All Human Wisdom

by Pierre Lemaitre

Genres: Historical Fiction; International Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

"Terrific . . . Easily the most purely entertaining novel I have read so far this year" David Mills, The Sunday Times

"A really excellent suspense novelist" Stephen King

The second volume of Pierre Lemaitre's enthralling, award-winning between-the-wars trilogy

In 1927, the great and the good of Paris gather at the funeral of the wealthy banker, Marcel Péricourt. His daughter, Madeleine, is poised to take over his financial empire (although, unfortunately, she knows next to nothing about banking). More unfortunately still, when Madeleine's seven-year-old son, Paul, tumbles from a second floor window of the Péricourt mansion on the day of his grandfather's funeral, and suffers life-changing injuries, his fall sets off a chain of events that will reduce Madeleine to destitution and ruin in a matter of months.

Using all her reserves of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and a burning desire for retribution, Madeleine sets about rebuilding her life. She will be helped by an ex-Communist fixer, a Polish nurse who doesn't speak a word of French, a brainless petty criminal with a talent for sabotage, an exiled German Jewish chemist, a very expensive forger, an opera singer with a handy flair for theatrics, and her own son with ideas for a creative new business to take Paris by storm.

A brilliant, imaginative, free-falling caper through between-the-wars Paris, and a portrait of Europe on the edge of disaster.

Translated from the French by Frank Wynne

Frank Wynne is an award-winning writer and translator. His previous translations include works by Virginie Despentes, Javier Cercas and Michel Houellebecq. His translation of Vernon Subutex I was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

With the support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union


From the reviews for The Great Swindle

"The most purely enjoyable book I've read this year" Jake Kerridge, Sunday Telegraph

"The vast sweep of the novel and its array of extraordinary secondary characters have attracted comparisons with the works of Balzac. Moving, angry, intelligent - and compulsive" Marcel Berlins, The Times

Release date: June 10, 2021

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 400

Sample

Although the funeral rites of Marcel Péricourt were disrupted, and indeed concluded in utter disarray, at least they began at the appointed time. From early morning, the boulevard de Courcelles was closed to traffic. Gathered in the courtyard, the band of the Republican Guard discreetly tuned their instruments while, out on the street, automobiles disgorged ambassadors, members of parliament and foreign delegates, who greeted one another gravely. Members of the Académie Française arranged themselves beneath the silver-fringed black canopy bearing the monogram of the deceased, according to the hushed guidance of the master of ceremonies tasked with marshalling the vast crowd while they waited for the ceremony to begin. There were many recognisable faces. For people of a certain rank, a funeral of such importance, like the wedding of a duke or the presentation of a new collection by Lucien Lelong, was a place to be seen.

While she was devastated by the death of her father, Madeleine nonetheless dealt with everything, murmuring instructions, efficient and self-possessed, attentive to the slightest details. All the more conscientious since the Président de la République had let it be known that he would personally come to pay his respects to “his friend Péricourt”. Once this was announced, everything became much more difficult, since codes of behaviour in the Third Republic were as exacting as those of a monarchy. There was not a moment’s peace in the Péricourt household, overrun as it was by members of the security service and civil servants responsible for protocol, to say nothing of the throng of ministers, sycophants and counsellors. The head of state was like a fishing trawler, constantly followed by flocks of gulls that fed in his wake.

At the appointed hour, Madeleine was standing at the top of the steps, her black-gloved hands carefully clasped in front of her.

The car pulled up. The crowd fell silent. The president emerged, gave a little wave, climbed the steps and briefly took Madeleine in his arms, saying nothing: the greatest griefs are silent. Then, with an elegant, fatalistic gesture, he stepped aside and ushered her towards the chapel of rest.

The presence of the president was not merely a sign of his friendship with the late lamented banker: it was a symbol. The circumstances, it should be said, were exceptional. With Marcel Péricourt, “a leading light of the French financial world has been snuffed out,” according to the headlines of the newspapers with some sense of decorum. The gutter press preferred to run with: “He survived the dramatic suicide of his son Édouard by only seven years . . .” It hardly mattered. Marcel Péricourt had been one of the towering figures in the financial world and his death, everyone vaguely realised, marked the beginning of a new era, one that was all the more unsettling as prospects for the looming 1930s seemed grim. The economic crisis that had followed the Great War had never truly ended. The promise made, hand on heart, by the French political classes, that the defeated German nation would pay for the damage they had caused down to the last centime, had been debunked by events. The country enjoined to be patient while houses were rebuilt, roads repaired, crippled soldiers compensated, pensions paid, jobs created – in short, while France was restored to its former glory, or even greater glory still, since it had won the war – was now resigned: the miracle had failed to happen, France would have to cope alone.

Marcel Péricourt had been a symbol of the former France, one who had managed the economy like a benevolent father. No-one quite knew what was being buried today, an important French banker, or the bygone era he personified.

In the chapel of rest, Madeleine gazed at her father’s face for a long time. For months now, his chief occupation had been growing old. “I have to be constantly vigilant,” he would say. “I worry that I smell like an old man, forgetting my words; I’m afraid of being a burden, of being overheard talking to myself, I watch myself, it occupies my every waking minute, growing old is exhausting . . .”

On a hanger in his wardrobe, Madeleine found his best suit, a freshly starched shirt, his immaculately polished shoes. He had prepared everything.

The night before, Monsieur Péricourt had dined with Madeleine and his grandson Paul, a boy of seven with an angelic face, pale, timid and prone to stammering. But, in contrast to other evenings, he did not ask the boy about his studies or how he had spent his day, did not suggest that they continue their game of draughts. He sat deep in thought, not worried, but almost wistful, something that was not usual. He barely touched his food, but simply smiled to show that he was present. And, when dinner dragged on too long for him, he folded his napkin, I’m going up, he said, you stay and finish without me, he had pressed Paul’s face to his chest, sleep well. Though wont to grumble about his aches and pains, he walked towards the staircase with a light step. Usually, as he left the dining room, he would say, “Behave yourselves.” That evening, he forgot. By morning, he was dead.

As the funeral carriage pulled into the courtyard of the hôtel particulier, drawn by two caparisoned horses, as the master of ceremonies gathered close friends and family, ensuring they were arranged according to protocol, Madeleine and the president of the Republic stood side by side, staring at the oak coffin on which gleamed a large silver cross.

Madeleine shivered. Had she made the right choice all those months ago?

She was a spinster. More precisely, she was a divorcee, but at the time there was little difference. Her former husband, Henri d’Aulnay-Pradelle, was languishing in prison after a sensational trial. The plight of his daughter being without a husband worried Marcel Péricourt, who was thinking of the future. “At your age, people marry again!” he would say. “A bank with vested interests in a number of major companies is no business for a woman.” In fact, Madeleine agreed, but on one condition: she was prepared to take a husband, but she had no need of a man, I had my fill with Henri, thank you very much. Marriage, fine, but I have no interest in the rest. Although she often claimed otherwise, she had invested much hope in her first calamitous union, so now, she was candid: while she was prepared to remarry, it would be a marriage of convenience, especially since she had no intention of having more children, Paul was enough to make her happy. It was in the autumn of the previous year that people had begun to realise that Marcel Péricourt was not long for this world. It seemed prudent to make plans, since it would be many years before his grandson, Paul the stammerer, would be able to take the reins of the family business. And, even then, it was difficult to imagine such a succession; little Paul could scarcely get his words out and often found it so difficult that he refused to speak, he was hardly company director material . . .

Gustave Joubert, a childless widower who was senior executive at the Banque Péricourt, seemed the ideal match for Madeleine. At fifty, Joubert was a serious, prudent man, disciplined, self-possessed and forward-thinking. His only true passion seemed to be for machines: automobiles (he loathed Benoist but adored Charavel) and aeroplanes (he despised Blériot but worshipped Daurat).

Monsieur Péricourt had vigorously argued the case for this solution. And Madeleine was agreeable, but:

“Let me be clear, Gustave,” she had warned him. “I understand that you are a man and you have needs, and I will not prevent you from . . . well, you know what I mean. But on condition that you are discreet. I refuse to be made a laughing stock a second time.”

Joubert was all the more receptive to Madeleine’s demands since the needs she spoke of were urges he rarely felt.

Then, some weeks later, Madeleine suddenly announced to her father and to Gustave that the marriage would not take place after all.

The news was like a thunderclap. It would be something of an understatement to say that Monsieur Péricourt became enraged with his daughter and her ridiculous arguments: it could hardly come as news to her that she was thirty-six and Joubert fifty-one. Besides, surely marrying a man of mature age and sound judgment was a good thing? But no; apparently, Madeleine could not “resign herself” to the marriage.

So that was that.

She had closed the door to any further discussion.

In the past, Monsieur Péricourt would not have been content to accept such a response, but now he felt weary. He argued, he insisted, but, in the end, he capitulated, and it was such capitulations that made him realise he was no longer the man he had been.

Today, Madeleine was anxiously wondering whether she had made the right decision.

Outside, everyone was waiting with bated breath for the president to emerge from the chapel of rest.

In the courtyard, the guests had already begun to count the minutes, they had come here to be seen but they did not want to take all day about it. The worst of it was not the cold, that was inescapable, but trying to conceal their impatience for it to be over. There was nothing to be done, even muffled up, their ears, their hands, their noses began to freeze, they discreetly stamped their feet, soon they would begin to curse the deceased unless he emerged. They were eager for the cortège to set off, at least then they would be walking.

A rumour trilled through the crowd that the coffin was about to be carried out.

In the courtyard, the priest, wearing a black and silver cope over his alb, led the altar boys dressed in their violet cassocks and white surplices.

*

The funeral director surreptitiously checked his watch, slowly mounted the front steps to get a better view of the situation, and looked around for those who, moments from now, were to lead the cortège.

Everyone was present, except for the grandson of the deceased.

This was vexatious as it was expected that little Paul and his mother would lead the procession, walking a few paces ahead of the rest of the cortège; it always made for a striking image, a child walking behind a hearse. All the more so since young Paul, with his moonlike face and his slightly sunken eyes, had a certain frailty that would add a very poignant touch to the scene.

Madeleine’s dame de compagnie, Léonce, walked over to Paul’s private tutor, André Delcourt, who was feverishly scribbling in a notepad, and asked him to inquire after his young charge. He looked at her, affronted.

“But, Léonce . . .! Can’t you see I’m busy?”

There had never been any love lost between the two. The rivalry of domestic servants.

“André,” she said, “I don’t doubt that one day you may be a great journalist, but right now you are still a private tutor. So, go and fetch Paul.”

Furious, André snapped shut his notebook, angrily pocketed his pencil and, amid profuse apologies and rueful smiles, pushed his way through the crowd towards the front door.

*

Madeleine walked the president back to his car, which pulled out of the courtyard, the crowds parting as he passed as though he were the deceased.

To drum rolls from the Republican Guard, Marcel Péricourt’s coffin was carried into the entrance hall. The doors were thrown wide.

In the absence of her uncle Charles, who was nowhere to be found, Madeleine, supported by Gustave Joubert, walked down the steps behind her father’s remains. Léonce looked to see whether little Paul was with his mother, but there was no sign of him. André reappeared, throwing his hands up in a gesture of impotence.

The coffin, carried by a delegation from the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, was laid upon the openwork bier. The wreaths and the bouquets were placed around it. An usher stepped forward with a cushion on which rested the Grand-Croix of the Légion d’Honneur.

*

In the middle of the courtyard, the crowd of dignitaries was suddenly seized by a swaying motion.

All eyes turned to look up at the facade of the building. A communal cry was quickly stifled.

Madeleine in turn looked up and her mouth fell open: on the second floor, little Paul, aged seven, was standing on the window ledge, his arms flung wide. Staring into the void.

He was wearing his black mourning suit, but his tie had been ripped off and his white shirt was open.

Everyone stared into the heavens as though anticipating the launch of an airship.

Paul bent his knees slightly.

Before anyone had time to call to him, to run, he let go of the shutters as Madeleine screamed.

As it fell, the child’s body fluttered wildly like a bird hit by a shotgun pellet. After a swift, hectic descent, he landed on the black canopy and disappeared for a moment.

The crowd suppressed a sigh of relief.

But he bounced off the taut canvas and reappeared, like a jack-in-the-box.

Once again, the crowd watched as he was catapulted into the air, over the curtain.

And landed with a crash on his grandfather’s coffin.

In the suddenly silent courtyard, the sickening thud of his skull smashing against the oak sent the hearts of the mourners lurching into their throats.

Everyone was dumbfounded; time stood still.

When they rushed over to him, Paul was sprawled on his back. Blood was trickling from his ears.

The master of ceremonies was at a loss. When it came to funerals, he knew a thing or two, he had handled the funeral rites of countless members of the Académie Française, of four foreign diplomats, he had even buried three serving or former presidents. Renowned for his sang-froid, here was a man who knew his business, but a child plunging from the second floor onto his grandfather’s coffin was beyond even his expertise. What was to be done? He stood staring into the middle distance, his arms hanging limply by his sides. He was completely out of his depth. In fact, he died a few weeks later, and was, one might say, the François Vatel of funeral directors.

Professor Fournier was the first to react.

He climbed onto the funeral carriage, brusquely tossed the wreaths onto the cobblestones and, without moving the child, undertook a swift medical examination.

He was wise to do so because, by this time, the crowd had begun to stir and were making a dreadful racket. The dignitaries in their Sunday best were suddenly transformed into ghoulish onlookers, quivering with curiosity at the accident; there were gasps of Oh! and Ah! and Did you see that? Of course I did, it was Péricourt’s son! Ridiculous, his son died at Verdun! Not that one, the younger one! What do you mean “out the window”, did he jump? Did he slip? Personally, I think someone pushed him . . . Oh, well, really! It’s true, look, the window is still open! Ah, you’re right, shit . . . Michel, please, mind your manners! Each recounted what he had seen to others who had witnessed the same thing.

Standing by the hearse, clutching the slatted side, her nails like talons digging into the soft wood, Madeleine was howling like a damned soul. A sobbing Léonce gripped her mistress’s shoulders, trying to pull her away. No-one could believe it, a child falling from a second-storey window, it was scarcely possible, but they had only to look up from the scattered wreaths to see, despite the milling crowd, the body of Paul lying like a recumbent effigy atop the oak casket, with the doctor, Fournier, bent over him, listening for a heartbeat, for some sign that he was breathing. He sat back on his haunches, his dress suit and his shirt front daubed with blood, but he was not looking at anything or anyone, he took the child in his arms and struggled to his feet. A lucky photographer caught the image that would be seen around the country: Professor Fournier, standing on the funeral carriage next to the coffin of Marcel Péricourt, cradling the child whose ears were gushing blood.

Someone helped him to climb down.

The crowd parted.

Clutching young Paul to his chest, he raced through the throng, followed by a distraught Madeleine.

As he passed, all chattering stopped, this sudden moment of silence even more heart-rending than the funeral. A motor car was requisitioned, a Sizaire-Berwick belonging to Monsieur de Florange, whose wife stood by the door of the vehicle, wringing her hands because she was afraid the blood would stain the seats – you can’t get that out.

Fournier and Madeleine got into the back seats, the child’s body lying limply across their laps. Madeleine turned and shot Léonce and André a pleading glance. Léonce did not hesitate for an instant, but André wavered for a moment. He turned and surveyed the courtyard, the scattered wreaths, the coffin, the horses, the uniforms, the fine suits . . . Then he bowed his head and climbed into the car. The doors slammed shut.

They sped towards the Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière.

*

Everyone was dumbfounded. The altar boys had been robbed of their starring role; their parish priest clearly could not believe his eyes. The Republican Guard hesitated about whether to play the programmed funeral march.

And then there was the matter of the blood.

A funeral is all well and good, but it invariably involves a closed casket, whereas blood is organic, it frightens people, it reminds them of a suffering that is worse than death. And Paul’s blood was everywhere: on the cobblestone courtyard and even on the pavement, a trail of droplets that could be tracked as though across a farmyard. Seeing the blood reminded the mourners of the little boy, his limp body, it chilled them to the marrow, making it difficult to participate calmly in a funeral that was not their own.

Thinking they were doing the right thing, the servants of the house scattered handfuls of sawdust, but this merely set everyone coughing and looking the other way.

Then it was decided that one could not decently set off for the cemetery to bury a man whose coffin was dripping with a child’s blood. The servants searched for a black sheet, but there was none to be found. A maidservant climbed onto the funeral carriage with a bucket of steaming hot water and tried to wash down the coffin with its large silver cross.

Gustave Joubert, a decisive man, ordered that the blue curtain in Monsieur Péricourt’s library be taken down. Madeleine had fashioned it out of a heavy, dark fabric so that her father could doze during the day even in the blazing sun.

From the courtyard, through the second-floor window from which the boy had hurled himself only moments earlier, the crowd could see servants climbing on stepladders, reaching up towards the ceiling.

At length, the hastily rolled curtain was brought downstairs. It was laid reverentially over the bier, but the fact remained that it was simply a length of curtain and the impression was of burying a man in his dressing gown. Especially, as it had not been possible to remove the three copper curtain rings which, with every breath of wind, clattered against the sides of the coffin.

Everyone was eager for things to return to normal and for the conventional – not to say banal – rites of the official funeral to resume.

*

As the car sped through Paris, little Paul, lying across the lap of his sobbing mother, did not move. His pulse was slow and faint. The driver honked the horn continually, and the passengers were jostled and jolted like livestock in a cattle truck. Léonce looped her arm through Madeleine’s and squeezed it tightly. Professor Fournier had wound his white scarf around the boy’s head to staunch the wound, but blood seeped through and dripped onto the floor.

André Delcourt, seated uncomfortably facing Madeleine, kept his face turned away as much as possible, sick to his heart.

Madeleine had met André in the religious institution where she had planned to send Paul when he was of age. He was a tall, thin youth with curly hair, almost an archetype of his time, with dark, somewhat mournful eyes but lips that were fleshy and eloquent. He tutored the boys in French, it was said that he spoke Latin like an angel, and he could even turn his hand to drawing when required. He could talk endlessly about the Italian Renaissance, his great passion. Since he thought of himself as a poet, he affected a feverish expression and an impulsive manner, brusquely tossing his head, a gesture he believed signalled that he had just been visited by some inspired thought. He was never without his notebook; even in company, he would take it out, turn away, frantically scribble down some deathless thought, then turn back to the conversation with the air of someone afflicted by an agonising disease.

Madeleine was immediately attracted by his hollow cheeks, his long fingers, and a smouldering air that seemed to hint at passion. This woman who wanted no more to do with men found in him an unexpected charm. She tried her hand, and he proved equal to the task.

In fact, he was more than equal to the task.

In André’s arms, Madeleine rediscovered memories that were far from disagreeable. She felt desired, he was very attentive, even if it took him some time to get down to business, because he invariably had impressions he wanted to share, visions to describe, ideas to explain, he was so loquacious that he would still be reciting poetry in his underwear, but in bed, once he shut up, he was perfect. Readers familiar with Madeleine will know that she was never particularly pretty. Not ugly, certainly, but plain, the sort of woman who goes unnoticed. She had married a handsome man who never loved her and so it was with André that she discovered the pleasure of being desired. And a sexual pleasure that she had never imagined she would feel. Being older, she felt obliged to make the first moves, to demonstrate, to explain; in short, to initiate things. This proved entirely unnecessary. Although André thought himself a doomed poet, he had frequented many a bawdy house, and had participated in a number of orgies at which he showed himself to have an open mind and an unquestionable versatility. But he was also a realistic young man. When he realised that Madeleine, though she had little experience, enjoyed the role of initiator, he revelled in the situation, and his pleasure was all the greater since she pandered to his predilection for passivity.

Their relationship was singularly complicated by the fact that André lived at the institution and was forbidden from receiving visitors. At first, they would meet in hotel rooms, and Madeleine would arrive hugging the walls and leave with her head bowed, like a thief in a vaudeville sketch. She gave André the money to pay the owner of the hotel, resorting to various ruses so that it did not feel as though she were paying to be with a man. She would leave the money on the mantelpiece, but that made it feel as though it were a brothel. She would slip the money into his jacket, but when he arrived at the reception desk, he would have to rummage through his pockets to find it, which was hardly discreet. In short, she needed to find another solution, a need that was all the more pressing since Madeleine had not simply taken a lover, she had fallen in love. Before long, André proved to be everything her former husband had not been. Cultivated, attentive, passive but virile, available, never vulgar, André Delcourt had only one failing: he was poor. Not that Madeleine attached any importance to this fact, she was rich enough for both of them, but she had her position to consider, and a father who would not have taken kindly to the idea of a son-in-law ten years his daughter’s junior and utterly unsuited to the world of business. To marry André would be unthinkable, so she hit upon a pragmatic solution: she would hire him to tutor Paul. The boy would benefit from private tuition and a close relationship with his teacher, and, most importantly, he would not have to be sent to boarding school – a notion that terrified her, given the rumours of what went on in even the finest institutions. As schoolmasters, the clergy had long since earned a reputation in this field.

All in all, Madeleine found that her scheme had many advantages.

And so André moved into an attic room of the Péricourt mansion.

Young Paul was delighted at the idea, imagining that this meant he would soon have a playmate. He was sorely disillusioned. For the first few weeks, all went well, but over time Paul seemed less and less enthusiastic. Children are all alike, Madeleine thought, no-one enjoys studying Latin, French, history, geography. And André took his responsibilities very seriously. Paul’s gradual loss of interest in his private lessons did nothing to temper the enthusiasm of Madeleine, who could see many advantages: now, there were only two flights of stairs to go up. Or down, if André was visiting her boudoir. Despite this, in the Péricourt household their relationship quickly became an open secret. The servants laughed as they imitated their mistress furtively tiptoeing upstairs with a sultry expression. When they mimicked André going back to his room, he was stumbling and exhausted. There was much amusement in the kitchens.

For André, who dreamed of being a man of letters, who imagined spending a short time as a journalist, publishing his first book, then his second, and being awarded a prestigious literary prize – why not? – being Madeleine Péricourt’s lover had undeniable advantages, but honestly, living in an attic room next to the servants’ quarters was a bitter humiliation. He saw the chambermaids giggling, saw the chauffeur smirking. In a sense, he was one of them. The service he provided was sexual, but it was a service nonetheless. What would have been rewarding for a gigolo was mortifying for a poet.

Thus, extricating himself from this degrading situation seemed to him imperative.

Which was why he was so unhappy on the day of Monsieur Péricourt’s funeral: it was to have been a glittering opportunity, since Madeleine had personally contacted Jules Guilloteaux, the editor of Soir de Paris, to request that André write the account of her father’s funeral.

Just imagine: a lengthy article, with front page billing in the newspaper with the highest circulation in Paris.

For three days, André had thought of nothing but the funeral, more than once he had walked the route the funeral carriage was to take, he had even written a number of passages in advance: The myriad wreaths that weigh down the hearse confer upon it an air of grandeur that recalls the familiar, calm, authoritative gait of this giant of French finance. It is eleven o’clock. The funeral cortège is about to set off. In the first carriage, quivering beneath the weight of so many dignified mourners, one can easily make out . . .

What a stroke of luck! If the article were a success, the newspaper might take him on . . . Oh, to earn his living decently, to be free of the demoralising obligations imposed on him . . . Better yet: to succeed, to be rich and famous.

And now this accident had ruined everything and left him back where he had started.

André stared determinedly out the window so he did not have to look at Paul’s closed eyes, at Madeleine’s tearful face, at Léonce’s tense, inscrutable expression. Or at the dark pool spreading across the floor. For at the sight of the dead child (or almost dead, the boy’s body was limp, his breathing now imperceptible beneath the blood-soaked scarf) he felt a pain that cleaved his heart, but it was thinking about his own plight, about the hopes and dreams that had so suddenly faded, that brought tears to his eyes.

Madeleine took his hand.

*

And so Charles Péricourt found that he was the last remaining member of the family at his brother’s funeral. He had finally been tracked down near the steps, surrounded by “his harem” (the man was not a sophisticate, he used the term to describe his wife and his two daughters). He firmly believed that his wife, Hortense, had too great an antipathy towards men to bear him sons. His two daughters were growing like weeds, with spindly legs, knock knees and flourishing acne. They were constantly tittering, bringing their hands to their faces to hide the dentition that was the despair of their parents; it was almost as though, when they were born, some disconsolate god had scattered a handful of teeth in their mouths. Dentists were dismayed. Short of having everything extracted and dentures fitted as soon as they were old enough, the young women would spend the rest of their lives hiding behind fans. A considerable sum would be required for the dental work, or the dowry to be given in its stead. It was a problem that harried Charles like a curse.

A large paunch born of spending his life at table, a shock of prematurely grey hair scraped back from his forehead, heavy features, a prominent nose (the sign, he believed, of a resolute character) and a walrus moustache: this was Charles Péricourt. Add to this the fact that two days spent grieving for his brother had left him with a red face and puffy eyes.

As soon as his wife and daughters saw him emerging from the lavatory, they raced over to him, but in their hysterics, not one of them could clearly tell him what had just transpired.

“Eh? What?” he said, turning from one to the other. “What do you mean ‘jumped’? Who jumped?”

With a calm, authoritative hand, Gustave Joubert parted the crowd and, taking him by the shoulder, come, Charles, led him through the courtyard, explaining clearly that, as the sole remaining representative of the family, he had certain responsibilities.

The distraught Charles glanced around, st