The Cardinal's Blades

11

For Ballardieu, the moment of his true reunion with Paris took place on the Pont Neuf. For if the market at Les Halles was the city’s belly and the Louvre was its head, then the Pont Neuf was the heart of the capital. A heart that pumped blood, giving the city life and movement, animating the great populous flow that ran through its streets. Everyone, after all, used the Pont Neuf. For convenience, primarily, since it permitted people to travel directly from one bank to the other without passing through Ile de la Cite and its maze of mediaeval alleyways. But also for the sake of entertainment.

The bridge was originally intended to support houses, as was only to be expected in a city where the tiniest building space was already utilised. But this plan was abandoned to avoid spoiling the royal family’s view of the Cite from the windows of the Louvre. Of this original plan only two wide platforms survived, both six steps high and running the entire length of the bridge, on either side of the paved roadway. These platforms became pavements, the first in Paris, from which it was possible to admire the Seine and enjoy the fresh air without fear of being run over by a coach or a horse rider. Parisians soon grew to like going for a stroll there. Street artists and traders set up shop along the parapets and in the half-moon-shaped lookout points, and the Pont Neuf soon became a permanent fair, filled with jostling crowds.

“God’s blood!” Ballardieu exclaimed, taking a deep breath. “I feel like my old self again!”

More reserved, Agnes smiled.

They had come through the Nesle gate on foot and passed in front of the Hotel de Nevers before arriving at Pont Neuf. It was the shortest route to the Louvre, their destination.

“It is good to be here!” added the delighted old soldier. “Don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“And nothing has changed! Look at that buffoon, I remember him!”

He pointed to a tall thin fellow in a moth-eaten cloak, mounted on the back of a poor old nag who was as gaunt as he was, boasting of a miraculous powder which he claimed would preserve your teeth. The fact that he had only one remaining tooth in his own mouth did not seem to weaken his conviction or bother his audience.

“And over there! Tabarin and Mondor…! Come on, let’s go hear them.”

Tabarin and Mondor were famous street entertainers who each had their own stage at the entrance to Place Dauphine. At that moment one of them was singing a bawdy song while the other, armed with an enormous enema bag, was playing at being a quack and offering all comers the chance to have “their arseholes washed all clean and pink!” Their spectators were bursting with laughter.

“Later,” said Agnes. “On our way back.”

“You’ve no sense of fun, girl.”

“You do remember that I am a baronne?”

“A baronne I knew when she had neither tits nor an arse, who rode on my shoulders, and who I made drink her first glass of eau-de-vie.”

“At eight years old! What a handsome feat… I remember puking my guts out the whole night after.”

“That helps forge character. I was only six when my father did the same for me as I did for you, madame la baronne de Vaudreuil. Have you some objection about the education that my father saw fit to give me?”

“Come on, you old beast. Move along, now… On the way back, I tell you.”

“You swear?”

“Yes.”

The traffic of carriages, horses, wagons, and handcarts on the roadway was so dense that one could barely advance, while the sidewalks were crammed solid with gawking pedestrians. Charlatans, traders, tumblers, exhibitors of trained dragonnets, teeth pullers (“No pain! And I replace the one I pull!”), and street minstrels all put themselves on show or touted their wares to the crowd in Italian, Spanish, and even Latin or Greek to appear more learned. There were numerous booksellers, offering wrinkled, dog-eared, and torn volumes at low prices, among which there were sometimes buried treasures to be found. Each of them had their own stand, hut, tent, or stall. Places were dear and bitterly disputed. Those who had no right to a spot on the bridge put up signboards giving their names, addresses, and specialities. Others-flower sellers, secondhand hatters, and eau-de-vie vendors-hawked their goods loudly as they made their way from one end of the bridge to the other, carrying a tray on their bellies or pushing a cart before them. Anything could be bought or sold on the Pont Neuf. A lot was stolen there, too, for thieves like nothing better than an idle crowd.

Agnes was passing in front of a famous bronze horse-which, standing on its marble pedestal, would wait almost two centuries before being finally mounted by Henri IV-when she realised she was walking on her own. Retracing her footsteps, she found Ballardieu halted before a Gypsy woman playing a tambourine and dancing lasciviously with a metallic wriggling of her sequined skirt. Agnes dragged the old man away by his sleeve. He followed her backward at first and tripped on the scabbard of his sword, before pricking up an ear at the call: “Hasard a la blanque! With three tries, you can’t miss! For one sou, you’ll get six! Hasard a la blanque!”

The fellow who was shouting this at the top of his lungs was luring passersby to place bets on the game of blanque, that is to say, the lottery. He was turning a wheel, while the prizes to be won were spread before him: a comb, a mirror, a shoehorn, and other ordinary bric-a-brac which wouldn’t be nearly so attractive if anyone looked them over twice. Ballardieu tried his luck, won, and took away a snuffbox with a lid that was only slightly chipped. He was endeavouring to show this prize to the increasingly impatient young baronne when a fanfare of trumpets resounded.

Intrigued and murmuring, the people in the crowd craned their necks uncertainly, seeking the source of the noise.

On the Left Bank, soldiers belonging to the regiment of French Guards were arriving to clear the bridge. They herded coaches and horse riders from the road across the bridge, pushed the pedestrians back onto the pavements, and formed three rows on the steps, standing to attention with their pikes held straight up or with muskets on their shoulders. A line of drummers beat out a steady rhythm as the regiment’s vanguard marched forward, followed by a group of elegant riders-officers, lords, and courtiers. Pages dressed in royal livery came next on foot, while the famous hundred Swiss mercenaries with their halberds accompanied them on either side. Then came the golden royal coach, drawn by six magnificent horses and surrounded by an escort of gentlemen. Was it really the king whose profile could be glimpsed as it passed? Perhaps. Kept at a distance by the hedgerow of pikes and muskets, the people did not applaud or cheer. They remained respectful and silent, with bared heads. Other coaches went by. One of them lacked any coat of arms, and was pure white, like the team of horses harnessed to it. This coach belonged to the abbess of the Order of the Sisters of Saint Georges-the famous “White Ladies” who for the past two centuries had protected the French royal court from the draconic menace.

Agnes had stopped, like everyone else on the bridge, standing speechless and hatless as the procession went by.

But the royal coach interested her far less than the immaculate white one from which she was unable to tear her eyes the moment she saw it. When it drew level with her, a gloved hand lifted the curtain and a woman’s head appeared. The abbess did not need to search for what she sought. She immediately found Agnes’s eyes and stared straight into them. The moment stretched out, as if the white coach had somehow slowed down, or time itself was reluctant to interrupt the silent exchange going on between these two beings, these two souls.

Then the coach passed on.

Reality reasserted itself and the procession moved away with a clattering of hooves on paving stones. In perfect order, the French Guards relinquished control of the pavements and marched off the bridge. The usual frantic activity resumed on the Pont Neuf.

Only Agnes, looking toward the Louvre, remained still.

“Now that was a pair of eyes I would not like to have staring at me,” said Ballardieu from nearby. “And as for staring right back…”

The young woman gave a fatalistic shrug.

“At least now I don’t have to go to the Louvre.”

“You won’t speak with her?”

“Not today… What would be the point? She knows I’m back. That’s enough.”

And determined to put the matter behind her, Agnes smiled at the old soldier.

“So?” she asked him. “Shall we go?”

“Where?”

“But to listen to Tabarin and Mondor, of course!”

“Are you sure?”

“I made you a promise, didn’t I?”