Paris The Novel

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author’s use of names of actual persons, places, and characters are incidental to the plot, and are not intended to change the entirely fictional character of the work.

Copyright © 2013 by Edward Rutherfurd

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

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DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Family tree designed by Jeffrey L. Ward

Jacket design by Michael J. Windsor

Jacket illustrations: Eiffel Tower © SSPL/Getty Images;

painting © DEA/G. Dagli Orti/Getty Images

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

eISBN: 978-0-385-53531-1

v3.1





This book is dedicated to

the memory of my cousin,

Jean Louis Brizard,

Paris The Novel - By Edward Rutherfurd


Chapter One




• 1875 •


Paris. City of love. City of dreams. City of splendor. City of saints and scholars. City of gaiety.

Sink of iniquity.

In two thousand years, Paris had seen it all.



It was Julius Caesar who had first seen the possibilities of the place where the modest Parisii tribe made their home. The Mediterranean lands of southern Gaul had already been Roman provinces for generations at that time; but when Caesar decided to bring the troublesome Celtic tribes of northern Gaul into the empire as well, it hadn’t taken him long.

The Romans had quickly seen that this was a logical place for a town. A collecting point for the produce of the huge fertile plains of northern Gaul, the Parisian territory lay on the navigable River Seine. From its headwaters farther south, there was an easy portage to the huge River Rhône, which ran down to the busy ports of the Mediterranean. Northward, the Seine led to the narrow sea across which the island of Britannia lay. This was the great river system through which the southern and northern worlds were joined. Greek and Phoenician traders had been using it even before the birth of Rome. The site was perfect. The Parisian heartland lay in a wide, shallow valley through which the Seine made a series of graceful loops. In the center of the valley, on a handsome east-west bend, the river widened and several big mudflats and islands lay, like so many huge barges at anchor, in the stream. On the northern bank, meadows and marshes stretched far and wide until they came to the lip of low, enclosing ridges, from which several small hills and promontories jutted out, some of them covered with vineyards.

But it was on the southern bank—the left bank as one went downstream—that the ground near the river swelled gently into a low, flat hillock, like a table overlooking the water. And it was here that the Romans had laid out their town, a large forum and the main temple covering the top of the table with an amphitheater nearby, a grid of streets all around, and a north-south road running straight through the center, across the water to the largest island, which was now a suburb with a fine temple to Jupiter, and over a farther bridge to the northern bank. They had originally called the town Lutetia. But it was also known, more grandly, as the city of the Parisii.



In the Dark Ages after the Roman Empire fell, the German tribe of Franks had conquered the territory in the Land of the Franks, as it came to be called, or France. Its rich countryside had been invaded by Huns and Viking Norsemen. But the island in the river, with its wooden defenses, like some battered old ship, survived. In medieval times, she’d grown into a great city, her maze of Gothic churches, tall timbered houses, dangerous alleys and stinking cellars spread across both sides of the Seine, enclosed by a high stone wall. Stately Notre Dame Cathedral graced the island. Her university was respected all over Europe. Yet even then, the English came and conquered her. And Paris might have been English if Joan of Arc, the miraculous maid, hadn’t appeared and chased them out.

Old Paris: City of bright colors and narrow streets, of carnival and plague.

And then there was new Paris.

The change had come slowly. From the time of the Renaissance, lighter, classical spaces began to appear in her dark medieval mass. Royal palaces and noble squares created a new splendor. Broad boulevards began to carve through the rotting old warrens. Ambitious rulers created vistas worthy of ancient Rome.

Paris had altered her face to suit the magnificence of Louis XIV, and the elegance of Louis XV. The Age of Enlightenment and the new republic of the French Revolution had encouraged classical simplicity, and the age of Napoléon bequeathed imperial grandeur.

Recently, this process of change had been accelerated by a new town planner. Baron Haussmann’s great network of boulevards and long, straight streets lined with elegant office and apartment blocks was so thorough that there were quarters of Paris now where the rich mess of the Middle Ages was scarcely to be seen.

Yet old Paris was still there, around almost every corner, with her memories of centuries past, and of lives relived. Memories as haunting as an old, half-forgotten tune that, when played again—in another age, in another key, whether on harp or hurdy-gurdy—is still the same. This was her enduring grace.

Was Paris now at peace with herself? She had suffered and survived, seen empires rise and fall. Chaos and dictatorship, monarchy and republic: Paris had tried them all. And which did she like best? Ah, there was a question … For all her age and grace, it seemed she did not know.

Recently, she had suffered another terrible crisis. Four years ago, her people had been eating rats. Humiliated first, starving next. Then they had turned upon each other. It had not been long since the bodies had been buried, the smell of death been dispersed by the wind and the echo of the firing squads departed over the horizon.

Now, in the year 1875, she was recovering. But many great issues remained still to be resolved.



The little boy was only three. A fair-haired, blue-eyed child. Some things he knew already. Others were still kept from him. And then there were the secrets.

Father Xavier gazed at him. How like his mother the child looked. Father Xavier was a priest, but he was in love with a woman, the mother of this child. He admitted his passion to himself, but his self-discipline was complete. No one would have guessed his love. As for the little boy, God surely had a plan for him.

Perhaps that he should be sacrificed.

It was a sunny day in the fashionable Tuileries Gardens in front of the Louvre, where nannies watched their children play, and Father Xavier was taking him for a walk. Father Xavier: family confessor, friend in need, priest.

“What are your names?” he playfully asked the child.

“Roland, D’Artagnan, Dieudonné de Cygne.” He knew them all by heart.

“Bravo, young man.” Father Xavier Parle-Doux was a small, wiry man in his forties. Long ago he’d been a soldier. A fall from a horse had left him with a stabbing pain in his back ever since—though only a handful of people were aware of it.

But his days as a soldier had marked him in another way. He had done his duty. He’d seen killing. He had seen things worse than killing. And in the end, it had seemed to him that there must be something better than this, something more sacred, an undying flame of light and love in the terrible darkness of the world. He’d found it in the heart of Holy Church.

Also, he was a monarchist.

He’d known the child’s family all his life, and now he looked down at him with affection, but also with pity. Roland had no brother or sister. His mother, that beautiful soul, the woman he himself would have liked to marry had he not chosen another calling, suffered with delicate health. The future of the family might rest on little Roland alone: a heavy burden for a boy to bear.

But he knew that as a priest, he must take a larger view. What was it the Jesuits said? “Give us a boy till he’s seven, and he’s ours for life.” Whatever God’s plan for this child, whether that service led to happiness or not, Father Xavier would lead him toward it.

“And who was Roland?”

“Roland was a hero.” The little boy looked up for approval. “My mother read me the story. He was my ancestor,” he added solemnly.

The priest smiled. The famous Song of Roland was a haunting, romantic tale, from a thousand years ago, about how the emperor Charlemagne’s friend was cut off as the army crossed the mountains. How Roland blew on his horn for help, to no avail. How the Saracens slew him, and how the emperor wept for the loss of his friend. The de Cygne family’s claim to this ancestor was fanciful, but charming.

“Others of your ancestors were crusading knights.” Father Xavier nodded encouragingly. “But this is natural. You are of noble birth.” He paused. “And who was D’Artagnan?”

“The famous Musketeer. He was my ancestor.”

As it happened, the hero of The Three Musketeers had been based upon a real man. And Roland’s family had married a noblewoman of the same name back in the time of Louis XIV—though whether they had taken much interest in this connection before the novel made the name famous, the priest rather doubted.

“You have the blood of the D’Artagnans in your veins. They were soldiers who served their king.”

“And Dieudonné?” the child asked.

Hardly were the words out before Father Xavier checked himself. He must be careful. Could the child have any idea of the horror of the guillotine that lay behind the last of his names?

“Your grandfather’s name is beautiful, you know,” he replied. “It means ‘the gift of God.’ ” He thought for a moment. “The birth of your grandfather was—I do not say a miracle—but a sign. And remember one thing, Roland,” the priest continued. “Do you know the motto of your family? It is very important. ‘Selon la volonté de Dieu’—According to God’s Will.”



Father Xavier turned his eyes up to survey the landscape all around. To the north rose the hill of Montmartre, where Saint Denis had been martyred by pagan Romans, sixteen centuries ago. To the southwest, behind the towers of Notre Dame, rose the slope above the Left Bank where, as the old Roman Empire was crumbling, the indefatigable Saint Geneviève had asked God to turn Attila and his Huns away from the city—and her prayers had been answered.

Time and again, thought the priest, God had protected France in her hour of need. When the Moslems had first swept up from Africa and Spain, and might have overrun all Europe, hadn’t He sent a great general, the grandfather of Charlemagne, to beat them back? When the English, in their long, medieval struggle with the French kings, had even made themselves masters of Paris, hadn’t the good Lord given France the maiden Joan of Arc to lead her armies to victory?

Most important of all, God had given France her royal family, whose Capetian, Valois and Bourbon branches for thirty generations had ruled, reunited and made glorious this sacred land.

And through all those centuries, the de Cygnes had faithfully served those divinely anointed kings.

This was the little boy’s heritage. He would understand it in due course.



It was time to go home. Behind them, at the end of the Tuileries Gardens, lay the vast open space of the Place de la Concorde. Beyond that, the magnificent sweep of the Champs-Élysées, for two miles up to the Arc de Triomphe.

The little boy was still too young to know the Place de la Concorde’s part in his history. As for the Arc de Triomphe, grand though it was, Father Xavier did not care for republican monuments.

Instead, he gazed again at the hill of Montmartre—that site where once a pagan temple stood; where Saint Denis had been martyred; and where such terrible scenes had taken place in the recent upheavals in the city. How appropriate that this very year, a new temple should be arising there by the windmills, a temple to Catholic France, its pure, white dome shining like a dove over the city. The basilica of Sacré Coeur, the Sacred Heart.

This was the temple where the little boy should serve. For God had saved his family for a reason. There was shame to be overcome, faith to be restored.

“Could you walk a little way?” he asked. Roland nodded. With a smile, the priest reached down and took the child’s hand. “Shall we sing a song?” he asked. “ ‘Frère Jacques,’ perhaps?”

So hand in hand the priest and the little boy, watched by several nannies and their charges, walked out of the gardens, singing.



As Jules Blanchard reached the Louvre end of the Champs-Élysées and walked up toward the church of La Madeleine, he had every reason to be a happy man. He already had two sons, good boys both of them. But he’d always wanted a daughter. And at eight o’clock this morning, his wife had presented him with a baby girl.

There was only one problem. And solving it would require a certain delicacy—which was why, at this moment, he was going to a rendezvous with a lady who was not his wife.

Jules Blanchard was a well-set, vigorous man, with a solid family fortune. The century before, as the charming, rococo monarchy of Louis XV encountered the grand ideas of the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution turned the world upside down, his ancestor had been a bookseller of radical views. The bookseller’s son, Jules’s grandfather, was a doctor who came to the notice of the rising general, Napoléon Bonaparte, during the Revolution and never looked back. A fashionable physician under Napoléon’s empire and the restored Bourbon monarchy that followed it, he’d finally retired to a handsome house in Fontainebleau, which the family still possessed. His wife was from a merchant family, and in the next generation, Jules’s father had gone into business. Specializing in wholesaling grain, by the mid-nineteenth century he had built up a considerable fortune. Jules had joined the business and now, at the age of thirty-five, he was ready to take over from his father, whenever that worthy gentleman chose finally to retire.

At La Madeleine, Jules turned half-right. He liked this boulevard because it led past the city’s huge new opera house. The Paris Opéra, designed by Garnier, had been completed only at the start of this year, but already it was a landmark. Besides its many hidden wonders—which included an ingenious artificial lake in the cellars to control the swamp waters below—the Opéra was such a magnificent concoction that, with its great, round roof, it reminded Jules of an enormous, decorated gâteau. It was rich, it was flamboyant, it was the spirit of the age—at least, for lucky fellows like him.

And now he was in sight of his rendezvous. Just a short way past the Opéra, on a corner site, was the Café Anglais. Unlike the Opéra, it was rather plain outside. But inside was another matter. It was lavish enough for princes. A few years ago, the emperors of Russia and Germany had dined there together for a legendary feast that went on for eight hours.

Where else could one meet Joséphine for lunch?

They had opened the big paneled room known as Le Grand Seize for lunch today. As he entered past bowing waiters, gilt mirrors and potted plants, he saw her at once.

Joséphine Tessier was the kind of fashionable woman whom head waiters placed in the center of the room—unless the lady murmured that she wished to be discreet. Expensive and elegant, she was wearing a pale gray silk gown, a lace ruff at her throat and a jaunty little hat with a feather in it.

He was greeted by a rustle of silk, and an intoxicating scent. He lightly kissed her hand, sat down and told the waiter to bring champagne.

“A celebration?” inquired the lady. “You have good news?”

“It’s a girl.”

“Congratulations.” She smiled. “I am very happy for you, my dear Jules. It’s what you had wanted.”

He had been wonderfully fortunate, Jules considered, to have been Joséphine’s lover when they were both young. For all his wealth, he thought, he probably couldn’t afford her now. A very rich banker indeed kept her these days. Nonetheless, he counted their relationship as one of the best that a man can have. She was his former mistress, his confidante and his friend.

The champagne arrived. They toasted the baby. Then they ordered, and chatted of this and that. Only with the appearance of a light, clear soup did he broach the subject on his mind.

“There is a problem,” he said. Joséphine waited. His face became gloomy. “My wife wants to call her Marie,” he said at last.

“Marie.” His friend considered. “It’s not a bad name.”

“I always promised you if I had a daughter, I should call her after you.”

She looked up at him, surprised.

“That was a long time ago, chéri. It doesn’t matter.”

“But it does matter. I wish to call her Joséphine.”

“And what if your wife associates the name with me?”

“She doesn’t know about us. I am certain of it. I mean to insist.” He sipped his champagne moodily. “You really think there is a danger?”

“I shall not tell her, you may be sure,” Joséphine answered. “But others might …” She shook her head. “You are playing with fire.”

“I thought I’d say,” he persisted, “that I want to name her after the empress Joséphine.”

The beautiful wife of Napoléon, the love of the emperor’s life. A romantic legend—up to a point.

“But she was notoriously unfaithful to the emperor,” Joséphine pointed out. “Perhaps not a good example for your daughter.”

“I was hoping you’d come up with something.”

“No.” Joséphine shook her head. “My friend, this is a very bad idea. Call your daughter Marie, and make your wife happy. That is all I have to say.”

The next course was another specialty of the house: lobster, sliced in aspic. They spoke of old friends, and the opera. It was not until the dessert, a salad of fruits, that Joséphine, after looking at him reflectively for a few moments, took up the subject of his marriage again.

“Do you want to make your wife unhappy, chéri? Has she done something bad to you?”

“Not at all.”

“Are you unfaithful?”

“No.”

“Does she satisfy you?”

He shrugged.

“It’s fine.”

“You must learn to be happy, Jules,” she said with a sigh. “You have everything you want, including your wife.”

It had not been a shock, nor even a surprise to Joséphine when Jules Blanchard had married. His wife was a cousin on his mother’s side, and brought a large dowry. As Jules had put it at the time: “Two parts of a family fortune have found each other again.”

But Jules was still frowning.

Joséphine Tessier had studied many men in her life. It was her profession. In her opinion, men were often discontented because their occupation did not suit them. Of others, one could even say that they had been born at the wrong time—a natural knight in armor, for instance, trapped in a modern world. But Jules Blanchard was perfectly made for nineteenth-century France.

When the French Revolution had broken the power of the king and the aristocracy—the ancien régime—it had left the field open to the rich, the haute bourgeoisie. Napoléon had created his personal version of the Roman Empire, with his triumphal arches and his quest for glory, but he had also taken care to appeal to the solid middle classes. And so it had remained after his fall.

True, some conservatives wanted to return to the ancien régime, but the only time the restored Bourbon monarchy tried that, in 1830, the Parisians had kicked out the Bourbon king and installed Louis Philippe, a royal cousin of the Orléans line, as their constitutional and very bourgeois monarch.

On the other side, there were radicals, even socialists, who hated the new bourgeois France, and wanted another revolution. But when they took to the streets in 1848, thinking their time had come, it was not a socialist state, but a conservative republic that emerged, followed by an ornately bourgeois empire under Napoléon III—the great emperor’s nephew—that again favored the bankers and stockbrokers, the property men and larger merchants. Men like Jules Blanchard.

These were the men to be seen riding with their beautifully dressed women in the Bois de Boulogne on the city’s western edge, or gathering for elegant evenings at the huge new Opéra house, where Jules and his wife liked to be seen. There was no doubt, Joséphine thought, that Jules Blanchard had the best of the present century.

Why, he’d even had her.

“What’s the matter, my friend?” she gently inquired.

Jules considered. He knew that he was lucky. And he valued what he had. He loved the old family house at Fontainebleau, with its enclosed courtyard, his grandfather’s First Empire furniture and leather-bound books. He loved the elegant royal château in the town, older and more modest than the vast palace of Versailles. On Sundays he would walk in the nearby Forest of Fontainebleau, or ride out to the village of Barbizon, where Corot had painted landscapes filled with the haunting light of the River Seine. In Paris, he was happy trading in the great medieval wholesale market of Les Halles, with its brightly colored stalls, and bustle, and the scents of cheeses, herbs and fruits from every region of France. He was proud of his intimate knowledge of the city’s ancient churches, and its ancient inns with their deep wine cellars.

Yet it wasn’t enough.

“I’m bored,” he said. “I want to change my career.”

“To what, my dear Jules?”

“I have a plan,” he confided. “It will astonish you.” He made a sweeping gesture. “A new business for the new Paris.”

When Jules Blanchard spoke of the new Paris, he didn’t mean only the broad boulevards of Baron Haussmann. Even from the days of France’s great Gothic cathedrals, Paris had liked to think of herself—at least in northern Europe—as the leader of fashion. Parisians had not been pleased when, a quarter century ago, in a dramatic palace of glass built for the occasion, London had captured international headlines with her Great Exhibition of all that was new and exciting in the world. New York had followed soon after. But by 1855, Paris was ready to fight back, and her new emperor, Napoléon III, had opened her Universal Exposition of industry and the arts, in a stupendous hall of iron, glass and stone on the Champs-Élysées. A dozen years later Paris did it again, this time on the vast parade ground on the Left Bank known as the Champ de Mars. This 1867 exhibition was the biggest the world had ever seen, featuring many marvels, including Siemens’s first electric dynamo.

“I want a department store,” said Jules. New York had department stores: Macy’s was thriving. London had Whiteleys in the suburbs and a few cooperatives, but nothing dramatic yet. Paris was already ahead in size and style, with Bon Marché and Printemps. “It’s the future,” Jules declared. And he began to describe the store he had in mind, a great palace selling all kinds of merchandise to a huge audience. “Style, keen prices, right in the center of the city,” he explained with growing excitement, while Joséphine watched him with fascination.

“I never knew you could be so passionate,” she remarked.

“Oh.”

“I mean, in the head.” She smiled.

“Ah.”

“And what does your father think?”

“He will not hear of it.”

“What will you do?”

“Wait.” He sighed. “What else can I do?”

“You would not go off on your own?”

“Difficult. He controls the money. And to disrupt the family …”

“You love your father, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Be kind to your father and to your wife, my dear Jules. Be patient.”

“I suppose so.” He was silent for a while. Then he brightened. “But I still want to call my daughter Joséphine.”

Then, explaining that he must get back to his wife, he got up to go. She laid a restraining hand on him.

“You must not do this, my friend. For my sake, also. Don’t do it.”

But without committing himself, he paid the waiter and left.

After he had gone, Joséphine was thoughtful. Did he really mean to call his daughter Joséphine? Or, remembering a foolish promise made long ago, had he just played a pretty scene, putting her in a position where he could be sure she would free him from that promise? She smiled to herself. It didn’t matter. Even if the latter, it was kind and clever of him.

She liked clever men. And it amused her that she was still left wondering what he would do.



The tall woman paused. She was gaunt. Beside her stood a dark-haired boy of nine, his hair cut short, his eyes set wide apart. He looked intelligent.

The widow Le Sourd was forty, but whether it was the drab clothes that hung loosely from her angular body, or that her long hair was gray and unkempt, or that she had a stony face, she seemed much older. And if she looked grim, it was for a reason.

The night before, not for the first time, her son had asked her a question. And today she had decided that it was time to tell him the truth.

“Let us go in,” she said.

The great cemetery of Père Lachaise occupied the slopes of a hill about three miles to the east of the Tuileries Gardens, from which Father Xavier and the little Roland had departed an hour before. It was an ancient burial ground, but in recent times it had become famous. All kinds of great men—statesmen, soldiers, artists and composers—were buried there, and visitors often came to admire their tombs. But it was not a grave that the widow Le Sourd had brought her son to see.

They entered by the gateway on the city side, below the hill. In front of them stretched tree-lined alleys and cobbled walks, like little Roman roads, between the sepulchers. It was quiet. Apart from the guardian at the gate, they had the place almost to themselves. The widow knew exactly where she was going. The boy did not.

First, just to the right of the entrance, they paused to view the monument that had made the place famous, the tall shrine of the medieval lovers Abelard and Héloïse. But they did not stay there long. Nor did the widow bother with any of Napoléon’s famous marshals, nor Corot the painter’s recent grave, nor even the graceful tomb of Chopin the composer. For they would have been distractions. Before she told her son the truth, she had to prepare him.

“Jean Le Sourd was a brave man.”

“I know, Maman.” His father had been a hero. Every night, before he went to sleep, he would go over in his mind everything he could remember about the tall, kindly figure who told him stories and played ball with him. The man who would always bring bread to the table, even when Paris was starving. And if sometimes the memories became a little hazy, there was always the photograph of a handsome man, dark-haired and with eyes set wide apart, like himself. Sometimes he dreamed of him. They would go on adventures together. Once they were even fighting in a street battle, side by side.

For several minutes his mother led him up the slope in silence until, below the crown of the hill, she turned right onto a long alley. Then she spoke again.

“Your father had a noble soul.” She looked down at her son. “What do you think it means, Jacques, to be noble?”

“I suppose …”—the boy considered—“to be brave, like the knights who fought for honor.”

“No,” she said harshly. “Those knights in armor were not noble at all. They were thieves, tyrants, who took all the wealth and power they could. They called themselves noble to puff themselves up with pride, and pretend that their blood was better than ours, so they could do what they liked. Aristocrats!” She grimaced. “A false nobility. And the worst of them all was the king. A filthy conspiracy that went on for centuries.”

Young Jacques knew that his mother revered the French Revolution. But after the death of his father she had always avoided speaking about such things, as though they belonged in some place of darkness that she did not want to enter.

“Why did it last so long, Maman?”

“Because there was a criminal power even worse than the king. Do you know what that was?”

“No, Maman.”

“It was the Church, Jacques. The king and his aristocrats supported the Church, and the priests told the people to obey them. That was the bargain of the ancien régime. An enormous lie.”

“Didn’t the Revolution change that?”

“The year 1789 was more than a revolution. It was the birth of Freedom itself. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: these are the noblest ideas that men can have. The ancien régime fought against them, so the Revolution cut off their heads. It was absolutely necessary. But more than that. The Revolution released us from the prison that the Church had made. The power of the priests was broken. People were free to deny God, to be free of superstition, and follow reason. It was a great step forward for mankind.”

“What happened to the priests, Maman? Were they killed, too?”

“Some.” She shrugged. “Not enough.”

“But the priests are still here today.”

“Unfortunately.”

“So were all the men of the Revolution atheists?”

“No. But the best were.”

“You do not believe in God, Maman?” asked Jacques. His mother shook her head. “Did my father?” he pursued.

“No.”

The boy was thoughtful for a moment.

“Then nor shall I,” he said.

The path was curving toward the east, drawing closer to the outer edge of the cemetery.

“What happened to the Revolution, Maman? Why didn’t it last?”

His mother shrugged again.

“There was confusion. Napoléon came to power. He was half revolutionary, and half a Roman emperor. He nearly conquered all Europe before he was defeated.”

“Was he an atheist?”

“Who knows. The Church never got its power back, but he found the priests useful to him—like most rulers.”

“And after him, things went back to how they were before?”

“Not exactly. All the monarchs of Europe were terrified of revolution. For thirty years they managed to hold the forces of freedom down. The conservatives in France—the old monarchists, the rich bourgeois, everyone who feared change—they all supported conservative governments. The people had no power, the poor grew poorer. But the spirit of freedom never died. In 1848, revolutions started breaking out all over Europe, including here. Fat old Louis Philippe, the king of the bourgeois classes, was so frightened that he got in a taxi and disappeared to England. We became a Republic again. And we elected the nephew of Napoléon to lead it.”

“But he made himself emperor.”

“He wanted to be like his uncle. After two years leading the Republic, he made himself emperor—and since the great Napoléon had left a son who died, he called himself Napoléon III.” She shook her head. “Oh, he was a good showman. Baron Haussmann rebuilt Paris. There was a splendid new opera house. Huge exhibitions to which half the world came. But the poor were no better off. And then, after ten years, he made a stupid mistake. He started a war with Germany. But he was no general, and he lost it.”

“I remember when the Germans came to Paris.”

“They smashed our armies and surrounded Paris. It went on for months. We nearly starved. You did not know it, but at the end, the little stews I fed you were made of rats. You were only five, but luckily you were strong. Finally, when they bombarded us with heavy artillery, there was nothing more we could do. Paris surrendered.” She sighed. “The Germans went back to Germany, but they made us give up Alsace and Lorraine—those beautiful regions along our side of the River Rhine, with their vineyards and mountains. France was humiliated.”

“It was after that when my father was killed. You always told me he died fighting. But I never really understood. The teachers in school say—”

“Never mind what they say,” his mother cut in. “I will tell you what happened.” She paused nonetheless, and upon her face there briefly appeared the ghost of a tender smile.

“You know,” she continued, “when I wanted to marry, my family were not very happy. We were quite poor, but my father was a schoolteacher, and he wanted me to marry an educated man. Jean Le Sourd was the son of a laborer, with little formal schooling. He worked at a printers, setting type. But he had an enormous curiosity.”

“So what happened?”

“My father decided to educate my future husband. And your father didn’t mind. In fact, he was a wonderful student, and soon he was reading everything. In the end, I think he had read more than any man I know. And it was through his study that he came to the beliefs for which he died.”

“He believed in the Revolution.”

“Your father came to understand that even the French Revolution was not enough. By the time you were born, he knew that the only way forward was the absolute rule of the people and the end of private property. And many brave men thought the same thing.”

On their right now, behind some trees, they could see the cemetery’s outer wall. They were almost at their destination.

“Four years ago,” she continued, “it seemed the chance had come. Napoléon III was defeated. The government, such as it was, rested in the hands of the National Assembly, which had fled to the country palace of Versailles. The deputies were so conservative, we thought they might decide upon another monarchy. The Assembly feared Paris, you see, because we had our own militia and a lot of cannon up on the hill of Montmartre. They sent troops to take our cannon. But the troops joined us. And suddenly it happened: Paris decided to govern itself. That was the Commune.”

“My teachers say it didn’t go well.”

“They lie. It was a wonderful time, that early spring. Everything functioned. The Commune took over Church property. They started giving women equal rights. We flew the Red Flag of the people. Men like your father were organizing whole districts like workers’ states. The Assembly at Versailles was terrified.”

“Then the Assembly attacked Paris?”

“They were stronger by then. They had army troops. The Germans even returned prisoners of war to strengthen the Versailles army against the people. It was disgusting. We defended the gates of Paris. We put up barricades in the street. The poor of the city fought like heroes. But in the end, they were too strong for us. The final week of May—Bloody Week—was the worst …”

The widow Le Sourd stopped speaking now for a few moments. They had come to the southeastern corner of the cemetery now, where the path rose more steeply as it curved to the left up the central hill. To the right of the cobbled walk, down a slope, stood the blank stone face of the graveyard’s outer wall, with a small, empty triangle of ground in front of it. It was a nondescript little corner of the place that had never been given any dignity or name.

“In the end,” the widow went on quietly, “the last area to hold out was the poor quarter of Belleville just nearby. Some of our people were fighting up there.” She gestured to the tombs on the crown of the hill behind them. “Finally, it was over. The last hundred or so of the Communards were captured. One of them was your father.”

“You mean, they took him to prison?”

“No. There was an officer in charge of the troops. He ordered them to take the prisoners down there.” She pointed to the blank stretch of wall. “Then he lined up his troops and ordered them to shoot the prisoners. Just like that. So this is where your father died, and that is how. Now you know.”

Then the tall, gaunt widow Le Sourd suddenly started to weep. And her son watched. But she soon corrected herself and gazed stonily, for a minute or so, at the blank wall where her marriage ended.

“Let us go now,” she said. And they began to walk back.

They were nearly in sight of the entrance to the cemetery when Jacques interrupted her thoughts.

“What happened to the officer who had them shot like that?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“You know this? You know who it was?”

“I discovered. He is an aristocrat, as you might expect. There are still plenty of them in the army. His name is the Vicomte de Cygne.” She shrugged. “He has a son, younger than you, called Roland.”

Jacques Le Sourd was silent for a minute.

“Then one day I shall kill his son.” It was said quietly, but it was final.

His mother did not respond. She walked on a dozen paces. Was she going to tell him not to think of vengeance? Not at all. Her love had been passionate, and passion takes no prisoners. The righteous strike down their enemies. It is their destiny.

“Have patience, Jacques,” she answered. “Wait until the time is right.”

“I shall wait,” the boy said. “But Roland de Cygne will die.”