The Salt Smugglers (3 page)

One does not argue with a paleographer; one just lets him rattle on.

All this not with standing, the various catalogues had yielded up absolutely nothing under the letter D.

« What makes you so sure that his name is Du Bucquoy? I asked the assistant librarian who had been the last to arrive on the scene.

— Because I located his name among the manuscripts catalogued in the police archives: 1709, that would be his period, wouldn't it?

— Absolutely; it's the year that the count de Bucquoy made his third escape from prison.

— Du Bucquoy! ... That's the name he's listed under in the catalogue of manuscripts. Just follow me upstairs, and you'll be able to consult the material for yourself. »

I soon saw myself in possession of large folio bound in red morocco and containing the files of various police reports of the year 1709. The second file in the volume bore the following names: « Le Pileur, François Bouchard, lady de Boulanvilliers, Jeanne Massé, — Count du Buquoy. »

Now we've got the fox by the tail, — for indeed there's something here about an escape from the Bastille, and here is what M. d'Argenson of the police writes in his report to the minister M. de Pontchartrain:

« I have continued to search for the
alleged
count of Buquoy in all the locations you have been so kind as to indicate to me, but nothing has been learned of his whereabouts and I doubt he is in Paris. »

The information contained in these few lines struck me as at once most reassuring and most depressing. — On the one hand, the count de Buquoy or de Bucquoy, about whom I previously possessed only vague or questionable evidence, takes on an incontrovertible historical existence thanks to this item. No court of law could now justifiably classify him as a hero of a serial novel.

On the other hand, why does M. d'Argenson refer to him as the
alleged
count de Bucquoy?

Are we dealing with a fake Bucquoy here, — who is trying to pass himself off for the real thing ... for reasons we have no way of fathoming today?

Or are we dealing with the actual Bucquoy who may have hidden his real name behind a pseudonym?

With only this piece of evidence to go on, the truth escapes me, — and I imagine the material existence of this individual could easily be challenged by any lawyer worth his salt!

How to defend oneself against the prosecutor who would declare before the court that: « The count of Bucquoy is a fictional character, a figment of the
novelistic
imagination of his author! ... » and who would then go on to request a legal settlement involving, say, a million francs in fines! — with the sum going up every day a new installment was seized?

Although he can hardly pretend to wear the noble mantle of the scholar, every writer occasionally finds himself having to resort the scientific method; I therefore proceeded to scrutinize in detail the yellowed writing on the Holland paper of the report signed by d'Argenson. At the same level as the line that read: « I have continued to search for the alleged count ... » there were two words penciled into the margin, written in a swift and decisive hand: « Carry on. » Carry on what? — Carry on the search for the abbé de Bucquoi, no doubt ...

I was entirely of the same opinion.

All the same, when it comes to analyzing handwriting, there can be no certainty without comparison. On another page of the same report there was the following note:

« The lanterns have been hung in the passageways of
the Louvre in accordance with your instructions, and I shall see to it that they are lit every evening. »

This is how the sentence ended in the handwriting of the secretary who had copied the report. Following the words « lit every evening », a less professional hand had added: « quite so. »

And in the margin, evidently in the hand of the minister Pontchartrain, these same words again: « Carry on. »

The same comment here as for the abbé de Bucquoy.

But in all likelihood M. de Pontchartrain occasionally varied his pet phrases. Here is another example:

« I have informed the merchants of the Saint-Germain fair that they must obey the orders of the King, namely, that it is forbidden to serve food during those hours which, according to the rules of the Church, are reserved for fasting. »

In the margin next to this, there is but a single word in pencil: « Good. »

Further on, there is something about an
individual
who was arrested for having murdered a nun from Évreux. A silver seal, some bloody underclothing, and a
glove
were found on his person. — The individual turns out to be an abbé (yet another abbé!); but the charges against him were dropped, according to M. d'Argenson, because the abbé had apparently merely come to Versailles to look after some business affairs that were doing rather poorly, the proof being that he was still quite indigent. «Thus, he concludes, I think he can safely be regarded as a mere visionary who should be sent back to his province rather than being allowed to stay on in Paris where he is certain to become a ward of the city.»

The minister had penciled in the following comment : « Have a few words with him first. » A terrible phrase which may very well have changed the entire legal situation of the poor abbé.

And what if this were the abbé de Bucquoy himself! — No name, just the designation:
An individual.
— Further on, there is something about a certain Lebeau woman, wife of a certain Cardinal and a known prostitute ... His Excellency Pasquier is interested in her case ...

Penciled in the margin: « House of Detention. Give her six months. »

I don't know whether everybody would be as engrossed as I was by these horrific pages entitled
Miscellaneous Police Files
. This handful of facts paints the precise historical moment at which the elusive abbé walked the earth. And I who know this unlucky abbé, — perhaps better than any of my readers could, — I trembled as I turned the pages containing the merciless reports that changed hands between these two men, — d'Argenson and Pontchartrain.

At one point, after having assured the latter of his eternal loyalty, the former had added:

« I shall not waver in my devotion, no matter what rebukes and reprimands you care to honor me with ... »

The minister replies in the third person, this time using a pen. « He shall not be so honored whensoever he pleases; and I would be most unhappy to have to put his loyalties into question, since I cannot do the same with his abilities. »

There was another item in this file: « The Le Pileur Affair. » A dreadful drama unfolded under my eyes.

Have no fear, — this is not a
novel
.

The drama involves one of those terrible family
scenes that take place at the bedside of someone who has just expired. At this very moment, so nicely seized by the popular stage of yore, — when the chief heir, now casting aside his mournful mask of sorrow and contrition, proudly pulls himself up to his full height and says to the members of the household: « The keys? »

Here we have two heirs in the wake of the death of Binet de Villiers: the brother of the deceased and sole legatee, Binet de Basse-Maison, and the brother-in-law of the deceased, Le Pileur.

Two attorneys, one representing the deceased, the other Le Pileur, were drawing up the inventory with the help of a notary and a clerk. Le Pileur complained that they had not inventoried a certain number of papers that Binet de Basse-Maison claimed were of no importance. The latter warned Le Pileur not to provoke an incident and said he should just abide by the opinion of his attorney Châtelain.

But Le Pileur replied that he had absolutely no intention of consulting his attorney, that he knew what was afoot, and that as far as provoking an incident was concerned, he certainly was
a great enough gentleman
to know how to take things into his own hands.

Basse-Maison, irritated by these comments, went up to Le Pileur and, taking hold of him by the two buttonholes of his jerkin, said to him that he would thwart any attempt of his to do so; — Le Pileur put his hand to his sword, Basse-Maison did likewise ...

Observing a safe distance from each other, Basse-Maison and Le Pileur waved their swords around a bit. Le Pileur's wife threw herself between her husband and her brother; then the others came to her assistance and managed to drag each of the combatants into separate rooms, which were then locked.

A moment later there was the sound of a window opening; it was Le Pileur bellowing to his servants down in the courtyard: « Go fetch my nephews! »

The attorneys were in the process of writing up a legal report about the scuffle when the two nephews burst into the room, sabers in hand. — They were both officers of the Royal Guard; — pushing the servants aside and presenting the points of their swords to the two attorneys and the notary, they asked where Basse-Maison was.

Nobody would tell them, whereupon Le Pileur shouted from his room: « Over here, my boys! »

But the nephews had already battered down the door to the room at the left and were beating the hapless Binet de Basse-Maison, — who, according to the police file, was «
h
asthmatic », — with the flats of their sabers.

The notary, whose name was Dionis, thinking that Le Pileur's anger would have been appeased by this point and hoping that he would call off his nephews, decided to unlock him from his room while admonishing him to remain calm. Le Pileur lunged through the door, shouting: « Now you'll see some fireworks! » He rushed over to where his nephews were still beating Basse-Maison and planted his sword in the latter's belly.

The police file relating these events is followed by a more detailed dossier containing the depositions of thirteen witnesses, — the most
eminent
of whom were the two attorneys and the notary.

It should be observed that each of these thirteen
witnesses seems to have flinched at the crucial moment. As a result, none is absolutely certain that Le Pileur stabbed Basse-Maison to death with his sword.

The first attorney swears that he can only be sure of having heard the sound of saber blows in the distance.

The second attorney agrees with his colleague.

A manservant by the name of Barry is somewhat more forthcoming: — he saw the murder from a distant window; but he does not know whether it was Le Pileur or someone
dressed in light gray
who actually delivered the fatal blow to Basse-Maison's belly. Louis Calot, another servant, more or less corroborates this deposition.

The last of this courageous band and the least eminent of the thirteen, namely, the notary's clerk, claims to have seen Le Pileur's wife make off with some of the papers of the deceased. According to him, after the crime Le Pileur calmly went to the room where his wife was and « then went off in his carriage with her and the two men who had caused the ruckus. »

The moral of this instructive tale, at least as concerns the mores of the period, seems to be lacking, — that is, until one comes across the following remarkable conclusion at the end of the report: « There are few examples of an act of violence so odious and so criminal ... But given the fact that the heirs of the two dead brothers are at the same time the brothers-in-law of the murderer, it is safe to assume that this murder shall go unpunished and shall have no consequence other than to render his lordship Le Pileur more agreeable to the various propositions emanating from his co-legatees in those matters touching upon their mutual interests. »

It has been observed that during the
grand siècle
even the most minor clerk wrote in a style as florid as Bossuet's. It is impossible not to admire the marvelous detachment of this police report which evinces the hope that the murderer will become more amenable to the resolution of his affairs ... As for the murder, the theft of the papers, the saber blows (some of which were probably also directed at the attorneys), they will all go unpunished because nobody inside or outside the family will ever press charges: — M. Le Pileur being
too great a gentleman
not to get away with this
incident
...

This is a noble remnant of those feudal manners which lingers on well into the final years of
grand siècle
under Mme de Maintenon's reign.

There is no further mention of this affair, — which has allowed me to forget my poor abbé for a moment; — but even though it lacks the embellishments of a novel, this police report nonetheless provides a number of historical silhouettes that could be cut out and used as background figures. Already everything is coming to life for me, reconstructed by my mind's eye. I see d'Argenson in his office, Pontchartrain in his ministry, the Pontchartrain who (according to Saint-Simon) became an object of ridicule by calling himself
de
Pontchartrain and who, like many others, took his revenge against ridicule by inspiring terror.