Paris: The Novel (88 page)

For her brother, the choices were clear. He could marry an heiress. Even if she wasn’t noble, he would still be, and so would their children. Or he could become a big success in the world and recoup his fortunes that way. Of course, he couldn’t engage in trade of any kind. That wasn’t something a noble was allowed to do. But he might become a soldier, or serve the king in some capacity that would bring him fame and fortune, and marry a rich wife too.

For girls like her, it was different. She must marry a noble and preferably a rich one.

For if she married a man who wasn’t noble, then she lost her own nobility at once, and her children would be baseborn too. Her husband might be rich, but she would have no social standing. Society’s doors would be closed to her and her descendants, and if those descendants wanted to achieve any high position in the king’s service, it would be almost impossible for them without noble status. It mattered. It was everything.

And yet, in France, there was a way around this problem. The king might ennoble one’s husband for his services. But that could take a lifetime. There were also numerous official positions which carried with them a title of nobility. Or, simpler still, one could buy a title.

Over the centuries, noble families often acquired many titles. Often the titles came with estates they had been granted or had acquired. And they were allowed to sell those titles. It was perfectly legal. So a rich man
could buy his way into the nobility. And if his wife came from a noble family herself, with relations who were only too anxious to keep the family status up, then her children would slide so easily into the noble title their bourgeois father had bought that few people would even remember that they had nearly slipped out of the class to which their mother belonged.

Geneviève’s sister Catherine had married a rich merchant. But he had shown no interest in getting himself ennobled. This had caused Geneviève and her brother some grief, but it seemed there was nothing they could do about it. Geneviève had married a noble.

Perceval d’Artagnan came from a cadet branch of the ancient family of Montesquiou d’Artagnan, which, long ago, had gone their own way and chosen to be known by the simpler appellation of d’Artagnan.

When Geneviève married Perceval, she had done well. He had enough money to maintain both a pleasant château on the edge of Burgundy and a house in Paris. He was proud of his ancient lineage, which went back over seven centuries to an ancient ruler of Gascony. In this century, however, a distant relation had also taken the name of d’Artagnan, and this had not pleased Geneviève’s husband.

“The fellow’s just a spy and general stooge for Mazarin,” he’d told her dismissively when they first married. But recently this d’Artagnan had risen so far in the royal service that he’d become head of the king’s prestigious Musketeers, and favored at court. From this time, Geneviève noticed, her husband started referring to him as “my kinsman d’Artagnan, the Musketeer.”

It might be said, then, that Geneviève had everything she wanted. She had comfort, and status, and after a dozen years of marriage she had two children living, a boy and a girl, both of whom were strong and healthy. There was only one problem.

She had a husband who did nothing.

He had always been a man of strong views. The chief of these, from their earliest days together, had been the importance of the old aristocracy.

“It all began with Richelieu,” he’d complain, “a nobleman who should have known better: this constant undermining of the old feudal privileges. They want to make the king into a central tyrant. As for the upstart Mazarin …” His disgust for the lowborn Italian cardinal was complete.

The two Fronde rebellions that came just before their marriage had brought matters to a head. First the lesser nobles and Parisians had
rebelled against paying new taxes; then the old princely families had done the same. The mob had entered the Louvre. Mazarin had been driven out of Paris.

But order had been restored. Supported by the young king’s mother—who was now so close to the cardinal that they seemed like man and wife—Mazarin ruled once more. The boy Louis XIV, whom Mazarin treated like a son, had come of age; in 1661, when the cardinal died, he had taken the reins of power into his strong young hands.

And if one thing was clear, Geneviève thought—whether her husband liked it or not—it was that young Louis XIV, having loved Mazarin like a father, and seen the chaos of the Fronde, had no intention of leaving France in the hands of the old feudal nobility. He meant to rule them with a rod of iron. Her husband could huff and puff as much as he liked, but he was living in the past.

And doing nothing. He spent time on his estate. He hunted. He went about in Paris. And that was it. His sole occupation was being an aristocrat, and it never occurred to him that this was not enough to do with one’s life.

“You know, Catherine,” she remarked to her sister once, “I sometimes think you were right to marry a merchant. At least he has something to do.”

“He works because he has to.”

“That may be. But he works. A man should work. I respect him.”

“You don’t respect Monsieur d’Artagnan?”

“No. Not anymore. It makes things … difficult.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Perhaps you could lend me your husband now and then.”

Her sister laughed.

“What would Monsieur d’Artagnan say to that?”

Geneviève shrugged.

“At least it keeps it in the family.”

“Well, I’m afraid you can’t borrow my husband, and please don’t try.”

“I won’t.” Geneviève sighed. “
Mon Dieu
, Catherine, I’m bored.”

Hercule Le Sourd stared. It was a handsome, fair-haired woman inside the carriage. An aristocrat by the look of it. She motioned for him to sit opposite her. He hesitated. Then, out of curiosity really, he complied.

“Close the door,” she said.

He did so, and immediately the carriage started to move.

“I have been listening to you, several times,” she said.

“I noticed. But I assumed it was a man. A government spy, perhaps.”

She laughed.

“I suppose I could be a government spy. No doubt some of them are women. How exciting.”

“What do you want?”

“You are quite clever, monsieur. If you weren’t clever, the things you shout would merely be rude, and vulgar. But your speeches are very witty. Do you rehearse them?”

“There are parts I have composed. But I invent things as I go along. As the spirit moves me.”

“Can you read and write?”

“A little.”

“You sound quite learned. All that philosophy.”

“I used to go into the Latin Quarter and listen to the students talking in the taverns. I picked it up. I suppose it interested me.”

“What else do you do?”

“I make shoes.”

“And what is your name?”

“Hercule Le Sourd.”

She laughed.

“It’s a funny combination. Half hero, half robber, perhaps.”

“I’ve never had to steal. What is your name?”

“I shall not tell you, monsieur.”

“As you like.”

Le Sourd looked at her thoughtfully. He already knew what she wanted.

He’d been married when he was younger. His wife had died three years ago, leaving him with a five-year-old son. He and his sister’s family lived in the same street, just south of the university quarter, near the Gobelins factory where the tapestries were made. With his son and his sister’s children almost forming an extended family, Le Sourd had felt no immediate pressure to provide himself with another wife. The personal magnetism he displayed on the Pont Neuf made him attractive to women, and for the last couple of years he’d enjoyed a series of romances while retaining his independence. His conquests had included the wives of several well-to-do merchants. But this aristocratic lady was something entirely new.

He decided to wait and see what she did next.

“You must be hungry after all your efforts,” she said. “Would you like to dine with me?”

“If the food is good,” he answered.

The coachman seemed to know where to go. They had crossed onto the Right Bank now, east of the Louvre. Soon the carriage turned left, toward the Marais. The thought crossed his mind that this woman could be a lunatic of some kind. He was big and strong enough to overpower her and the coachman too. But what if she decided to poison him?

She seemed to read his thoughts.

“Life is full of risks.”

“Are we going to your house?” he asked.

“No.” She was watching him carefully. “I dare not. Tell me about yourself.”

He shrugged. He had nothing in particular to hide. He told her about his family, poor craftsmen mostly. “They say we descend from quite an important criminal, who was hanged, a long time ago.”

“You think it’s true?”

“I expect so. We’ve tried not to get caught since.”

He told her about the loss of his wife and that he had a son.

“But you haven’t married again.”

“Not yet.”

“You prefer to be independent.”

“What makes you think so, madame?”

She smiled.

“Have you heard yourself ranting on the Pont Neuf?”

Through the thin curtains, he could see where they were now. They had come into Henry IV’s Place Royale, in the heart of the Marais. There they stopped. He heard the coachman descend. The door opened.

“We shall dine,” she said to the coachman. And turning to Le Sourd: “If you step out for a moment, he will set up the table.”

The coachman went to the back of the carriage. From a compartment he removed a narrow table with legs that swung down, like a trestle. To his surprise, Le Sourd realized that this was going to be inserted inside the carriage. While the coachman busied himself with this task, he looked around him.

There was no doubt that the square was the most delightful place in Paris. With its four equal sides of perfectly matched brick and stone, the terraced mansions gazed softly down upon the rows of clipped green trees inside which lay the four lawns. At the street level, the arcades with their rounded arches turned the ensemble into a huge cloister.

Unsurprisingly, everyone soon forgot that King Henry had meant these houses to be tenanted by honest working families. The rich, seeing the quality of the place, had taken it over for themselves. But ordinary folk could still enter its quiet arcades and enjoy the intimate peace of the great square.

Having inserted the table inside the carriage, the coachman drew out a wicker basket from the same compartment and proceeded to lay the table. When he had done that, he took a wooden pail, went to a nearby pump and filled it so that the horse could drink. It was clear that he was now supposed to go off to a tavern and leave his mistress and her guest to their meal.

“Come,” she called to him quietly. “Let’s dine.”

It was really a most convenient arrangement. The table took up the space where he had been sitting. But by sitting beside his hostess, there was plenty of room to eat very comfortably.

“My husband invented the table and had a carpenter make it,” she informed him. “This is my husband’s one contribution to civilization.”

“And it works,” Le Sourd pointed out, in fairness to the absent gentleman.

Haricots, pressed duck, an excellent wine, several cheeses, fruit. It was a perfect little meal. Without giving away her name, or where she lived, she talked in general terms about her family and the château where her husband now was to make it quite clear that she was exactly the aristocrat he had taken her to be.

Did she do this regularly? he wondered. The coachman, whose discretion she clearly trusted, seemed to know exactly what to do.

“I feel I am taking part in a ritual,” he remarked.

“A ritual, monsieur, that takes place very rarely. Only when the heavens are aligned in a particular way.”

“Then I am honored indeed.”

“If you aren’t happy, you are always free to leave.”

“I prefer to stay.”

When they had finished, she asked him if he had observed how the
table and the basket fit into the compartment behind. He said he had. “Then perhaps you would be so kind as to return them to their place.” He easily repacked the basket. It took him a moment or two to master the catch that released the table, but soon he had that outside. It took him only a couple of minutes to stow everything safely in the back.