The Châtelet Apprentice Read online

  It was almost five o’clock when they went their separate ways. Nicolas discovered that Sartine was not at his home; he was at Versailles, summoned by the King. He thought for a moment of going to visit Père Grégoire, but the Carmelite monastery was a long way off and it was getting dark, so he sensibly decided to return to Rue des Blancs-Manteaux.

  Things had definitely been going on in the house during his absence. No sooner had he got inside than again he heard two people talking, this time in Madame Lardin’s drawing room.

  ‘He knew everything, Louise,’ said a man’s voice.

  ‘I know, he made a terrible scene. But for heaven’s sake, Henri, explain why you were in that place at all.’

  ‘It was a trap. I can’t tell you anything … Did you hear a noise?’

  They stopped talking. A hand had been pressed against Nicolas’s mouth, another pushed him into the darkness and dragged him into the pantry. He could see nothing and heard only heavy breathing. He was released. He felt someone’s breath and smelled a fragrance that seemed familiar to him, then the footsteps receded and he found himself alone in the dark, watchful and motionless. A little later, the front door closed and he heard Louise Lardin returning to her rooms on the first floor. He waited a few moments more, then went up to his garret.

  Notes – CHAPTER III

  1. The name given to the morgue situated in the basement of the Châtelet.

  2. A card game in which the banker plays alone against any number of players.

  3. A meal in which the meat course and the dessert are served at the same time.

  IV

  DISCOVERIES

  ‘The more light we have, the less clearly we are able to see.’

  THE PRINCE DE LIGNE

  Tuesday 6 February 1761

  As soon as he awoke Nicolas tried to remember down to the very last detail the scene that he had witnessed on his return to Rue des Blancs-Manteaux. The fleeting fragrance he had smelled could only have belonged to Marie Lardin. If Catherine the cook had grabbed him like that he would instantly have recognised her from the mixture of odours that always clung to her clothes. But why should Marie have dragged him away like this? She doubtless wanted to protect him, but from whom? He had identified the voices of Descart and Madame Lardin, and the meaning of their words was by now quite clear to him. But more than one conclusion could be drawn from them. Descart had a special relationship with Louise Lardin. He had recounted the Dauphin Couronné incident and she had been outraged by his presence at that establishment. But why had he spoken of a ‘trap’? Was it a way of exonerating himself for having been there?

  For Nicolas, this brief exchange took on a special significance in the light of the attack that was only intended to protect him. The fact that someone – Marie Lardin – had considered he was in danger simply for having overheard the conversation gave a disturbing dimension to all this. From now on his best option would be to play the innocent and disguise his curiosity from everyone in the house. They would all realise soon enough – if they had not done so already – that he had been appointed by Sartine to investigate the commissioner’s disappearance.

  While he was thinking, Nicolas caught himself humming an aria from Rameau’s Dardanus. This had not happened to him since he’d left Guérande. Life was, it seemed, returning to normal. He was impatient to start his day’s work. He had joined the police without deliberately choosing it as a career. A stranger to Paris, he had been taken in hand by Sartine and one thing had led to another. What was happening now, with its twists and turns, surprises, discoveries and sometimes pitfalls, filled him with a new energy, even if some questions remained unanswered and he still felt doubtful when he was in the thick of it. Semacgus’s interrogation left him with a confused feeling of bitterness. He wondered whether he should remain at the Lardins’ house when all the indications were that one day he would be obliged to question them, too.

  As he finished his quick wash in ice-cold water, he was suddenly struck by the silence in the house. Admittedly it was a quiet neighbourhood but it suddenly seemed to be muffled, as if under a blanket. A glance outside gave him the explanation: day was breaking and the dawn cast a yellowish light over a garden covered in snow.

  The canon’s watch struck half past seven. When Nicolas went downstairs Catherine was not there, but she had left a pot of soup on the stove which he knew was for him. Freshly baked bread awaited him on the table. Every Tuesday the cook left the house early with two enormous wicker baskets to go to the Saint-Jean market. She walked as fast as her enormous bulk allowed to take advantage of the early hour. With a little luck she might find fish so fresh it was still alive; the barges transporting it from the Lower Seine were equipped with saltwater tanks for the pick of the catch.

  He was about to go out when he heard Louise Lardin calling him. She was sitting at the desk in the library, writing in semi-darkness. Only a candlestick, its candle almost spent, lit up her tired and haggard face.

  ‘Good morning, Nicolas. I came down very early. I couldn’t sleep. Guillaume has still not returned. I didn’t hear you come in yesterday evening. What time was it?’

  The concern was new and the question direct.

  ‘Well after eight o’clock,’ said Nicolas, lying.

  She gave him a quizzical look and he noticed for the first time that her usual smile was missing. How hard her tight-lipped face could appear, with her hair undone and no make-up.

  ‘Where can he be?’ she asked. ‘Did you see Bourdeau yesterday? No one tells me anything.’

  ‘The search is continuing, Madame. You may be sure of that.’

  ‘Nicolas, you must tell me everything.’

  She had got up and was now smiling. Forgetting how scantily dressed she was, she resumed her normal seductive pose. She reminded him of the enchantress Circe and his mind began to wander. He imagined himself suddenly transformed into a woodpecker like King Picus, or a swine like Ulysses’ companions. He did not think Catherine’s soup would protect him from Louise’s evil spells. He was unable to keep a straight face at these mythological musings, which reminded him a little of his school days.

  ‘So you find this amusing, do you?’ asked Louise Lardin.

  Nicolas pulled himself together.

  ‘No, Madame, not at all. Excuse me but I must leave.’

  ‘Go, Monsieur, go. No one is stopping you. Perhaps you will bring back good news. But, the more I look at you, the more convinced I am that I can expect nothing from you.’

  He was on his way out when she called him back and held out her hand.

  ‘Excuse me, Nicolas. I didn’t mean that. I’m anxious and worried. You are my friend, are you not?’

  ‘I am your servant, Madame.’

  He hurriedly took leave of this woman whose obvious duplicity intrigued him. He could not identify exactly what kinds of feelings she aroused in him.

  The snow had stopped falling, there was a sharp chill, but the day promised to be fine. At police headquarters Nicolas met Monsieur de Sartine on the staircase. The Lieutenant General was impatient and in a hurry and Nicolas was forced to give him an account of the initial results of his investigations right there on the steps. If he had been expecting some flattering approbation he was soon disappointed and had to make do with a vague grunt.

  Nicolas did, however, venture to request permission to borrow a mount from the official stables as he wanted to make his way to Vaugirard to question Dr Descart. The answer, delivered in the haughtiest of tones by a furious Sartine, was that having been given a commission, a move that was perhaps already proving ill-advised, Nicolas should simply make good use of it, without worrying people with trivial details. He could take one, a score or fourscore horses, donkeys or mules, as long as it was in the King’s service.

  Mortified by this reply, Nicolas went off to meet Bourdeau. He recounted this altercation, but regretted doing so immediately, as if he had let slip a personal weakness. The inspector listened with amusement and attempted to convince
him of the insignificance of the incident, which had damaged nothing more than his self-esteem. Nicolas blushed and readily agreed.

  Bourdeau pointed out that Monsieur de Sartine had dozens of cases on his hands and that Lardin’s disappearance was probably not the most important of them. He also had to answer to the Comte de Saint Florentin, a minister of the King’s household, whose responsibilities included Paris, and above him the chief ministers, who all wanted a say and, lastly, the King himself to whom he had direct access and from whom he received his orders. Could there possibly be a more delicate post, with more constant worries? This was ample justification for his occasional changes of mood and for an immoderate love of … wigs. What were they, in comparison, other than mere cogs in the immense police machine? Nicolas should learn his lesson and get on with the job.

  Still smarting, the young man took the hint and changed the subject, thanking heaven for having granted him a companion who knew how to tell him the truth. After giving Bourdeau the task of reading the latest reports he went to the stables to choose a horse – there were no mules or donkeys to be seen – and set off for Vaugirard.

  Nicolas crossed the Seine via Pont-Royal and arrived at the Esplanade des Invalides. There he stopped, awestruck by the splendour of the scene. The sun cast slanting shafts of light through dark clouds. With the help of the wind, an invisible ballet master directed constantly shifting and alternating plays of darkness and light that swept across this immense panorama. The curtain of shadow pierced by flashes of light gave way at each moment to its opposite: the brightness then flickered, swallowed up by a dark fiery glow.

  In the middle of all this, majestically towering over the scene, the dome of the church of Saint-Louis seemed to swivel on its stone axis as it reflected the flitting shadows. The radiance of the dome was further highlighted by the horizontal line of the rooftops, their wet slates gleaming where the snow had already slid down. White heaps piled up around the attic rooms and the chimney pots, and came crashing down in blocks, topping the building with powdery whirls. Nicolas, an unrepentant dreamer before ocean skies, marvelled at the multifarious range of greys, blacks, whites, golds and deep blues. So much beauty stunned him and his heart was racing with joy. He found himself in love with a Paris that allowed him such feelings, and he understood for the first time the deep meaning of the sentence from the scriptures: ‘And there was light.’

  The wind that slapped his face brought him out of his dream and back to the nagging fear of confronting Descart. He spurred his horse on and felt giddy from the icy air. Holding his hat, lest it blow away, he sat straight in the saddle and raised his head high. His hair billowed freely, like the brown mane of his mount, and from a distance this moving mass of muscle, cloth and leather must have looked like a ghostly centaur. The repeated thud of hooves on the snow produced a dull swishing sound, their irregular beat only adding to the strangeness of the misty apparition crossing the esplanade. Beyond the Vaugirard toll-gate, dreary-looking hills stretched out from the city walls to the heights of Meudon. The windmills, like towers of ice, kept guard; from their frost-encrusted sails hung delicate lances of crystal. All was bright, silky and brittle. The giddiness of the ride and the sun’s reflection in the snow again numbed Nicolas’s senses, as he passed like a dark streak through a colourless world.

  In the midst of a petrified army of vines there appeared snow-covered hovels and bourgeois dwellings. He had the feeling of being worlds away from the capital. At ‘La Croix Nivert’, a crossroads forced him to try to find his bearings. He had come to see the doctor once before, to give him a letter from Lardin. Descart had not even invited him inside or deigned to speak to him.

  Nicolas eventually located the residence. It was a large building surrounded by high walls, the tops of which were crowned with fragments of glass set into the mortar. A dog began to howl and the horse shied so much that a less experienced rider than Nicolas would have been thrown from his saddle straight away. He calmed the angry beast by stroking its neck and whispering words of comfort.

  Jumping to the ground, Nicolas hesitated a moment, and then pulled a handle that rang a bell in the distance. The dog began to howl again. Nobody came. Nicolas then noticed that the gate was ajar, and he went through the garden along a path with box trees on either side. The shutters were closed, but the door opened with one turn of the handle.

  He was surprised to find himself on a sort of inner terrace. This turned out to be the upper part of a stone staircase which led down to an enormous room via two semi-circular flights of steps. He was struck by the strange odour of something musty, like damp felt, cold incense and extinguished candle, added to which was an all-pervasive sweet, metallic and acid stench that Nicolas was unable to identify.

  The young man contemplated the scene below him, of a tiled room with windows at either end concealed by heavy curtains and a fireplace opposite the staircase. The high ceiling consisted of exposed beams blackened by smoke. Wooden shelves covered almost all the walls. Above the fireplace a large crucifix offered the harrowing vision of a Christ made of ivory, his arms stretched upwards. It caught Nicolas’s attention: his guardian, the canon, would have required, if not a certificate of confession, at least a true and complete profession of faith from any parishioner owning one like this.1 In a corner of the room, Descart, a blood-spattered apron covering his coat, was finishing the process of bleeding an elderly woman whose right arm, held in position by bandages and splints, appeared to be broken. The contents of a metal bowl in which a crimson pool shimmered darkly revealed that several basins of blood had already been drawn. The ashen-faced patient was leaning back in an armchair in a faint as Descart dabbed her temples with smelling salts. Nicolas cleared his throat and coughed. The doctor turned round.

  ‘Can’t you see that I’m operating?’ he said angrily. ‘Get out.’

  The woman was coming round and she began to groan feebly, taking up all the doctor’s attention.

  ‘Monsieur,’ said Nicolas, ‘when you have finished what you are doing, I should like to speak with you. To question you in fact.’

  Once again he was annoyed with himself for having been unable to find the right word in the first place, like a horse shying at an obstacle.

  ‘To question me?’ exclaimed the doctor. ‘To question me! A flunkey to question me! I demand you leave.’

  Nicolas, white-faced, rushed down the staircase and stood firmly in front of Descart, who stepped back a pace, his face twitching.

  ‘Monsieur,’ said Nicolas, ‘I would ask you not to insult me. You may come to rue it in several ways. I shall not leave and you will hear me out.’

  The woman, still dazed, looked at each man in turn.

  ‘I shall unleash my dog and then you will leave, I guarantee it,’ growled Descart.

  He lifted his patient to her feet, supporting her on her good arm, and led her towards the door.

  ‘Madame, go home. You need complete rest and a strict diet. I shall see you again tomorrow. Further bleedings will be necessary. Everything depends on the reaction between opposites. Go.’

  *

  No one had heard a man enter noiselessly who, for some moments, had been looking down at the scene in the semi-darkness.

  ‘At this rate, honourable colleague, you’ll soon have no patients left alive.’

  Nicolas immediately recognised Semacgus’s voice.

  ‘All we need now is for the devil himself to put in an appearance,’ exclaimed Descart, pushing the woman out of the room.

  Semacgus went down the stairs and greeted Nicolas with a wink. He walked up to Descart.

  ‘Dear colleague, I wish to have a word with you.’

  ‘You, as well! But to say “colleague” is going too far. You put on your airs and graces, Monsieur Journeyman Surgeon.2 One day I shall succeed in having you banned. A man who rejects bleedings, who lets nature follow its course and who treats people without having the qualifications.’

  ‘Leave my qualifications out of this �
�� they are just as good as yours. As to bleedings, in this enlightened century you are a throwback to the past.’

  ‘Throwback to the past! He’s insulting Hippocrates and Galen. “The teaching of the wise man is a source of life.”’

  Semacgus took hold of a chair and sat down. Nicolas sensed that in doing so he was seeking to contain the violence of his temperament. This position, he had observed, was a protection against excessive behaviour; anger comes upon one less quickly when seated than when standing.

  ‘Your own teaching is a cause of death. When on earth will you understand that bleeding, though useful in cases of plethora, is harmful in many others? How can you treat this poor woman’s fracture by weakening her? More than this, you starve her whereas you should be prescribing her good food and burgundy. That would help to cure her.’

  ‘He blasphemes against the Scriptures,’ yelped Descart. ‘“The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips.” If your trivial reflections were to be examined seriously, you would know, as Batalli3 teaches, that “blood in the human body is like water in a good spring: the more you draw, the more there is.” The less blood, the more blood. Everything is expelled and dissolved; the fevers, the humours, the bile, the acrimonies and the viscosity. The more one bleeds, the better one is, you poor ignoramus.’

  Traces of foam began to appear at the corners of his thin lips. He had instinctively taken hold of his lancet and was tracing scrolls on the shiny, bloodstained surface of the pan.

  ‘Let’s stop there, Monsieur. This is a very bad example. Poor Patin4 demanded to be bled seven times and died. As far as authors go, I prefer to follow our friend Sénac, the King’s doctor, whom you presumably know. When the intention is to divert blood from the head it is in fact diverted from the heel. You are neither learned nor polite nor honest, and I’m of a mind to ask you very directly …’