The Châtelet Apprentice (24 page)

As he walked, he pondered on the morning's events. It was perfectly clear that Monsieur de Noblecourt had his doubts about Lardin. He suspected some strange goings-on involving the couple and he made no secret of their marital discord.

As for his visit to Master Vachon, it proved at least two things. The first, which he had not thought particularly important at the time, was that Lardin had owned several leather doublets. The remains of the one that had been discovered in Montfaucon constituted an important piece of evidence concerning the commissioner's death and seemed to confirm the identity of the body. This observation was given a strange twist by the account of the informer at Rue des Blancs-Manteaux. The second thing was Lardin's order for four black satin capes. Why
four
Carnival outfits? Nicolas could perfectly well understand who three of them were intended for: one for Lardin, one for Semacgus and one for Descart. That was the right number for the ‘party' at the Dauphin Couronné. But who was the fourth one for? Louise Lardin had also gone out that Friday evening – Catherine was quite sure of this – wearing a black satin cape. Was it one of Master Vachon's or a different one? If it were one of the tailor's, why had the commissioner given it to his wife? There was something very mysterious here. Nicolas did not remember seeing the cape when he had done his search of the bedrooms in the Lardins' house. He would have to question Catherine again to find out what she had done with the garment, or else …

He crossed the Seine at Pont-Neuf and reached the crossroads at Bussy via Rue Dauphine. He liked this district, and he had often walked its length and breadth when he was staying at the Carmelite monastery. He thought fondly of Père
Grégoire, whom he would be seeing again the following Sunday at Monsieur de Noblecourt's luncheon party.

Nicolas thought it tactless to disturb the notary at lunchtime and so he headed towards the adjacent street of
Boucheries-Saint
-Germain. He knew what to expect there and had discovered that a Paris butcher's shop was a world of its own. The profession was governed by regulations and by the customs of a corporation that jealously guarded its rights and privileges. He had been surprised to learn that the prices were fixed by the Lieutenant General of Police, according to the going rate for cattle on the hoof. Selling weights and their accuracy were also checked by the authorities. Nicolas had had to deal with various affairs of this sort. The police cracked down severely on street vendors selling meat illegally with no indication of where it came from. The butchers always maintained that the meat was stolen, rotten and unhealthy, to which the street vendors retorted that they had their own customers and that their prices were cheaper than the master butchers' who were members of the guild. He had also had to deal with innumerable disputes involving the department of the Lieutenant General of Police, the butchers and their customers. The eternal problem of ‘making up the weight' exercised the people both in the central districts and the
faubourgs
. They were particularly incensed when non-edible parts were sold along with the edible ones.

A stream of half-frozen blood in the street indicated to Nicolas that he had reached his goal. He went through a carriage entrance leading into an open alleyway with meat stalls. In the next courtyard was a slaughterhouse, a scalding room and a melting house, and beyond that stables containing cattle and sheep. The butchers were seeing to the preparation and sale of
offal, parts that the ordinary people liked because they were cheap.

Nicolas was on his way to eat at an establishment owned by Monsieur Desporges, part of which had been rented out to a tripe seller who welcomed her hungry customers around a few tables with benches on either side. She served tripe, offal, trotters, liver, lungs and spleen, cooked in many different ways. Nicolas ordered a bowl of tripe, which he was extremely fond of, but the hostess, old Madame Morel, had joined the long list of the young man's admirers and she quietly advised him to try another of her specialities, a fricassee of pigs' trotters. She was careful who she offered it to because she was not allowed to serve this meat, which only pork butchers had the right to sell. The trotters were cooked in stock, which according to her made them more tender. The meat then came away from the bone. Then it would be seasoned with spices and chopped onions and fried in fat and butter that had been melted until it was almost brown. It then had to be fricasseed vigorously and quickly, and stirred about twenty times. After it had been reduced, a ladleful of stock would moisten the whole thing in no time at all. A little mustard would be diluted in some verjuice and vinegar to bind it, before the whole dish was served piping hot.

It was ready in an instant and Nicolas followed her
recommendation
with such enthusiasm that he had three extra helpings. He felt restored, warmed up and ready to face a notary. This wholesome fare always gave him renewed energy. He enjoyed the habits of ordinary people. He had often shared their company and part of his charm lay in his effortless ability to find the right word or to behave in just the right way and this earned him their loyal support, even though he was not always aware of it.

Nicolas had been wise to get his strength back. Master Duport was one of those self-important people who was not easily taken in. He began with a flat refusal to reply to Nicolas's polite questions about Descart's financial status and the existence of a will. The scrivener was almost on the point of calling in one of his clerks to throw the intruder out onto the street. Though he would have preferred to use his own authority to get his way with this man, Nicolas had to resign himself to brandishing Monsieur de Sartine's warrant, after which the notary agreed, albeit with bad grace, to respond to Nicolas's questions. Yes, Monsieur Descart was a man of considerable wealth, made up of land and farms situated in the Hurepoix, at Saint-Sulpice-
de-Favières
, as well as of bonds in the Hôtel de Ville. He also had a significant sum of money in a bank account. Yes, he had drawn up his last will and testament, only quite recently, at the end of 1760. It appointed Marie Lardin, the commissioner's daughter, as sole legatee.

Nicolas was stunned by what he had just heard. Shortly before his death, then, Descart had felt the need to put his affairs in order. But instead of doing so to benefit his only known relative, Louise Lardin, he had chosen the commissioner's daughter, who was not his blood relation … It was difficult to separate this fact from Lardin's attempt to communicate after he had disappeared by means of that cryptic message. From beyond the grave each of them was sending a mysterious signal to the living. Why had Descart made a will in favour of sweet little Marie, who was nothing to him? Had he, that hypocritical and depraved bigot, been captivated by her charm and innocence?
Or was there something more sinister lurking beneath the apparently unassuming character of the young woman? Had Descart wished simply to prevent his money falling into his mistress's clutches, once her unfaithful and rapacious nature had revealed itself to him? None of this implied that he was expecting to die.

Nicolas was still thinking about this as he hurried back across the Seine and along to the Châtelet. Bourdeau was not there: he had gone to escort Semacgus to the Bastille. He had left a message giving a concise summary of the results of Sanson's examination of Descart's body. The victim had been poisoned by a pastry filled with arsenic. Descart had probably fallen unconscious before being finished off by asphyxiation, smothered with a cushion. Nicolas was struck by the sophisticated nature of this murder which combined two ways of killing, plus some careful rearrangement intended to cloud if not conceal the cause of death. Everything seemed destined to be masked, even the Grim Reaper himself, like some Carnival nightmare.

He left the Châtelet and for the first time since he had got back to Paris felt at a loose end. It was already late; darkness was falling and there was a bitter chill, made even keener by a strengthening wind. He allowed himself a stop at Stohrer's, the pastry shop, in Rue Montorgueil, where he gorged on his favourite
babas
. When he got back to Monsieur de Noblecourt's he found Marion near the fire, watching over the double broth that the magistrate took before going to bed. He was having supper in town. Nicolas retired to his new domain. He put away the little luggage he had, got undressed and chose a book at random from all those around him. It was
Vert-Vert
by Gresset. He opened it and came across the following lines:

He smiled bitterly. Suddenly the sadness caused by Isabelle's letter and the gloomy thoughts it had engendered in him resurfaced. Along with that came the vision of the elegant young man in Master Vachon's mirror, the image that was both his and someone else's, at once seductive and threatening. Nicolas let go of the book and stretched out. The candle in the alcove began to smoke. A long black column rose up to the beams, gradually creating a stain on their lacquered surface. He looked at it thoughtfully. He got up to snuff out the wick after moistening his fingers, then lay down again, haunted by an idea that he could not quite pinpoint, but which was gradually forming. The mark on the beams reminded him of something – and suddenly he saw again the dark mark on the top of the skull of the corpse in Montfaucon. With this discovery he fell asleep.

Nicolas had let Saturday drift by, enjoying his idleness. After getting up late he took advantage of the splendid weather to wander around Paris. His meanderings had taken him to churches and then to the Old Louvre, where he had admired the shop windows full of prints and paintings for sale. In the late afternoon he had eaten in a tavern near Les Halles. On his way back he had been unable to avoid gangs of children shouting and hitting him with a ‘rat bat'.
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He'd had to call on the services of a brusher to remove the chalk marks from all over his clothes. He had slipped back into the house utterly exhausted, and had read until late.

The next morning he had attended High Mass in
Saint-Eustache
, a church he loved for its vast proportions and the resonance it gave to the mighty roar of the great organ. It was well past midday by the time he returned to Rue Montmartre. He was greeted by a harmonious sound. He tiptoed into Monsieur de Noblecourt's library. It had been temporarily turned into a music room. Dressed in a loose-fitting morning gown with a paisley pattern, the head of the household was accompanying two other musicians on the violin. Much to Nicolas's surprise the first of them, also playing the violin, was Père Grégoire. Nicolas had never been aware that music was one of his passions. The other, small with sharp features and an outrageously blond wig, had to be Monsieur Balbastre, the organist of Notre-Dame, who was playing away on a harpsichord. His friend Pigneau stood near the instrument, lighting up the scroll of the score with a sconce. Slightly embarrassed at being the only person in the audience, Nicolas sat down in a
bergère
and became engrossed in the music. At first it was the expressions and gestures of the performers that held his attention. Frowning and flushed with concentration, Monsieur de Noblecourt seemed to be struggling. Sometimes, however, he would make appreciative sounds at the unexpected improvisations of the harpsichordist. Père Grégoire looked even more absorbed in the performance of this task than he was when measuring out the amounts of herbal extracts or brews for the Carmelite liqueur. He was keeping time by tapping the floor with his right foot. For his part Balbastre was the perfect picture of a virtuoso. He played his instrument almost without looking at the score and his fingers flew over the soundboards of the harpsichord in a frothy shower of muslin cuffs.

The trio's sonata was coming to an end. After the performance there was a long silence. Monsieur de Noblecourt let out a great sigh before removing his wig and wiping his brow with a large handkerchief he'd taken from his sleeve. Suddenly he saw Nicolas. There followed a moment of confusion, of exchanges of greetings and introductions. Nicolas embraced Père Grégoire and Pigneau, who were both delighted to see their friend again. Nicolas greeted Monsieur Balbastre with all the respect owed to a celebrity by a young man no one had ever heard of. He blushed with embarrassment when introduced as Monsieur de Sartine's ‘promising new confidant'. Marion and Poitevin interrupted these courtesies by bringing some wine, and each guest sat down and began cheerfully to clink glasses with his neighbour. Pigneau, who was in the habit of discussing with Nicolas the quality of the concerts they went to, questioned him about what he had heard. In this way the young man learnt that the trio had been playing a sonata for bass continuo by Monsieur Leclair. Balbastre cut the seminarist short to stir up a controversy about the lower registers of the accompaniment.

At that moment Marion re-entered the library and approached her master to whisper something in his ear.

‘Why, of course!' replied Monsieur de Noblecourt, ‘bring him in and lay a place for our unexpected guest.'

A dashing gentleman barely older than Nicolas entered the library. Greeting the gathering with a casual wave of his hat, he handed his sword to Poitevin, who had shown him in. He stationed himself at the harpsichord, having lovingly stroked the lacquer of the bentside, and took stock of the audience. Even his white wig could not disguise his youthful, playful look. His face with its heavy brows, Roman nose and well-defined lips of ironic
cast was pleasant to look at. His coat of very pale pastel blue reminded Nicolas of the one Master Vachon had offered him.

‘My friends, I am delighted to introduce to you Monsieur de La Borde,
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First Groom of His Majesty's Bedchamber.'