. Vast caverns lay at the bottom of the sea. They collapsed over time, swallowing down part of the oceans with them, and causing a new world to rise.’
‘Wherever did you read all that?’ asked Volnay, astounded.
‘In Monsieur de Buffon’s Natural History. He says that, after that, the sea retreated slightly, everywhere, and that mountains thrust upwards under the effect of fire.’
She broke off.
‘I have a piece of lava rock in the laboratory—would you like to see it?’
She was in such ecstasies of excitement that it seemed she saw the volcanoes forming, and burning lava pouring down their flanks, right before her eyes. Volnay watched Chiara’s delicate hands fluttering in space as they recreated the forms of lost worlds.
‘Life developed slowly and gradually,’ she added. ‘It struggled every day for its right to exist; it changed form; it adapted to its environment.’
‘And so you do not believe in God?’ demanded Volnay, abruptly.
Coming from an officer of the police, the question was anything but innocent, in the present climate. Chiara faced him calmly, challenging him with her firm gaze. He saw how beautiful this young woman was, and that she was afraid of nothing.
‘I do not believe in God, Monsieur, I believe in Nature.’
She scrutinized his face, trying to fathom his reaction.
‘And you, Monsieur, do you believe in God?’
‘Less and less, Mademoiselle.’
‘Why is that?’
Volnay blinked rapidly. A blazing bonfire shone in the eyes of a small boy who stood weeping. The image gnawed at his soul. The small boy was him.
‘I no longer believe in God, Mademoiselle, because it is said of him that he made man in his own image. And so he must be a thoroughly detestable individual.’
There was a startled silence. Two creatures who knew nothing of one another were expressing beliefs that would take them to the scaffold or worse. The punishments for blasphemy were barbarous indeed: the human imagination knew no bounds when it came to the infliction of suffering. The image of the Chevalier de La Barre lingered in every mind’s eye: a young man of nineteen, condemned to have his fists and tongue cut off, then beheaded and burnt for having sung a lewd, disrespectful song on the subject of religion, and for refusing to remove his hat for the passing of a church procession. ‘I did not believe a gentleman could be put to death for so little,’ were his last words.
Chiara came closer. For a brief moment, Volnay’s ears were filled with the loud rustle of her gown.
‘I have faith in progress,’ she said quietly. ‘What do you have faith in?’
He stared at her in silence. A chasm yawned between them, though he longed to cross to her side.
‘I have faith in truth,’ he said at last. ‘There should be no such thing as lies.’
Chiara shrugged her shoulders gracefully.
‘Is that all?’
‘I believe in equality among men.’
She stood rooted to the spot in astonishment. What a strange police officer this is! she thought.
‘I would not go so far, Monsieur,’ she said, after moistening her lip nervously with her tongue. ‘But I have faith in humanity because it is capable of the very best.’
‘Indeed it will be, when men are capable of putting the common good ahead of their personal interests. For now, I will quote Monsieur de Voltaire: “One day, all will be well, that is our hope! All is well today, that is our delusion.”’
‘You’re forgetting,’ she said brightly, ‘that the quotation ends like this: “But good or bad as things are, we must strive for better!”’
She gazed at him with her beautiful, shadowy eyes, framed by silky lashes. Silence fell once more, but it was a thoughtfu
l silence now, tinged with respect on both sides.
‘Mademoiselle,’ said Volnay finally, and with a hint of regret, ‘I came quickly to find you because I have the dead woman’s mask, now. I will show it to a number of people, of course, but yesterday you were concerned for the safety of your lady-in-waiting, and I thought I should bring it here to reassure you. Are you ready to see it?’
Her eyes were wide with surprise.
‘How is that possible? There was no skin on her face!’
‘Someone has worked to reconstruct it. With quite expressive results, I find.’
And from the satchel he carried with him, he withdrew a fine gold mask that glowed with a seemingly supernatural light. Chiara cried out.
‘That’s Mademoiselle Hervé, one of the king’s wig-makers!’
The young woman seemed quite overcome. Volnay took note.
‘Are you quite certain?’
Chiara seemed to be thinking fast, as Volnay noted with some surprise.
‘Well,’ she stammered, ‘I believe so, but I can’t be quite sure. I met her only once or twice, I suppose…’
Volnay watched her with interest. To remember the face of a person of low estate, a servant, whom one has met only once or twice was extraordinary. And why the cry of recognition, followed by the hasty retreat? His curiosity was whetted.
‘Where did you meet her?’
The young woman flushed deeply.
‘Well, I don’t remember…’
‘Mademoiselle, do you know something about the victim, or about her death?’
Chiara looked him straight in the eye, unblinking, and answered:
‘I know nothing.’
She spoke without hesitation, and yet it seemed to Volnay she was lying. His methodical mind analysed the facts he had carefully stored away: a young Italian aristocrat comes to see him the morning after an appalling murder, pretending first to request a visit to the city morgue, and then to ask about the disappearance of her lady-in-waiting. The same woman is able to identify the victim from her death mask, but incapable of providing any further information about her.
Volnay bitterly regretted his initial impulse to trust Chiara, and the feelings he had been prey to when he first saw her. She was the same as all the rest: lying, selfish, indifferent to others. Like all women, and all men. This world was dead to him, it was a world without hope.
Again, he felt the icy carapace close around his heart. Again, he banished any human sentiment that might have obstructed him or held him back. The only thing of importance was the mission he had accepted, the mission that gave his life meaning. He realized he was fixing Chiara with a cold, hard stare, and saw her discomfort. Hastily, he recomposed his habitual mask. The look, some said, that gave the impression of gazing into a bottomless, perfectly still lake.
‘Who suggested you come to see me yesterday?’ he asked at length, in studiedly neutral tones.
She paused before answering.
‘My father.’
‘Ah…’
Another lie, from the tone of her voice. To maintain her composure, Chiara had seated herself with a loud rustling of silk. Her annoyance at this thinly veiled interrogation showed clearly in her face. Meanwhile, Volnay’s thoughts travelled from the salon to a certain letter, with a certain royal signature.
‘Have you ever heard of the Comte de Saint-Germain?’ he asked suddenly.
She was caught completely off guard.
‘Of course!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s the darling of all the salons. They say he’s the man who has seen everything and knows everything. He can remember his past lives and will happily tell you what went on at the wedding in Cana, and all the intrigues at the court of Babylon, as if he had been there himself. They say he has lived for one thousand, eight hundred and fourteen years already, thanks to an elixir of life given to him by the queen of Judea!’
‘And do you believe him?’
The young woman gave a mocking laugh.
‘Monsieur, I am not like those other, silly girls! I reason by science alone, and science says that such things are impossible.’
‘I’ll grant you that.’
Volnay bit his lower lip thoughtfully.
‘Why do you ask me about the Comte de Saint-Germain?’ asked Chiara evenly. ‘Does he have anything to do with your investigation?’
‘Not at all, Mademoiselle. I will go now and show the mask to a person in the king’s household, to confirm your identification. For the good of the inquiry, I ask you to keep what we have said here today absolutely secret. Do you give me your word?’
Chiara straightened her shoulders haughtily, but quickly recovered her habitual charm, and her smile.
‘On one condition, Monsieur. Come and visit me again soon, or I’ll blab it at every society dinner!’
*
The monk bit off a chunk of his salt pork pie and chewed it thoughtfully while staring at the corpse. He was perplexed. Strange! Strange! he thought, as he contemplated the bloodied flesh, which was turning putrid now. This was all too perfect. The face couldn’t have been cut away like that with a knife. It demanded the precision of a surgeon, or a furrier to achieve such a result. And why had the palms of her hands been partially skinned, together with the tips of her fingers? Truly, I do not understand!
He pondered the problem, muttering under his breath as usual, because he disliked keeping his thoughts to himself, and because his years in prison had accustomed him to these solitary conversations. The candles were burning down around him, casting only a feeble light. The deep cellar was riddled with damp. A sudden rush of air flattened the flames, and extinguished some.
‘Back again?’ he said, without turning around. ‘This faceless young lady has certainly captured your attention. What of the visit to the young Italian aristocrat?’
He received no reply.
The monk lifted his eyes without moving his head, and stared at the shadow making its way around the wall. His hand slid silently to the knife he had just used.
‘Yes,’ he added calmly, ‘a strange business indeed—’
He span around, narrowly avoiding the fatal strike. A gleaming dagger pointed at his throat, clasped by a hand gloved in black leather. The monk elbowed the man sharply in the ribs before throwing himself clear and retreating. The other man stepped calmly to one side. He wore a thick leather jerkin of the kind used by robbers as protection in sword fights. His face, half-hidden under a felt mask, was riddled with pockmarks. Calmly, he unfastened his leather cape, keeping his eyes firmly on the monk, and folded it swiftly over his arm before holding it in front of him like a shield, while he tried to run his victim through the heart. The monk struck sidelong at the sword with his knife, thwarting the blade. He slashed his assailant’s face, then struck down at the man’s stomach with brutal force.
The monk had not always lived the life of the mind. His wild youth had taken him to a fair number of battlefields. Later, his nocturnal activities had brought him into confrontation with old soldiers forging new careers as cheap killers for hire. This man was certainly one of their kind. He was quick, and said nothing. Their blades clashed again. His aggressor charged once more, ferociously, his face glistening with sweat. Again, the monk parried his thrusts, methodically and with a mastery that betrayed his experience of hand-to-hand combat, hindered only by the voluminous folds of his habit. He moved back behind the table, upon which—impassive amid the commotion—lay the body of the faceless woman.
The monk parried a hail of blows as he retreated, and suffered a cut to the hand. With remarkable lucidity, he ignored it and concentrated on redoubling his defence. Between two clinks of their blades, at last, his hand found the candelabrum he had been groping for. He seized it and brought it down violently on his opponent’s gaunt face. The other man howled and dropped his guard. Coldly, the monk sank his knife into his right eye, deep enough to touch the brain.
With his visit to Chiara at an end, Volnay made his way to the Pont Neuf early in the afte
rnoon. Down on the quaysides, laundry workers of all ages rubbed their hands raw on the city’s washing. The Pont Neuf was crowded with carriages, people on foot, street performers and bear-tamers. Astride his horse, the Inspector of Strange and Unexplained Deaths threaded his way adroitly through the tide of humanity. The silhouette of the Châtelet rose before him. In medieval times, the ancient castle had defended Paris against the Norman invaders. When the city walls were extended by Philippe Auguste, the building had become the headquarters of the military police, and the seat of Paris’s criminal justice court. It had been the scene of innumerable acts of violence, and outright massacres. Its walls were steeped in the blood of its victims. Prison cells and rooms set aside for torture compounded its sinister reputation: in the notorious Fosse dungeon, prisoners were left standing in water, day and night, barely able to straighten up. Few survived more than two weeks in such hell.
Antoine Raymond de Sartine kept his office in this grim place. The son of a financier ennobled by the king of France and appointed sheriff of Catalogne, Sartine had purchased the post of police chief for the city of Paris in 1752. He had proved a competent administrator, with a keen political sensibility. Through the broad scope of his office, he had improved not only food supplies to the city through the construction of a new grain market, but also public safety through the installation of street lanterns. It was rumoured that he was eyeing the post of chief of police for the whole of France, one of the most important positions in the land. He was judged a fair-minded and honest man compared to his peers, but an instrument of the king, too, and unflinching in his devotion to duty. He had shut down the city’s clandestine gambling dens, but established authorized gaming houses in their place, overseen and taxed by his own agents.
At the news of the identity of the faceless woman, he sank into a tremendous state of nervous anxiety.
‘The king’s wig-maker? The young woman was the king’s wig-maker! Do you realize what this means?’
Casanova and the Faceless Woman Page 6
