as high as houses. Some were well organised into pyramids, but most were heaped up haphazardly, creating a kind of mysterious city made of detours and alleys, underground passages and inner rooms from which, early in the morning, there emerged, wild-eyed, a strange and varied collection of human beings. The few louis she had stolen from her father did not last long, but, being able to read and write, she used this skill among the poorest of the poor, and managed to hold out until winter. It was then, one desperate evening when she could no longer bear the hunger and cold, that she met a well-dressed young man who took her to his dwelling, washed her, and made her an object of his pleasure. He dressed her and fed her, then introduced her to his brother-in-law, who was the major-domo in the mansion of the Duc de La Vrillière. Her joy at finding a position was short-lived. She was only the latest in an army of servant girls who emptied the pots and buckets, doomed to the most repulsive chores and the harshest reprimands.
It did not take her long to realise that the brother-in-law also expected to have his way with her. The man had been a widower for two years, could not bear the solitude, and chased anything wearing skirts in the Saint-Florentin mansion. At first, she resisted his advances, but she was desperately afraid of finding herself back on the streets. She opened her heart to her original benefactor, who laughed in her face and urged her to yield: he had started making her small loans, to be repaid when she was able. Her new lover immediately conceived a genuine passion for her beauty and youth. She found it increasingly difficult to escape a bond that was proving burdensome and the constant attentions of a greybeard to whom she had been forced to yield out of necessity alone. She tried every stratagem she could think of, including brief dalliances with other, younger servants, in the hope of putting him off. The only result was to strengthen his desire for her. He was obsessively jealous, and some terrible scenes ensued.
Tears welled in her eyes. All that was nothing compared with what had happened three days earlier, which she could not get out of her mind. Her young benefactor had come looking for her in the evening after she came off duty, and had made her leave the building through a concealed door and join him in a cab. After a long journey, he had led her into an unknown house and made her put on a highly indecent costume. Why had she agreed to it? She tried to dismiss the images of what had followed. How had she come to this? She had not protested, as if the frenzy and outrageousness of all that was happening had left her too stunned to react. Her ‘friend’ had appeared to her in such an ambiguous light that she found it impossible to regard him again as part of the natural order of things.
The candle flame suddenly flickered in a draught of air, sputtered a moment, then went out, giving off an acrid odour. That was all she needed! She had nothing with which to relight it. She felt suddenly anxious at being alone in this deserted place. She imagined presences around her. It was early autumn, a time when animals and insects often sought warmth in the kitchens of houses. Something creaked behind her, and she was aware of a furtive movement. She forced herself to turn round, but could see nothing. She was finding it hard to breathe: it seemed to her that there was not enough air in here. She was starting to panic. She was just about to rush madly to the staircase leading to the upper floors when she felt herself seized firmly by an unseen arm and pressed against someone’s body. A terrible pain went through the base of her neck, and she collapsed without even realising that she was dying, in a stream of blood.
Early the next morning, a kitchen boy discovered two bodies. One was Marguerite Pindron, whose throat had been cut, and the other Jean Missery, the major-domo, lying unconscious and wounded. A knife lay on the tiled floor beside him, in the middle of a scarlet pool.
Time uncovers secrets; time creates opportunities;
time confirms good counsel.
BOSSUET
Sunday 2 October 1774
Nicolas was surreptitiously looking at his son’s face. He was the spitting image of how he himself had been when he was young, with that dashing air his grandfather, the Marquis de Ranreuil, had had whenever he rose to his full height and looked his interlocutor in the eye. As for La Satin, her presence was felt in the gentleness diffused through his fine, if not entirely formed features. The boy’s noble but casual bearing showed none of the awkwardness common to his age. He was talking to Monsieur de Noblecourt, and his conversation was full of Greek and Latin quotations: from time to time, with a smile, the former procurator would correct his mistakes and solecisms. The presentation dinner for Louis Le Floch at Noblecourt’s house in Rue Montmartre was at its height. Nicolas was happy and relieved to feel the warmth emanating from his friends, Semacgus, Bourdeau and La Borde. He himself did not take part in the discussion, wanting Louis, who in fact seemed quite at ease, to find his place here naturally. The role of father, which filled him with both joy and anguish, was still new to him, and he had to learn it step by step.
The year was ending better than it had begun. The rumours circulating about the plots and criminal investigations that had followed the death of his mistress, Madame de Lastérieux, were gradually dying down. He still carried his grief for the late King in his heart, muted but painful. This troubled period of his life had had one fortunate consequence: he had discovered the existence of a child born of his liaison with La Satin fifteen years earlier. La Paulet, alerted by a first encounter and the impression of a conspicuous resemblance, had decided to intervene. Leaving her house in Auteuil, where she led a comfortably devout life, she had come running to see Monsieur de Noblecourt to plead La Satin’s case and the importance of giving Louis a father he had never known. The former procurator had taken the matter very seriously and had agreed to intercede and advise both parents.
There had been misgivings, however, on both sides. La Satin feared Nicolas’s reaction, recalling that he had once questioned her as to the father of her child and had declared himself ready, if need be, to assume responsibility. Being a sensible woman, well aware of the demeaning nature of her situation, she dreaded the consequences that might ensue, for both father and son, of recognising Nicolas’s paternity and thus bringing this dubious lineage out into the open. At the same time, Nicolas, who still felt a great deal of tenderness for a woman he had known when he first arrived in Paris, was fearful of hurting the new mistress of the Dauphin Couronné by taking steps to remove their child from a pernicious, corrupting environment. Nor had he any desire to loosen the natural ties binding a son to his mother.
It was left to Monsieur de Noblecourt to resolve this thorny issue. He took up his pen and, as if setting out the points for a closing statement in court, undertook to bring the interests and feelings in question, delicate as they were, into alignment. La Satin was to readopt her birth name of Antoinette Godelet and abandon her present occupation. With Nicolas’s help, she would buy a shop selling fashion and toilet articles in Rue du Bac from a couple who wished to retire. The hardest part was to convince La Paulet, who, seeing her carefully laid plans for the succession of the brothel collapse, raged and cursed like a fishwife in a manner with which Nicolas had been familiar in the past. Monsieur de Noblecourt waited for the storm to pass and, making full use of his mollifying influence on the good lady, dispensed so many compliments and displayed such a benevolent ear that his intervention worked wonders, and she gradually calmed down. The unexpected arrival of La Présidente, whose English adventure had ended in disaster,1 made it possible to overcome the last objections. La Satin’s friend jumped for joy at the idea of resuming her duties at the Dauphin Couronné, but this time as mistress and manager. Grudgingly, La Paulet agreed to everything. Indeed, she went even further. Her establishment had prospered, acquiring an elegant tone that belied its reputation. In order to show her gratitude to La Satin, she decided to complement
