The Cardinal's Blades by Pierre Pevel

Author:Pierre Pevel
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780575084391
Publisher: Victor Gollancz Limited
Published: 2010-05-01T06:04:21+00:00

11

For Ballardieu, the moment of his true reunion with Paris took place on the Pont Neuf. For if the market at Les Halles was the city’s belly and the Louvre was its head, then the Pont Neuf was the heart of the capital. A heart that pumped blood, giving the city life and movement, animating the great populous flow that ran through its streets. Everyone, after all, used the Pont Neuf. For convenience, primarily, since it permitted people to travel directly from one bank to the other without passing through Ile de la Cité and its maze of mediaeval alleyways. But also for the sake of entertainment.

The bridge was originally intended to support houses, as was only to be expected in a city where the tiniest building space was already utilised. But this plan was abandoned to avoid spoiling the royal family’s view of the Cité from the windows of the Louvre. Of this original plan only two wide platforms survived, both six steps high and running the entire length of the bridge, on either side of the paved roadway. These platforms became pavements, the first in Paris, from which it was possible to admire the Seine and enjoy the fresh air without fear of being run over by a coach or a horse rider. Parisians soon grew to like going for a stroll there. Street artists and traders set up shop along the parapets and in the half-moon-shaped lookout points, and the Pont Neuf soon became a permanent fair, filled with jostling crowds.

“God’s blood!” Ballardieu exclaimed, taking a deep breath. “I feel like my old self again!”

More reserved, Agnès smiled.

They had come through the Nesle gate on foot and passed in front of the Hôtel de Nevers before arriving at Pont Neuf. It was the shortest route to the Louvre, their destination.

“It is good to be here!” added the delighted old soldier. “Don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“And nothing has changed! Look at that buffoon, I remember him!”

He pointed to a tall thin fellow in a moth-eaten cloak, mounted on the back of a poor old nag who was as gaunt as he was, boasting of a miraculous powder which he claimed would preserve your teeth. The fact that he had only one remaining tooth in his own mouth did not seem to weaken his conviction or bother his audience.

“And over there! Tabarin and Mondor … ! Come on, let’s go hear them.”

Tabarin and Mondor were famous street entertainers who each had their own stage at the entrance to Place Dauphine. At that moment one of them was singing a bawdy song while the other, armed with an enormous enema bag, was playing at being a quack and offering all comers the chance to have “their arseholes washed all clean and pink!” Their spectators were bursting with laughter.

“Later,” said Agnès. “On our way back.”

“You’ve no sense of fun, girl.”

“You do remember that I am a baronne?”

“A baronne I knew when she had neither tits nor an arse, who rode on my shoulders, and who I made drink her first glass of eau-de-vie.

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