Paris: The Novel

herself? She had suffered and survived, seen empires rise and fall. Chaos and dictatorship, monarchy and republic: Paris had tried them all. And which did she like best? Ah, there was a question … For all her age and grace, it seemed she did not know
.
    Recently, she had suffered another terrible crisis. Four years ago, her people had been eating rats. Humiliated first, starving next. Then they had turned upon each other. It had not been long since the bodies had been buried, the smell of death been dispersed by the wind and the echo of the firing squads departed over the horizon
.
    Now, in the year 1875, she was recovering. But many great issues remained still to be resolved
.

    The little boy was only three. A fair-haired, blue-eyed child. Some things he knew already. Others were still kept from him. And then there were the secrets.
    Father Xavier gazed at him. How like his mother the child looked. Father Xavier was a priest, but he was in love with a woman, the mother of this child. He admitted his passion to himself, but his self-discipline was complete. No one would have guessed his love. As for the little boy, God surely had a plan for him.
    Perhaps that he should be sacrificed.
    It was a sunny day in the fashionable Tuileries Gardens in front of the Louvre, where nannies watched their children play, and Father Xavier was taking him for a walk. Father Xavier: family confessor, friend in need, priest.
    “What are your names?” he playfully asked the child.
    “Roland, D’Artagnan, Dieudonné de Cygne.” He knew them all by heart.
    “Bravo, young man.” Father Xavier Parle-Doux was a small, wiry man in his forties. Long ago he’d been a soldier. A fall from a horse had lefthim with a stabbing pain in his back ever since—though only a handful of people were aware of it.
    But his days as a soldier had marked him in another way. He had done his duty. He’d seen killing. He had seen things worse than killing. And in the end, it had seemed to him that there must be something better than this, something more sacred, an undying flame of light and love in the terrible darkness of the world. He’d found it in the heart of Holy Church.
    Also, he was a monarchist.
    He’d known the child’s family all his life, and now he looked down at him with affection, but also with pity. Roland had no brother or sister. His mother, that beautiful soul, the woman he himself would have liked to marry had he not chosen another calling, suffered with delicate health. The future of the family might rest on little Roland alone: a heavy burden for a boy to bear.
    But he knew that as a priest, he must take a larger view. What was it the Jesuits said? “Give us a boy till he’s seven, and he’s ours for life.” Whatever God’s plan for this child, whether that service led to happiness or not, Father Xavier would lead him toward it.
    “And who was Roland?”
    “Roland was a hero.” The little boy looked up for approval. “My mother read me the story. He was my ancestor,” he added solemnly.
    The priest smiled. The famous
Song of Roland
was a haunting, romantic tale, from a thousand years ago, about how the emperor Charlemagne’s friend was cut off as the army crossed the mountains. How Roland blew on his horn for help, to no avail. How the Saracens slew him, and how the emperor wept for the loss of his friend. The de Cygne family’s claim to this ancestor was fanciful, but charming.
    “Others of your ancestors were crusading knights.” Father Xavier nodded encouragingly. “But this is natural. You are of noble birth.” He paused. “And who was D’Artagnan?”
    “The famous Musketeer. He was my ancestor.”
    As it happened, the hero of
The Three Musketeers
had been based upon a real man. And Roland’s family had married a noblewoman of the same name back in the time of Louis XIV—though whether they had taken much interest in this connection before the novel made the name famous, the priest rather doubted.
    “You have the blood of the D’Artagnans in your veins. They were soldiers who served their king.”
    “And Dieudonné?” the child asked.
    Hardly were the words out before Father Xavier checked himself. He must be careful. Could the child have any idea of the horror of the guillotine that lay behind the last of his names?
    “Your grandfather’s name is beautiful, you know,” he replied. “It means ‘the gift of God.’ ” He thought for a moment. “The birth of your grandfather was—I do not