The Judas Cloth (80 page)

‘I’m sure you’d offer him vinegar on a sponge! A good death is not in a man’s control.’

‘Oh, forgive me!’ Veuillot feigned distress. ‘Now I’ve reminded you of Cardinal Amandi’s death which…’

Nicola left the table. He regretted provoking an incident, but anger was his barrier against grief. He had trouble containing a prickling in his eyes, as he stared down light shards which sprang, like the spokes of a monstrance, from mirrored chandeliers.

The Polish lady was creating a diversion at the piano, so Nicola seized his chance to ask Monsignor Chigi whether the Pope had made an appeal on Darboy’s behalf to Monsieur Thiers.

The nuncio said no and that it would by unwise to call too often on the diminished store of good will now left to the Church.

‘But I was assured before leaving Rome …’ Nicola did not mention Prospero’s promise.

Chigi took his arm. ‘I wish I thought such an appeal would make a difference, Monsignore …’ He made a helpless gesture. ‘Let us comfort ourselves with music.’

The air was raw with woodsmoke and the sun, probing pocks and freckles in the dressed stone of Versailles, gave the town a look of old marzipan in a pastrycook’s window.

Nicola’s landlady had put a copy of Veuillot’s paper,
l’Univers
, on her lodger’s breakfast tray. She had circled an item: General de Fabrice, head of the Prussian GHQ at Soisy, had confidentially informed the Commune that if it shot the hostages, Prussia would punish the crime, ‘in Europe’s name’.

Thank God, thought Nicola. Then: might this threat, now that it was public, backfire and stiffen Darboy’s captors? Anxious to hear Lagarde’s opinion, he called at his lodgings and, failing to find him, drove to Mount Satory from whose summit one could see Paris. What was going on there? Should he go and see? What if, instead, he were to request a meeting with Monsieur Thiers and claim to have a message for him from the Pope? Would Monsignor Chigi deny him thrice? He would. It was a lunatic notion.

In the afternoon, he drifted into the château grounds, where a concert was in progress, and ran into Mr Blount, who asked if he had heard the news. What news? About Cluseret. ‘Remember? The Commune’s Minister of War. He’s lost his command and been sent to Mazas prison.’ The official explanation, said the Englishman, was that Issy, one of the forts held by the Communard troops, had been temporarily abandoned. But as Cluseret himself had promptly retaken it, this didn’t hold water. No, the real reason had to be Cluseret’s contacts with the Prussians and the fact that he had signed a paper – Blount claimed to have proof of this – agreeing to release Darboy. The contacts had been secret and would have remained so but for the item in
l’Univers
. ‘If it was leaked when Veuillot first knew it,’ said Blount, ‘then
he
brought down Cluseret.’

And dished Darboy’s chances?’

‘Absolutely. The Commune has now appointed a Committee of Public Safety which will be hard to deal with because its members distrust each other. It has already repudiated Cluseret’s order to release Darboy. Is there any reason,’ asked Blount, ‘to think the Vatican might prefer him
not
to be rescued? No? Forgive me. It was just a thought.’ Before taking
leave, he invited Nicola to dine, later, at the Hotel des Réservoirs.

Calling again on the abbé, Nicola found him in a state of prostration over the failure of a plan, which had pivoted on the Prussian approach to Cluseret. Lagarde’s go-between, the daughter of an aide-de-camp of the Tsar of Russia, had had to mobilise princely contacts, and it had taken weeks of manoeuvring up and down hierarchies of blue-blood lines and across enemy ones before the thing was done. Now – the abbé’s groan had the knell of a death rattle.

‘What about the Poles?’

Lagarde blenched. ‘Can nobody keep a secret? How do you know about them?’ A Polish group, he admitted, was trying bribery. For God’s sake, Monsignore, don’t let this go any further. Cluseret was gone, but some of the men contacted were still in place. What was lacking was the 60,000 francs that they wanted.

‘Monseigneur,’ said the unhappy Lagarde, ‘cannot be told. He talks too openly to his captors, so it is safer to let him and others think I am saving my own skin and doing nothing.’ In fact, though, the Poles’ Communard contacts had already managed to obtain the release of the prelate’s sister, Mademoiselle Darboy.

The Hotel des Réservoirs, once the pretty residence of Madame de Pompadour, was now so seething with customers that, without Mr Blount’s invitation, Nicola could not have eaten there. Tables, he learned from his host, were booked from morning till night and, when the last diners left, table-cloths were replaced by mattresses and the dining room became a dormitory.

Mr Blount pointed out the English Ambassador, Lord Lyons, and other well-known people, then said, ‘I have a surprise for you. An old friend of yours will be joining us.’

It was Flavio, who, though courtly as ever, had a tremor in his eyelid. He was still struggling with the aftermath of what the press was calling ‘the Langrand labyrinth of swindles’. Thanks to Nicola’s paper, he had come unscathed through the Belgian phase of court cases but a French one threatened and his present respite was due only to the fact that the prosecution’s papers were in Paris and unreachable in the Palais de Justice. Langrand, facing personal charges of fraudulent bankruptcy, was likely to skip to America. ‘It’s hard to blame him,’ said the forgiving
Flavio. ‘He was a paladin of the imagination. His account books are a cross between dream books and explorers’ charts. He was too good a Catholic to be a good businessman. His venture was a prayer.’

This sparked off a hope in Nicola’s head. Could Flavio get his hands on the money needed to ransom Darboy? Langrand must have secret caches? From what the papers said, so much was missing that nobody would miss more, so why not use it in a good cause? ‘It will bring you both luck,’ he cajoled.
Ad
removendam
maiorem
calamitatem
, one could, he saw, with shame, cease to care about shame. Briefly, he felt a flicker of fellow-feeling for Mastai.

Flavio, though surprised, agreed to provide the money.

The Abbé Lagarde was too agitated to listen to Nicola’s news. He had had two letters from different groups of Parisian clergy. One summoned him back to Paris ‘to avoid bloodshed’, while the other said that if he were to return without an agreement for an exchange of hostages, the Communards would shoot the archbishop.

The abbé, looking wizened and twitchy, said, ‘I pray for guidance, Monsignore, but how can I trust my judgment when others don’t?’ He was thinking of Darboy, who had sent a bitter letter ordering him to return forthwith, no matter how things stood.

‘You must disobey him.’

‘But he thinks I’m a traitor and a coward.’

‘That’s your cross. His is being in Mazas gaol. Besides,’ said Nicola, surprising himself, ‘it’s a time when loyalty is best shown not by obedience but by the opposite.’

The abbé looked mildly cheered. He had a guest, a man in secular clothing. This was le Père Amodru, who had brought one of the letters from Paris. The Communards, said Amodru, were growing desperate. Cluseret’s fall was a sign of panic. ‘Which means,’ he warned, ‘that extremists are taking over and bribes harder to give.’

‘We failed them!’ groaned Lagarde. ‘They were our flock!’ But it was no time, his companions reminded him, for such concerns.

‘Monsieur Plou, Monseigneur’s lawyer …’

‘Has he been allowed to see him again?’

‘No, but when he did see him he found him unrecognisable. Monseigneur has grown a beard, lost weight, wears a wretched old soutane and black nightcap …’

Nicola, leaving them, walked out into the stately, ramshackle town.
Under the Empire, this seat of royal pride had been deliberately allowed to run down, and now houses were requisitioned and streets looked as though people had been picnicking in them. Passing a café, he found himself crunching oyster shells. Versailles! The name hissed like a sad cacophony of ghosts. Evading them, he tried to imagine the racy, energetic France of Napoleon III.

Prisoners, taken in the fighting outside the Paris walls, were being herded past. Former National Guardsmen, not drunk now, though they had allegedly been so for months on looted wine, they stared with unfocusing, furious, stunned eyes. They were hobbled together and had to be protected by their escort of regular soldiers from assaults. The abbé’s lost flock! A soldier pushed aside a well-dressed woman who was spitting and the spit fell short.

Flavio now disappeared to raise ransom money – or to abstract it from his creditors’ grasp – and Blount brought back a copy of a proclamation which was posted all over Paris. It promised ‘a new … positive and scientific era in place of the old clerical world … and of the militarism, monopolism and privilege to which the proletariat owes its servitude and the nation its downfall’.

‘They may whistle for their new era, now,’ said Blount. The city was being bombarded and he believed the Army could take it if it chose. ‘Thiers,’ he speculated, ‘is drawing things out.’

In mid-May, exiled Parisians, observing their city from Mount Satory, were surprised to witness the fall of the pillar on the place Vendôme. It had been made from German cannon captured during the Napoleonic wars, so the watchers guessed the Prussians to be to blame and the Commune hand in glove with them!

‘That,’ said Blount, ‘is a slander!’

Lagarde agreed. He was alert for slanders because of those spread about himself – for instance, that he had deserted Darboy from ultramontane spite. ‘The Communards smashed the pillar,’ he told Nicola, ‘from hatred of the Bonapartes. They may shoot Monseigneur for the same reason. As the Emperor’s man.’

‘God’s man, surely?’

‘For us,’ said the abbé despondently. ‘Not for them!’ Fresh danger signals had come from the city. The Red Virgin wanted the hostages shot. ‘Louise Michel. I used to see her during the Prussian siege. She would march into our churches collecting money for the ambulances. Always with a red belt and a gun on her shoulder. Her father was a landed gentleman and her mother a chambermaid. The Commune’s other virago, Elizabeth Dimitrieff, is a bastard too.’ The progeny of mismatches, said the abbé, were forcing-pits for revolution. ‘
Topsyturvydom
is policy now and such freaks are bloodthirsty.’

Nicola tried not to feel resentful. Personal feelings had no place here – and perhaps the son of the Baron Lagarde did not mean what he said. One must hope not, for his drift was woundingly clear: the viragos were viragos because they were bastards, and misfits aimed to tailor the world to fit themselves. But: was Monseigneur Dupanloup not the son of mismatched parents? And Jesus Christ? Both their sires had picked ancillary loves and left their sons a soft spot for underdogs. Hence Dupanloup’s Liberalism and the Sermon on the Mount.

A Commune rampaged through Nicola’s thoughts. Veuillot would have said he had encouraged it by dallying with Liberalism: a bastard creed. Would Lagarde? It was hard to know what he thought about anything other than his impugned honour, his archbishop’s doubts of him, and his hopes of outwitting the Reds. Unity was fracturing and the air hazy with sunshot dust.

Meanwhile, Darboy was plumbing a humiliation custom-made for grocer’s stock, as he tried to peddle an unwanted lot made up of himself and five fellow hostages. His last two pleas were delivered to Monsieur Thiers on Saturday and Sunday, 20th and 21st May. That same Sunday, government troops entered Paris and the news, which reached Versailles in time for after-dinner toasts, filled the archbishop’s friends with dread. ‘That’s it then. Thiers won’t negotiate now. And the Communards will fight like cornered rats.’

Wolves! Badgers! Baited bears! Over the next weeks, idlers in Versailles would enjoy the pleasures of zoo-visitors as they threw stones and dung at the convoys of captives who came hobbling in their thousands through their town. These, said Blount, were the lucky ones. Ferocious stories were leaking out of Paris.

The day after the troops went in, their advance was halted. Though welcomed in the wealthy western districts, they came up against a line of resistance stretching from the Batignolles, through the Gare St Lazare, across the river to the Chamber of Deputies and south to Montparnasse. East of this front lay Mazas prison where the hostages were held.

That evening, the sky over Paris was red; and next day stupefied Versaillais, many of whom owned houses in the capital, saw columns of black smoke rise, spread like the branches of an umbrella pine, then, erupting still higher, form a vast, red-tinged, glowing mushroom. The city was on fire.

Rumours clashed with counter-rumours. The Tuileries were burning and so perhaps was Notre-Dame Cathedral! What about the prisons? Had the bridges been blown up? The dry, windy weather was perfect for arson, and it was not until the Friday that rain came.

All week Nicola prayed for Darboy who, in his aching mind, fused with other figures visible in the shabby gloom of Versailles churches: stoned Stephens, Jeromes with their tamed lions, meek Christs. Remembering what the abbé Delisle had said about the uses of martyrdom, Nicola, even as he begged the Virgin to take pity on the hostages, fancied he saw a sardonic twitch to her lip.

Early on Saturday, 27th May, a manservant of Flavio’s called at Nicola’s lodgings with the 60,000 francs for the hostages’ ransom. Although ill, the duke, said his man, had forced himself to travel. He had got here from Brussels last night but was now too sick with a fever to take the money into Paris, as he had hoped to do. Besides, it was too late. It would be foolhardy to venture into that furnace. The rules of war were being observed by neither side. Paris was a slaughter-house, but the duke wanted Monsignor Santi to know he had done his best. He had done it for
him
because he knew that he had come to think of the archbishop as Amandi’s successor and must dread to see him, too, struck down.

The messenger left him staring at the useless money. Amandi and Darboy were his heart’s elect, yet he, like one of the wailing women posted along the
via
crucis,
must stand impotently by – must he? Surely,
this
time could be different? Paris was in chaos, but might he not hope to turn this to account? Convince the Army of the urgency of a rescue? Bribe a Communard official at the last, critical moment? Even this week, people had been into that hell and come back. Edward Blount knew some who had, but was refusing to repeat their stories. Hearsay, he claimed, was a factor in the vengeful follies being reported and misreported.

Blount! Might he help? He had contacts in the city and knew whom to bribe. Nicola would ask him for a loan of lay clothes – and maybe the Englishman would offer to come with him. Lagarde? No. Blount was the man, decided Nicola, and set off to find him.

Two hours later they were in the smudgy heart of ruined Paris. Like Virgil in the
Inferno
, Blount named wrecked, half-deserted streets, the rue Royale, the place du Carrousel. By now the Army had fought its way east and only the fire-brigade was left and, with the help of residents, was struggling to quench fires laid by the retreating Communards. Occasional gusty flames rose, were beaten back by the wind and seemed, at moments, to creep along the footpaths. Gutted ministries – just here were the Admiralty and the vast, devastated Ministry of Finance – had been doused with petrol and set alight. Arsonists, a resident told them, had been shot out of hand.

‘We were in the cellars.’ A
concierge
held her door half open, ready, if need be, to dodge behind it. There had, she said, been summary killings right here. First the
fédérés
had killed people and, when the regular troops came,
they
killed
them.
On the spot! Up against the wall.
Pan
! As if she had frightened herself, she closed the door and they heard her shoot the bolt.

‘They can’t believe it’s over.’

‘It
isn
’
t
on the other side of the city. Hear the cannon?’

On their way here, the sky had been dotted with scraps of blackened paper which floated sootily for miles outside Paris. Here, at the ministries, was their source. Carbonised particles rose like black butterflies, were caught by the wind, whirled in gusty flurries, then fell back, often into one of the conflagrations still dully burning throughout the area.

Blount plucked a fragment from his sleeve and, reading ‘… nistry of Just…’, noted that that must have come from across the river. ‘The duke should be pleased. If the Ministry of Justice has lost its records, the evidence against him has gone up in smoke!’

He had a message from him, he remembered then. Indeed, he had intended telling it to Nicola this morning but, distracted by the idea of this expedition, had forgotten. ‘He’d have written, but is too ill and it wasn’t something he wanted to tell a servant. He told me last night at the station.’

‘What is his message?’

‘He wants you to know that he is adopting Maria Gatti’s son. He wants an heir. It seems he’s worried about his health. Did you know that? Apparently it’s not good, so starting the adoption procedure couldn’t wait. I gather it’s a ticklish subject. Oh God,’ Blount interrupted himself in shock. ‘Corpses!’

They had a domestic, even casual look, as if they had just slipped out for bread or milk. There were too many for that though. Spectators or
combatants in some skirmish, they had been piled, six feet high, under an arcade and three urchins were turning out their pockets. Nicola got a sour smell, as the two rushed past.

There was smoke everywhere and smells of burned varnish. Gutted buildings smouldered as they made their way down the rue de Rivoli towards the Hôtel de Ville, which had been the Commune’s
headquarters
. The sky showed lacily through its gouged façade, but the flames had been doused and a lambent phosphorescence glimmered from its shell. Dead horses. More bodies. Broken barricades. A hiss of water hoses everywhere, and all the time that distant rumbling growl of the cannon.

‘Look.’ Blount pointed across the river. ‘Notre-Dame Cathedral! They didn’t burn it after all.’

At Mazas Prison the Army was in control and the tricolour flying. The news was, however, that the retreating Communards had moved the hostages east to the prison of La Roquette which, though not far, was unreachable. Fighting in that area was intense, for the rump of the Commune was entrenched in the
Mairie
of the Eleventh Arrondissement which was just near the prison.

Blount said he knew some people east of here who might have news. So they pressed on laboriously, taking roundabout routes to avoid the rubble of barricades. His acquaintances were café owners who had closed their shutters and were reluctant to open them. In the end, however, they let the two in and agreed to give them a scratch meal. The Englishmen had made their acquaintance when distributing
provisions
bought by the Lord Mayor of London’s Fund. He asked the
patronne
for news of the hostages.

‘You didn’t hear? They were shot in La Roquette prison on
Wednesday
. The men from the firing squad were in the wine shops
afterwards
, spending their fifty francs and talking their heads off. Besides, there were plenty of witnesses in the Place Voltaire when help was recruited.’

‘You’re sure they shot the archbishop? Darboy?’

Nicola felt dizzy with disappointment, but Blount put a hand on his. ‘Don’t despair!’ he said. Most rumours were untrue. ‘Remember
Notre-Dame
Cathedral? We just saw it intact, yet two days ago a man swore to me he’d seen it in flames! We’ll go to La Roquette now.’

The woman came back with some preserved fruit. ‘Life goes on,’ she
said, dishing it up. ‘Just! This morning soldiers shot a child here in the street. A chimneysweep. They said he had gunpowder on his hands, so they shot him. It wasn’t gunpowder. It was soot!’

The other side, she told them, was no better. They’d massacred fifty prisoners in the rue Haxo. Maybe more? Some were priests. That was yesterday. They’d taken them from La Roquette prison and, although Commune officials tried to rescue the prisoners and there was no proper firing squad, they were mown down by the mob. ‘Shot like rabbits. Turned into human porridge.’ That was what she’d heard from a man who had got a shaking fit while he was telling her. Anyone who had a gun just shot into the mass without taking aim or even lining them up. They did it because of what the regulars did to their own people. ‘“An eye for an eye,” they said.’

Blount’s eye held Nicola’s. These are only stories, it signalled. On their way out, Nicola’s attention was caught by a poster. It was a call to arms by the Committee of Public Safety. ‘Citizens,’ he read. ‘Treason has opened our gates to the enemy … If Thiers wins you know what awaits you. Labour without fruit and poverty without relief … To arms. No pity! Shoot all those who might help the enemy. If you are defeated they won’t spare you …’

‘It’s not all lies,’ said the woman indecisively. She pointed to the words ‘Woe to those caught with powder on their fingers or smoke on their faces’. ‘I told you about the chimneysweep. A child! And you may be sure he wasn’t the only one. That’s Monsieur Thiers’ justice for you!’ Carefully, she unpinned the poster and, as they stepped out, locked her door. The sound of guns was close.

There was a cluster of marines within three hundred yards of La Roquette. They had captured a barricade and were sheltering behind it. Priests, they told Nicola and Blount, had tried escaping from the prison in small groups. Two had got this far and by now must be safely home in their presbyteries. They had reported that others too might try to get out, for the prison authorities had run away and the remaining guards were ready to defect. The danger was the die-hards fighting between here and the gaol. Already, several fugitives had been caught and shot.

Meanwhile, inside one wing of La Roquette, prisoners, many of them captured regular soldiers, had broken out of their cells and raised barricades against the mob which they feared might invade. The prisoners in the other wing were still locked up.

‘What about the archbishop?’

The marines didn’t know but noted that anyone making a run for it would wear civilian clothes. ‘Your archbishop won’t come out wearing his pectoral cross.’

At that moment a sniper picked off a marine close to them and the fighting started again. An officer ordered the two civilians out of the line of fire.