They hanged him in effigy, did you know? I had to stand on the Place de Grève and watch them read a long denunciation then hang a dressed-up straw figure they pretended was André de Roland. When the judges had gone Bouchard and his friends batted the figure about between them to make it swing.
It was meant to stay hanging for a week, but I sneaked back that night with de Chouy and his friends to cut it down. We took it home, removed the clothes to make it just straw again, then burned it in the courtyard on a kind of pyre. I gave away the clothes too. It was a shame, André loved that doublet, but I could never see him wearing it again.
They were good friends to me that night, de Chouy, Lelièvre and de Verville. They said I was one of them now, they made me call them Crespin and Gaspard and Raoul, and came to see me every day. Even the Comtesse liked them. They were young and silly, but they brought a gaiety to the Hôtel de Roland I think she’d missed. She mocked them sometimes and called them ‘the Puppies’, but they thought that was the most wonderful joke, and started using it themselves. They’d greet each other with ‘Good morning, M. le Puppy,’ like it was an exclusive society anyone would want to join.
It made the loneliness less awful having them around, but really we were just passing the time while we waited for news. Every day we hoped the conspirators would move, the Cardinal would pounce, then André would be cleared and come home. Nothing ever happened.
We knew he was all right, he sent a letter under cover to Crespin to tell us he was at Compiègne, but it made me ache to read it. He tried to sound brave, he said he was growing a beard and moustache that made him very handsome, but I could see the pain in every line. At the end he just wrote ‘I miss you’, and that was the only thing that felt real. I went into his room that night to feel him sort of near, but it was all still and silent, there was dust on the bedcover, and his water jug had dried till there was nothing in it but a dead spider. It was hard to believe he was ever coming back.
Extract from her diary, dated 12 February 1641
I am locked in my room again. It is my own fault, I know how rigidly Florian insists on my courtesy to his friends, but I simply could not keep my temper.
Bouchard provokes me on purpose. He has no need to come to the salon, he always conducts his business in private with Florian, but he loves to see me sitting quietly in the corner, compelled to smile and make polite responses he must know are insincere. Today was worse than ever, for he had just heard the news that Jacques is to be legitimated and decided to relieve his bitterness by abusing André. He laughed at his being brother to a stable boy, and said had he known it he would never have sullied his sword with such filth.
I said ‘Then it is fortunate it was only the Chevalier whose sword was sullied.’
The look on his face was almost worth it. Florian apologized so effusively I almost blushed myself, but I said ‘It’s true, isn’t it? What can be wrong with saying what is true?’
I should have known better. Florian compelled me to make a humble confession to that loathsome Père Ignace, who I know perfectly well is Bouchard’s friend and will undoubtedly tell him everything I was forced to say, and now I am confined to my room for a week. There was no point appealing to Father. He never even speaks to me these days, and the only reason he hasn’t sent me to a convent is that he still hopes I can give him an advantageous marriage.
Jeanette thinks he might do it yet. She was allowed in to braid my hair for bed, and was insistent I should be more careful. She said ‘It’s a miracle you get away with what you do, Mademoiselle. I’ve known a lady put away just for speaking to the wrong man.’
I said ‘I don’t care. What kind of life is this, Jeanette? I can’t even stir outside without Florian or my father, how can anything be worse?’
But it could, for then she gave me her own news and with it the death of my last hope. My letter to the Comtesse has been returned unopened, and Jeanette’s messenger said they’d asked nicely for me not to trouble them again. I cannot blame them, I know what they must think me, but tonight the unfairness hurts.
‘Oh, it’s not so bad, my lamb,’ said Jeanette, brushing out my hair with long, soothing strokes. ‘The Chevalier will know the truth one day, he’ll come and help you in the end.’
I said ‘I’m not asking his help, Jeanette, how can I? It’s we who should be helping him.’
For a moment there was only the purr of the brush. Then she said ‘Perhaps we can. What would the Chevalier give, do you think, for a friend to be living right in the house of the enemy and learning their secrets?’
I said ‘They’ll never trust me enough for that.’
She started to plait. ‘Well and perhaps they won’t, Mademoiselle, with you sitting glaring as if you wanted to eat them. But now I ask you, what harm would it do to make yourself a little more pleasant? If you were to hint to M. Florian you were coming round to his way of thinking, mightn’t that make it easier for him to confide in you?’
I said ‘That would be dishonest.’
She jabbed in the first pin. ‘And what would you call it when your brother reproaches you for disloyalty, or sends you his confessor to tell him what a bad girl you’ve been? What would you call it when their friends tell lies about our Chevalier and get away with it because nobody finds the means to bring them down?’
I thought of André driven into hiding in some faraway country, and all because he trusted me and met me when I asked. If anything in my useless life can help him then suddenly it would have both purpose and meaning. I said ‘Just tell me, Jeanette. Tell me what I can do.’
She looked up from the braid and in the mirror our eyes met. ‘Lie, Mademoiselle,’ she said. ‘You must learn to lie.’
Nothing’s worse than doing nothing. The Comtesse kept saying ‘Leave it to the Cardinal,’ but I needed something to fight.
The Puppies were the same. They’d come bouncing round every morning asking if we’d got orders from André and obviously we never had. Raoul used to pass on every scrap of gossip he heard at court, saying ‘Does it help, Jacquot?’ so yearningly I was desperate to say ‘yes.’ Crespin and Gaspard even took to visiting Le Pomme d’Or, but they never saw any of the people we were interested in and guessed they were meeting somewhere else. We weren’t getting anywhere at all.
My only hope was my uncle. He was poxed, of course, but he’d got battle experience, he’d been the deadliest swordsman in Paris in his day. I thought he’d be like an older and wiser André, and just the person to guide us. He spent most of the winter in the Auvergne having a new kind of mercury treatment, but he came back that February and my grandmother finally arranged for me to meet him. It was only meant to be about getting his permission for the legitimation, but what I wanted was a leader and a plan, and as I set off for the Place Royale I was hoping to find both.
I’d been warned what to expect, but it was still a shock when I was finally shown into his room. It was kept warm and very dark, the walls rippling and flickering in the light from the enormous fire. There was sweet apple wood burning on it, but it couldn’t quite disguise the other smell, a faint, sickly sort of rottenness like badly cured pork. The Comte sat in a padded chair by the hearth. There was a little table beside him with a decanter of carved glass that twinkled and sparkled in rainbow flashes in the firelight, but he himself was in shadow.
I made polite noises and waited.
He leaned forward and I saw the mask. It wasn’t a full one, just a thing like a bright blue bird’s head with a big beak where his nose should have been, and ending abruptly at his upper lip. His mouth and chin looked quite normal, he could have been just an ordinary person at a masked ball.
He said ‘Sit down, Jacques, it’s good to see you at last. I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.’
The shock snatched my breath away, because it was my father’s voice. This great hunger I hadn’t even known was there leapt almost babbling into my throat.
‘Don’t be nervous,’ he said, pouring us both wine. ‘I’m not going to refuse you, am I?’
His beard even looked the same, I wanted to snatch the mask away and see my father’s face. I sat down quickly and said ‘It’s a lot to ask, to make me your heir.’
‘Is it?’ he said. His hand trembled as he passed me the glass, and a little drop of wine spilled on to his black glove. ‘Poor André seems to have ruled himself out, doesn’t he?’
It was one of those Spanish fortified wines, a kind of Jerez, and it walloped through my head in a warm buzz. I said ‘It wasn’t his fault though, was it, Monseigneur?’
‘Wasn’t it?’ he said, and his mouth smiled. ‘Tell me, would you have handled this the way André did?’
Of course I wouldn’t, but I was going to be a Roland, so I said ‘I hope so, Monseigneur.’
‘A pity,’ he said. ‘This family could do with an injection of common sense and I rather hoped you might be it.’
The wine caught in my throat and sprang back out again. I wiped my chin furiously, but when I looked up he was still regarding me with courteous attention. I said cautiously ‘You don’t think André’s sensible?’
He looked into the fire. ‘I think he’s a very fine young man.’
It wasn’t an answer. I didn’t think I could say that, though, I mean he was Comte de Vallon, so I sipped my wine and tried to look wise.
He said ‘I knew André was doomed as soon as I met him. Honour’s a great thing, but not when it blinds you to your own survival.’
It was all right for me to think that sometimes, but I felt uncomfortable hearing it said in my father’s voice. I said ‘You think he should have left the whole thing alone?’
He sighed and rumpled his hair. ‘I would have. So I think would you.’
I remembered saying to the Comtesse that it was nothing to do with us, and quickly looked away. ‘But we’ve got to beat them now, haven’t we? It’s the only way to save André.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘We’ve no choice now. But how are you going to do it?’
I’d hoped he’d tell me. I said ‘I don’t know. I thought of going to see André –’
‘Don’t do that,’ he said quickly. ‘Do you want to lead them on to him?’
I stared. ‘The guards aren’t following us any more.’
He got up and went to the window. I went after him, and was oddly disconcerted to find he was taller than me.
‘Look,’ he said, and jerked his head out at the Place Royale. ‘What do you see?’
There were loads of people wandering about outside, but I noticed one man standing still, holding a horse’s bridle like he was waiting for someone. His mouth was shut so I couldn’t see the jagged teeth, but I knew the squashed nose and mottled face, I’d seen them close enough when I stabbed his arm in that bloody maze.
‘His name’s Pirauld,’ said my uncle. ‘He’s valet to your friend Lavigne and a very unpleasant character indeed. Rumour has it he brings his master whores from the streets and they’re never seen again. He hung about here when André was in Saint-Germain, and I had the servants make enquiries.’
I said ‘But if it’s you he’s watching …’
‘It’s not,’ he said. ‘I saw him arrive when you did.’
He’d been looking out of the window. He’d been watching for me like he really wanted to meet me. Then I realized what he was implying and said ‘Why …?’
He shrugged. ‘My guess is Bouchard. André’s no danger to them now, but that man has a personal grudge he’ll want paid in blood. Visit André and you’ll bring it on him.’
I said ‘Maybe Crespin …’
He was already turning back to the fire. ‘De Chouy? No. He stood next you at the mock execution, don’t use him for anything. Have you other friends they don’t know about?’
I said ‘Yes, there’s –’
His hand came up so fast it was like André in a parry. ‘Don’t tell me. Trust no one. Don’t make André’s mistakes, Jacques. If you want to survive you’ve got to forget honour and loyalty and doing anything openly. Stay quiet and out of sight.’
I said miserably ‘Then what can I do?’
He sat back down. ‘Get André out of France.’
‘He won’t go. He wants to bring down these conspirators.’
‘He can’t,’ said my uncle bluntly. ‘Neither can you, neither can I. Forget about saving the state, you’ve got to think about saving yourselves.’
I hated him for being right. ‘But I want to fight.’
For a second something gleamed in the dark eyeholes of the mask, then he turned back to the decanter. ‘There’s only one way to fight this one and that’s on the battlefield. Richelieu’s right, the rebellion’s coming, it’s only a matter of months.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘When they’re out in the open we can expose them and André can come home.’
‘Amen to that,’ he said tiredly. ‘But don’t you see the flaw in that reasoning?’
I looked doubtfully at him. He reached for my glass and began to refill it.
‘They’re everywhere,’ he said. ‘Outside your house, outside mine, in the bed of the King. They’re in the Sedan. They’re in Soissons territory in Champagne. They’re among the Huguenots, itching to avenge La Rochelle. And beyond the borders lies the Empire and Spain.’
He handed me the glass. ‘That’s your flaw, Jacques. You’re assuming we’ll win.’
From his interviews with the Abbé Fleuriot, 1669
Now, this is nice, isn’t it, Señor? Quite missed our little sessions, I have really. It’s been a pleasure talking over old times, remembering my gentleman and yours, and now here we both are again and the story still going on as if it never stopped.
No, no more it did, Señor, nor for my Capitán. We’d had a quiet few months, but that wasn’t my gentleman’s choice, he’d have been up and back where the action was if it weren’t for the surrender terms after the Battle of Dax. We weren’t to take up arms against the French for a year, if you remember, and that’s a long time in a war.
But there are other ways, if you understand me, and my Capitán was still the Don Miguel d’Estrada whether he’d a sword in his hand or no. We were set to work in Madrid, Señor, in Rome, in London and in Brussels, but our purpose was always the same, and that was to cause an insurrection in France.
But you know how it is with the French, Señor, the business was on, off, on, off, every month a different story, and at the end of 1640 they were jumpy as cats. The Cardinal had his eye on the Sedan all right, he’d caught a courier from England, tortured him too, would you believe, and was looking at Bouillon very beady indeed. But much worse for us was a silly brawl that gave away our main contact to a passing nobleman, and looking like to uncover our whole network in Paris.
Now that’s serious, Señor, there’s no chance for the rebellion without Paris in our pockets. Old Louis wasn’t going to chop his First Minister and sign away territory to Spain because Champagne was ablaze, we needed insurrection within his own gates and men at court to guide it. My Capitán said we should reason with this nobleman, show him peace with Spain was best for France, but our courier said ‘I don’t think so, Señor. It was André de Roland.’ My Capitán looks at him a moment, then rolls up our map of France without a word.
It wasn’t often he was wrong, Señor, but next news comes de Roland’s discredited and on the run, that he can say what he likes and no one will believe him. My Capitán demands all the details, but when he’s got them he just walks out and bless me if he doesn’t come back drunk. Not a word of a lie, Señor, I find him in his chamber that night doing point exercises against his shadow on the wall. Never mind the state he’s in, the sword never wavers, he holds it as steady as if he’s all of a piece with the steel. There’s a moth on the curtains, and he twirls to go at it overhanded over his shoulder, and there it is skewered on the tip of his rapier. He says ‘You see, Carlos? You see how clean that is?’
I say ‘Of course it is, I oiled it only this morning.’
He sits on the bed and rocks with laughter. ‘Dear Carlos,’ he says to me, and he does, Señor, he says ‘Dear Carlos.’ Then he looks at the wall as if he sees pictures in it and says ‘To hell with politics. Why can’t we just go back to war?’
Well, I thought we would, Señor, I thought all these upsets would scare off our temperamental French allies for good and all, but my Capitán says no, if there’s one thing can make a flock of birds start flying in the same direction it’s fear. And he was right, Señor, they were all frightened now. Soissons, Bouillon, Orléans, all the big ones, yes and young Cinq-Mars too, it seems to them their only hope is to band together and make the revolt happen. 1641 comes and we’re looking a lot more like business.
The Conde-Duque likes it, he says we can promise seven thousand troops and as much again in a joint Imperial Army, to say nothing of fifty thousand pistoles for the campaign. That’s more than enough, Señor, what with the Sedan’s own army and the promised uprising in Champagne. My Capitán’s only fear is it starting before the 8th of June when our year runs out, and him not able to fight himself.
‘There’s no danger of that, Señor,’ I tell him. ‘Look how slow they’ve been so far. You don’t think it’ll happen before the autumn, do you?’
He smiles and says ‘I think you should pack a bag.’
Extract from her diary, dated 26 March 1641
I suspect their business is coming to a head. Bouchard, Lavigne and d’Arsy were closeted with Florian for quite two hours today, murmuring in low, important voices. Father never attends these meetings, I think he prefers not to know what they discuss, but today even he joined them briefly before going to the Chambres des Comptes. The others came into the salon afterwards and I hoped they would speak of their affairs, but all I heard was d’Arsy saying ‘June’s not so long, we can wait, can’t we?’ before Bouchard stopped him.
He still does not trust me, and I’m not sure what more I can do. I have disgusted myself with the submissiveness I have shown to Florian. I have had Father take me to the Couvent de la Visitation to ask spiritual help for my womanly errors, although the hypocrisy of it makes me sick. I have voluntarily confessed to Père Ignace, and the lies I have told that abominable man make me blush at the memory. All of this must be going back to Bouchard, but he seems determined only to force me into a reaction that will prove me a liar. He is rude to Clement, he makes disparaging remarks about Jeanette, he even manages snide references to garden sheds, and I can do nothing but smile and endure it.
But today was the worst. I thought myself safe at first, for he seemed to have other things on his mind, and scarcely acknowledged my presence before announcing to the others that Gondi has received a letter from the Duchesse de Chevreuse.
D’Arsy frowned. ‘That’s a devil of a risk. Doesn’t she know what happened to la Vigerie? All our couriers are watched.’
Bouchard waved dismissively. ‘I expect she found some lovesick English boy to take it. There was nothing incriminating anyway, only a little society news.’
His eyes slid casually round to me, and I felt my mouth suddenly dry.
‘Oh, do tell,’ said Lavigne eagerly. ‘La Chevreuse has the best nose for gossip.’
‘Her eyes aren’t bad either,’ said Bouchard. ‘And she says de Roland isn’t in England.’
There was a moment’s silence, then d’Arsy made an exclamation and sat up straight.
‘But he must be!’ squeaked Lavigne. ‘He can’t be in Rome, Gondi would have heard. He’s an exile, he couldn’t be anywhere else without Guise knowing.’
‘Oh, he could,’ said Bouchard. ‘Has it occurred to you he could have stayed in France?’
He was watching me, I knew he was, I felt his eyes on my skin.
D’Arsy gave a sudden grunt of amusement. ‘God, I wonder. He could have, you know, he’s audacious enough.’
‘That’s one word for it,’ said Bouchard.
Lavigne emitted a shrill peal of laughter. Bouchard turned to look at him, and for a moment they shared a smile.
Florian watched them wonderingly. ‘But, Monseigneur, why does it matter? He isn’t any danger to us now, is he?’
‘Oh, hang the danger,’ said Bouchard. ‘I’m talking about honour. D’Arsy has a little something to settle with him too, don’t you, d’Arsy?’
D’Arsy looked up. ‘I owe him a fair fight, which is what I engaged for, God help me. What’s your excuse?’
Bouchard’s face darkened crimson. ‘He murdered Dubosc, didn’t he? Doesn’t friendship mean anything to you?’
It means everything to Florian. He said at once ‘It’s justice, d’Arsy. Monseigneur is thinking of us all. I should have seen that. His interest is only in justice.’
My poor brother. Bouchard patted his shoulder as if he were a favourite spaniel, and said ‘You see, d’Arsy? Justice. Now how shall we see about getting it?’
It was clear something vile was intended, yet my heart pounded harder and firmer as I realized my opportunity. Bouchard may have staged this conversation to test my reaction, but for the first time I had a chance to learn something important.
I affected to be quite untroubled, and served them myself with wine and sweetmeats so they need not be restrained by the presence of servants. I smiled at disgusting Lavigne, I polished Bouchard’s glass, I even allowed d’Arsy to flirt with me, but none of them seemed to know their next move. Jacques has never left Paris, neither has that nice M. de Chouy. The Comte has been to the Auvergne, but d’Arsy is quite sure that means nothing. He said they’d watched the place in case the Comte led them abroad, and if André had been hiding there his men would certainly have known.
‘Then where?’ said Lavigne. ‘It’s too ridiculous. He’s a gentleman, he can’t go to ground like a rabbit.’
Bouchard’s hand was arrested on its way to the sweetmeat tray. Then he picked up a honeyed almond and tossed it in his palm. ‘Maybe he can. Maybe we should forget the drawing rooms and start looking in the gutter. You forget, Messieurs, he has friends there too.’
‘Not that we’d know,’ said Lavigne disdainfully.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Bouchard. ‘The one I’m thinking of might rather appeal to you. Someone we know he befriended. Someone we know disappeared only a couple of days before he did. Someone we wouldn’t mind seeing again on our own account.’
It may have been a trick of the candles, but I thought Lavigne’s mouth looked suddenly wet. ‘But you said it yourself, she’s gone. You said it didn’t matter, no one would listen to a slut like that. You said she wasn’t worth looking for.’
Bouchard threw the nut in his mouth and smiled as he chewed. He said ‘She is now.’
Ever looked after a powder store? Trust me, it’s a piece of cat’s piss compared to looking after André de Roland. Stick him in the remotest place in Europe and he’d still find a way of drawing trouble like another man draws breath.
And remote is right, oh my word. We were in a little village called Saint-Jean aux Bois, buried deep in the Forest of Compiègne with nothing and its bastards for miles. It was built round the old Abbey, see, proper-walled and fortified with gates, but nothing worth the nicking inside, nothing but a church, a bakery, a smithy, and one little inn for the comfort of the lucky buggers who were passing straight through. Even the monks had scarpered for the city, and I couldn’t blame them.
The inn itself now, that wasn’t so bad. Bernadette did the serving, me and André did the heavy work, and a softer billet I’ve never had. It was old, I’d say, half-timbering and thatch, but good stone floors against the damp and all kept clean as a bride’s dress. There were flowers in baskets and climbing up the walls, shutters done up blue and yellow, it was pretty as a painting and twice as snug. Set the thing down in Amiens or somewhere worth living and I’d of been ready to marry the widow and move right in.
Ah, now, pass the wine and I’ll tell you about Martine. Sweet-tempered lady, soft little voice, put you in mind of a plump wood-pigeon. She was the wrong side of forty, but then I was more than thirty myself, and that’s when you want the older ones, see, you want a woman won’t rob you blind and run off with your junior officer. But she was sweet with it too, Martine. She’d a weak chest and maybe that had to do with it, but there was nothing harsh about her, never raised her voice to me, not once. There was times I thought ‘Sod Amiens and anything like it, a man could go further and fare worse.’
It would have been all pudding that place if it weren’t for André. We kept him out of sight while his wound was mending and his whiskers growing, but once he was out we were stuffed six ways to Stralsund. He could make his voice rough and his walk humble, he could do everything people said he could, but he was different in his head and it showed. He was opening doors for people, he was bowing and calling them ‘Madame’, he was looking at them bright-eyed and perky, and drawing attention like a nun in a whorehouse.
And we couldn’t do a thing with him. Bernadette used to fair yell at him, she’d say ‘Chevalier, you are going to get yourself thrown in prison or killed,’ and he’d try his heart out for days afterwards, but next thing there’d be the wheelwright’s wife fretting about her son in Germany, and there’d be André sitting down to help her write a ruddy letter. He never meant no harm, no, nor saw it neither, but he had ‘gentleman on the run’ writ over his head like fireworks in the sky.
Ah, but a man’s real self has to come out somehow, and he’d worse things fermenting inside him nor nice manners. Poor little bugger, he’d been shafted from here to Hesdin, lost his reputation and everything he owned, and nothing to be done about it but wait tables. He was twisting and turning in on himself like a sizzling fuse, and looking every which way for something to fight.
We kept his sword hid in the stable, but he was forever nipping into the woods to do what he called his ‘exercises’, and I reckon he was hoping to run into the bandits we’d got swarming all over the forest. He never did, they’d the sense to avoid anywhere with walls and people, but he took the threat of it very serious and made us take guns whenever we went out. He was worried for the women too, the inn being stuck away near the old abbey and nothing but the smithy within call, so he bought a wheel-lock musket in Compiègne and taught Bernadette to load and fire it herself.
But the danger was a sight closer to home nor that. Having the gentlemen notice he was a cut above the usual mutton didn’t do no harm, they weren’t going to get talking about an inn servant, not they. But the females? It weren’t so bad when his whiskers was on the way, he’d that callow moth-eaten look didn’t do him no favours at all, but once he’d got himself a neat little beard and moustache he was turning heads to Honnecourt. He was young and tall and straight, and there weren’t so many of them in Saint-Jean-in-the-Middle-of-Nowhere. They were over him like mould.
It was the visiting ladies needed watching, especially them old ones, the hags with blond footmen and predatory eyes. He called himself ‘Gauthier’ back then, and them ladies, it was always ‘Oh, perhaps Gauthier might bring me a posset in bed,’ or ‘I’m so frightened of bandits, perhaps Gauthier might sleep outside my room.’ Bollocks in spades, and spades trumps. If I hadn’t shared his bed they’d have been climbing right in it with him.
He never touched them, not one, he’d learned a healthy distrust of women his own kind. He didn’t mind the local girls, I’d see him at the well of an evening helping them with their buckets, and he was that relaxed you’d think him a different man. He’d sit casual on the parapet with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows, chatting and laughing and joining in the village talk, and I’d believe it then, the things they said about him and the life he’d led. But there was danger in it and I should of seen it, a man ought never let down his guard with a female. They had him picked for gentle-born by Christmas, and by March I reckon there were folk getting close to a name.
Martine said it didn’t matter. She said ‘They like him, Grimauld, they won’t say nothing to do him harm.’
‘Ah,’ says I, ‘but what about them visitors, my poppet? What’s to stop them picking up the gossip and passing it on as it might be at Compiègne?’
‘Silly old fool,’ she says, laughing so much it sets off her wheezing. ‘This is Saint-Jean aux Bois you’re in now. These are gentry folk in Paris you’re worrying about, why in the Lord’s name would they be poking about down here?’
Extract from her diary, dated 10 April 1641
I must act. I have almost forgotten how, but I must act.
Florian’s friends were in boisterous mood tonight, and I could have learned even more but for Bouchard’s mistrust. Lavigne boasted openly how he had learned from a girl’s former employers the whereabouts of her family, and might even have named the place if Bouchard had not turned the subject. It must be a big town, for Lavigne’s spies have spent some days searching there without result, but today they reported back a rumour of a young menial so noble in his behaviour he returned a visiting lady her jewels which she had hidden for safekeeping and was about to leave behind. They are quite certain this must be André, but still they would not say where, and there could be no possible reason for me to ask. I could only sit in utter frustration while they talked about the theatre.
Then a tap at the door introduced Lavigne’s frightening lackey. I have never seen him closely before, and truly he is a nightmare of a man, his face shot with broken red veins and his mouth crowded with pointed yellow teeth. No one can understand why fashionable Lavigne bears with so vile a servant as Pirauld, but today I was glad of him for he asked when the horses were needed for tomorrow’s journey and Lavigne told him at daybreak.
The urgency is therefore acute, and I must act now, tonight. How is harder, for Jeanette is watched as well as I and our only hope of sending messages is by the fish boy, but he may not call until mid-morning, which may be too late.
I must try anyway. Jeanette shall write it so my hand will not be recognized, and we shall not sign a name. Perhaps the Comtesse will trust it. Perhaps it will reach her in time. Perhaps at last I can do something to help.