Paris: The Novel Page 2

  Joséphine Tessier had studied many men in her life. It was her profession. In her opinion, men were often discontented because their occupation did not suit them. Of others, one could even say that they had been born at the wrong time—a natural knight in armor, for instance, trapped in a modern world. But Jules Blanchard was perfectly made for nineteenth-century France.

  When the French Revolution had broken the power of the king and the aristocracy—the ancien régime—it had left the field open to the rich, the haute bourgeoisie. Napoléon had created his personal version of the Roman Empire, with his triumphal arches and his quest for glory, but he had also taken care to appeal to the solid middle classes. And so it had remained after his fall.

  True, some conservatives wanted to return to the ancien régime, but the only time the restored Bourbon monarchy tried that, in 1830, the Parisians had kicked out the Bourbon king and installed Louis Philippe, a royal cousin of the Orléans line, as their constitutional and very bourgeois monarch.

  On the other side, there were radicals, even socialists, who hated the new bourgeois France, and wanted another revolution. But when they took to the streets in 1848, thinking their time had come, it was not a socialist state, but a conservative republic that emerged, followed by an ornately bourgeois empire under Napoléon III—the great emperor’s nephew—that again favored the bankers and stockbrokers, the property men and larger merchants. Men like Jules Blanchard.

  These were the men to be seen riding with their beautifully dressed women in the Bois de Boulogne on the city’s western edge, or gathering for elegant evenings at the huge new Opéra house, where Jules and his wife liked to be seen. There was no doubt, Joséphine thought, that Jules Blanchard had the best of the present century.

  Why, he’d even had her.

  “What’s the matter, my friend?” she gently inquired.

  Jules considered. He knew that he was lucky. And he valued what he had. He loved the old family house at Fontainebleau, with its enclosed courtyard, his grandfather’s First Empire furniture and leather-bound books. He loved the elegant royal château in the town, older and more modest than the vast palace of Versailles. On Sundays he would walk in the nearby Forest of Fontainebleau, or ride out to the village of Barbizon, where Corot had painted landscapes filled with the haunting light of the River Seine. In Paris, he was happy trading in the great medieval wholesale market of Les Halles, with its brightly colored stalls, and bustle, and the scents of cheeses, herbs and fruits from every region of France. He was proud of his intimate knowledge of the city’s ancient churches, and its ancient inns with their deep wine cellars.

  Yet it wasn’t enough.

  “I’m bored,” he said. “I want to change my career.”

  “To what, my dear Jules?”

  “I have a plan,” he confided. “It will astonish you.” He made a sweeping gesture. “A new business for the new Paris.”

  When Jules Blanchard spoke of the new Paris, he didn’t mean only the broad boulevards of Baron Haussmann. Even from the days of France’s great Gothic cathedrals, Paris had liked to think of herself—at least in northern Europe—as the leader of fashion. Parisians had not been pleased when, a quarter century ago, in a dramatic palace of glass built for the occasion, London had captured international headlines with her Great Exhibition of all that was new and exciting in the world. New York had followed soon after. But by 1855, Paris was ready to fight back, and her new emperor, Napoléon III, had opened her Universal Exposition of industry and the arts, in a stupendous hall of iron, glass and stone on the Champs-Élysées. A dozen years later Paris did it again, this time on the vast parade ground on the Left Bank known as the Champ de Mars. This 1867 exhibition was the biggest the world had ever seen, featuring many marvels, including Siemens’s first electric dynamo.

  “I want a department store,” said Jules. New York had department stores: Macy’s was thriving. London had Whiteleys in the suburbs and a few cooperatives, but nothing dramatic yet. Paris was already ahead in size and style, with Bon Marché and Printemps. “It’s the future,” Jules declared. And he began to describe the store he had in mind, a great palace selling all kinds of merchandise to a huge audience. “Style, keen prices, right in the center of the city,” he explained with growing excitement, while Joséphine watched him with fascination.

  “I never knew you could be so passionate,” she remarked.

  “Oh.”

  “I mean, in the head.” She smiled.

  “Ah.”

  “And what does your father think?”

  “He will not hear of it.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Wait.” He sighed. “What else can I do?”

  “You would not go off on your own?”

  “Difficult. He controls the money. And to disrupt the family …”

  “You love your father, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Be kind to your father and to your wife, my dear Jules. Be patient.”

  “I suppose so.” He was silent for a while. Then he brightened. “But I still want to call my daughter Joséphine.”

  Then, explaining that he must get back to his wife, he got up to go. She laid a restraining hand on him.

  “You must not do this, my friend. For my sake, also. Don’t do it.”

  But without committing himself, he paid the waiter and left.

  After he had gone, Joséphine was thoughtful. Did he really mean to call his daughter Joséphine? Or, remembering a foolish promise made long ago, had he just played a pretty scene, putting her in a position where he could be sure she would free him from that promise? She smiled to herself. It didn’t matter. Even if the latter, it was kind and clever of him.

  She liked clever men. And it amused her that she was still left wondering what he would do.

  The tall woman paused. She was gaunt. Beside her stood a dark-haired boy of nine, his hair cut short, his eyes set wide apart. He looked intelligent.

  The widow Le Sourd was forty, but whether it was the drab clothes that hung loosely from her angular body, or that her long hair was gray and unkempt, or that she had a stony face, she seemed much older. And if she looked grim, it was for a reason.

  The night before, not for the first time, her son had asked her a question. And today she had decided that it was time to tell him the truth.

  “Let us go in,” she said.

  The great cemetery of Père Lachaise occupied the slopes of a hill about three miles to the east of the Tuileries Gardens, from which Father Xavier and the little Roland had departed an hour before. It was an ancient burial ground, but in recent times it had become famous. All kinds of great men—statesmen, soldiers, artists and composers—were buried there, and visitors often came to admire their tombs. But it was not a grave that the widow Le Sourd had brought her son to see.

  They entered by the gateway on the city side, below the hill. In front of them stretched tree-lined alleys and cobbled walks, like little Roman roads, between the sepulchers. It was quiet. Apart from the guardian at the gate, they had the place almost to themselves. The widow knew exactly where she was going. The boy did not.

  First, just to the right of the entrance, they paused to view the monument that had made the place famous, the tall shrine of the medieval lovers Abelard and Héloïse. But they did not stay there long. Nor did the widow bother with any of Napoléon’s famous marshals, nor Corot the painter’s recent grave, nor even the graceful tomb of Chopin the composer. For they would have been distractions. Before she told her son the truth, she had to prepare him.

  “Jean Le Sourd was a brave man.”

  “I know, Maman.” His father had been a hero. Every night, before he went to sleep, he would go over in his mind everything he could remember about the tall, kindly figure who told him stories and played ball with him. The man who would always bring bread to the table, even when Paris was starving. And if sometimes the memories became a little hazy, there was always the photograph of a handsome
man, dark-haired and with eyes set wide apart, like himself. Sometimes he dreamed of him. They would go on adventures together. Once they were even fighting in a street battle, side by side.

  For several minutes his mother led him up the slope in silence until, below the crown of the hill, she turned right onto a long alley. Then she spoke again.

  “Your father had a noble soul.” She looked down at her son. “What do you think it means, Jacques, to be noble?”

  “I suppose …”—the boy considered—“to be brave, like the knights who fought for honor.”

  “No,” she said harshly. “Those knights in armor were not noble at all. They were thieves, tyrants, who took all the wealth and power they could. They called themselves noble to puff themselves up with pride, and pretend that their blood was better than ours, so they could do what they liked. Aristocrats!” She grimaced. “A false nobility. And the worst of them all was the king. A filthy conspiracy that went on for centuries.”

  Young Jacques knew that his mother revered the French Revolution. But after the death of his father she had always avoided speaking about such things, as though they belonged in some place of darkness that she did not want to enter.

  “Why did it last so long, Maman?”

  “Because there was a criminal power even worse than the king. Do you know what that was?”

  “No, Maman.”

  “It was the Church, Jacques. The king and his aristocrats supported the Church, and the priests told the people to obey them. That was the bargain of the ancien régime. An enormous lie.”

  “Didn’t the Revolution change that?”

  “The year 1789 was more than a revolution. It was the birth of Freedom itself. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: these are the noblest ideas that men can have. The ancien régime fought against them, so the Revolution cut off their heads. It was absolutely necessary. But more than that. The Revolution released us from the prison that the Church had made. The power of the priests was broken. People were free to deny God, to be free of superstition, and follow reason. It was a great step forward for mankind.”

  “What happened to the priests, Maman? Were they killed, too?”

  “Some.” She shrugged. “Not enough.”

  “But the priests are still here today.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “So were all the men of the Revolution atheists?”

  “No. But the best were.”

  “You do not believe in God, Maman?” asked Jacques. His mother shook her head. “Did my father?” he pursued.

  “No.”

  The boy was thoughtful for a moment.

  “Then nor shall I,” he said.

  The path was curving toward the east, drawing closer to the outer edge of the cemetery.

  “What happened to the Revolution, Maman? Why didn’t it last?”

  His mother shrugged again.

  “There was confusion. Napoléon came to power. He was half revolutionary, and half a Roman emperor. He nearly conquered all Europe before he was defeated.”

  “Was he an atheist?”

  “Who knows. The Church never got its power back, but he found the priests useful to him—like most rulers.”

  “And after him, things went back to how they were before?”

  “Not exactly. All the monarchs of Europe were terrified of revolution. For thirty years they managed to hold the forces of freedom down. The conservatives in France—the old monarchists, the rich bourgeois, everyone who feared change—they all supported conservative governments. The people had no power, the poor grew poorer. But the spirit of freedom never died. In 1848, revolutions started breaking out all over Europe, including here. Fat old Louis Philippe, the king of the bourgeois classes, was so frightened that he got in a taxi and disappeared to England. We became a Republic again. And we elected the nephew of Napoléon to lead it.”

  “But he made himself emperor.”

  “He wanted to be like his uncle. After two years leading the Republic, he made himself emperor—and since the great Napoléon had left a son who died, he called himself Napoléon III.” She shook her head. “Oh, he was a good showman. Baron Haussmann rebuilt Paris. There was a splendid new opera house. Huge exhibitions to which half the world came. But the poor were no better off. And then, after ten years, he made a stupid mistake. He started a war with Germany. But he was no general, and he lost it.”

  “I remember when the Germans came to Paris.”

  “They smashed our armies and surrounded Paris. It went on for months. We nearly starved. You did not know it, but at the end, the little stews I fed you were made of rats. You were only five, but luckily you were strong. Finally, when they bombarded us with heavy artillery, there was nothing more we could do. Paris surrendered.” She sighed. “The Germans went back to Germany, but they made us give up Alsace and Lorraine—those beautiful regions along our side of the River Rhine, with their vineyards and mountains. France was humiliated.”

  “It was after that when my father was killed. You always told me he died fighting. But I never really understood. The teachers in school say—”

  “Never mind what they say,” his mother cut in. “I will tell you what happened.” She paused nonetheless, and upon her face there briefly appeared the ghost of a tender smile.

  “You know,” she continued, “when I wanted to marry, my family were not very happy. We were quite poor, but my father was a schoolteacher, and he wanted me to marry an educated man. Jean Le Sourd was the son of a laborer, with little formal schooling. He worked at a printers, setting type. But he had an enormous curiosity.”

  “So what happened?”

  “My father decided to educate my future husband. And your father didn’t mind. In fact, he was a wonderful student, and soon he was reading everything. In the end, I think he had read more than any man I know. And it was through his study that he came to the beliefs for which he died.”

  “He believed in the Revolution.”

  “Your father came to understand that even the French Revolution was not enough. By the time you were born, he knew that the only way forward was the absolute rule of the people and the end of private property. And many brave men thought the same thing.”

  On their right now, behind some trees, they could see the cemetery’s outer wall. They were almost at their destination.

  “Four years ago,” she continued, “it seemed the chance had come. Napoléon III was defeated. The government, such as it was, rested in the hands of the National Assembly, which had fled to the country palace of Versailles. The deputies were so conservative, we thought they might decide upon another monarchy. The Assembly feared Paris, you see, because we had our own militia and a lot of cannon up on the hill of Montmartre. They sent troops to take our cannon. But the troops joined us. And suddenly it happened: Paris decided to govern itself. That was the Commune.”

  “My teachers say it didn’t go well.”

  “They lie. It was a wonderful time, that early spring. Everything functioned. The Commune took over Church property. They started giving women equal rights. We flew the Red Flag of the people. Men like your father were organizing whole districts like workers’ states. The Assembly at Versailles was terrified.”

  “Then the Assembly attacked Paris?”

  “They were stronger by then. They had army troops. The Germans even returned prisoners of war to strengthen the Versailles army against the people. It was disgusting. We defended the gates of Paris. We put up barricades in the street. The poor of the city fought like heroes. But in the end, they were too strong for us. The final week of May—Bloody Week—was the worst …”

  The widow Le Sourd stopped speaking now for a few moments. They had come to the southeastern corner of the cemetery now, where the path rose more steeply as it curved to the left up the central hill. To the right of the cobbled walk, down a slope, stood the blank stone face of the graveyard’s outer wall, with a small, empty triangle of ground in front of it. It was a nondescript little corner of the pl
ace that had never been given any dignity or name.

  “In the end,” the widow went on quietly, “the last area to hold out was the poor quarter of Belleville just nearby. Some of our people were fighting up there.” She gestured to the tombs on the crown of the hill behind them. “Finally, it was over. The last hundred or so of the Communards were captured. One of them was your father.”

  “You mean, they took him to prison?”

  “No. There was an officer in charge of the troops. He ordered them to take the prisoners down there.” She pointed to the blank stretch of wall. “Then he lined up his troops and ordered them to shoot the prisoners. Just like that. So this is where your father died, and that is how. Now you know.”

  Then the tall, gaunt widow Le Sourd suddenly started to weep. And her son watched. But she soon corrected herself and gazed stonily, for a minute or so, at the blank wall where her marriage ended.

  “Let us go now,” she said. And they began to walk back.

  They were nearly in sight of the entrance to the cemetery when Jacques interrupted her thoughts.

  “What happened to the officer who had them shot like that?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You know this? You know who it was?”

  “I discovered. He is an aristocrat, as you might expect. There are still plenty of them in the army. His name is the Vicomte de Cygne.” She shrugged. “He has a son, younger than you, called Roland.”

  Jacques Le Sourd was silent for a minute.

  “Then one day I shall kill his son.” It was said quietly, but it was final.

  His mother did not respond. She walked on a dozen paces. Was she going to tell him not to think of vengeance? Not at all. Her love had been passionate, and passion takes no prisoners. The righteous strike down their enemies. It is their destiny.

  “Have patience, Jacques,” she answered. “Wait until the time is right.”

  “I shall wait,” the boy said. “But Roland de Cygne will die.”

  Chapter Two

  • 1883 •

  The day started badly. His little brother Luc had disappeared.