The Song Peddler of the Pont Neuf Read online

  The Song Peddler of the Pont Neuf

  Laura Lebow

  Settecento Press

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2018 by Laura Lebow.

  All rights reserved.

  Settecento Press

  P.O. Box 380344

  Cambridge, Massachusetts 02238-0344

  The Song Peddler of the Pont Neuf/ Laura Lebow.—1st ed.

  ISBN 9781732497214 (e-book)

  Cover Painting:

  Jean-Baptiste Raguenet, 1763

  A View of Paris from the Pont Neuf

  Getty Museum Open Content Program

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  For Bill

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  Beginning in 1756 with the Seven Years’ War, the bellicosity of French kings led the monarchy down a dangerous path from which it would not return. Louis XV spent over a billion livres fighting Britain and Prussia; his grandson and successor Louis XVI just as much aiding the colonists in the American War of Independence. The French government could not afford these wars. The country’s system of taxation was cumbersome, and did not raise enough revenue to offset the cost of the wars. To pay their bills, the kings borrowed large sums of money from their subjects and from foreign lenders, paying high interest rates.

  By 1788 France was nearing bankruptcy. Louis XVI’s ministers proposed a set of reforms that would modernize tax collection and eliminate many of the fiscal privileges that had been enjoyed by the nobility and clergy for centuries. The king agreed to call a meeting of the Estates General, the representative assembly of France established in the early fourteenth century to give counsel to the king. The Estates consisted of three different groups of equal number of delegates: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. Each of the groups assembled separately to deliberate the issues set before it, and then voted by estate. Therefore, the privileged groups (clergy and nobility) could always outvote the commoners. The Estates General had met many times during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when the king required counsel or wished to raise new taxes. During that time, the monarchy consolidated its power and kings became absolutists. The Estates lost their power and relevance. Their last meeting had been held in 1614, during the minority of Louis XIII.

  But the France of 1788 was no longer that of 1614. The clergy and nobility were now small minorities, while the commoners, due to the rise of mercantilism and the breakdown of feudalism, produced the majority of the wealth of the country. The “new men” of the eighteenth century—merchants, bankers, lawyers, writers, and wealthy artisans—demanded more of a say in the country’s affairs. Despite the suffering caused by a precipitous rise in the price of bread due to a bad harvest and the removal of price controls, the country buzzed with ideas about how to modernize the institution of the Estates General. Frenchmen were optimistic that the king, in partnership with the Estates, could solve the country’s problems.

  The French, many of them well-educated and well-read, looked to the new United States and to Britain for models. Soon new terms were bandied about in Parisian coffeehouses and taverns: “patriots,” “liberty,” “the nation,” and “constitution.” By September of 1788, many commoners were urging the government to double the number of their delegates so that they would match the number of clergymen and nobles, and were calling for vote in the Estates General to be by head, not by estate. The king referred the matter to the chief court of France, the Parlement of Paris.

  On September 25, 1788, the Parlement issued its opinion: the Estates General would convene in Versailles on May 1, 1789. Its form was to be the same as when it had last met in 1614: three estates with the same number of delegates in each, with issues to be determined through vote by estate.

  PROLOGUE

  The Pont Neuf, Paris: September 25, 1788

  The old man heard the mob before he saw it—a hundred or more voices, most of them unemployed journeymen from the jewelry and goldsmith shops around the Place Dauphine, swarming up the quai des Morfundus toward the Pont Neuf. He tucked his violin bow under his cloak and put the small instrument into his battered leather satchel. There would be no more money made singing bawdy songs here tonight.

  “Long live the king! We demand a doubling of commoner deputies in the Estates General! We want vote by head!” the crowd shouted. Now the old man could see the rioters, many with torches in hand, streaming onto the bridge, throwing firecrackers and smashing stalls as terrified vendors snatched what little of their merchandise they could save and raced away. The protesters surged toward the small café across the street, overturning its tables and chairs. In a moment they had stacked them and lit a bonfire.

  The old man patted his satchel, assuring himself that the pamphlets were safely tucked inside. Then he turned around, looking for Marie. Where had the old hen gone to now? His friend Vincent was quickly making a last sale, handing a copy of one of his songs to a man in a porter’s uniform.

  “Vincent! Where is Marie?”

  His friend looked over.

  “I don’t see her. She was across the street, past the café.”

  The old man’s eyes scanned the northern end of the bridge, looking for the old woman through the smoke of the bonfire.

  “Marie! Where are you!” he shouted.

  He froze. There, at the very end of the bridge, at the corner of the quai de la Mégisserie, stood a familiar figure, tall and dark, watching the rioters as they advanced. No—it couldn’t be him, the old man thought. Back in Paris, after all these years? He must be imagining things. He peered at the figure again. His shoulders sagged. It was him. He had been a fool to think that they were safe.

  “Here she comes!” Vincent shouted.

  The old woman waddled toward him, struggling under the weight of the basket of cabbages on her back. “I can’t run, my basket is too heavy!” she cried.

  She slipped on a pile of rotten vegetable leaves and fell. The basket flew off her back, the cabbages tumbling to the ground. Several of the rioters scooped them up and started to throw them into the river.

  The old man ran over and reached out his hand to her.

  “My cabbages!” she shrieked.

  “Leave the cabbages!” he shouted. “Let’s go!”

  He pulled her up, put his arm around her, and led her away toward the quai de la Mégisserie. As they left the bridge, he squinted through the smoke, searching for the figure he had seen. But the corner was now empty.

  • •

  CHAPTER ONE

  Paris: Mid-November,
1788

  Unlike most people with any sort of education, I was not a devotee of the theater. Of course, along with every other Parisian child of even modest means, I had attended the marionette shows, pantomimes, and magic displays performed in the boulevards whenever my father had deigned to cast a few coins my mother’s way. But as I grew older, my interests turned to other pursuits. Not for me the broadsheets full of the latest gossip about the comings and goings of the most popular actors and actresses. The playbills that plastered the walls of the city, shouting the openings of the latest performances, never drew my eye. And although I’d spent many nights over the last three weeks sitting outside the Comédie-Française for hours at a time, my boots had never crossed its majestic columned portico. The comedy I awaited took place outside, here in the plaza. As the performance within came to an end and the audience spilled out of the theater doors, it was about to begin.

  The broad plaza was semi-circular in design: the newly-opened neoclassical theater held pride of place at the middle of the flat side, while entrances to five narrow streets were spaced like spokes of a wheel along the curved edge, the blocks between them lined with cafés and shops that catered to theater-goers. I sat sprawled on the paving stones in front of the Café Voltaire, a busy establishment directly across from the theater entrance, where I could see the show unfold.

  Dozens of carriages surged into the plaza, their coachmen jockeying for position closest to the theater doors. A phalanx of lantern men roamed the area, swinging their lamps on long branches, calling for pedestrians willing to pay a handsome sum for a lighted walk home. Vendors of flowers, fruit, and sweetmeats hawked their wares to the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen who poured out of theater into the cold, clear night. Pickpockets and prostitutes emerged from the shadows to mingle with the crowd.

  I stood, adjusted my cloak, and moved away from the entrance as the throng streamed toward the café, eager to extend the evening with a hot chocolate, brandy or coffee amid its glittering mirrors and chandeliers. I paced around the plaza, watching the activity. Twenty minutes later, when the crowd had thinned, the carriages had rumbled away, the prostitutes had led their customers to rooms in cheap hotels, the pickpockets had counted their takings, and most of the pushcarts had clattered off, the star of my comedy finally appeared on the theater portico. He cut the fine figure of a man of distinction from afar: tall and athletic, with a thick shock of tawny hair and a luxurious gray cape trimmed with red braid. But I had quickly learned that as one drew nearer, his face was little more than that of a babe’s, with smooth pink skin and a mere fuzz of sideburn. He trotted down the steps and approached a young flower seller who was packing up her cart. He purchased a large posy and returned to the theater door to take his mark.

  A few minutes later a fancy carriage, its doors embellished with a noble coat of arms, drew up to the door of the theater. A liveried footman descended from the coachman’s box, opened the door, and pulled down the step. A slender woman in a long cape, her head covered with a fur-lined hood, swept out of the theater. My young man stepped forward, bowed to her, and presented his floral offering. The woman shook her head, took the hand proffered by the footman, and climbed into the carriage. The footman closed the door and returned to the box. The carriage sped away, leaving the young man staring forlornly after it. He threw the flowers to the ground and headed to the café. The flower girl scurried over to collect the rejected flowers. The youth brushed by me and stomped down the rue de la Comédie-Française. I waited until he was halfway down the street and followed.

  My chosen profession involves various activities, but most of my daily bread is paid for by the tedious work I perform for the police department’s inspector for foreigners. The department takes an interest in all of the foreign diplomats who visit Paris, and I earn a decent sum following them around the city, reporting on where they go, whom them meet, and what trouble they get into. My current assignment was an Austrian diplomat named Anton Cobenzl, whom I was responsible for tailing three nights a week. Despite his impressive trimmed cloak, I could easily see that he was no one of real importance. He never took a carriage, but instead walked all over the city. He seldom frequented the fancy cafés and restaurants that most foreigners visit, and when he did, he was joined by callow men of his own age, never any of the senior diplomats I knew were in the city. He was a rich nobleman’s nephew, I expected, come to Paris on a limited budget to enjoy the pleasures of the city while spending as little time as possible learning the duties of the diplomatic profession his family had chosen for him.

  I maintained a cautious distance as I followed him up the rue Dauphine and onto the Pont Neuf. Although the vendors who usually occupied the bridge had dispersed as night had fallen, the small café at the end was doing a bustling business despite the cold night. At least it was still early. Everyone in Paris knew to avoid the bridge late at night, when the café closed down and a man could easily be robbed or murdered crossing over the Seine. I bent over and felt for the hilt of the small knife I usually tuck into my boot when I am out in the city at night.

  The young diplomat was a fool if he thought the actress would ever take notice of him, I thought as I followed him down the streets that led from the river to the heart of the Right Bank. Tonight had been the fifth time in the three weeks that I’d been watching him that she had rejected his flowers. From the looks of the carriage that came to fetch her, she belonged to someone rich and powerful.

  In the rue Saint-Honoré, people were heading to the clubs, cafés, and restaurants of the Palais Royal. Cobenzl turned into the rue des Bons Enfants, just a block before the Palais, and entered a modest hotel. Most of the wealthy foreign visitors to Paris stayed on the other side of the Palais Royal, nearer to the Tuileries Palace and the fashionable shops. They would never consider this hotel, which was little more than a hostel intended to shelter provincial merchants who were in the city on short business. I lingered in the street for about ten minutes to be certain that Cobenzl was in for the night, and then turned and headed back to the Left Bank.

  When I reached the corner of the rue Saint-Jacques and the rue Saint-Séverin, I walked halfway down the next block and entered a small wineshop. I waved a greeting to Charlotte, the young waitress at the bar, and nodded to a few men who sat at a table by the fire, tumblers of wine in their hands. A heavy-bodied man with a receding forehead, wispy brown hair, and shaking jowls approached as I pulled off my cloak.

  “You’re home early,” he said. “You look cold. Shall I have Charlotte warm some wine for you?”

  I’d met Guy Lacombe a year ago when he had hired me to investigate a new wineshop that had opened a few blocks down the rue Saint-Jacques. Lacombe’s business had suffered, and he had become convinced that the new shop owner was not following the wine merchant guild rules. I’d frequented the new shop for several evenings, and had witnessed the owner selling wine at half the regulated price and enticing prostitutes to come into the shop by offering them free drinks. He’d also hired boys to pass out leaflets in the neighborhood that compared his prices to Lacombe’s. The report I had submitted had enabled Lacombe to get the guild to shut his unethical competitor, and when I had mentioned in passing that the rent in my lodgings in the rue de la Harpe was going up, he had offered me a room upstairs at half what I had paid before. He was a friendly man in his late fifties, and over the year I had warmed to his generosity and kindness. As I had come to know him, I saw that he was lonely. He and his wife had been childless, and the wineshop was now his life. Charlotte had mentioned that Madame Lacombe had died five years ago of brain fever. The man himself never spoke of her, but sometimes I have noticed him pause in the middle of washing tumblers, his thoughts far away, and then shake his head and return to his task.

  “No, thank you, Guy. I think I’ll just go up to bed.”

  “There was someone looking for you earlier,” he said. “An old man. He looked like a worker from the market.”

  “Did he say what he wanted?” I
asked.

  “No. He came in, with his cap in his hand, and just stood at the door looking around. When I asked if I could help him, he said he was looking for the confidential inquirer. ‘Pierre,’ he said. ‘Pierre Gaston’. ‘Did you mean Paul Gastebois?’ I asked him. ‘That’s the only inquirer we know of here.’ He seemed nervous and did not want to wait. He’ll be back in the morning.”

  I yawned.

  “Are you sure you don’t want that wine?” Guy asked.

  “No, thank you. I’ve had a long day. I’m cold and tired, and just want my bed.” I nodded good night to him and to Charlotte, and climbed two flights of stairs to my room. I didn’t bother to light the small stove in the corner, but hung my cloak in the cupboard, sat on the bed and pulled off my boots, stripped down to my shirt, and lay down to fall into a deep sleep.

  As I came downstairs the next morning, famished after having not eaten supper the night before, my landlord pointed me toward a small, shabby man sitting at a table in the corner of the wineshop.

  “Your visitor from yesterday has returned,” he said.

  I studied my guest. He was old, with wrinkled cheeks and thick gray hair tied back under a battered tricorn hat. His wide-set, small dark eyes were topped with a knitted brow, which, accompanied as it was by thin, pursed lips, gave his countenance an expression of bewilderment at the world around him. He wore a pair of patched trousers, scuffed shoes, a yellowed shirt, and a worn woolen coat. His thin hands played idly with a pair of dice from a trictrac board that someone had left open on the table.

  I approached and held out my hand. “I am Paul Gastebois. You were asking for me?”

  The dice tumbled onto the table. “Oh! You are the confidential inquirer?”