Memory of Flames (9 page)

THE man who had interrogated Margont must have been about forty-five. He looked as commanding as he sounded. He held himself proudly, he was clearly impassioned and he seemed poised to fling himself into battle. There was an impressive energy about him. Had he chosen to serve the Empire he would certainly have been high up in the hierarchy, either civil or military. But he had decided to support the King, and his ‘Grande Armée’ was merely a group of perhaps thirty, and instead of gliding through the enemy palaces he had seized, he was hiding from cellar to cellar. He was a sort of fallen angel precipitated into limbo alongside royalty. Although he was an idealist, he must have suffered from not occupying a rank commensurate with his talents. Margont’s argument about the need to be recognised had shocked him because it had hit the nail on the head ... The emblem of the Swords of the King was pinned to his jacket over his heart. Margont looked at it briefly, as if he were seeing it for the first time, and 
noted that it corresponded in every particular with the one he had seen on Colonel Berle’s body.

'I'm Vicomte Louis de Leaume.’

‘Delighted to meet you!’ said Margont, massaging his throat. ‘Baron Honoré de Nolant.’

Nolant was overcome with embarrassment. It is not every day you are introduced to the person you almost murdered a few minutes earlier. He was a little younger than Louis de Leaume, and thin, but Margont was not taken in by his fragile appearance, knowing how easily he had been overpowered by him. Nolant did not look directly at Margont and appeared distracted, lost in his own thoughts.

Varencourt looked pale. He did not dare move, as if he had not yet realised that the ordeal was over.

He turned to Margont and said, ‘Incredible! You’re even more of a gambler than I am!’

He laughed, bringing colour to his cheeks, but the rest of his face was still as pale as porcelain.

A third man, who had been silent up until then, introduced himself: ‘Jean-Baptiste de Chatel.’ He was posted just inside the door, as if to intercept Margont should he try to flee. He was a little older, but not yet fifty, with a bony face and searching, narrowed eyes. He was so emaciated he looked ill, or as if he had endured many years of deprivation.

Margont realised he had been put in front of a sort of tribunal. Everyone had been listening to him and when Louis de Leaume had proposed lighting a candle, any one of them could have sentenced him to death by replying ‘no’. In the meantime Jean-Baptiste de Chatel did not look happy. He had contemplated refusing the light!

‘Monsieur de Langes, perhaps you would like to suggest a suitable quotation from the Holy Bible. What do you know of the word of God?’

‘Thou shalt not kill,’ replied Margont, looking at Honoré de Nolant.

‘That’s a bit short.’

Margont now felt trapped in the persona he had just projected. It would not do to appear merely as a pushy trouble-maker. He would have to temper the showy opportunism he had displayed with a demonstration of faith to win over the idealists present. Jean-Baptiste de Chatel looked as if he might be susceptible to this. So Margont pressed on.

“‘Seeing he despised the oath by breaking the covenant, when, lo, he had given his hand, and hath done all these things, he shall not escape. Therefore thus saith the Lord Cod; As I live, surely mine oath that he hath despised, and my covenant that he hath broken, even it will I recompense upon his own head.” Ezekiel, Chapter 17, verses 18 and 19. He who breaks a covenant offends God and breaks away from him.’

Jean-Baptiste de Chatel s expression was transformed, like a block of ice turned suddenly to vapour. He seemed about to take Margont in his arms. ‘Good, very good!’

Margont had spent four years in the Abbey of Saint-Guilhem-le-Desert studying the Bible under the iron yoke of the monks. He had almost become a monk himself, against his will. So it would be hard to trip him up in his knowledge of theology. To lie effectively was it not best to lead your adversary onto territory that you were sure of?

‘What do you know about the Antichrist?’ Chatel demanded. Margont thought he was trying to trip him up by asking him about an unfamiliar subject. “‘And he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws.” Daniel ... I can’t remember which chapter...’

Jean-Baptiste de Chatel was jubilant. ‘Magnificent! A real believer! So, Quentin — I may call you that? - as you know the Holy Scriptures so well, do you not agree that Napoleon is the Antichrist?’ Margont was dumbfounded and wondered if Jean-Baptiste was making fun of him. His reaction caused Jean-Baptiste’s joyous demeanour to falter somewhat.

‘But it goes without saying, Monsieur de Langes!’

Margont was taken aback by such an extreme theory. Jean-Baptiste

de Chatel took immediate offence and did not address another word to him. Their alliance had lasted all of the time it took to recite a couple of verses of the Bible, and Margont’s clever tactic had been turned against him: far from making a friend of Jean-Baptiste, he had turned him into an enemy.

‘Has our zealot finished his sermon?’ demanded Louis de Leaume with such irony that his words were like a slap.

Clearly it was not permitted for a mere member of the group to monopolise the conversation at the expense of the leader. The Vicomte’s words had been designed to reassert his authority. But far from being called to order, Jean-Baptiste de Chatel gave Leaume a sardonic smile, provoking him even further. He was openly delighted at having roused Leaume’s temper, and his attitude made everyone else ill at ease. Leaume chose to ignore him. Margont wondered if the cause of the animosity between the two men was just rivalry, or if there was not more to it. Jean-Baptiste had a strange way of staring at the Vicomte in an insistent manner. Leaume turned to Margont.

‘What do you want in exchange for your help?’

‘I want everything. I want to be on the committee of the Swords of the King.’

‘To be on the committee, you have to have been a member for more than two months, and have done something to prove your loyalty.’

‘Nearly getting my throat cut in order to meet you - doesn’t that prove my loyalty! As for your two months, I don’t have the patience to wait, and in any case, we don’t have two months. The outcome of the war will be decided in the next few weeks. If my offer doesn’t interest you, no matter. There are many other royalist organisations: the Congregation, the Knights of the Faith, the Friends of Order ... The King will reward the men who help him the most and I’m going to become one of those men, with you or without you.’

‘We have our regulations, Monsieur.’

‘I’m sure you do. But you’re not the kind of man to let regulations stand in your way.’

Louis de Leaume looked at him with a new eye. ‘How perceptive you are ... Perceptive people are dangerous, because they won’t be appeased by the lies that would satisfy others. Why do you wish to become part of our group? The Knights of the Faith, for example, are better known; why not go to them first?’

There are too many of them. I would be lost in the mass. I would scarcely be heard and I would be nothing but a second-rate pawn, and I absolutely won’t have that! If you admit me to the top of your organisation, to your committee, my printing press can be heavily influential in your success. It’s up to you. Now it’s time to see if you really are the man of action you claim to be.’

‘I accept you as one of us, in effect as a member of our committee. I take full responsibility for the decision.’

Leaume had not asked the opinion of any of the others before deciding, thus demonstrating that he was in charge. Varencourt and Honoré de Nolant were delighted and shook Margont’s hand in a show of brotherhood. Jean-Baptiste de Chatel merely nodded coldly at him, keeping his distance.

‘Now that you are one of us, there is one more person you should meet,’ said Louis de Leaume. ‘All the members of the committee should know one another. Well have to go upstairs.’

Margont almost stumbled on the stairs. He was pale as he regained his balance. He had just guessed why the other conspirator had waited upstairs while they interrogated him. It was because that person had not wanted to be present at his execution.
 

THERE was no furniture in the room upstairs and it was freezing and soulless. This nocturnal meeting was its only moment of life. It would be abandoned immediately afterwards; it was just a stage in the exhausting game of hide-and-seek around Paris.

A woman welcomed Margont in, relieved at the way things had turned out. She was about forty, possibly older. She was beautiful but her long hair was pulled back in an old-fashioned chignon, her face was unadorned by make-up and she wore no jewels; her dress was drab. It appeared to Margont that she was hiding her beauty -had it brought her misfortune in the past?

She looked at him with a strange intensity; her blue eyes seemed to pierce his soul. It was as if she were probing his character, trying to see the real Margont. He felt scorched by her gaze, as if his lies were burning up in his soul.

‘Chevalier Quentin de Langes,’ he said, bowing to escape her inquisitorial gaze.

‘Mademoiselle Catherine de Saltonges. So here you are, one of us. We thought you were a spy.’

The irony in her voice let him know that she did not trust him. ‘Monsieur de Langes used to be a soldier and he owns a printing press!’ said Vicomte de Leaume.

‘So I heard.’

‘If opinion had been divided, would you have voted for my life or my death?’ Margont asked her.

She lowered her eyes, as if she found him desirable.

‘How can you say that? I wouldn’t have ... I ... Not l! But I don’t like you, Monsieur. What you say is a mixture of truth and falsehood. That sickens me.’

Her face expressed disgust, as if Margont’s lies had released a rotten odour.

‘Have we finished discussing my admission?’ he asked. ‘Let’s move to action! And with Cod’s help we will win the battle! I propose we—’

‘Well decide nothing now!’ Catherine de Saltonges cut him off.

‘You’re going rather quickly, Chevalier.’

‘Not as quickly as the situation is going!’

Leaume intervened. ‘We’ll contact you. Members of our group are strictly forbidden to see each other outside official meetings for any reason at all. Everyone adheres to that rule on pain of death. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, but what if I need to get hold of you? I must be able—’

‘That won’t be possible,’ put in Jean-Baptiste de Chatel. ‘We’ll leave first.’

Catherine de Saltonges and Honoré de Nolant left, followed by Jean-Baptiste. The Vicomte hung back. He unknotted his scarf, looking at Margont.

‘Monsieur de Langes, don’t understimate our determination.’

He then revealed a mark. In the Pacific Islands the great explorers like Cook had discovered a method of indelibly marking the skin, and had brought it back to Europe. The prestige of these adventurers and the French taste for exoticism had made tattoos popular. In the past, Count Tolstoy, on his return from Oceania, had shown off his tattoos in the salons of St Petersburg, after which the Russian nobility had also embraced the practice. Legend had it that Catherine the Great had had herself tattooed in a very special place ... Old Marshal Bernadotte had ‘Death to kings’ tattooed on his chest during his revolutionary years. Yet now he had become the hereditary prince of Sweden and dreamt of beating Napoleon and becoming king of France ...

Louis de Leaume had chosen a strange motif. It was - Margont drew closer, frowning - yes, it definitely was a dotted line like the ones tailors and dressmakers draw on their material before they cut it. But this line stretched round Leaume’s throat, indicating where it should be cut...

‘I will fight to the end, Chevalier. I have learnt to live permanently with the blade of the guillotine round my neck!’

With that he went out and disappeared into the night.

Margont waited with Varencourt.

‘Did you know the welcome that was waiting for me?’

‘No, I didn’t, I swear to you! If they had ... Anyway, if you hadn’t

convinced them you were genuine, I wonder what they would have decided to do to me.’

He was finally beginning to show his full colours. Margont stared at him openly.

‘Who followed me to the printing press?’

‘I don’t know.’

They left and Varencourt closed the door behind them, whispering, ‘Don’t bother having this house watched. They’ll never come back here. Vicomte de Leaume never lets us return to our meeting places. And he imposes even stricter rules on himself-he never sleeps twice in the same bed.’

‘Who does this house belong to?’

‘To one of the many French noblemen living in exile, waiting for Napoleon’s fall. They left all their property and possessions in France. Part of it was pillaged or seized during the Revolution and the period after. But there are still places like this. Vicomte de Leaume lived for two years in London. He made several rich contacts there and he’s kept in touch with them. As a result, he has dozens of keys to hovels like this one. The noblemen sit sipping brandy in their London clubs, perfectly happy to fund the Vicomte’s activities, as long as he’s the one who takes all the risks. If Louis XVIII does become king one day, these generous benefactors will be able to impress His Majesty with the important role they played in the restoration. In fact all they’re sacrificing is some gold and some broken-down shacks they inherited or rented or bought in the early years of the Revolution with the idea of hiding in them or salting away their possessions. If we win, they will receive honorary service charges, rents ... But as for the Vicomte, he can only play with what’s in his hand. His only cards are his ideas, but what’s at stake is his life. He’s well aware of it too, don’t you think? That’s why it was so clever of you to have mentioned your desire to be rewarded! He really drank that in! One Vicomte de Leaume is worth fifty Langeses!’

‘And a hundred Varencourts.’

But Varencourt did not rise to the taunt.

‘Now you know why the Vicomte is head of our organisation —

because he created it and, more especially, because he has access to money, which is after all the sinews of war!’

As they moved further away from the building, they were both relaxing a little.

‘In any case, bravo, you made a good impression on them,’ said Charles de Varencourt.

‘Is that meant to be a joke?’

‘Not at all. They all distrust each other. You have to put yourself in their shoes. Jean-Baptiste de Chatel lost ten members of his family in the Vendee, royalists killed in battle or civilians gunned down in reprisals or massacred by the infernal columns of that criminal of a general, Turreau. Vicomte de Leaume also lost everything: parents, lands, fortune ... In addition, in 1793 he was the leader of a little group of royalists called the Loyalists - they were all arrested. Every day, through the tiny window of his cell, he saw the heads of his companions falling under the blade of the guillotine. He made himself watch, convinced that it would help him vanquish his fear and behave with bravado as he mounted the scaffold. He tried to imagine what he might do to make a lasting impression, something that would get him noticed and that would be a public slap in the face of his enemies. You must have worried him when you cited Danton. No doubt he thought about Danton as he sat in his prison cell. He hated him. But he certainly wanted to emulate him on the day of his death. Danton went up to the executioner and said: “Don’t forget to show my head to the people, it’s well worth seeing.” And the executioner did! Everyone had already forgotten the names of the people who had ordered Danton’s death, but his last words would be remembered for ever. Vicomte de Leaume managed to escape a few hours after he appeared in front of the Revolutionary Tribunal - the tribunal that had, it goes without saying, condemned him to the guillotine. Believe me, when he talks about it, it’s as if it happened yesterday. All that is just to explain that when you know what they have lived through, you cease to wonder at how fanatical they have become. Violence breeds repression, repression breeds violence. To put an end to the vicious circle, perhaps we have to try to forgive, or at least to accept

the past. But it’s so difficult...’

‘And what about you, Charles? What have you lived through?’ Varencourt reared back and clenched his teeth as if he had just been hit and was preparing to retaliate. ‘I won’t answer questions like that!’

‘All right ... Well, here’s another type of question. What proof of loyalty did you give that allowed you to be accepted onto the committee?’

Varencourt pretended to calm down and laughed like a child.

‘You must know that I can’t answer that either. You would have to put it in your report to Joseph and he would fall off his chair.’

Paris was ill lit, although it was worse in other European capitals. They walked by the light of the moon, passing under lamps that had been blown out by the wind or had run out of oil. Margont was trying to control himself, but he was very angry.

‘You said nothing during that trumped-up half-trial!’

Varencourt replied jovially, ‘You were wriggling like a snake, hissing and trying to bite!’

That amuses you?’

“‘I am quick to laugh at everything so as not to have to cry,” said Monsieur de Beaumarchais. If only because he said that, I would have liked to meet him.’

They didn’t tell me about any of their plans!’

‘That’s because they’re cunning. They each know part of the picture. Just because they’ve allowed you in at the top doesn’t mean that they’re going to tell you everything about everything. That would be much too dangerous! Logic dictates that all the members of the committee should know each other - and so they do -otherwise it would have been impossible to take coherent decisions and then to apply them. But they don’t call on you until they think you’re going to increase the chances of a particular plan succeeding. So even I probably don’t know some of the projects that have been submitted to Vicomte de Leaume and I know only about ten of the thirty members of our organisation. Maybe there are even more than that, in fact. Or perhaps fewer... Only Louis de Leaume knows everyone. But he will never let your Joseph take

him alive.’

‘How many times have you met the other members of the committee?’

There is barely a meeting a month, except when we are planning a project. Now stop asking questions. I’ve already told everything I know to the police; look at my reports. From now on well see each other only at group meetings. Leaume told you that we are expressly forbidden to see other members of the group outside the meetings that he himself organises. So you and I will not meet on our own any more.’

‘I’ll be the one to decide that!’

‘No! Listen to me: clearly you have been plunged into a world you don’t understand at all. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. The main thing is that here you are, still alive. Do you know why Louis de Leaume was almost guillotined? It was because the police spotted one of the Loyalist group. And since the Loyalists were in the habit of meeting up just to have a drink because they were friends, when the police saw one of them, they had them all and they were all arrested. Every one of them! So I repeat: we won’t meet alone again!’

‘You’re hiding something from me!’

‘Don’t worry, everything I find out, I’ll sell.’

‘How can you—’

‘Stop! I won’t debate ethics with you. We would be wasting time. Besides, I would greatly appreciate it if you would stop showing your contempt for me.’

As they were less and less able to bear each other’s company, they separated.

The cramped, miserably furnished room plunged Margont further into despair. He flopped onto the bed and extinguished the candle. The darkness was like straw on the fire of his fear, which immediately flared up. He could not stop thinking about the blade he had been threatened with. He could see it, a luminous line coming through the darkness, making straight for his neck. The more he told himself it was over, the more he pictured the blade.

He could actually feel it against his neck, more vividly than when it had really been there. He decided to fight his reaction. To give himself courage, he ran through his real motivations. To defend republican ideals! Liberty! The Constitution! Equality between men! And so the dirty, dark little room with its imaginary dancing knife was filled with the great, inspiring ideas of the Revolution.