The Châtelet Apprentice (3 page)

‘As you wish, but you'll have to wait.'

The usher lit his pipe and then withdrew into a silence that Nicolas would dearly have liked to break in order to allay his anxiety. He was reduced to contemplating the wall. Towards eleven o'clock, the room filled with people. A small man entered, to the accompaniment of polite whisperings. He was
dressed in magistrate's robes with a leather portfolio under his arm, and he disappeared through a door that had been left ajar, allowing a glimpse of a brightly lit drawing room. A few moments later the usher rapped on the door and he, too, disappeared. When he came back, he beckoned Nicolas to go in.

The magistrate's gown lay on the floor and the Lieutenant General of Police, dressed in a black coat, stood in front of a desk made of rare wood with gleaming bronze ornaments. He was reading the Marquis de Ranreuil's letter with intense concentration. The office was an ill-proportioned room, the bareness of the stone and the tiled floor contrasting with the luxury of the furniture and the rugs. The light from several candelabra added to the weak rays of the winter sun and to the red glow from the Gothic fireplace, illuminating Monsieur de Sartine's pale face. He looked older than he was. His most striking feature was his high, bare forehead. His already greying natural hair was carefully combed and powdered. A pointed nose sharpened the features of a face lit from within by two
steel-grey
eyes that sparkled with irony. Though short of stature, his erect bearing emphasised his slenderness without detracting from his air of authority and dignity. Nicolas felt the beginnings of panic, but he remembered what he had been taught at school and controlled his trembling hands. Sartine was now fanning himself with the letter, examining his visitor inquisitively. The minutes seemed unending.

‘What is your name?' he asked suddenly.

‘Nicolas Le Floch, at your service, Monsieur.'

‘At my service, at my service … That remains to be seen.
Your godfather gives a very favourable account of you. You can ride, you are a skilled swordsman, you have a basic knowledge of the law … These are considerable attainments for a notary's clerk.'

Hands on hips, he slowly began to walk around Nicolas, who blushed at this inspection and its accompanying snorts and chuckles of laughter.

‘Yes, yes, indeed, upon my word, it may well be true …' continued the Lieutenant General.

Sartine examined the letter thoughtfully, then went up to the fireplace and threw it in. It flared up with a yellow flame.

‘May we depend on you, Monsieur? No, don't reply. You don't know what this will mean for you. I have plans for you and Ranreuil is handing you to me. Do you understand? No, you understand nothing, nothing at all.'

He went behind his desk and sat down, pinched his nose, then examined Nicolas once more, who was sweltering as he stood with his back to the roaring fire.

‘Monsieur, you are very young and I am taking a considerable risk by speaking to you as openly as I do. The King's police needs honest people and I myself need faithful servants who will blindly obey me. Do you follow me?'

Nicolas was careful not to agree.

‘Ah! I see you are quick to understand.'

Sartine went towards the casement window and seemed fascinated by what he saw.

‘So much cleaning-up to do …' he mumbled. ‘With meagre means at our disposal. No more, no less. Don't you agree?'

Nicolas had turned to face the Lieutenant General.

‘You will need to improve your knowledge of the law,
Monsieur. You will devote some hours each day to this, as a form of diversion. You will have to work hard, indeed you will.'

He hurried across to his desk and grabbed a sheet of paper. He motioned to Nicolas to sit down in the great red damask armchair.

‘Write. I want to see whether you have a good hand.'

Nicolas, frightened out of his wits, concentrated as best he could. Sartine thought for a few moments, removed a small gold snuff-box from his coat pocket and took out a pinch of snuff which he delicately placed on the back of his hand. He sniffed first with one nostril and then the other, closed his eyes in contentment and sneezed loudly, sending black particles flying all around him and onto Nicolas, who withstood the storm. The Lieutenant gasped with pleasure as he blew his nose.

‘Come, write: “Monsieur, I think it appropriate for the King's service and my own that as from today you should take as your personal secretary Nicolas Le Floch, to be paid from my account. I should be obliged if you would provide him with board and lodging and submit a detailed account of his work to me.” Take down the address: “To M. Lardin, Commissioner of Police at the Châtelet, at his residence, Rue des
Blancs-Manteaux
.”'

Then, swiftly taking hold of the letter, he held it up to his face and examined it.

‘So, a somewhat bastard hand, yes, somewhat bastard,' he declared, laughing. ‘But it will do for a beginner. It has flourish, it has movement.'

He returned to the armchair that Nicolas had vacated, signed the missive, sanded it, folded it, lit a piece of wax from embers
left in a brass pot, rubbed it over the paper and impressed his seal on it, all in the twinkling of an eye.

‘Monsieur, the functions I wish you to perform with Commissioner Lardin require integrity. Do you know what integrity is?'

For once Nicolas dived straight in.

‘It is, Monsieur, scrupulously fulfilling the duties of an honest man and …'

‘So he can speak! Good. He still sounds rather schoolboyish but he's not wrong. You will need to be discreet and cautious, be able to learn things and to forget things, and be capable of drawing secrets out of people. You will need to learn to write reports about the cases assigned to you, and in an elegant style. You will have to pick up on what you're told and guess what you're not told and, finally, to follow up the slightest lead you may have.'

He emphasised his words by raising his forefinger.

‘That is not all: you must also be a fair and faithful witness to all you see, without weakening its significance or altering it one jot. Bear in mind, Monsieur, that on your exactness will depend the life and honour of men who, even if they may be the lowest of the low, must be treated according to the rules. You really are very young. I wonder … But then again so was your godfather when at your age he crossed the lines under enemy fire at the siege of Philipsbourg. He was with Marshal Berwick, who lost his life in the action. And I myself …'

He seemed deep in thought and, for the first time, Nicolas saw a flicker of compassion light up his face.

‘You will need to be vigilant, swift, active, incorruptible. Yes, above all incorruptible.' (Here he hit the precious
marquetry of the desk with the palm of his hand). ‘Go, Monsieur,' concluded Sartine, rising to his feet, ‘from now on you are in the King's service. Ensure we are always satisfied with you.'

Nicolas bowed and took the letter that was held out to him. He was near the door when the mocking little voice stopped him with a laugh:

‘Really, Monsieur, you are admirably dressed for someone from Lower Brittany but you're in Paris now. Go to Vachon, my tailor in Rue Vieille-du-Temple. Get him to make you some coats, undergarments and accessories.'

‘I do not …'

‘On my account, Monsieur, on my account. Let it not be said that I left the godson of my friend Ranreuil in rags. A handsome godson, to tell the truth. Be off with you and always be at the ready.'

Nicolas was relieved when he reached the river again. He took in a deep breath of the cold air. He felt he had survived this first ordeal, even if some of what Sartine had said was bound to worry him a little. He rushed back to the monastery of the Discalced Carmelites, where the good monk was waiting for him whilst furiously pounding some innocent plants.

Grégoire had to temper Nicolas's enthusiasm and managed to dissuade him from going off to Commissioner Lardin's residence that very evening. Although the watchmen did their rounds the streets were dangerous; he was afraid that Nicolas might lose his way and attract trouble, especially in the dark.

He tried to dampen the young man's eagerness by asking for
a blow-by-blow account of his audience with the Lieutenant General of Police. He made Nicolas go over the smallest detail and drew out the proceedings by adding his own comments and asking more questions. He constantly alighted on points requiring further explanation.

Inwardly, and despite his original foreboding, Père Grégoire marvelled at how Monsieur de Sartine had so quickly been able to turn this unknown provincial boy, still overawed by the great city, into an instrument of his police force. He rightly assumed that beneath this near miracle, performed with such speed, there lurked a mystery whose complexities he did not understand. He therefore looked on Nicolas with amazement, as if he were a creature of his own making who was now suddenly beyond his control. It made him feel sad, but not bitter, and he punctuated his remarks with ‘God have mercy' and ‘This is beyond me', repeated
ad infinitum
.

By now it was time for supper, so the pair of them hurried off to the refectory. Then Nicolas prepared himself for a night's sleep that proved no more refreshing than the previous one. He had to try to restrain his imagination. It was often feverish and unbridled and played unfortunate tricks on him, either by making the future look bleak or, on the contrary, by putting out of his mind what should have been a reason for caution or concern. He resolved once more to improve himself and, for reassurance, told himself that he knew how to benefit from experience. However, his familiar anxiety soon returned with the thought that the following day he would be starting a new life that he had to avoid conjuring up in his imagination. On several occasions this idea gripped him just as he was dozing off, and it was very late by the time he finally fell into a deep sleep.

In the morning, after he had listened to Père Grégoire's final words of advice, Nicolas said goodbye and they promised to see each other again. The monk had indeed grown fond of the young man and would have been happy to continue to instruct him in the science of medicinal herbs. As the weeks had gone by his pupil's considerable qualities of observation and reflection had not escaped his notice. He made him write two letters, one to his guardian and the other to the marquis, and promised to have them sent. Nicolas did not dare add a message for Isabelle, vowing that he would make good use of his new-found freedom to do so a little later.

Almost as soon as Nicolas had stepped out of the doors of the monastery, Père Grégoire went to the altar of the Blessed Virgin and began to pray for him.

Nicolas took the same route as he had the day before, but this time there was a spring in his step. As he passed the Châtelet, he went over his interview with Monsieur de Sartine, a conversation in which he had hardly said a word. So, he was about to enter ‘the King's service' … Until then, he had not understood the full significance of these words. On reflection they had no meaning for him.

His schoolmasters and the marquis had mentioned the King, but all that seemed to belong to another world. He had seen engravings and a head on coins and he had mumbled his way through the unending list of sovereigns, which had meant no more to him than the succession of kings and prophets in the Old
Testament. In the collegiate church of Guérande he had sung the
Salve fac regum
on 25 August, Saint Louis's day. His intellect made no connection between the King, a figure in stained glass, the symbol of faith and fidelity, and the man of flesh and blood who ruled the State.

This thought occupied him until he reached Rue de Gesvres. There, aware once more of his surroundings, he was astonished to discover a street that crossed the Seine. When he came out on Quai Pelletier, he realised that it was a bridge lined with houses on either side. A young Savoyard chimney sweep waiting for custom, with a marmot on his shoulders, told him it was
Pont-Marie
. Looking back at this marvel several times, he reached Place de Grève. He recognised it from a print he had once seen, bought from a street hawker, which showed the torture and execution of Cartouche the highwayman before a large gathering of people in November 1721. As a child, he had daydreamed in front of it and imagined being part of the scene, lost in the crowd and caught up in endless adventures. With a shock he realised that his dream had become a reality: he was walking the stage where famous criminal executions had taken place.

Leaving the grain-port behind him to his right, he entered the heart of old Paris through the Saint-Jean arch at the Hôtel de Ville. When giving him directions, Père Grégoire had particularly warned him about this spot: ‘It's a grim and dangerous place,' he said, clasping his hands, ‘with everyone from Rue Saint-Antoine and the
faubourg
passing through.' The archway was the favourite haunt of thieves and fake beggars who lay in wait for passers-by under its solitary vault. He entered it cautiously, but only came across a water carrier
and some day labourers going towards Place de Grève to find work.

He reached the market of Saint-Jean via Rue de la Tissanderie and Place Baudoyer. It was, so his mentor had told him, the largest in Paris after Les Halles; he would recognise it by the fountain in its centre, near the guardhouse, and by the many people who came to collect water from the Seine.

Accustomed to the good-natured orderliness of provincial markets, here Nicolas had to force his way through total chaos. All the goods were piled higgledy-piggledy on the ground, except for the meat, which was on special slabs. In the warm autumn air the smells were strong, foul even, around the fish stalls. He found it hard to believe that there could be markets bigger or busier than this one. The space for the stallholders was very cramped and it was almost impossible to move around, but this did not prevent horse-drawn vehicles from driving through, threatening to crush anything in their path. People were haggling and arguing and from the accents and the clothes he realised that many peasants from the nearby countryside came here to sell their produce.