Paris: The Novel

century, he assured his son. It was driven by the family’s old coachman who, though always immaculately turned out, liked to wear an old-fashioned tricorn hat. It was an equipage combining sportiness, fashion and tradition; and Roland always felt proud to accompany his father on these excursions.
    Soon the phaeton’s large wheels were bowling along the boulevard Saint-Germain up toward the river. Coming out on the Quai d’Orsay, Roland had only a moment to admire the classical portico of the National Assembly and the handsome Foreign Ministry beyond, before the phaeton was briskly crossing the broad bridge that led across the river to the great open space of the Place de la Concorde.
    Roland had been ten years old before his father had told him why his family had no love for that huge square.
    “They call it the Place de la Concorde now,” he’d explained, “but during the Revolution, it was one of the main sites of the guillotine. That’s where my own grandfather lost his head.”
    Hardly knowing they did so, both father and son now averted their eyes toward the Tuileries Gardens, on their right, rather than survey the tragic place.
    Straight ahead, just a short distance back from the square’s northern side, lay the Roman columns and wide pediment of La Madeleine. For some reason, the handsome church always seemed cheerful to Roland.
    “Did you know,” his father remarked, “that centuries ago there was a Jewish synagogue on that site?” He smiled. “Then the Church took it over. It was Napoléon who built the structure you see now, as a sort of pagan temple for his army. And now it’s a church again.” He glanced at Roland. “So you see, nothing is permanent, my son.”
    Roland loved and admired his father. For all the rites of passage and initiation for which every father should prepare his son, he knew he could rely on him completely. His father had taught him to ride, and how to hunt. How to behave, how to dress properly. How to kiss a lady’s hand. He’d taken him to the races, and taught him how to place his bets. All the things a young man of his class should know to begin his life. And this trust in his father brought him a sense of warmth and comfort. But sometimes, when it came to larger matters, in ways that he could not clearly formulate, he sensed that his father was failing him. It was as if, at times, his father did not believe in things the way he should.
    And Roland wanted certainty. Perhaps it was the loss of his mother, or his age, or more likely some innate part of his character, but he needed to believe. Things should be right, or wrong, good, or bad. For if not, how was one to know how to act? What certainty could there be in the world?
    And though of course he could not love Father Xavier in the same way that he loved his father, he sometimes preferred the priest’s advice. Father Xavier was clever, certainly. Yet even if he could not follow the many turnings of the priest’s subtle mind, he always sensed that behind everything Father Xavier said and thought, there lay an absolute certainty. The rules by which the priest lived were fixed and eternal. He might consider carefully how best to make a journey, but at the end of the day, he knew exactly where he was going, and why he was going there. In short, the priest knew the truth. This was the strength of Holy Church.
    Roland longed so much for his father to be like that.
    The phaeton turned right into the rue de Rivoli. Roland loved that long street’s grandeur. On one side lay the Tuileries Gardens and the Louvre Palace. On the other, a seemingly endless line of sonorous, arcaded buildings,begun by Napoléon, with fashionable stores behind the arcades on the street level, and apartments fit for princes on the floors above.
    “Did you know that the original Louvre was just a small medieval fort guarding the river, in the corner of the present palace?” his father inquired casually.
    “Yes,” Roland replied. “It was just outside the old city wall of King Philippe Auguste.”
    “Good.” His father smiled. “Glad they teach you something at school.”
    They had gone far along the rue de Rivoli when his father called to the coachman to stop, and Roland saw that they were outside the Hôtel Meurice. He knew that this was where the English travelers liked to stay, and immediately wondered with alarm: Was his father going to marry an Englishwoman?
    But it was only to leave a letter for a sporting English friend of