In high good humor the two Le Sourds continued up through the rue de la Paix, across Saint-Honoré with its chic boutiques, through the heartland of fashion, finding everything on strike. Once or twice Max glanced at his father, wondering if he might not be getting tired, but the tall seventy-year-old was striding like a young man.

They left the world of fashion, passed through the Ninth Arrondissement, then up past the back of the Gare du Nord, and into a little poor district known as the Goutte d’Or, where, finding a small bar run by an Algerian, they finally sat down.

“A good journey,” his father remarked. “From the Triangle d’Or to the Goutte d’Or.” He ordered cognacs and coffee to celebrate what they had seen. “Today, the world changes,” he announced.

“It’s certain that Blum’s government are going to offer a huge package of reforms,” Max agreed. “It will transform the life of every worker in France.”

“Of course,” said his father, “but that’s not what I mean. It will go much further than that. All we have to do now is keep the strike going, and power will pass into the hands of the workers. It has nowhere else to go.”

“But we already have an elected socialist government,” Max pointed out.

“Exactly. And as Marxists, they will see the inevitability of the situation as it unfolds. The Popular Front has served its purpose. Now as the workers take power, everything else will crumble away. Give the strike a month and I tell you, a new state will be born.”

And it was now that Max looked at his father and wondered whether it was time to break the news to him. He didn’t want to do it, but he felt that he must.

It was only when they had finished their drinks, however, and Max had insisted on buying a second round that he plucked up the courage.

“You know, Father,” he said quietly, “in another couple of days, the strike is going to end. It’s already been decided.”

“By whom?”

“By us, Father. By the communists.” He paused while his father stared at him in stupefaction. “We don’t want to upset the capitalists. We need them.” He smiled sadly. “Those are the orders.”

“Orders? From whom?”

“From Russia.”

Max had been a boy when fascism began, in Italy, where the former socialist Mussolini decided that authoritarian nationalism worked better. If Il Duce was supposed to be like some ancient Roman Caesar, it was harder to know what to make of the next Fascist Party when it had suddenly sprung up in Britain a few years ago, and he’d read the accounts with fascination.

A genuine English aristocrat, of ancient lineage, was leading huge rallies of men in black shirts against his own British establishment.