Paris: The Novel

striking. Do you like them?”
    Madame Blanchard thought of the effect they would have on her dinner guests. She imagined herself saying, “My son Marc designed these, after he finished at the École des Beaux-Arts.”
    “One would need a table to go with them, or they won’t look right,” she said.
    “Ah. I thought you might say that.” Marc unfurled more plans: for the table, a sideboard, new window treatments, and new wallpaper. “The wallpaper you’ll have to get from England,” he explained. “I checked out the designs already before I designed the chairs.” And he handed them a catalog. “I’m afraid it’s expensive having an artist in the family,” he said with a grin to his father.
    His father considered. The entrepreneur in him understood what his son had done at once.
    “It’s bold,” he said. “Completely bold.” He nodded. “We’ll do it.”
    The next day he showed the designs to his sister.
    “But it’s magnificent!” cried Éloïse. “He really has talent, Jules. I’m delighted.” She thought for a moment. “You know,” she said quietly, “Gérard is a good organizer, but he’d never have thought of this in a thousand years.”
    Jules said nothing. But she knew that he knew it.
    Soon after this, Jules had taken Marc to the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine to see Monsieur Petit, the cabinetmaker.
    Petit was a small round man who moved with a certain gravity. He lived over his workshop in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, as his family had done since before the French Revolution. He took several minutes inspecting the drawings, while his daughter, a pretty young thing of about sixteen, entered the workshop to offer them refreshments. When Petit had completed his inspection, he addressed Marc with the respect of a craftsman for a proven artist.
    “This is the first time I have ever been asked to make furniture todesigns like these, monsieur,” he explained, and for the next twenty minutes, he and Marc went over them in detail together, the craftsman asking numerous questions as to measurements, and requesting a few minor design alterations to aid in the making. It gave Jules pleasure to see his son and the craftsman so deep in their discussion that when the pretty girl came in again with their tea, neither Petit nor Marc noticed her at all.
    It had taken many months to make the furniture. Petit asked Marc to come to his workshop several times to ensure that everything was done as he wished. But when the project was completed, Madame Blanchard’s Art Nouveau dining room created a small sensation.
    Meanwhile, Jules was able to get Marc two or three portrait commissions, which Marc completed to everyone’s satisfaction.
    It was the success of the first project that had encouraged Jules to suggest the second.
    For some time, he had been considering a remodeling of his department store. But he hadn’t been sure exactly what he wanted to do. The moment he’d seen Marc’s designs, a plan had begun to take shape in his mind.
    “I want something like what you have done for the dining room, but lighter, more airy. I want to use glass and steel, something absolutely modern, but at the same time sensuous. A big part of our business is selling clothes to women, after all. The Art Nouveau style is perfect for that. I want to design one big room. Then, if we like it, I shall convert the entire store.”
    “That’s a huge project,” Marc pointed out. “I’ll make designs, but I can’t oversee their development and execution. We’ll have to work with architects.”
    This was clearly sensible. Marc had found a firm of architects, and they in turn had found contractors who specialized in the finest steelwork.
    Although Marc had said that he couldn’t supervise the work, his father was aware how often he looked in at the workshop where the decorative steel was being made. And when the actual building was being done, he was on-site in the store almost every day.
    Jules also noticed something else. Marc seemed to have a natural talent for getting on with the workers, who clearly liked him.
    “Did you know,” Marc asked him one day, “that the steelworkers’ foreman worked for Eiffel, both on the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower?”
    “I must confess I didn’t.”
    “He’s very proud of the fact. He was a riveter by trade, but he understands what we’re doing. You should talk to him sometime.”
    “What’s his name?” Jules inquired.
    “Thomas Gascon.”
    And if Jules