‘It makes me feel alive! Goodbye, “Chevalier”.’

They separated. As he walked Margont reflected that he had upset Varencourt so badly that he might try to exact his revenge by denouncing him. When you push someone to the brink, all he has to do is grab you and spin around and you will be the one tumbling into the abyss in his place ...

CHAPTER 32

EVERYTHING was ready! At least that was what Mathurin Jelent had assured Margont, who was hard at work in the printing shop. Outside, Joseph’s agents were keeping watch. He had never met them, and did not try to spot them. He hadn’t noticed them when he had gone out that morning to meet Varencourt in Rue de Rivoli - his life now depended on people he had never met. And he felt that it was absurd that at a time when two hundred thousand invaders were marching towards Paris, and when he might well lose his life in a shoot-out that very evening, he was engaged in printing fripperies! He brandished a proof, the ink still wet and shining. ‘What on earth is the point of this? “Madame la Baronne de Bijonsert has the pleasure of inviting you to her Spring Ball to be held at her house on 29 March.” And she wants five hundred invitations! She might as well have asked for two hundred thousand, because with all the Allies on the way, she could have a fine Spring Ball!’ ‘She’s imperial nobility ...’ explained Mathurin Jelent.

‘And so?’

‘And so she’s squandering her money, throwing it out of the window. She’s doing everything she can to spend a million in a week. Because if Louis XVIII comes to the throne, Baronne de Bijonsert will have to hand her large house over to Baron something or other - Baron Ancien Regime, that is - who lived there before the Revolution, and perhaps he’ll take some of her worldly goods as well. When you are about to lose everything, or almost everything, you might as well treat yourself to a lovely last evening of fun. No one can make you hand over your memories.’

Margont was furious but pretended to be delighted. He told himself if he continued to live with these double thoughts he would really start to lose his mind. He noticed that he had absent-mindedly screwed up the invitation card into a ball.

‘Spoilt proof. It’ll have to be redone.’

Lefine was also there, installed in front of an empty workbench, inert in the midst of all the activity, like the queen bee, dozing in the midst of the worker bees. After Margont had revealed what

Varencourt had said, Lefine decided he’d better stay with his friend at all times. He had that catlike quality of being able to swing instantly from activity to complete rest and vice versa. Whilst every evening Margont needed an hour of reading to calm his thoughts - if his thoughts were ever really calm - Lefine would plunge effortlessly into a state of beatific repose, enjoying the present without thinking about the dark clouds on the horizon. At the moment he was thinking what a fine thing it would be to be a printer. Baronne de Bijonsert wanted five hundred invitations? You’d just print five hundred and one and then you would be off to the ball! A free banquet, dancing with pretty girls. You’d just have to arrive late, when the Baronne had stopped greeting people at the door, and mingle with the crowd. His fingers slid over another proof that had fallen - quite by chance! - into his pocket.

Margont was kicking himself for having allowed Lefine to be seen by the Swords of the King. Yet again he had failed to think through the consequences of his ideas.

The shadows were lengthening in the streets, like dark plants

extending tendrils of night. The door opened; a gust of icy air filled the room. Margont recognised their visitor. He was one of the men who had come to his lodgings with Vicomte de Leaume. ‘Monsieur Lami and I have some business to attend to,’ Margont announced to his staff.

Lefine and he went outside, following the visitor, who said not a word.

CHAPTER 33

CROWDS moved with difficulty through the streets. The poor lighting - old oil lanterns swinging in the wind at the end of their cords like hanged men - increased the impression of chaos. Margont and Lefine had to exert themselves to keep up with their guide. He was walking rapidly, pushing past refugees looking for somewhere to install their families, who were perched on the top of overloaded carts. Margont wondered if Joseph’s agents were managing to follow. How many were there? Mathurin Jelent had not been able to tell him.

One thing was worrying Margont. Their guide never turned round. He should have done, to make sure that no one was following them. Why was he not taking that most basic of precautions?

The Seine appeared. They took Pont de la Tournelle, crossed lie Saint-Louis, the quietest district in Paris even though it was in the heart of the capital, known for its elegant houses built in the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, and rejoined the other bank by

Pont Marie. They immediately turned right and followed the Seine. Margont called to their guide, ‘Slow down, or we’ll lose you.’

The man set off across Pont d’Austerlitz, taking them back to the left bank that they had just left. It was crowded with refugees heading for the miserable Faubourg Saint-Marcel in the hope of finding cheap accommodation. People were jostling each other and cursing. Margont was waving his arms like a man drowning in a human sea. They were almost back on the other bank again. Margont and Lefine had just passed a forage cart when two men surged up behind them and forced them to speed up again, by pushing them onwards.

‘Faster, Monsieur de Langes, faster.’

Margont recognised one of them; he had also been there when Vicomte de Leaume had made his impromptu visit. The boy guiding the cart pulled on the horse’s bit to drag him out of the way, and the cart blocked the bridge. ‘Careful! Careful! Hey, calm down! Gently!’ he cried, although he was agitating the horse by pulling his head this way and that.

Meanwhile the three men dragged Margont and Lefine along the little streets of the Faubourg Saint-Marcel.

CHAPTER 34

MARGONT tried to slow the pace. But the two men behind him were hurrying them harder than ever. They turned off down a little street, then took another, then a third. A drunkard wandering in a labyrinth would not have taken a more circuitous route. Margont was not familiar with the area, which was visibly seedy. The men were doing all they could to mislead him and, in any case, he did not have a very good sense of direction. His only hope of knowing where they were lay with Lefine. They snaked through a passage between two houses so narrow that they had to pass in single file. The man bringing up the rear stopped in the middle of the cutthroat little alley and started to chew tobacco, while the rest of the group moved on. If Joseph’s agents were still following, the man would block their route ...

They arrived in a dingy courtyard choked by the buildings surrounding it. Their guide took them into an old house and indicated the stairs.

'They’re waiting for you up there.’

The guide waited downstairs, sharing guard duty with his accomplice.

A bizarre sight greeted Margont and Lefine when they got upstairs. The closed shutters and drawn curtains transformed the large room into a sort of cocoon illuminated inside by lamps. The five committee members of the Swords of the King sat amongst an array of sumptuous objects: marquetry Regency chests of drawers, Dutch dressers, high-backed Louis XIII chairs, Louis XIV and Louis XV armchairs, card tables, dainty writing tables with little hiding places for secreting compromising letters, alcove sofas ... The room was an Ali Baba’s cave hidden in the midst of the houses of the Forty Thieves.