But he still needed someone or something to vent his anger upon. So he was almost glad to see the unfinished reply to the Canadian still lying on his writing table. He sat down to compose.

Dear Sir,

Your letter has been handed me by my father, the Vicomte de Cygne, for reply, as he has not time to reply to you himself.

Quite apart from the fact that the spelling of your name in no way suggests that it has any connection with that of the vicomtes de Cygne, I can assure you that no member of our family has ever migrated from France to Canada, nor even visited that country. We should certainly know it if they had. The idea of a Canadian branch of our family is therefore entirely fanciful.

I do not think that a visit to the Château de Cygne could be of interest to you therefore, and the house itself will in any case be closed for major repairs this summer.

No doubt, monsieur, you have French ancestry. But if you wish to find connections in France, you will have to look elsewhere.

He put down his pen with grim satisfaction. That should dispose of Monsieur Dessignes, whoever he might be. He signed and sealed the letter and laid it on the desk. A task completed. It was just four o’clock.

At the very moment that he sealed the letter, a pale, well-dressed lady reached the door of the house near the boulevard de Clichy where Marc Blanchard had his studio. She looked about her uncertainly, not having been there before. But the address was correct.

Wondering what it would be like to have her portrait painted, Hortense Ney started up the stairs.

Chapter Ten

•  1572  •

He was just a very ordinary little boy. No one would have imagined that he’d change the history of his family by opening a window when he had been told that he must not.

On this Monday morning, the eighteenth day of August in the year of Our Lord 1572, young Simon Renard was excited. His father’s cousin Guy was about to arrive. And then Uncle Guy, as he called him, and his father were going to take him to see the royal wedding. He’d never seen such a thing before.

And he was doubly curious after his father had told him: “This is the strangest royal wedding that’s ever been seen in Paris.”

Simon was eight years old, and he lived with his parents, Pierre and Suzanne Renard, in a small house that lay down an alley of storehouses, near the fortress of the Bastille.

Simon liked the old Bastille. He knew that long ago it was put there to protect the Saint-Antoine city gate from the English. But there was no fear of English attacks nowadays.