Paris: The Novel

recent Russian tsar who’d become France’s ally against German aggression, it was a flamboyant affair, a pair of golden winged horsemen supported on pillars at each end, and other emblems linking Paris with St. Petersburg. It might be a little gaudy, Roland thought, but on the whole it was magnificent.
    Immediately across the bridge he encountered the other two. On his left, the Grand Palais, and on his right, the Petit Palais.
    If the great fair of 1889 had bequeathed Paris the Eiffel Tower, the next fair at the turn of the century had left these two magnificent pavilions. A facing pair of exhibition halls that started as handsome stone museums and, as they rose, turned into soaring Art Nouveau glass houses.They were like opera houses made of glass, he thought, and flanking the short avenue to the new bridge, with the trees of the Champs-Élysées just behind them, their setting couldn’t have been more delightful.
    The cab turned into the Champs-Élysées. Moments later they were at the Place de la Concorde, turning up to La Madeleine, and there was Maxim’s on the left.
    Maxim’s: It had been a struggling new bistro the only time that Roland had been there before, back in the nineties. But now it was a palace.
    The location, of course, had helped. Set in the broad street between the Place de la Concorde and La Madeleine, it lay at the very epicenter of the city for the rich Parisian or visitor alike. Its facade was discreet. But it had been the transformation of the interior that had raised Maxim’s to the height of fashion. And as he entered, Roland was astonished.
    White tablecloths, deep red carpet and banquettes along the walls: rich, discreet—all the plush comfort he might have expected for the enjoyment of haute cuisine. The genius however came from the decoration. Carved woodwork, painted panels, lamps, even the great painted glass ceiling—all Art Nouveau. It was softly lit, yet stunning; it was the latest thing, yet from the moment of its creation it seemed as if it had always been there. Like all great hotels and restaurants, Maxim’s was not just a place to eat, it was a theater. And a work of art.
    He had only a light lunch of a fillet of sole with a single glass of Chablis. He allowed himself a small chocolate pastry and a sharp coffee. He wanted to keep his wits about him.
    He hadn’t seen anyone he knew, which perhaps was a sign that he had been away too long. And he was about to leave when a passing gentleman stopped, and then addressed him.
    “Monsieur de Cygne?”
    It was Jules Blanchard, a little more portly than when they’d last met, but quite unmistakable. Roland rose at once and greeted him.
    They had a pleasant chat. Roland learned that Marie and Fox had married and gone to London, where James was to take over from his father. Marie’s English, her father proudly informed him, was already perfect.
    But all the same, her parents hoped her absence would not be too long—especially since she now had a daughter, Claire. “My granddaughter will speak English perfectly,” her grandfather predicted. “But she’ll always be French, of course.”
    “I missed my opportunity to marry her myself,” said Roland politely. “Alas, it was the time of my father’s death …”
    Meanwhile, he made Jules promise that he and his wife would come to his house to dine with him.
    “I shall open up the house for that, at least,” he said.
    Assuming, of course, that he was alive.

    Apart from one or two visits to Père Lachaise, Roland had never been anywhere near Belleville. The printer’s was in a small industrial space between a builder’s yard and a dingy office building.
    He put his hand in his coat pocket as soon as he had stepped down from the cab, and kept it there resting gently on the pistol.
    Entering the printer’s, he found an outer office with piles of recently printed materials—posters, broadsheets and business advertisements—on the floor, and a stained wooden counter manned by a small, bald-headed man in shirtsleeves. The smell of paper and printer’s ink was so sharp it almost made his eyes water.
    “I am here to see Monsieur Le Sourd.”
    The bald man looked surprised.
    “He’s working. Is he expecting you?”
    “Kindly tell him that an old friend from the past has arrived in Paris and is anxious to see him again.”
    Rather unwillingly, the man went through a door behind him, and returned a minute later with a message that Le Sourd was not expecting