Paris: The Novel Read Online Free PDF

problem still remained: how the devil to construct it? The original plan, suggested by the great French architect Viollet-le-Duc, had been to build the statue around a huge stone pillar. But then the great man had died without leaving further instructions, and no one knew what to do. Finally, a bridge builder had said he could construct a framework for the statue, and so he had been brought in as the project’s engineer.
    The engineer had set about his task almost as if he were building another bridge. The statue was going to be hollow. Instead of a stone pillar, the central core would be a pylon of iron girders. The outer framework would be a huge skeleton of iron. And onto this skeleton the thin copper outer skin would be riveted. Spiral staircases inside would allow people to go up into the viewing platform in the statue’s diadem.
    The engineer’s plans also allowed the statue to be constructed in several pieces at the same time. Liberty’s right hand held a great torch up to the sky; but in her left, she would clasp the tablets of the law, on which the date of the Declaration of Independence would be carved. This was the hand upon which Thomas and his crew were working.
    There were two others working with him on the hand that day, both bearded, serious men in their forties. They greeted him politely, and one asked if his family was well.
    It did not seem appropriate to say that his little brother had gone missing. Indeed, Thomas thought, it might bring bad luck. For if you said a thing, it might happen.
    “They’re fine,” he said. For now, he’d concentrate on his work.
    The hand was huge. A dozen men could have sat on the outstretched palm and fingers. The inner core was a sturdy framework of thick iron bars. But around this framework were wrapped dozens of long, thin metal strips, like so many straps. They were only two inches wide, lay quite close together, and exactly followed the contours of Bartholdi’s model, so that, when they were all attached, the resulting hand would look like a limb from some gigantic wicker man.
    Fixing them in place was careful and patient labor. For over an hour, the three men worked quietly, speaking little. And they were not interrupted until the foreman’s morning visit.
    He was still in the company of Monsieur Bartholdi. But they had been joined by a third figure.
    Most of the engineering supervision at the workshops was done by the engineer’s junior partner. But today the engineer himself had come to pay a visit.
    If Bartholdi was every inch an artist, the engineer also looked his part. Where Bartholdi’s face was long and poetic, it seemed that the god Vulcan had fashioned the head of the engineer in his forge and compressed it in a vice. Everything about the man was compact and tidy—his close-cropped hair and beard, his clothes, his movements—yet also full of energy. And his eyes, which bulged slightly, had a luminous quality that suggested that he, too, could dream.
    For several minutes he and Bartholdi inspected the huge hand, tapping the thin bands of iron, measuring here and there, and eventually nodded with approval to the foreman and cheerfully announced: “Excellent, messieurs.” They were about to leave when the engineer turned to Thomas and remarked: “You are new here, aren’t you?”
    “Yes, monsieur,” said Thomas.
    “And what is your name?”
    “Thomas Gascon, monsieur.”
    “Gascon, eh? Your ancestors came from Gascony, no doubt?”
    “I do not know, sir. I suppose so.”
    “Gascony.” The engineer considered, then smiled. “The old Roman province of Aquitania. The warm south. The land of wine. Of brandy too: let us not forget Armagnac.”
    “Or
The Three Musketeers
,” Bartholdi chimed in. “D’Artagnan was a Gascon.”
    “Voilà. And what can we say of the character of your countrymen,Monsieur Gascon?” the engineer continued playfully. “Aren’t they known for chivalry, and honor?”
    “They’re supposed to boast a lot,”