The Phantom of Rue Royale Read Online Free PDF Page B

have been taken to the boulevard.’
    Bourdeau seemed overwhelmed. The vast esplanade looked like a battlefield at night. An acrid black smoke rose into the air, whirled about, then, blown back down by the wind, fell again, shrouding the lights beneath a lugubrious veil. In the middle of the square, the remains of the triumphal structure stood like a sinister scaffold. Wreathed in smoke, the bronze monarch looked down at the scene, unruffled and indifferent. Semacgus, who had noticed Nicolas looking at the statue, murmured, ‘The Horseman of the Apocalypse!’ To their right, in Rue Royale, people had started to lay out the dead against the wall of the Garde-Meuble and were searching them in order to determine their identities and putting labels on them so that they could be recognised more easily by their families. Bourdeau and his men had restored a semblance of order. The area had been cordoned off with some difficulty and groups of volunteers were going down into the trenches on Rue Royale. A chain was starting to form. As soon as the victims had been brought out, an attempt was made to determine which of them were still alive so that they could be taken to the improvised emergency posts. There, doctors and apothecaries who had comerunning did whatever they could to treat them. Nicolas noted with horror that it was no easy task to bring up the bodies; those who lay at the bottom were crushed beneath the weight of those on top, and it was difficult to disentangle the various layers. He noted, too, that most of the dead belonged to the humblest classes. Some of them had wounds which could only have been caused by deliberate blows from canes or swords.
    ‘The street was claimed by the strongest and richest,’ Bourdeau muttered.
    ‘The criminals will get the blame,’ Nicolas replied. ‘But the cabs and carriages played their part in the slaughter, and those who forced their bloody way through even more so!’
    They worked all night, helping to sort the dead and injured. As the sun was rising, Semacgus drew the commissioner and Bourdeau to a corner of La Madeleine cemetery where a number of bodies had been gathered. He had a puzzled look on his face. He pointed to a young girl lying between two old men. He knelt and uncovered the upper part of her neck. On each side were bluish marks that appeared to have been left by fingers. He moved the dead girl’s head. Her mouth was twisted and half open, and let out a sound like sand.
    Nicolas looked at Semacgus. ‘That’s quite a strange injury for someone who’s supposed to have been crushed.’
    ‘That’s my impression, too,’ the surgeon agreed. ‘She wasn’t crushed; she was strangled.’
    ‘Have the body put to one side and taken to the Basse-Geôle, Bourdeau, we’ll have to tell our friend Sanson.’ Nicolas turned to Semacgus. ‘You know, he’s the only person I’d trust with an operation like that – apart from you, of course.’
    He made a preliminary search of the body. The victim had nothing on her except her clothes – of high quality, he noted. No bag or reticule, no jewellery. One of her hands was clenched: he prised it open to reveal a small pierced pearl, of jade or obsidian. He wrapped it in his handkerchief. Bourdeau returned with two porters and a stretcher.
    As they stared at the young victim’s distorted face, they were overcome with exhaustion. It was out of the question that they would go to La Paulet’s and eat now. The sun rising on this grim, bloodstained morning could not dissipate the damp mist which presaged a storm. Paris was shapeless and colourless, apparently finding it hard to awaken from a tragedy that would gradually spread to city and court, districts and faubourgs , and, when it reached Versailles, would cast a shadow over the waking moments of an old King and a young couple.
    N OTES – CHAPTER I
    1 . ‘Here, there is nothing.’
    2 . Louis XV’s eldest daughter (cf. The Man with the Lead Stomach ).
    3 . The author cannot