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said, leaning back in his chair as if to spare Marguerite the vulgar knowledge of hearing he had ordered the best in the house.
     
As soon as the maitre d' had gone, Marguerite moved her feet to touch Du Pont's beneath the table and again had the pleasure of seeing him start, then shift on his chair.
    'Marguerite, really,' he said, although his protest carried no conviction. She slipped her foot from her slipper and rested it lightly against him. She could feel the seam of his dress trousers through her gossamer-thin stocking.
    'They have the best cellar of red wines in Paris,' he said gruffly, as if he needed to clear his throat. 'Burgundies, Bordeaux, all arranged in their proper precedence, the wines from the great vineyards first and the rest in their correct order down to the merest bourgeois tipple.'
Marguerite disliked red wine, which gave her terrible headaches, and preferred champagne, but she was resigned to drinking whatever Georges put in front of her.
     
'You are so very clever, Georges.' She paused, then looked around. 'And to find us a table. It is so busy for a Wednesday evening.'
     
'It's just a matter of knowing to whom to talk,' he said, although she could see he was pleased with the flattery. 'You have not dined here before?'
    Marguerite shook her head. Meticulous, detailed, pedantic, Georges gathered facts and liked to parade his knowledge. She, of course, like every other Parisian, knew the history of Voisin's, but was prepared to pretend she did not. During the painful months of the Commune, the restaurant had witnessed some of the most violent of the altercations between the Communards and the government forces. Where now fiacres and two-wheelers waited to ferry customers from one side of Paris to the other, twenty years ago had stood the barricades: iron bedsteads, upturned wooden carts, pallets and munitions boxes. She, with her husband - her wonderful, heroic Leo - had stood on those barricades, for a brief and glorious moment united as equal partners against the ruling class.
'After Louis-Napoleon's shameful failure at the battle of Sedan,' wheezed Georges, 'the
    Prussians marched upon Paris.'
'Yes,' she murmured, wondering not for the first time how young he thought she was, that he should give her a history lesson of events she had witnessed at first hand.
    'As the siege and bombardment deepened, of course there were food shortages. It was the only way to teach those Communards a lesson. It meant, however, that many of the better restaurants could not open. Not enough food, you see. Sparrows, cats, dogs, not a creature to be seen on the streets of Paris that was not fair game. Even the animals from the zoo were slaughtered for meat.'
    Marguerite smiled encouragement. 'Yes, Georges.' 'So what do you think Voisin's offered on their menu that night?' 'I cannot imagine,' she said, wide-eyed with perfectly judged innocence. 'Indeed, I hardly dare to. Snake, perhaps?'
'No,' he said, with a satisfied bark of laughter. 'Guess again.' 'Oh, I cannot say, Georges. Crocodile?'
     
'Elephant,' he said triumphantly. 'A dish concocted from the trunks of elephants. I ask you. Wonderful, really. Quite wonderful. Shows marvellous spirit, don't you think?'
    'Oh yes,' Marguerite agreed, and she laughed too, although her memory of the summer of 1871 was somewhat different. Weeks of starvation, trying to fight, to support her wild, idealistic, passionate husband, at the same time as finding enough food for her beloved Anatole. Coarse brown bread and chestnuts and berries stolen at night from the fruit bushes in the Jardin des Tuileries.
    When the Commune fell, Leo escaped, and remained at large, hidden by friends for nearly two years. In the end, he too was captured and only narrowly escaped the firing squad. More than a week passed, during which Marguerite tried every police station and court in Paris, before she discovered he had been tried and sentenced. His name was published on a list posted on the wall of a