Beyond Revanche, page 17
The warden let me read about the tragedy in great detail. Apparently, after continuous and deliberate shelling, the scaffolding around the north tower caught fire, spreading the blaze to all parts of the carpentry superstructure. In the brutal heat, the lead melted and spouted through the stone gargoyles, destroying the Bishop’s Palace. Imagine the horror. The Cathedral fell stone by stone until there was little left save the west front and the pillars. My pillars. It is yet another heinous crime from the criminal Prussians. Warden says that all of the free world is appalled. They know that this is typical of the Boches mentality.
I had a visitor. Promised never to speak his name, but let me tell you he is still a very important person. The warden let him enter through the secret door in Rue Messier so no one knew. His news was bad. The war was not going well. Or not going as well as we hoped, but the Germans had been pushed back and once we had regained our strength, we would chase them all the way to Berlin.
There was more bad news. I was not to be put on trial, yet. I was very disappointed. When I talked with George and Theo, I was assured that if I was apprehended, there would be a quick trial, like Henriette Caillaux’s, and I would be found not guilty, as she was. Suddenly there was a problem. The prime minister had decided that my trial had to be postponed because of fear that a public reminder of Jaurès’ slaying would anger the left-wing troublemakers who might decide to desert the army. Apparently he believed that the sacred union of all Frenchmen would be endangered. They might even find me guilty if I was tried by a military court. They could execute me before an appeal was lodged. I had to take that into consideration. Certainly.
I could see that he, too, was sad. “I promise you this, young man, your bravery will not be forgotten. Your silence will be repaid. You will want for nothing.” I almost blurted out that I didn’t kill Jaurès for money, but thought better of that. Once I was a free man, I would need funds, and he would provide for me. Good. He could afford it. I wondered if he might contact my father and ensure that he was well and understood why I did the deed. He said he would, though there was some doubt about the whereabouts of the civic administration for Reims because of the German invasion. Bastards. He would inquire, he promised.
I was quite comfortable and had to be patient. Are you patient, my friend? Comfortable in the sense that I was fed and treated as a special case, but that did not stop the waves of uncertainty. Couldn’t shake them off. They are like the sea; unpredictable. Subject to laws we do not fully comprehend. But perhaps you do, my friend?
Personal doubt is also a cancer. It creeps into the mind and attaches itself to surprising memories, most often in those dark hours when secret fears blossom. Fortunately no one can share the moment. It is purely personal. Black thoughts hidden in the shadows shout names from the past. Bad names. Cruel names. Names which undermine the confident person you want to be. Names which mock the hero. Names which strike at the core of self-belief and strip it of its dignity. Names you fear are true.
15
December 1914 – The Legion of Dishonor
The chief superintendent listened carefully to his report. “Zaharoff, and, you think, Wendel, Joffre’s man, and Benoit Durfort. Are you certain?” He stubbed out his Gauloises and pursed his lips. “Show me where they met.”
Mathieu found the avenue on the wall map of the city.
“Yes, this part of town is being cleared to prepare a last ditch defense. Perfect for a clandestine meeting. But why?” Bernard Roux’s antenna raised suspicion to conspiracy in one bound. “The munitions millionaire with the Grand Croix of the Legion of Honor, the chairman of the all-powerful committee of iron and steel owners, a representative from our commanding general, and the Quai d’Orsay’s diplomatic eminence noir. What do they have in common? Armaments, power, military muscle, and diplomatic connections.” The chief superintendent tapped his finger on the map. “Show me exactly where you think that house is.”
Mathieu traced his fingers along the street map and hesitated. “Here, I think.”
Roux nodded to himself and picked up the telephone. “Ah, Sergeant Toussaint, would you do me a favor. Check the address of Charles Laurent?” A flurry of invective followed. Toussaint clearly didn’t like the named person. “Ah, that’s what I thought, Sergeant. Yes, certainly, I’ll bear that in mind.” He returned to the wall map and chuckled. “Toussaint wants us to know that if we are going to arrest Laurent, he’d like to help. But that’s who lives there, Mathieu. Charles Laurent, former civil servant with a finger in every pie, moved into banking and industry and often represents the Comité des Forges here in Paris. Add his name to the others and we are beginning to shape a notion of who they are. The people behind the curtain of power. The puppet masters.” The chief pursed his lips and lit an inspirational cigarette in the hope of self-enlightenment. “What are they up to?” he mused.
Mathieu shrugged. “No good at the very least. What do we do? Have we enough evidence to take this further?”
“None at all. We don’t know what they’re doing and we don’t know what they’ve done. We have to keep this entirely between us, Mathieu. These people don’t want ordinary mortals snooping around. Put nothing on record. Nothing.”
“But we are the Deuxième Bureau. It’s our job to create a record,” Mathieu protested.
“Of course it is, but there are some who are allowed to act above the state.” Roux raised a finger to stop Mathieu’s interruption. “Knowledge is power, and we now have the knowledge, you and I. We keep this to ourselves. Believe me, it is safer…for both of us.”
* * *
Just how much credence was given to the story that Paris was saved and the German onslaught halted by the city’s taxis and charabancs no one will know for sure, but the additional brigades from England, the reinforcements from Alsace-Lorraine, and the volunteers and reservists from the capital forced the overstretched German army to withdraw from the River Marne to the other side of the River Aisne in early September. Life slowly returned to the shaken old lady. Those who had taken refugee elsewhere began to slip back to their homes. Markets reappeared as if to herald normality. Some food and vegetables were available from local vendors, though prices had risen. Theaters and music halls slowly reopened, though the audiences were muted and the bonhomie of high summer had gone. Laughter found a more hollow tone, though the wine reserves remained constant by volume but dearer by the glass. Buses returned to their familiar routes. The metro ran a reduced service and the Sorbonne recommenced classes in early December.
Each night Mathieu waited for Agnès to finish her work in the café, heart in mouth, knowing that she was determined to leave Paris. She had talked about it for two months and attended part-time classes at the Hotel-Dieu hospital so that she understood how to bandage minor wounds and apply clean dressings, though the message from the frontline field hospitals was that nothing could prepare volunteers for the chaos of the trenches. He found her sitting at the table in her apartment, small suitcase by her side, biting her lip, knowing he would be upset. Before he had time to react, Agnès kissed Mathieu passionately and drew away, prepared for his objections. She touched his lips and said, “You do your best every day to keep Paris safe, and I have to be involved, too. Young men have gone to war, the middle classes have boarded up their mansions and sneaked away in the night, and I’m still cleaning tables. No. When I see the injured and wounded on the streets I’m ashamed of myself. You know how I feel. So, I’ve decided. I am going to join the medical corps.”
“But you’re not a trained nurse yet,” he protested hopelessly.
“No, but I can clean, cook, dig, wash, and learn to bind wounds. From what we see in the streets of Paris every day, I can help do something. Surely?” She kissed him again and smiled. “And for God’s sake, change that shirt. You stink of Gauloises.”
* * *
Next morning, sitting close to the entrance of Café Clichy, Paul Dubois and Mathieu were bemused to have their first coffee of the day delivered by the owner, Andre, a man more used to a late morning appearance than the frosty pre-dawn shift.
“Pardon, Messieurs.” He placed the steaming coffee carefully before them and returned with a croissant for Mathieu, his face tripping him as if his life had been ruined.
“Five years, would you believe that? For five years I’ve paid Agnès well, helped her out when she had problems, and she comes in last night and bids me farewell. Walks out. What am I to do? I asked, but she was gone. Said something about doing her best for the war effort! Bloody war. Bloody women.”
“Especially the ones who have joined the medical corps to look after the wounded at the front,” Mathieu retorted sarcastically. He resented Andre’s bitter self-interest, for his own sense of loss ran far, far deeper. He had reasoned with Agnès for weeks, but knew she was right and he had let her kiss his protests into a passionate adieu. He rose, dropped a solitary coin on the table, and said, “Let’s go, Paul. Half the criminals in Paris may have been let out of prison to join the army, but whether they do or not is anyone’s guess. The biggest criminal in town is on his way back from a short break, so we’d better go check he arrives safety.”
“That’s no way to speak about our dear president, Mathieu.” Paul Dubois managed to make the word president sound like an insult. “I take it the whole political rat-pack are scuttling home from Bordeaux?”
Chief Superintendent Roux was visibly upset. He could see the cost of war standing in front of him, ranks thinned, the average age in the high forties, tired faces bearing the ravages of a troubled time. Many had lost sons, brothers, or friends within the first four months of a war that was supposed to be over by Christmas. Guy Simon for one. He had fallen on the second week of fighting, just south of Metz, as the conquering Germans swept all before them, his heart undiminished, his soul unrepentant, his wife a widow, his children fatherless. His sacrifice, like that of all such victims, however large or small, left bereft those who had to cope in the wake of death or injury. The women and families. And they were sacrificed on the altar of mammon. All of them.
“Gentlemen, I’m aware of the strains on the service and can promise you that in the short run, it won’t get any better. Crime has apparently fallen, if we believe the statistics, but given the numbers who have left the city to good and bad purpose, we now face a different set of problems. I want you to stamp hard on the racketeers and black market scum you pick up on the streets. It is the new big business, and organized crime wants its share. I understand that the Corsicans have become more active in prostitution and trafficking of all kinds. Paris is coming back to life, believe me. Refugees from Belgium and the north continue to flood into our city. They need help and direction. With them will come spies and German sympathizers. I’m going to add a few men to the surveillance division. Obviously, anything we can do to assist the boys at the front comes first.
“Now that the president, prime minister, and Cabinet are due back, clearly our role in protection becomes as vital as our role in detection. Every group commander will report to me as always, but we will have to actively identify targets as you remain the first line of defense.” He paused to give them time to absorb the shifting priorities they were expected to manage. “A word to the wise. Take care with tips; tips are for gamblers. We can’t afford to gamble. And instinct can be very dangerous. Don’t rely on instinct, that’s how animals survive. We have to be more clinical. Aware of the dangers around us. The stakes are high. Stay sharp.”
The assembly broke up. No cheering or clapping, but content that they had in Bernard Roux a leader who was also a policeman. “That’s the longest I’ve known him speak between two drags at a Gauloises.” Dubois was certain of that.
A clerk caught them on the stairs and redirected them to the chief superintendent’s office. He wasted no time with unnecessary pleasantries. “I’m keeping you together because I trust you. The special division to monitor and protect named citizens and foreign delegates is now your responsibility, Captain Girard. I know it may be short-term because of your deferred retirement, but you are the senior man.” Girard felt that his retirement date had become a fading illusion, like the rainbow’s end sans the fabled pot of gold.
“Sit down, please.” The chief ushered them to a mahogany table on which lay half a dozen sets of files. They sat. “We start with persons of significance, some political, some business, some dubiously wealthy and all free to move around the country at will. I have one question. What connects them?” He raised a blue file and said, “Basil Zaharoff, arms dealer and Legion of Honor. Recent allegations claim that he is being watched by foreign agents active in Paris. Handle with care. Connected to the Iron and Steel Combines. Personal friend of the president and high ranking military personnel.”
Two red files covered the movements of the president and prime minister. “Clearly senior politicians will be protected by the military at all times, but we have to know if they are contacted by outside agencies, no matter the assumed innocence. But discreetly. Always discreetly.”
Roux sifted through others and raised a brown, heavily marked file which had clearly been collated over a number of years. “Baron Édouard de Rothschild and family. Bankers to every crown head in Europe and connected by family ties across Europe. Manages important loans for the government. Of course he is above personal scrutiny, so take great care before any intervention by act or word.” An orange file contained notes and cuttings on Alexander Isvolsky, the Russian Ambassador. “He is likely to be a target for a left-wing socialist assassin. Some of them believe he directly caused the war. Very close ties with the president.”
Chief Superintendent Roux flicked through the remainder, stopping to advance his own thoughts on two particular names. “William Sharp, the new American ambassador. We know very little about him, and he knows nothing about France. But as President Wilson’s man in Paris, he is immensely important. And watch this one.” He pulled out an image of a stern-faced nobody staring coldly from a recent photograph, black fedora perched on his head, and tapped it twice with his left index finger. “Herbert Hoover. American mining engineer. Well-connected in London and Washington. Word has it that he will be in charge of a special relief program based in northern France and Belgium. We will see. Fifteen years ago the British money-power closed ranks behind him to cover his complicity in defrauding the Chinese, and he is a personal friend of their foreign secretary. Very close to the elite in London.”
Roux picked up the remainder and tidied them into one careful lot. “These do not need immediate action. Our predecessors compiled a list of known left-wing and anti-war sympathizers who were to have been arrested and confined to prison when war was declared if there was trouble on the streets. Jean Jaurès was one of them, poor man. His murder isn’t even mentioned here. Got to give Poincaré his due, the idea of a sacred union between workers and the state seems to have worked.” He sighed and looked for a reaction. “So far.”
“The connection, chief, is loose at best, but I can see that they can all move freely around France and leave the country at will,” Mathieu observed.
Bernard Roux looked at his files again and flicked through the top two. “They are unlikely to be spies, but their interests may not always be ours. The foreigners have money behind them. Remember that.”
“Captain, you allocate tasks and make sure that we keep tabs on them especially if and when they get together. But from a distance. They will make life awkward for us if the president and his entourage gets wind of this clandestine operation.”
Mathieu was appointed to the Zaharoff file. He was in the best position to work on connections they did not as yet understand. Dubois was put in charge of the Americans and the Rothschilds, since they had already made connections to bankers in New York. Former allies from the old Deuxième Bureau were given lead roles in protecting the politicians and Ambassador Isvolsky, aided by the army of course. Each man was handed his allocated files. Mathieu pondered over his in detail and did not like what he saw. Money, power, armaments, international connections and political clout. He had been put in charge of monitoring a rag-tag bag of vipers. Where to begin?
“Moutie, mon ami. Ca va?” Poor Moutie almost defecated himself. Having just been dismissed from a charge of petty theft by a judge with much more on his mind, he was on the point of congratulating his good fortune when Mathieu appeared from behind a pillar. Moutie’s legal representative had apparently misheard thirty as thirteen, misinformed the judge about previous convictions, and jail had been avoided yet again.
The thief protested. “There was hardly any money in the blind man’s collection tin. And I didn’t take it all…but you don’t want to hear all this…” Then he remembered who he was speaking to.
“Monsieur Bertrand, how good to see you.” He began to stammer. “I, I w-w-waited at the police station for t-two hours, but you never came back.”
“We’ll talk about that coffin later. I want to buy you a coffee.”
The thief hesitated. “Somewhere discreet, Monsieur, please. I’ve a r-reputation to maintain.”
“Of course you do. Lead on.” Moutie didn’t seem to understand sarcasm.
They entered a seedy, nondescript bar hidden between the canal and disused railway cuttings. Judged from the outside, it was derelict. A passerby might have thought that demolition workers had begun to pull it apart but stopped to join the army some five months ago. Window frames hung piteously from their sills and the corrugated iron door sat open to the elements, rusting in the damp which overlay the ruin. The sewers nearby ought to have run into the canal but were blocked. That was clear.
Once they had clambered over the natural debris, an inner room lay concealed amongst the rubble, wind and waterproofed. The tables and chairs came from different styles, ages, and localities, most likely stolen, Mathieu presumed. Conversation ceased as they entered the makeshift café-bar. Moutie spoke first to the bartender who looked over at Mathieu without apparent concern and nodded towards a table in the far corner where once a fireplace had warmed the surroundings. Miraculously, the room was warm and welcoming and the coffee hot, sharp and more than acceptable. Cheap, too. Five others sat around the bar-front engrossed in tales of their own misery. A mutilated soldier had been lifted onto a high stool from which his standing leg swung gaily of its own accord, his medal pinned directly on the front of his weathered jacket where once a button had kept it closed. It was the war, you see.
