Discover the next Nicolas le Floch Investigation
Praise for Jean-François Parot
‘The period detail is marvellously evocative, Le Floch is brave and engaging …’ Economist
‘Parot succeeds brilliantly in his reconstruction of pre-revolutionary Paris, in splendid period detail.’ The Times
‘A solid and detailed evocation of pre-revolutionary France – the poverty and squalor, side by side with the wealth and splendour, are brought lovingly to life. And the plot has all the twists, turns and surprises the genre demands.’ Independent on Sunday
‘Jean-François Parot’s evocation of eighteenth-century Paris is richly imagined and full of fascinating historical snippets.’ Financial Times
‘Parot’s clever plotting and sharp eye for detail are, as ever, first rate …’ Mail on Sunday
‘… Le Floch is an engaging conduit for the reader through the teeming, phantasmagoric capital that is eighteenth-century Paris.’ Independent
‘The atmosphere is marvellous, the historical detail precise, and Le Floch and his colleagues are an engaging bunch …’ Guardian
‘An interesting evocation of place and period.’ The Literary Review
THE
SAINT-FLORENTIN
MURDERS
JEAN-FRANÇOIS PAROT
Translated from the French by Howard Curtis
Ouvrage publié avec le concours du Ministère français chargé de la Culture – Centre National du Livre.
This work is published with support from the French Ministry of Culture/Centre National du Livre.
For Arlette and Richard Benais
CONTENTS
Title Page
Epigraph
Dedication
Background to The Saint-Florentin Murders
Dramatis Personae
I Prologue
I The Passing of the Days
II The Saint-Florentin Mansion
III Knot of Vipers
IV Confusion
V Between City and Faubourgs
VII This Country
VIII Navigation
IX Approaches
X Bicêtre
XI Manoeuvres
XII Confrontations
XIII Traps
Epilogue
Notes
Acknowledgements
The Saint-Florentin Murders
Also by Jean-François Parot
Copyright
Background to The Saint-Florentin Murders
For those readers coming to the adventures of Nicolas Le Floch for the first time, it is useful to know that in the first book in the series, The Châtelet Apprentice, the hero, a foundling raised by Canon Le Floch in Guérande, is sent away from his native Brittany by his godfather, the Marquis de Ranreuil, who is concerned about his daughter Isabelle’s growing fondness for the young man.
On arrival in Paris he is taken in by Père Grégoire at the Monastery of the Decalced Carmelites and on the recommendation of the marquis soon finds himself in the service of Monsieur de Sartine, Lieutenant General of Police in Paris. Under his tutelage, Nicolas is quick to learn and is soon familiar with the mysterious working methods of the highest ranks of the police service. At the end of his year’s apprenticeship, he is entrusted with a confidential mission, one that will result in him rendering a signal service to Louis XV and the Marquise de Pompadour.
Aided by his deputy and mentor, Inspector Bourdeau, and putting his own life at risk on several occasions, he successfully unravels a complicated plot. Received at court by the King, he is rewarded with the post of commissioner of police at the Châtelet and, under the direct authority of Monsieur de Sartine, continues to be assigned to special investigations.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
NICOLAS LE FLOCH: a police commissioner at the Châtelet
LOUIS LE FLOCH: his son, a schoolboy
MONSIEUR DE SARTINE: Secretary of State for the Navy
MONSIEUR LENOIR: Lieutenant General of Police in Paris
MONSIEUR DE SAINT-FLORENTIN, DUC DE LA VRILLIÈRE: Minister of the King’s Household
DUCHESSE DE LA VRILLIÈRE: his wife
PIERRE BOURDEAU: a police inspector
OLD MARIE: an usher at the Châtelet
TIREPOT: a police spy
RABOUINE: a police spy
AIMÉ DE NOBLECOURT: a former procurator
MARION: his cook
POITEVIN: his servant
CATHERINE GAUSS: a former canteen-keeper, Nicolas Le Floch’s maid
GUILLAUME SEMACGUS: a navy surgeon
THIERRY DE VILLE D’AVRAY: First Groom of the King’s Bedchamber
MONSIEUR DE LA BORDE: his predecessor
CHARLES HENRI SANSON: the public executioner
LA SATIN: Louis Le Floch’s mother
LA PAULET: a former brothel-keeper
MONSIEUR DE GÉVIGLAND: a doctor
MADAME DE CUSACQUE: the Duc de La Vrillière’s mistress
MONSIEUR DE CHAMBONAS: her son-in-law
MONSIEUR BOURDIER: an engineer
MONSIEUR D’ARRANET: Lieutenant General of the Naval Forces
AIMÉE D’ARRANET: his daughter
MONSIEUR TESTARD DU LYS: Criminal Lieutenant of Police
ANSELME VITRY: a gardener
MARGUERITE PINDRON: the Duchesse de La Vrillière’s chambermaid
JEAN MISSERY: major-domo to the Duc de La Vrillière
EUGÉNIE GOUET: first chambermaid to the Duchesse de La Vrillière
JEANNE LE BAS, known as Jeannette: second chambermaid to the Duchesse de La Vrillière
CHARLES BIBARD, known as Provence: a valet
PIERRE MIQUETE: a Swiss Guard at the La Vrillière mansion
JACQUES BLAIN: a caretaker
JACQUES DESPIARD: a kitchen boy
GILLES DUCHAMPLAN: the late Madame Missery’s elder brother
NICOLE DUCHAMPLAN: his wife
HÉLÈNE DUCHAMPLAN: the late Madame Missery’s elder sister, a nun with the Daughters of Saint Michel
EUDES DUCHAMPLAN: the late Madame Missery’s younger brother
RESTIF DE LA BRETONNE: a writer and pamphleteer
OLD LONGÈRES: a cattle farmer
RICHARD: a gardener at Trianon
I
PROLOGUE
The dark night drained things of all their colour.
MAURICE SCÈVE
Sunday 2 October 1774
What was the meaning of this unusual rendezvous? She should have been able to wean him off such whims by now. The idea of it! The servants’ floor offered sufficient opportunities, so there was no real need for him to force her into these pointless nocturnal escapades. It was a good thing her chores in Madame’s apartments kept her away from her fine suitor for much of the day. He often took advantage of her slightest foray into the common parts of the La Vrillière mansion to … He was insatiable. But how could she refuse him? She owed him her position, and a kind of security. Still she waited, and the piece of candle, which cast a parsimonious light on the roasting room, would not last much longer. It was a large, dark room, with chimneys of blackened stone looming over the spits, trammels and dripping-pans.
She laughed at her own cleverness: every day she filched pieces of candle from the apartments on the upper floors to replenish her stock. Several times, she had come close to being caught. She had to beware, not only of her mistress’s constant vigilance, but also that of the other servants, her competitors in this pilfering: they, too, were always on the lookout for anything to feed this lucrative trade in candle wax.
A metallic clinking broke the silence. Her heart pounded so ha
rd it hurt. She held her breath, waiting for what was to follow, but nothing came. Another of those rats, she thought – impossible to get rid of them. One of those fat grey moth-eaten rats that fed on scraps from the kitchen, and from what had been left in the big adjacent larder. The best pieces from the larder were also regularly resold to a few taverns, and as for the scraps, they ended up in a soup which, sold for a few coins from a steaming carriage in the streets, provided momentary sustenance to the poorest of the poor. She had tried it herself, not so long ago, after fleeing her father’s house, and still had the bitter rotten taste of it, which no seasoning could ever mask, in her mouth. Just the thought of it made her retch.
She was still listening hard, hoping to hear her lover’s heavy steps. But all she heard was a distant miaow. She laughed: cats were no use here – they were too well fed on the leftovers from a rich table. Only their eyes, gleaming in the darkness whenever a ray of light struck them, scared off the most faint-hearted. Sometimes, you would see a big rat, in the peak of condition, rise up and bare its yellow teeth, defying a cat, which would slink off without a fight. As for her, she was not afraid of cats. She had seen some really formidable cats in the cowsheds belonging to her father, who raised cattle for milk in Faubourg Saint-Antoine, where they were attracted by the mice hiding in the straw and grain.
She preferred not to think about that. Better to wipe out the past. But she couldn’t help remembering those last days spent with her family. Her father had been adamant that she marry a neighbour’s son, a gardener in the faubourg. The boy was well enough built, but he had bulging eyes and did not appeal to her. His method of courtship involved listing the different kinds of lettuce, as well as the rules for cultivating plants under cold frames, the whole lecture embellished with observations on the best way to line paths with quickset hedges, trellises or picket fences. The preliminary visit she had made to the Vitry household had confirmed her in her rejection.
Their house had one room on the ground floor, looking out on the marsh. It was here that the family lived and ate. The floor was of beaten earth, a long way from the waxed tiles of her own house. Straw chairs, a large, worn wooden table, a porcelain stove, a copper fountain and an ugly dresser were the only decoration. On the first floor, two bedrooms, with straw mattresses and bunks, one of which was the son’s and would be the young couple’s when they married. Old Madame Vitry, a tall, thin, dark woman with soiled, worn-down nails, listed for her, in a severe tone, the duties of a gardener’s wife. She would have to get up at five in the morning, in all weathers and all seasons, and work until eight in the evening, pausing only briefly for a little soup or a crust of bread. She would have to obey her in-laws as if they were her own family.
Her revulsion increased when they started discussing the marriage contract and the contributions of the bride and groom. Hers consisted, apart from a silver dowry large enough to bring a gleam to the old woman’s eyes, of a supply of fresh manure for the Vitry family’s gardens, to be provided in instalments spread out over several months. When the day came for the engagement to be certified before a notary, appalled by the prospect of a life with this oaf, she had yielded to a sudden impulse and decamped, leaving behind calves, cows, oxen, manure and lettuces, a stunned fiancé and two disappointed families. Fearing that they would search for her, she plunged into the great city, hoping to lose herself in an ocean of people. Appalled at his daughter’s actions, old Pindron made no attempt to search for her. She had dishonoured the family, she was no longer of any account, and he immediately disowned her. He took to his bed and died four days later, leaving a widow who retired to her native Burgundy after selling off the farm for a good price to an important family who raised cattle in the faubourg, and who committed themselves before a notary to pay her an annuity until she died.
For months, Marguerite Pindron roamed the streets of Paris, sleeping on the quais, finding hiding places in the pyramids of the Port au Bois on Quai Saint-Paul or amid the casks on Quai de la Rapée. It was here that the wood carried on the river accumulated in piles as high as houses. Some were well organised into pyramids, but most were heaped up haphazardly, creating a kind of mysterious city made of detours and alleys, underground passages and inner rooms from which, early in the morning, there emerged, wild-eyed, a strange and varied collection of human beings. The few louis she had stolen from her father did not last long, but, being able to read and write, she used this skill among the poorest of the poor, and managed to hold out until winter. It was then, one desperate evening when she could no longer bear the hunger and cold, that she met a well-dressed young man who took her to his dwelling, washed her, and made her an object of his pleasure. He dressed her and fed her, then introduced her to his brother-in-law, who was the major-domo in the mansion of the Duc de La Vrillière. Her joy at finding a position was short-lived. She was only the latest in an army of servant girls who emptied the pots and buckets, doomed to the most repulsive chores and the harshest reprimands.
It did not take her long to realise that the brother-in-law also expected to have his way with her. The man had been a widower for two years, could not bear the solitude, and chased anything wearing skirts in the Saint-Florentin mansion. At first, she resisted his advances, but she was desperately afraid of finding herself back on the streets. She opened her heart to her original benefactor, who laughed in her face and urged her to yield: he had started making her small loans, to be repaid when she was able. Her new lover immediately conceived a genuine passion for her beauty and youth. She found it increasingly difficult to escape a bond that was proving burdensome and the constant attentions of a greybeard to whom she had been forced to yield out of necessity alone. She tried every stratagem she could think of, including brief dalliances with other, younger servants, in the hope of putting him off. The only result was to strengthen his desire for her. He was obsessively jealous, and some terrible scenes ensued.
Tears welled in her eyes. All that was nothing compared with what had happened three days earlier, which she could not get out of her mind. Her young benefactor had come looking for her in the evening after she came off duty, and had made her leave the building through a concealed door and join him in a cab. After a long journey, he had led her into an unknown house and made her put on a highly indecent costume. Why had she agreed to it? She tried to dismiss the images of what had followed. How had she come to this? She had not protested, as if the frenzy and outrageousness of all that was happening had left her too stunned to react. Her ‘friend’ had appeared to her in such an ambiguous light that she found it impossible to regard him again as part of the natural order of things.
The candle flame suddenly flickered in a draught of air, sputtered a moment, then went out, giving off an acrid odour. That was all she needed! She had nothing with which to relight it. She felt suddenly anxious at being alone in this deserted place. She imagined presences around her. It was early autumn, a time when animals and insects often sought warmth in the kitchens of houses. Something creaked behind her, and she was aware of a furtive movement. She forced herself to turn round, but could see nothing. She was finding it hard to breathe: it seemed to her that there was not enough air in here. She was starting to panic. She was just about to rush madly to the staircase leading to the upper floors when she felt herself seized firmly by an unseen arm and pressed against someone’s body. A terrible pain went through the base of her neck, and she collapsed without even realising that she was dying, in a stream of blood.
Early the next morning, a kitchen boy discovered two bodies. One was Marguerite Pindron, whose throat had been cut, and the other Jean Missery, the major-domo, lying unconscious and wounded. A knife lay on the tiled floor beside him, in the middle of a scarlet pool.
I
THE PASSING OF THE DAYS
Time uncovers secrets; time creates opportunities;
time confirms good counsel.
BOSSUET
Sunday 2 October 1774
Nicolas was surreptitiously
looking at his son’s face. He was the spitting image of how he himself had been when he was young, with that dashing air his grandfather, the Marquis de Ranreuil, had had whenever he rose to his full height and looked his interlocutor in the eye. As for La Satin, her presence was felt in the gentleness diffused through his fine, if not entirely formed features. The boy’s noble but casual bearing showed none of the awkwardness common to his age. He was talking to Monsieur de Noblecourt, and his conversation was full of Greek and Latin quotations: from time to time, with a smile, the former procurator would correct his mistakes and solecisms. The presentation dinner for Louis Le Floch at Noblecourt’s house in Rue Montmartre was at its height. Nicolas was happy and relieved to feel the warmth emanating from his friends, Semacgus, Bourdeau and La Borde. He himself did not take part in the discussion, wanting Louis, who in fact seemed quite at ease, to find his place here naturally. The role of father, which filled him with both joy and anguish, was still new to him, and he had to learn it step by step.
The year was ending better than it had begun. The rumours circulating about the plots and criminal investigations that had followed the death of his mistress, Madame de Lastérieux, were gradually dying down. He still carried his grief for the late King in his heart, muted but painful. This troubled period of his life had had one fortunate consequence: he had discovered the existence of a child born of his liaison with La Satin fifteen years earlier. La Paulet, alerted by a first encounter and the impression of a conspicuous resemblance, had decided to intervene. Leaving her house in Auteuil, where she led a comfortably devout life, she had come running to see Monsieur de Noblecourt to plead La Satin’s case and the importance of giving Louis a father he had never known. The former procurator had taken the matter very seriously and had agreed to intercede and advise both parents.