The Mad Women's Ball: The Prize-Winning, International Bestseller and Sunday Times Top Fiction Selection by Victoria Mas

Author:Victoria Mas [Mas, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Literary, Fiction, European, Sort4, French, Women, General, Literary Collections, Feminist
ISBN: 9781473575677
Google: 9ef9DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2021-06-17T18:04:25+00:00

8

12 March 1885

Dawn breaks over Paris. The streets are already bustling with early risers. Along the Seine and the Canal Saint-Martin, dozens of washerwomen are heading towards the washhouse boats, their backs bent beneath the weight of the laundry sacks belonging to well-heeled families. Ragmen, having spent the night searching for goods to sell, are pulling carts laden with the spoils of their nocturnal foraging. On every street corner, lamplighters are snuffing out the gas streetlamps. In the market of Les Halles, which Zola described as the ‘belly of Paris’, greengrocers and merchants are unloading crates of fruit and vegetables; fishmongers set out their wares while butchers begin to cut up carcasses. Not far away, on the Rue Saint-Denis, in scenes reminiscent of the Rue Pigalle or the Rue de Provence, prostitutes wait for one last trick while others rebuff the attentions of a drunkard. Newspaper vendors emerge from printers with bags of the first edition slung over their shoulders. In every district, the smell of freshly made bread seeps from the bakeries to tickle the noses of the labourers and stallholders, the water carriers and coal merchants, the street sweepers and road menders, all these figures bringing Paris to life as daylight peeks over the rooftops.

The Salpêtrière is still sleeping as Geneviève crosses the central courtyard, her heels echoing on the paving stones of the path that leads from the archway. On the lawn to her right, a cat is toying with a dead mouse. There is not a soul in sight here, not a single carriage.

The sky has become overcast since Geneviève left home, and a light rain falls as she walks towards the chapel of Saint-Louis. Her discreet hat, with its spray of flowers, protects her from the morning drizzle. She pulls her coat around her tightly. There are bags under her eyes. She has not slept a wink.

She passes beneath the archway emblazoned with the words ‘Division Lassay’ and enters the Cour Saint-Louis. Opposite, the park and its leafless trees; to her left, the chapel with its imposing stone façade surmounted by black domes. She heads towards the main entrance. In the inside pocket of her coat, close to her heart, is the book she read last night.

She pauses for a moment before the massive wooden doors, takes a deep breath, then pushes them open.

At first glance, what is most striking is the stark simplicity of the chapel. There is no gilding here, no mouldings. The stone walls, a little blackened in places, are devoid of extraneous decoration. The place almost looks abandoned. Further inside, to the left and right, six statues of saints gaze down from vaulted alcoves. The scale of the building is as startling as the cruciform layout: four naves and four side chapels and, in the middle, a central cupola so dizzyingly high that it creates a strange sensation of vertigo.

Instinctively, Geneviève takes off her hat and shakes away the few raindrops clinging to the fabric. She is surprised to find herself

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