Margont managed not to lose his temper. ‘What?’

‘Look, it’s not surprising if you think about it. Joseph must judge that it's not necessary for your investigation and he wants to limit the risk of the list of names circulating ... especially if his is on it! Right, that completes my report/

Thanks, Fernand! Your help is invaluable! Try to continue finding out more about our suspects. The first one of us who has something new should get in contact with the other.’

Lefine left. Margont stayed for a while, lying on the grass at the foot of one of the windmills, enjoying the gentle breeze and looking out across Paris.

When he went into his room Margont noticed that it had been searched. He was always careful before he went out to put some of his possessions in designated places. Some of these had been moved. His books were no longer piled up in the same order as he had left them; his mattress was touching the wall, although he had left a small gap. The intruder had been very careful and nothing had been stolen, so without these little indicators Margont would not have noticed anything. And the more he thought about it, the less sure he became ... Had his books and mattress really been moved? He could not ask his landlord, who, even had he noticed anything, would have denied seeing anyone enter. He ran his hand over the pile of books, trying to prove to himself that their arrangement felt different since his meeting with Lefine. He often believed he was being followed when he was outside. By one of the Swords of the King? By a policeman who took him for a royalist? Or maybe someone with personal motives? He could not tell if he was imagining it all.

He hurried over to his chest. He had hammered a little nail inside it, right at the bottom, on the left, and had attached a thread to it. Before leaving, he always took the thread out of the chest and attached it to a notch on the lid. Once he was back he would untie it. This time the thread had been broken. So someone really had ^rummaged through his room. He felt strangely comforted by the knowledge - he was not losing his mind. Not yet anyway ... His grip on reality seemed to be hanging by that thread.

CHAPTER 14

IT was 21 March and Napoleon was surveying the Bohemian army under the command of Generalissimo Schwarzenberg, from the heights of the plateau south of Arcis-sur-Aube. The Emperor blinked, incredulous. He had defeated the Allies over and over again, and this was the result! Those massed ranks blanketing the horizon. A hundred thousand men at the very least. Divisions, methodically formed into giant rectangles, made up a spider’s web awaiting the attack of the French army. But the latter comprised only thirty thousand soldiers, since some of the troops had been scattered during manoeuvres and battles ... Napoleon had thought the Austro-Russian force was retreating! They had to be retreating. He continued to scour the hordes for signs of disorder, or for movements backwards ...

Finally he reached the inescapable conclusion. It was the French who would have to retreat. But in which direction?

The most obvious solution was to withdraw to Paris, to protect the capital. But what would the Allied armies do then? They would unite into one, having learnt the dangers of operating separately. Schwarzenberg’s Bohemian army would join forces with Marshal Blucher’s Silesian army, and they, reinforced by other diverse troops, would both be joined by the nearest units of Bernadotte’s Army of the North. The French would be ignominiously forced back to Paris ... Several members of the imperial general staff advised retiring to Paris, but only because they could not envisage any other course of action.

Napoleon then took one of the most important decisions of his career. He had been plotting the manoeuvre for several days and had discussed it with his marshals, who, in the main, opposed it. They considered it too complicated and, above all, too risky. But it offered the only possibility of victory, and so that day Napoleon decided to press ahead with it. The French army would not turn back towards Paris; it would go round the Allied army to threaten its rear. The enemy needed vast amounts of supplies to feed and equip such a quantity of troops. And the Emperor was counting on his own prestige. The enemy feared him when he was in front of them, so what general would dare turn his back on him? His tactic would sow panic in the Allied ranks. He wanted to force his enemies to pursue him. He would also be leading them away from Paris, towards the east, where he would rally fresh troops who were stationed in strongholds. But the danger of the tactic was obvious: no one would be defending the road to Paris. It was a gamble, a throw of the dice.

CHAPTER 15

MARGONT was radiant, his fingers ink-stained and his hands full of paper. Around him typesetters and printers bustled about, brushing purposefully past him. The print shop was a hive of productivity pouring out ink like honey. They had received several orders that they had to fulfil as quickly as possible. Restaurants were changing their menus. In 1800 on the eve of the Battle of Marengo, Napoleon - then merely Bonaparte - had eaten a delicious dish: chicken with a tomato sauce flavoured with little onions, garlic and crayfish. After the battle, the recipe had been renamed ‘chicken Marengo’ and was to this day very popular. It was as if the flavour of the sauce was enhanced by the glory of the victory. Inevitably today innkeepers were offering ‘beef Olssufiev’, reflecting Napoleon’s resounding defeat of General Olssufiev’s small elite army at the Battle of Champaubert, which had set off an astonishing series of victories. But Margont knew that there were dozens of other Olssufievs waiting in the wings.

Margont had suggested an unusual typeface for a ball invitation and was reading the proofs. He was yet again imagining he was printing his newspaper. His fingers manipulated the lead letters with the ease of a master. As he was checking the phrases, his imagination was creating others, all with the word ‘liberty’ in them. This double personality was mixed with a third, that of a royalist. Margont was trying to find the most convincing posters supporting a restoration. The more he succeeded in that the more he would gain the confidence of the Swords of the King. But it would be a double-edged victory. What if the Swords of the King, in their enthusiasm, teamed up with other royalist groups? What if Paris found itself blanketed with posters? How ironic if Margont’s success in his mission should bring about the thing he most dreaded. Mathurin Jelent knew that Margont was playing a role, but although he passed Margont orders and went through the accounts with him, his face never betrayed what he knew. He was completely at ease.

A street urchin burst into the print shop. He was scrawny, but

arrogant and aggressive, like a cockerel ruling the roost. One of the employees picked up an iron bar, which had been part of a now useless press, and put it over his shoulder. Bands of marauding children were plaguing the capital, terrorising passers-by ... ‘M’sieur de Langes, your friend Fernand wants to see you; he needs money urgently. Otherwise, he’s in danger of being chucked in the Seine ...’

Margont followed him out, seizing his hat and coat on the way. The lad led him to a small street in Faubourg Saint-Germain where they found Lefine, who rewarded the boy with a coin.

‘What’s happened?’ demanded Margont.

The debt story was their code for an emergency. Lefine told him that they were very near Catherine de Saltonges’s house. Actually the house belonged to her parents, who had withdrawn to the country to flee the scandal surrounding their daughter’s divorce. Saint-Germain had once been a favoured address of the nobility, but that had all changed after 1789. Many of the landlords had emigrated to escape the Revolution, abandoning their houses,