Paris: The Novel

hill of Montmartre.

Chapter Seventeen
    •  1637  •
    It was a December evening when it happened. Or did it? Something happened then, or close to that time. That was not in doubt. But what? Did the eyes of Charles de Cygne deceive him? There was no way of knowing, although the kingdom of France was at stake.
    It began in an anteroom where he’d been waiting. Through the window, by the lamplight, he could see the bare boughs of a small tree bending in the December wind. Then the door opened, and a lackey’s head appeared.
    “His Eminence wants you.”
    Charles de Cygne stepped out into the passage. A moment later he was in a high hall with a stone staircase.
    Cardinal Richelieu’s palace was magnificent. He had decided to build it just north of the Louvre, to be close to the king. And that was clearly convenient since, for nearly two decades now, it was Cardinal Richelieu who effectively ruled France.
    People feared Richelieu. Perhaps a ruler needed to be feared, Charles thought. But he was a good master. Charles was thirty, with a young family. One day he’d inherit the family estate from his father, Robert. But in the meantime, the rewards that Richelieu had given him for his services provided income for which he was more than grateful.
    Charles liked to think that he and Richelieu understood each other. They were both French aristocrats. But he had quickly learned what Richelieu valued. Speed, accuracy and, above all, discretion. Richelieu saw everything that passed in France. His spies were everywhere. Working forhim, Charles had seen much private information. But whatever he saw, he kept to himself. Sometimes people would ask him about his work—people he knew and thought he could trust. They might be enemies of Richelieu, they might have an interest in some matter before the cardinal, or they might be spies, sent by Richelieu to test him. Who knew? But not one of them had ever gotten a word out of him. Not a word.
    He started up the stairs. Reaching the top, he turned into a reception room.
    Charles liked the Cardinal’s Palace. With its big courtyards and delightful arcades, it had an Italian air. On its eastern side, work had begun on a handsome private theater.
    There were a few people waiting to see the cardinal in the reception room. He walked to the door at the opposite end, which was immediately opened for him. Aware of the envious glances from the men waiting behind him, he passed through into another salon. This one was empty. But now through a small door in the far corner, a single figure emerged.
    He was nothing much to look at. A simple monk, well into middle age. In fact, Charles thought, he looked pale and unwell. He saw de Cygne, and a faint flicker of the eyelids indicated recognition. But nothing more.
    Father Joseph, the éminence grise, who stood like a shadow beside the cardinal. A walking conscience. A man of silence. A man whose very mysteriousness made him feared.
    Father Joseph and the cardinal had one enormous project upon which they agreed. They must weaken the influence of the Hapsburg family. With Spain to the south, the Holy Roman Empire and the Netherlands to the east, all under Hapsburg family control, France was boxed in. The interest of France must therefore be to weaken the Hapsburg threat.
    One might like Richelieu, or not; but no one could doubt his devotion to France. It was one of the reasons de Cygne was proud to serve him. Father Joseph, however, was another matter. The aging monk was against the Hapsburgs for another reason. They did not want to go to war with Turkey. That was not so surprising. Turkey was on the borders of their empire. Why should they want to stir up trouble so close to home? But Father Joseph wanted all Christendom to proclaim a new crusade against the Moslem Turks. It was his obsession. First weaken the Hapsburgs, then let France lead the West, as in olden times, against the Moslem power. Privately, Charles considered the idea of a latter-day crusade the height of folly and certain to bring ruin upon his country.
    Once he had been summoned into the room by Richelieu when Father Joseph was with him, and the cardinal had remarked with a smile: “Father Joseph wants France to lead a new crusade against the Turks, de Cygne. What do you think?”
    Thank God that he’d already learned the rules of survival by then. With a low bow to the monk he had replied: “My ancestors were crusading knights, Eminence. It is even believed that we descend