“And the name of this lunatic, or villain—I don’t know what to call him?”

“Jacques Le Sourd. I know nothing about his whereabouts, but no doubt he can be found. Whether he would still like to kill you … Who knows.” He smiled. “Just watch out, if you go visiting any of the courtesans of Paris again!”

“I think,” said Roland, “that I’ll pay a visit to the waiter. What’s his name?”

“Luc Gascon.”

Luc was easy to find. He had his own bar these days, just off the Place Pigalle, a quarter mile east of the Moulin Rouge.

He was stouter than before, but just as charming. And when Roland told him who he was, he nodded.

“I thought I recognized you, Monsieur de Cygne. I knew that your regiment had been away. Welcome back to Paris.”

Roland briefly explained how he had found out about Le Sourd.

“You understand,” he said, “that until recently I had no idea of the service you had rendered me.”

“I know, monsieur.”

“I should like you to accept this, to show my gratitude,” said Roland, and handed him an envelope, which Luc quickly inspected.

“You are more than generous, Monsieur de Cygne,” he said. “I could open a restaurant with this.”

“Just don’t spend it at the races,” Roland said with a smile. “But the question now is, what should I do about Le Sourd? Do you have any idea why he wanted to kill me?”

“Non, monsieur. I never discovered.”

“I should like to talk to him. Do you know where he is?”

“Give me a day, and I shall find out, monsieur. But it might be dangerous for you to interview him.”

“I’ll take a pistol,” said Roland.

It was good to be back in the family house again. Now that he was based in Paris, he thought he might use the house, as far as his regimental duties allowed. Most of the rooms were under dust covers, but his old nanny was still living there with a housekeeper and a maid to keep the house going, and he spent a pleasant evening talking to her.

Most of the time, when he was away on his regimental duties, Roland did not need to reflect on political matters. But finding himself back again in his family’s old mansion, in the great historical center of France, he could not help being struck by the mutability of the past and present.

The ancestors who had lived in this house had doubtless considered England their traditional enemy, as she had been for so many centuries. Yet now all that was changed. Bismarck’s German Empire had arisen. France had suffered the humiliation of 1870, and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. When he was a boy, who had his teachers at the Catholic lycée along the street told him were his enemies? The Germans of course. His generation’s duty? To avenge France’s dishonor.