Chapter 7: An Old Friend

After departing from the elegant, if intellectually stimulating, confines of Mademoiselle Perriette’s mansion, Charles drew his chased silver pocket watch from his waistcoat – a timepiece of sober elegance, a relic of his grandfather’s more prosperous days – and consulted the hour.

It was not yet noon. The sun, though climbing towards its zenith, had not yet reached the full ferocity of a Parisian midday.

Hmm, with any luck, he should still be within those disreputable walls, Charles mused to himself, a familiar mixture of exasperation and affection stirring within him.

The carriage, under his direction, rumbled through the bustling streets, eventually arriving before a rather dilapidated garret building, a tall, narrow structure tucked away in a less salubrious quarter of the city. Such lodgings, with their steeply pitched roofs and tiny, grime-encrusted windows, were typically let by parsimonious landlords to young men newly arrived in Paris – ambitious souls, their purses light but their hearts filled with grand, often unrealistic, dreams of forging a glorious career in the unforgiving crucible of the capital. Consequently, the amenities within these garrets were invariably of the most exceedingly basic, almost primitive, nature, and the rent, naturally, was exceptionally, mercifully, low.

Ascending the creaking, protesting stairs, each step groaning under his weight as if in lamentation of its own decay, and enduring a veritable gauntlet of various strange and unidentifiable odours that permeated the narrow, ill-lit stairwell – a miasma of stale cooking, damp plaster, and unnameable urban effluvia – Charles made his way, with a sigh of resignation, to a room tucked away in a shadowy corner on the fifth, and highest, floor.

He knocked softly, a discreet tattoo, upon the paint-peeled door.

There was no immediate response, only the echoing silence of the ancient building.

“Albert, it is I, Charles!” he called out, his voice low but carrying, hoping to penetrate the likely depths of his friend’s morning slumber.

The door was suddenly, almost violently, flung open, revealing a figure silhouetted against the dim light from within.

“Ah, Charles, mon ami, it is you! For a terrifying moment, I feared it was another of those damned, insatiable creditors come knocking for their pound of flesh…” Albert de Foix-Grailly’s delicate, almost ethereal, and undeniably handsome face was instantly wreathed in a smile of genuine, almost boyish, surprise and evident pleasure. The relief in his voice was palpable.

The names of Foix and Grailly were both ancient and illustrious, deeply woven into the rich tapestry of French noble houses. In the year 1398, through a strategically advantageous marriage, the two families were united, their distinguished surnames combined thereafter, a testament to their enduring lineage.

Even as a fellow male, and one not usually given to such appraisals, Charles had to concede, with a private, almost reluctant admiration, that Albert was an exceptionally charming and devastatingly elegant young man, a true beau-garçon in every sense of the word, possessed of that effortless grace that so often accompanies ancient lineage.

His features were regular and remarkably gentle, his eyes a soft, limpid, almost forget-me-not blue, fringed with long, dark lashes. His forehead was remarkably white and smooth, unmarred by care or excessive thought, his light brown hair falling in natural, becoming curls that seemed to defy any attempt at formal arrangement. His skin, even in the dim light of the hallway, seemed almost translucent, possessed of a delicate, pearly sheen. His refined, handsome face, when animated by that quick, infectious smile, was exceedingly pleasant to behold and possessed an undeniable, almost irresistible, charm that had, Charles knew, extricated him from more than one perilous scrape.

However, in stark, almost jarring, contrast to this refined, almost poetically cultured appearance was his character – a character as wild and untamed as a Barbary stallion. Charles had been acutely, often painfully, aware of this fundamental dichotomy since their earliest days together as students at the prestigious, and notoriously demanding, Lycée Henri-IV.

In the 19th century, it was a well-established custom for the sons of the French nobility and the increasingly affluent bourgeoisie to be sent to the Lycée Henri-IV for their education. This venerable institution, steeped in history and academic rigor, had produced countless elites who had gone on to shape the destiny of France and, to this day, it remains one of the nation’s most prestigious and sought-after public schools.

After graduating from the Lycée – an achievement Albert had managed with a characteristic blend of last-minute brilliance and sheer, dumb luck – he had chosen, with a blithe disregard for familial expectation or societal convention, to embrace a life of unrestrained dissipation and reckless, almost defiant, self-indulgence. Now, though still remarkably young, he was already a notorious rake, a roué of considerable, if rather scandalous, repute even within their own rather infamous circle of dissolute, pleasure-seeking young gentlemen.

The French nobility of this era, Charles often reflected with a touch of melancholy, had long since lost the vigorous, enterprising, nation-building spirit of their formidable ancestors. Pressed relentlessly and almost suffocated by the ambitious, upwardly mobile nouveaux riches, who wielded the new power of industrial wealth and commercial acumen, they seemed bewildered, their responses inept, their fortunes dwindling with each passing year. They were, it appeared to many observers, utterly helpless, able only to watch with a mixture of impotent bitterness and weary resignation, as the ancient glory of their noble houses faded like a forgotten tapestry into the encroaching twilight.

The Glorious Three Days of July 1830, that brief, violent, and transformative convulsion, had not only driven the restored Bourbon monarchy from the throne but had also formally, irrevocably, ushered in a new, more uncertain era for France. The nobility, that once unassailable bastion of power and privilege, first lost their exclusive grip on political power, then their cherished hereditary privileges, and finally, even their entrenched, almost sacred, position in the Chamber of Peers could not be preserved against the relentless tide of democratic sentiment.

On July 28th, 29th, and 30th, 1830, in fervent response to the increasingly reactionary and autocratic policies of the Bourbon monarchy under Charles X, a popular revolution erupted in the streets of Paris. This ultimately overthrew the dynasty, and these three momentous days became known in the annals of French history as “Les Trois Glorieuses” (The Glorious Three Days).

Seats in the French Chamber of Peers, that august upper house of parliament, had traditionally been hereditary, with the names of the great, ancient families inscribed in a golden register, their rights and dignities passing down, seemingly immutable, through generations. However, at the end of 1831, a pivotal year, France formally abolished the hereditary nature of peerages, replacing it with a system of life peerages conferred by royal appointment. Concurrently, and perhaps even more devastatingly for the long-term fortunes of the nobility, the deeply entrenched legal principle of primogeniture, which had for centuries ensured that noble estates passed intact to the eldest son, thereby preserving the family’s wealth and territorial influence, was also formally abolished. It was replaced by a system of equal inheritance among all children, male and female alike.

These sweeping, almost revolutionary, reforms of the July Monarchy struck at the very foundations, the very bedrock, of the French nobility. The loss of their hereditary political status meant they were no longer inherently superior, no longer divinely ordained rulers by mere virtue of their birthright; the abolition of primogeniture ensured that their ancestral wealth, the very lifeblood of their power and prestige, would be progressively, inexorably diminished with each passing generation, fragmented and dispersed. Once stripped of the twin, essential pillars of political power and substantial, independent fortune, what intrinsic value, what real societal currency, could noble blood, however ancient and blue, possibly retain in this new, more pragmatic, and increasingly materialistic age?

Faced with the irresistible, irreversible tide of societal and political change, however much they might resent its inexorable advance, however bitter their hearts at their lost pre-eminence, the nobility had little choice but to accept, with a weary, often resentful, resignation, their diminished circumstances, their altered place in the French firmament. If the proud, ambitious spirits of those shrewd, nation-building monarchs and powerful, far-sighted ministers of France’s glorious, imperial past were somehow watching from the heavens, they could perhaps only sigh in profound dismay and lament, with a celestial tear: “This great France, our beloved, magnificent France, alas, is surely doomed to mediocrity…”

As time had progressed, as the 19th century unfolded its complex, often contradictory, narrative, the once so proud, so haughty, so unassailably confident French aristocracy, with the notable exception of a few astute, adaptable individuals who had managed to navigate the changing currents and reinvent themselves for this new era, had gradually, almost tragically, degenerated into two distinct, caricatured, and equally unproductive groups: one retreated into a life of reclusive, hermetic seclusion, their parsimony bordering on the pathological, finding their sole remaining pleasure, their final, sterile solace, in the obsessive, joyless accumulation of wealth, hoarding gold as if it were life itself; the other, in stark, defiant contrast, embraced a life of reckless, flamboyant abandon, squandering inherited fortunes with a profligate and suicidal abandon, accumulating vast, unpayable debts, and living with a cynical, world-weary disdain for all societal convention, utterly heedless of the morrow, their motto seemingly “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we default.”

Albert de Foix-Grailly, regrettably, and with a certain undeniable panache, belonged unequivocally to this latter, more colourful, if ultimately self-destructive, category.

These dissolute young gentlemen, these gilded lilies of a decaying aristocracy, were often a perplexing, infuriating amalgam of contradictions. On the one hand, they were profoundly cynical, utterly irresponsible, and regarded the relentless pursuit of fleeting pleasure – be it wine, women, or the gaming tables – as the ultimate, indeed the only, meaning of life. On the other hand, they possessed a surprising, paradoxical resilience, a daring, almost reckless boldness, and a certain indomitable, if misplaced, joie de vivre that allowed them to live, seemingly without a care in the world, despite their often crushing debts and their precarious social positions. They were also, it had to be said, capable of engaging in all manner of scandalous, even outrageous exploits, their escapades a source of endless gossip and consternation in polite Parisian society.

However, these profound, almost diametrically opposed differences in character, in temperament, in their very approach to life, had not prevented Charles and Albert from forging and maintaining a firm, if sometimes exasperating, friendship. Perhaps, Charles sometimes mused in moments of quiet reflection, it was precisely because their personalities were so starkly different, so complementary in their contrasts, that they found each other so compelling, so attractive in a fraternal, if unconventional, sense? Opposites, as the old adage suggested, did indeed sometimes attract.

“Ah, my dear friend, my noble Charles, do come in, come in! Grace my humble, if somewhat disordered, abode with your distinguished presence!” Albert invited Charles with a flourish of genuine, unaffected warmth into his squalid, rented room, his smile undiminished by his surroundings.

The chamber was so sparsely, so wretchedly furnished as to be almost unbelievable, a stark testament to Albert’s fallen fortunes. There was virtually no recognizable furniture to speak of, merely a bare, unmade bed in one corner, its linens rumpled and of dubious cleanliness, and a few battered, travel-worn trunks piled haphazardly against a wall, presumably containing all his remaining worldly possessions. The bare floorboards and the grimy, peeling walls were covered in stains of indeterminate origin and varying antiquity, and there was no evidence whatsoever that the current occupant had ever made even the slightest, most perfunctory, attempt to clean or tidy the place. It was, Charles thought with an inward sigh, a scene of almost picturesque squalor.

Because of his son’s numerous, unrepentant, and often highly public, transgressions, Albert’s long-suffering father – a stern, upright man who, ironically, belonged firmly to the first category of thrifty, reclusive, and increasingly embittered nobles mentioned earlier – had, some time ago, and after many fruitless remonstrations, finally and irrevocably cut off all financial assistance. Consequently, this direct descendant of one of France’s most ancient and historically distinguished families, a young man whose ancestors had once advised kings and commanded armies, was now reduced to living in such a wretched, insalubrious, and frankly, rather depressing hovel.

“Pray, be seated, my dear Charles,” Albert said, gesturing with a grand, almost theatrical, sweep of his hand towards one of the trunks, his air of regal condescension entirely at odds with the squalor of his surroundings. He might have been a king, temporarily indisposed, granting an audience to a favoured courtier in a rustic hunting lodge.

Charles, long accustomed to his friend’s eccentricities and his unshakable, if often misplaced, self-assurance, readily complied, seating himself unceremoniously on a dusty, leather-bound trunk. A faint, sour, and unmistakably vinous odour, the scent of stale wine and perhaps something less identifiable, wafted up from beneath the bed, assailing Charles’s nostrils with unwelcome potency. It appeared his friend had indeed indulged rather heavily, and perhaps not entirely wisely, the previous night.

“My dear Albert,” Charles remarked, his tone carefully neutral, “you were evidently out carousing with your usual vigour again last night, I take it? It seems you never manage to rise before the sun is high in the heavens these days.”

At this, Albert’s spirits, which had seemed momentarily subdued, appeared to revive instantly. A roguish glint entered his blue eyes. “Ah, last night, Charles! A night for the gods! The girl, ma foi, she was exquisite, truly! A veritable Venus! I did not manage to tear myself away from her… charms… until the clock struck two in the morning!”

“And how much more debt,” Charles interjected, his voice dry, deliberately bringing his friend abruptly back down to the mundane, uncomfortable earth, “have you managed to accumulate in the pursuit of these… celestial charms?”

“Oh, a mere trifle, Charles, a bagatelle! A few tens of thousands of francs, perhaps… I confess, I have rather lost count of the exact sum,” Albert replied, seating himself with a sigh on an adjacent trunk. He frowned in mock concentration for a moment, as if attempting a complex and distasteful mental calculation, then his brow cleared, and he shrugged with an air of sublime, almost infuriating, nonchalant indifference. “Bah, what does it truly matter in the grand scheme of things? Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, as the Good Book says, does it not?”

“Albert,” Charles admonished gently, his voice tinged with a genuine concern that he found increasingly difficult to suppress when confronted with his friend’s reckless improvidence, “you cannot continue to live like this. You will destroy yourself, your health, your reputation, what little remains of your inheritance.” He thought, with a pang, of the sacrifices his own family made, of the quiet dignity with which his grandfather bore their reduced circumstances.

“To live for the moment, Charles, to seize pleasure where it may be found, that is the only life I desire, the only philosophy that makes sense in this absurd, fleeting existence,” Albert retorted, utterly unfazed by his friend’s lecture, summarily dismissing his well-intentioned advice with a wave of his elegant hand. “Well now, my dear, virtuous Charles, what favourable wind, what pressing affair, has blown you to my humble, if somewhat malodorous, doorstep today? It is not often I am graced with your august presence, especially at such an ungodly early hour.”

“Nothing of particular import, Albert. I merely wished to see you, to assure myself of your continued… existence,” Charles said, a hint of irony in his tone. “And, as it happens, to ask a small favour of you, if you are not too… indisposed.”

“You wished to see me? Well, now you see me in all my tattered glory…” Albert stretched languidly, like a contented cat, his movements surprisingly graceful despite his cramped surroundings. “Poor Albert, still the same as ever… charming, impoverished, and entirely at your service…”

Charles shook his head with a wry, resigned smile, abandoning, once again, any further attempt at moral remonstrance. It was, he knew from long experience, an entirely futile exercise where Albert was concerned.

“As for asking a favour of your humble servant… but of course, my dear Charles! Anything for you, within the bounds of possibility, and provided it does not involve actual, physical labour or rising before noon. Speak, what is it that your devoted Albert can do for his dear, long-suffering Charles?”

Charles paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts, choosing his words with care. This was a delicate matter, and Albert, for all his frivolity, possessed a surprisingly shrewd intuition when he chose to exercise it.

“My cousin, Mademoiselle Charlotte de Tréville, the granddaughter of His Grace, the Duke de Tréville, is, it seems, soon to be married to the eldest son and heir of the Marquis de Léognan.”

Albert did not appear particularly interested by this piece of society news, merely arching his slender, expressive eyebrows. “Oh? A most… conventional arrangement, I suppose. And then?”

“My dear Albert,” Charles continued, his voice low and serious now, “you know as well as I do, perhaps even better, how much it costs for a Duke to marry off a granddaughter in a style befitting her rank these days. The dowry alone must be… substantial. Yet, no matter how much I inquire, how diligently I attempt to investigate through the usual channels, no one seems able or willing to provide any clear, concrete details about this impending marriage. Both families, the Trévilles of the ducal branch and the Léognans, are being remarkably, almost unnaturally, tight-lipped about the entire affair. Which is, in itself, rather curious, would you not agree? Normally, in the case of such an advantageous, high-profile alliance, would not both sides be trumpeting the sums involved, the magnificence of the dowry, the lavishness of the settlement, lest anyone in Parisian society remain ignorant of their wealth, their generosity, their impeccable connections? It is almost as if…”

“Almost as if there is some… irregularity… some hidden complication, some skeleton in the closet that they are desperate to keep concealed?” Albert interjected, his languor vanishing, his blue eyes suddenly sharp and glinting with a keen, almost predatory, interest. Scandal, Charles knew, was Albert’s meat and drink.

Charles nodded, relieved that his friend had so quickly grasped the nub of the matter. “Precisely. And furthermore, I have heard, through a reliable, if discreet, source, that Mademoiselle Marie de Léognan, the Marquis’s younger daughter, was sent away to a convent, rather suddenly and unexpectedly, only very recently. These two events, this secretive marriage and the convenient removal of the younger sister, taken together… it all seems rather… suspicious, does it not? It has a most unsavoury aroma.”

“Since you are here today, my dear Charles, and since the air in my humble abode is, I confess, somewhat less than fragrant,” Albert proposed, without directly addressing Charles’s concerns, a roguish twinkle returning to his eyes, “why don’t we take a refreshing stroll in the Bois de Boulogne? The air there is considerably more salubrious, and the scenery, at this time of year, is quite delightful.” He stretched again, then rose to his feet with a surprising agility. “Besides, you can give me a ride in your eminently respectable carriage. As it happens, I have an… assignation… of a most pressing and agreeable nature there this afternoon, and my own resources, alas, do not currently extend to the hire of a cabriolet.”

“Very well, Albert,” Charles agreed, a faint smile touching his lips. To be honest, he found the atmosphere in Albert’s squalid, airless room rather oppressive, and the prospect of fresh air, even in Albert’s company, was undeniably appealing.

Soon, the two young men, a study in contrasts – Charles, somber and preoccupied, Albert, animated and cheerfully unconcerned – were seated side by side in Charles’s light, open carriage, bowling along the wide avenues that led towards the fashionable expanse of the Bois de Boulogne.

The carriage sped along, the rhythmic clatter of the horses’ hooves on the cobblestones the only sound for a while, a steady counterpoint to Charles’s racing thoughts. After some time had passed in a comfortable, companionable silence, Albert, who had been observing Charles with a speculative, amused expression, suddenly asked.

“You seem remarkably, almost uncharacteristically interested in the intricacies of this particular marriage, Charles. What, precisely, is it to you? Has your esteemed and notoriously difficult great-uncle, His Grace the Duke de Tréville, managed to offend your delicate sensibilities in some new and particularly inventive way?”

“He has not, on this occasion, offended me directly… but he has, it would appear, grievously offended someone he ought not to have provoked, someone whose displeasure is not to be taken lightly. And so, I find myself, rather reluctantly, running errands, meddling in affairs that are not strictly, or even remotely my own,” Charles replied, his tone light and bantering, matching his friend’s, though a core of seriousness lay beneath the jest.

“And what, then, my dear Charles, do you wish your humble, devoted Albert to do for you in this grand, chivalrous enterprise of yours?” Albert inquired, his voice laced with an exaggerated innocence.

Charles’s expression became serious, his gaze direct, and he lowered his voice, though they were now in the relative privacy of the moving carriage.

“My dear Albert, my friend,” he began, his tone earnest, “I know that you possess a wide, almost bewilderingly diverse circle of acquaintances, that your ear is ever close to the ground, that you hear all the whispers, all the scandals, all the secrets of Paris, often before they are even secrets. And as you well know, my own relations with the ducal branch of the Tréville family are… shall we say… exceedingly delicate. Were I to make direct inquiries myself about this marriage, it would undoubtedly arouse immediate suspicion, and perhaps even active obstruction… Therefore, I wish to ask you, as a friend, as a man of discretion and… particular talents, to discover what you can, through your own unique channels, about the true circumstances, the hidden details, the underlying motivations, of this proposed and rather mysterious marriage.”

“But of course, Charles. Consider it done,” Albert nodded without a moment’s hesitation, his eyes gleaming with the thrill of intrigue. “A little discreet investigation into the affairs of the high and mighty? A soupçon of scandal? It will be my distinct pleasure. I shall endeavour to uncover every particular, every salacious morsel.”

“Thank you, my friend! I am deeply indebted to you,” Charles reached out and clasped Albert’s slender, elegant hand in a gesture of sincere gratitude. “I knew I could count on your loyalty, and your… unique skills.”

“However,” Albert continued, withdrawing his hand and fixing Charles with an intent, knowing, and distinctly mischievous gaze, his lips curving into a sly smile, “I confess, my dear Charles, I am still somewhat intrigued, nay, consumed with curiosity. Why are you so actively, so passionately, involving yourself in this rather sordid affair? Is there some tangible personal gain to be had, some hidden advantage you seek? Or, perhaps,” his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, his eyes twinkling, “have you been commissioned by some fair, tearful damsel, some distressed Ariadne, to rescue the unfortunate Mademoiselle de Léognan from her cruel, cloistered fate? Come now, Charles, I know you far too well. You are not typically one to play the selfless knight errant, to rush to the aid of distressed maidens out of pure, unadulterated altruism. Such noble, selfless acts of chivalry are not usually, shall we say, entirely to your… pragmatic taste.”

“It is, of course, for…” Charles began, intending to be entirely candid with his old, if incorrigible, friend. He owed him that much.

“Your sister, Françoise, is it not?” Albert interjected swiftly, with an air of triumphant certainty, before Charles could complete his sentence. A knowing, almost smug, smile spread across his handsome face. “I knew it. It always comes back to little Françoise, does it not, my sentimental Charles?”