FORTY-SIX
“Gossip, tittle-tattle, and stale intrigues. That brazen girl drives me mad. The secret life of Paris turns out to be a veritable web of amorous conspiracies. Look at this stuff, Desgrez! Repulsive! There’s hardly a so-called respectable name in France absent from this trash!” La Reynie, pacing before the table in his study, flung the latest report from the Marquise de Morville down in disgust. He looked out the narrow, diamond-paned window into the courtyard of the Hôtel La Reynie. It was the spring of 1678. His wife’s carriage was departing to take her on a call to her cousins; he could hear the shouts as lackeys opened the heavy wooden gates of the porte cochere. The architect Fauchet was getting out of his chair with yet another sewer-drainage plan rolled up under his arm for the Lieutenant General of Police to review. Inspectors of books and weights, police, servants, stable boys, and informers all mingled, coming and going across the cobblestones on their various errands. La Reynie’s face was bitter as he surveyed them. He spoke so softly toward the window that Desgrez almost couldn’t hear him. “Sometimes,” said the Chief of the Paris Police, “I wonder just what it is that I am protecting.”
“The state, and the honor of His Majesty,” responded Desgrez. La Reynie turned from the window.
“Yes,” he said slowly, and his eye returned to the discarded document on the table. “So what is that blasted female up to these days, anyway?” he asked.
“According to her maid, she is chiefly engaged in a most shameless and open love affair with Florent d’Urbec, the gambler.”
“Another one! The two most irritating people in Paris have formed an alliance. How appropriate.”
“Your pardon, Monsieur. I have come to make a suggestion. You need to use La Pasquier to discover the facts about this latest intrigue of Buckingham’s.”
“You know how I hate to depend on her. And I swear, she wears that fishwife disguise solely to offend me with its odor.”
“She is our only conduit to Buckingham’s occult activities. He is believed to have enlisted the satanists in support of this new attempt.”
“I’m afraid, then, I shall have to put duty before aroma.”
“Exactly, Monsieur. Wittily put,” answered Desgrez.
The next day, two red-stockinged sergeants showed Madame de Morville into La Reynie’s reception room. La Reynie, in a plain suit of fawn-colored velvet with lace at the throat and sleeves, paced up and down impatiently, while the celebrated fortune-teller, in the discarded apron, cap, and gown of a fishwife, inspected the jumble of nymphs and other half-robed mythological beings that adorned the ceiling of the long, high room.
“I would think, Mademoiselle, that one of your origins would tire of the smell of that abominable costume.” La Reynie spoke impatiently. Brushing some invisible dust from his sleeve, he ordered a lackey to open the window in an irritated voice. “And kindly do not sit on the upholstered chair,” he added. Madame de Morville smiled secretly and, with exaggerated humility, took the plain wooden stool without a cushion that was reserved for low-ranking visitors.
“The English Milord Buckingham has arrived in Paris with two companions. I have been informed that he has made a number of contacts throughout the city. This evening, he goes to get a reading from the spirits.” The two sergeants took up their post at the white-and-gold paneled door to the antechamber.
“Yes, at Madame Montvoisin’s. I have been invited. Spirits, as you know, are not my specialty.”
“Lately, your specialty seems to be predicting gambling winnings and loose living,” La Reynie observed drily. “This time, I expect a full report: what Buckingham desires, who joins him there, and what the spirits promise. A full report, do you understand?”
“Yes, of course, Monsieur de La Reynie.” Was her tone a shade too sarcastic? La Reynie had learned over the course of several encounters that Madame had a decided bent toward sarcasm. But he didn’t take the bait this time and remained dignified, looking down his long nose at her with a fixed expression of disdain. “Then you may go, Mademoiselle Pasquier,” he announced. “Latour, open the other windows before I smother in the smell of rotted fish.”