Memory of Flames (12 page)

‘She married Baron de Joucy in 1788 at the age of seventeen. Her family were keen on the marriage because the Baron was a good catch. And she was keen on the marriage because she was in love. A good marriage and a love match! But the dream was short-lived and the awakening brutal. The Baron was an inveterate seducer, a regular Casanova, and he cheated on her endlessly - with her friends, her servants, with mothers, with their daughters, with prostitutes ...’

‘Surely that’s a slight exaggeration?’

‘Well, it’s probably true that the rumours were exaggerated. But I managed to find a former servant of the household, one Guer-loton, who had thrashed the Baron when he found him in bed with his wife! The Baron didn’t press charges, for fear of publicity. He

merely terminated the employment of the valet and his wife. Happily for the Baron, he now lives in London, because were he to return he would find someone waiting for him who would not stop at thrashing him this time ... The saddest thing was that Catherine de Saltonges was oblivious. She didn’t think that her pregnant servant was anything to do with her husband. He came home at all hours because of his “business affairs”. Her husband flirted constantly with beautiful women. But she saw nothing, suspected nothing.’

‘Her education can’t have prepared her for such things. It must have been all crochet and the Bible ...’

‘All Parisian nobility was laughing at her behind her back, which delighted her husband, making him all the more desirable in the eyes of certain women. But one day in September 1792, Catherine de Saltonges cancelled a shopping trip unexpectedly because of a storm.’

‘A storm that was the prelude to an even more violent tempest. I suppose she went home and discovered her husband in the arms of another woman.’

‘That’s exactly what happened. In her own bed, what’s more. She ran away to her parents, who tried in vain to send her back to her legitimate husband. In their eyes, as in his, the couple had been married before God for better and for worse.’

‘She being the better and he being the worst ...’

‘She changed completely after that. She had previously been shy and self-effacing; now she was transformed into a formidable woman. She decided to divorce! She was one of the first to make use of the famous law of October 1792 permitting divorce. Her grounds were her husband’s “notorious disorderliness of morals”. Can you imagine the reaction of the two families? Not to mention her husband’s reaction. Up until that point the Revolution had not troubled the Baron much. Of course, he feared the revolutionaries, but he would never have thought that the Revolution might harm him because of his wife! She was brave enough to appear before the district tribunal; since it was not a case of divorce by mutual consent and since the Baron denied the accusations she brought

against him, there had to be a trial. A baroness who wanted to divorce! It caused hilarity amongst the revolutionaries and there was a hue and cry amongst the aristocracy. To his horror the Baron became the laughing stock of his peers! Catherine de Saltonges had succeeded in reversing the roles. She pressed on with the trial despite pressure from her friends and family. The revolutionaries make an example of the case, the newspapers wrote about it endlessly ... I was able to track down a witness at the trial, an old soldier who had been allocated guard duty at the district tribunal. He told me that the trial became a spectacle. When the baroness was expected, reinforcements of soldiers were called in. The crowds grew ever thicker and had to be pushed back to let her through. On the one hand there were some daring priests and hordes of anxious husbands come to boo and hiss. On the other there were revolutionaries and hundreds of women of all ages! Catherine de Saltonges arrived, outwardly serene. She advanced through a barrage of insults, spitting, cheering and applauding. Then she answered the questions put to her. She repeated to the tribunal everything her so-called friends had hastened to tell her after she had discovered her husband’s true nature. Each of her husband’s infidelities became a weapon for his spouse to use against him! She repaid blow for blow. Several times the sessions degenerated and the tribunal had to be evacuated. But each time, she returned, composed, as if she had forgotten the threats and brawls of the previous session.’

Margont was perplexed. Lefine’s description did not fit at all with his memory of her. He had the feeling that the more he learned about the woman the less he knew her. ‘I don’t know if I would have had her daring, in the same situation.’

‘Well, I know that I wouldn’t. I would have left with the silver. The district tribunal found in her favour. Her husband emigrated to London, officially because of revolutionary fury, which was set to increase, but also to escape public derision.’

‘Well done, Fernand, good work!’

Lefine looked pleased. When he was complimented, he thrust his chest out like the fabled crow, though he would never have

opened his beak and let the cheese fall out...

Margont grew thoughtful.

‘What you’ve told me explains some of her behaviour.

When I met her, I had the impression that I disgusted her. I had never encountered such a reaction before. Having been deceived for such a long time made the betrayal she suffered much worse. She must have developed a hatred of lies. I think she’s on the lookout for lies everywhere and in everyone she meets. And she’s discerning - she picked up that I was not being honest with them. I’m going to have to be very careful when she’s there!’

‘If she poses the most danger to you, why don’t you seduce her?’ ‘What a despicable idea!’

‘If she’s in love she will be blind to—’

‘I don’t like the way you treat people like pawns.’

‘And how do they treat us?’

‘You can’t see her burning off the face of a corpse ... but I’m not so sure ... In any case, she’s certainly a strong character. She introduced herself under her maiden name and none of the members dared call her “Madame de Joucy”, even though they probably all disapprove of the divorce.’

‘She’s the only other member whose address we know. She doesn’t seem to be aware that the police are investigating her. She lives in Faubourg Saint-Germain - I’m having her house watched.’ ‘Are you using trustworthy men, as I asked?’

‘Yes, I can vouch for them. They haven’t discovered anything very interesting about her daily life.’

Margont rose. ‘Let’s go and stretch our legs.’

They went towards the hill of Montmartre and started to climb it slowly. It was so easy at the moment ... but should the Allies arrive at the gates of Paris, they would inevitably attack Montmartre. And so with every step, Margont imagined he was already stepping over the enemy corpses that would litter the slopes.

‘What did you find out about Honoré de Nolant? I know nothing about him, other than that he was the one the group had allocated to slit my throat, if necessary. So obviously he is capable of killing. Perhaps he has already done so ... He’s the one I know the least,

but at the same time he’s the most dangerous.’

‘You’re right to fear him, because he has done some unpleasant things. The police reports contain some interesting facts about him. His family belongs to the nobility of Champagne. As an adolescent he was part of Louis XVI’s entourage. He used to read to the King and perform other similarly useless services. Nolant really was a good friend. But he was quick to spot the change in the prevailing wind, and after 1790 he began to pass information secretly to the members of the National Assembly who were drawing up the new constitution. He passed on the details of the lives of the King, Marie-Antoinette, the dauphin ... According to what I read, he was the first to reveal the disappearance of the King and his family on the night of 20 June 1791 ...’

The flight of the King, that ended at Varennes, when a postmaster, Jean-Baptiste Drouet, recognised Louis XVI.’

‘Honoré de Nolant was cunning. By the time he had raised the alert, the royal family was already on the road. He claimed that he reacted as soon as he had noticed that the King was no longer there. But I think he was hedging his bets. Had Louis XVI been able to escape abroad, Nolant, who was certainly aware of the plan and had perhaps even helped with arrangements, would have been rewarded. But once the King was arrested, the revolutionaries stopped treating Honoré de Nolant as merely a spy and welcomed him as a real revolutionary. He changed his name to “Denolant” and had a dazzling career. In 1793 he spied on behalf of the Committee of Public Safety, the bloodthirsty alliance - Robespierre, Couthon, Saint-Just - that wanted to guillotine every Frenchman!’ ‘Another spy? Varencourt, me, now Nolant...’

‘If you stick your hand in the hornets’ nest, you shouldn’t be surprised if you keep coming across hornets.’

‘The Swords of the King must be unaware of all that. They would never have accepted such a man into their ranks! They must know only part of his history.’

‘Afterwards he worked for the Revolutionary Tribunal. So he might well have had reason one day to write out the name Louis de Leaume, adding after it, “Condemned to death by guillotine.”

When Bonaparte was proclaimed emperor, Honoré de Nolant became an imperialist and denounced the partisans of the Republic. He had gathered many contacts during his time as part of Louis XVI’s entourage, and then amongst the higher revolutionary echelons. Which was why Fouche, when he was head of the civilian police, decided to take him into his ministry where apparently he was very useful. He helped put together dossiers on the royalists, on revolutionaries and on republicans who were opposed to the Emperor. But in January 1810 people started to suspect that he was embezzling money. Honoré de Nolant immediately disappeared -from one day to the next! The police realised he had been making fools of them. He had claimed to have numerous informants who would only deal with him. But most of them did not actually exist and Nolant simply kept the sums he was supposed to pay over to them for himself. In exchange for the money, he invented republican plots, assassination plans ... it was all hot air. Expensive with it. The civilian police hate him.'

‘He can’t have walked away empty-handed, and I’m not only referring to money. He must have joined the Swords of the King complete with dossiers of information. That’s why he was accepted onto the committee! He’s the reason they are so well informed. Thanks to him they continually avoid detection by the police! He must have given them the names of the investigators in charge of tracking royalist organisations, and the names of their informers ... Perhaps he still has friends in the Ministry of Civilian Police, who continue to keep him informed. Now I understand why Joseph and Talleyrand chose me. It’s because I have nothing at all to do with any of the imperial police forces.’

‘That’s all I have on Honoré de Nolant.’

‘The group must be suspicious of him. They make him pay for his treachery by giving him the dirty jobs. He’s obliged to prove his loyalty by spilling blood. He’s a professional traitor: a royalist, a revolutionary, a republican, an imperialist and then a royalist again ... It must have been he who realised that the best way to disrupt the defence of Paris would be to murder those in charge. He understood the situation from the inside. He must have been the

one to suggest Colonel Berle! So at the very least, he was an accomplice to the crime!’

‘Calm down ... you’re in a state!’

‘At least the others are following an ideology. Even Charles de Varencourt is loyal to his passion for gambling. But Honoré de Nolant...’

‘If he’s arrested, the police will hang him. Unless the army has him shot before that.’

‘I can’t see any connection between him and fire.’

They reached the summit of Montmartre and Paris stretched out before them. Louis XIV had stamped his mark on the city with his grandiose architectural schemes: the golden dome of the Invalides shimmered like a second sun — sparking off dreams that were immediately quenched by fear — Place Vendome ... Napoleon had done the same, to tell the world that he was as great as the Sun King: with the column in Place Vendome, the Arc de Triomphe still under construction, the Eglise de la Madeleine imitating a Greco-Roman temple, the opening up of Rue de Rivoli, the bridges of

Austerlitz, lena and des Arts ... Paris was starting to look like a vast chessboard on which the rich accumulated palaces and other playthings like so many sumptuous pawns.

‘And finally, there’s Jean-Baptiste de Chatel. He was born in 1766,

to a noble family from Orleans. He entered the Cistercian Abbey of

Pagemont in the Loiret at an early age. He wasn’t like you: he really

wanted to become a monk. But he soon got himself expelled by

the Abbey, discreetly, on the pretext of ill health, because the

Church wanted to avoid a scandal. Why do you think he did that?’

‘I spent four years in an abbey and you’re asking me why? I could

talk all day on that subject! Because he wanted to see the world,

because he had fallen in love, because he wanted to have children,

because he was attracted to women, or men, or he’d lost his faith »

‘No, it wasn’t any of those things. It was because he wanted to reform everything: the running order of Mass, the ordination of priests, the functioning of the Vatican ...’

‘A reformer?’

‘Yes, but a conservative reformer. He found the other monks didn’t pray devoutly enough to God and that Pope Pius VI and Louis XVI were too moderate.’