Chapter 9

An Important Verification

 

 

 

 

Hank had left a message proposing that we meet at the Guinness pub for dinner. She ended the voicemail with two words: “They match,” then she hung up.

So, she, herself, was so excited that she couldn’t wait until dinner time to tell me. The expert handwriting analysis had confirmed that the journal was genuine – that it was written in the hand of Henry Howard, the son of the Earl of Surrey. More than that, her forensic specialist’s investigation of the paper sample had indicated that it was made, in large part, from hemp, which was a common practice in the 16 century and resulted in paper of a more cloth-like consistency than that which was later considered suitable for printing presses and book binding machines. Likewise, the rust marks that remained of the faded ink were indicative of an iron sulphate and gall formula that was in use in Europe since the 12th century but had rarely been used since the early 1600s, because of the corrosive effect of the iron oxides on wood pulp based paper.

I was restless, and I needed to get out of my hotel room to take some air. I had gone to a book store on the rue de la Quai the day before, where I bought a lithograph copy of a map of Paris from the 1560s. I was looking at some of the place names to which Howard referred in his journal, and I recognized some of the still-standing landmarks, mostly churches.

The first place I visited was the Church of Saint-Séverin, where today there are only groups of students sitting on the steps. I walked the narrow winding streets, leading from there in every direction, where nowadays you pass one after another of the store front Greek gyro places, each displaying shards of lamb on giant vertical roasting spits. On street corners, people congregated to listen to string ensembles of conservatory students playing Vivaldi’s “Spring”.

I knew that neither rue St. Victor nor the Collège du Cardinal Lemoine still existed, but the traces and memories of what had been there remain. Where St. Victor had once been, the rue du Cardinal Lemoine descends the hill from the rue des Ecoles to the river, two blocks from the Quai de Notre Dame. In place of the Collège du Cardinal Lemoine, there stands today a large post office, a string of boutiques, a coiffure’s shop and a courtyard surrounded by apartments. The south wall of these apartments forms the side of a theatre, originally constructed under Napoleon, burned down during the Franco-Prussian War and rebuilt by Gustav Eiffel during the building boom occasioned by the Exhibit of 1898. The theatre’s flashing marquee proudly proclaims that this is “Le Paradis Latin,” a dinner club in the 19th Century tradition of French cabaret, in a quarter where intellectual pursuits join hands with man’s capacity to imagine and to take pleasure in life.

I thought I would propose to Hank that we go there to celebrate our findings and give her the first of the pages I had written - the story I was putting together, based on the diary – just to see what she thought. I walked to rue Monge and turned down a descending side street, past a small Greek restaurant to a tiny triangle of a park; where I sat on a bench and reread the section I had finished that morning.