Paris: The Novel

his own little workshop, and at his own pace. Whenever the weather was fine, he came out onto the Pont Neuf, and picked up quite as much money by exercising his wit as he ever made from his proper trade.
    Once a young dandy, refusing to take his wit in good part, had drawn his sword and wounded Le Sourd badly in the arm. Le Sourd could have had him arrested, but he didn’t.
    “I never resort to the law,” he explained to his audience. “I am a philosopher.” Six months later, the young dandy vanished.

    But today, on a warm afternoon in the summer of 1665, Le Sourd the philosopher had a slight feeling of unease.
    It was the fourth time the carriage had stopped near him on the bridge.
    The carriage was closed. It evidently belonged to someone with money, but there was no coat of arms or other marking to identify the owner. It was driven by a coachman without grooms in attendance. As before, it stopped at a short distance just south of him on the bridge, but close enough to hear his speeches through a narrow opening in the door. There was a thin curtain across the slit, but he had the feeling that he was being observed as well.
    Observed by whom? Some aristocrat who found him amusing, but who did not wish to reveal his identity? Possibly. A spy? Also possible.
    Cardinal Mazarin always had many spies. They’d have been in the crowd, no doubt, but if their reports had made the great man curious … One never knew.
    But the person in the carriage couldn’t be Mazarin himself. Four years ago, after governing for as long as his mentor Richelieu, he also had died in harness, before the age of sixty. It might be some other powerful figure though. It could even be … he trembled slightly at the thought of it … the young king himself.
    So was he going to change his tune? Was he going to watch his language, or be careful not to insult the government—just in case?
    No. He was Hercule Le Sourd. Let them arrest him if they dared. This was the Pont Neuf, and he was its philosopher king.
    He ignored the carriage and began a tirade about the vices of the nobles, adding, for good measure, that if young Louis XIV were a man, he’d hangmost of them from the nearest lamp. He glanced at the carriage as he said it, but there was no sign whatever from within.
    The carriage was still there when he finished almost an hour later. He started to walk across to the Left Bank, which meant he would pass the carriage. As he drew level, the coachman touched his shoulder lightly with his whip and called down to him: “Get in.”
    “Why?”
    “Someone wants to speak to you.”
    “Who?”
    At this moment, the carriage door opened. And Hercule Le Sourd looked up in surprise.

    Geneviève d’Artagnan had always understood her situation in life, from the time she was a little girl. Her family was noble, but they were out of money.
    For her brother, the choices were clear. He could marry an heiress. Even if she wasn’t noble, he would still be, and so would their children. Or he could become a big success in the world and recoup his fortunes that way. Of course, he couldn’t engage in trade of any kind. That wasn’t something a noble was allowed to do. But he might become a soldier, or serve the king in some capacity that would bring him fame and fortune, and marry a rich wife too.
    For girls like her, it was different. She must marry a noble and preferably a rich one.
    For if she married a man who wasn’t noble, then she lost her own nobility at once, and her children would be baseborn too. Her husband might be rich, but she would have no social standing. Society’s doors would be closed to her and her descendants, and if those descendants wanted to achieve any high position in the king’s service, it would be almost impossible for them without noble status. It mattered. It was everything.
    And yet, in France, there was a way around this problem. The king might ennoble one’s husband for his services. But that could take a lifetime. There were also numerous official positions which carried with them a title of nobility. Or, simpler still, one could buy a title.
    Over the centuries, noble families often acquired many titles. Often the titles came with estates they had been granted or had acquired. And they were allowed to sell those titles. It was perfectly legal. So a rich mancould buy his way into the nobility. And if his wife came from a noble family herself, with relations who were only too anxious to keep the family status