That’s what I said to myself.

Paris

2 April 1871

‘Thank God nobody saw me come in,’ thought Auguste while the priest of Notre-Dame des Victoires murmured Latin phrases and sprinkled his poor son with holy water. The widow Malgorn had firmly insisted on the christening and he had had no choice but to agree and suffer in silence.

To see Corentine and the Breton godmother she had chosen repeating the incantations of the man of the cloth with their beatific smiles reminded him of the conversation he had had two months earlier with his aunt Clothilde about the dispiriting results of the legislative elections.

‘But what were you thinking? That France consists of nothing more than the Grands Boulevards?’

‘But, Aunt, we’re talking about the first elections of the new Republic . . . Some brilliant men were running: Hugo, Gambetta, Quinet, Rochefort . . . But no, they elect an Assembly that’s 60 per cent monarchist . . . How can such a thing still be possible in 1871?’

‘Because France is a nation of small-minded country bumpkins who want order, God, peace and the reassuring framework of its traditions: its king, its comitia and its ridiculous little balls held for the Festival of Saint John that I have such a horror of. Thiers is the only person able to understand it and who knows how to make himself acceptable.’

She was right: that snake with glasses, the friend of the family, had been elected by the country bumpkins and by considerable majority.

He did not resent this unfortunate war widow for being sanctimonious, he was irritated with the priests for having held the people in this infantile state for so long. ‘Let him make the most of this cult of his while he can,’ he said to himself as he observed the officiating priest. A few more weeks and they would be done with this foolish, stultifying ritual, and the churches of Paris would be transformed into places for the people. Yes, he had conceded this Mass, but he had resolutely refused to allow his name to appear on the baptismal register.

Once the benediction had concluded, all that remained was for him to suffer the interminable Credo and he would be done with this deplorable ceremony. Then, as a family, they would cross the street to the town hall of the 2nd arrondissement, where Perrachon and Trousselier were waiting for them, this time for a real baptism – a Republican one.

Credo in Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae ... Et in Jesum Christum, Filium eius unicum, Dominum nostrum ...

Auguste thought about all the events that had taken place at such a disturbing pace these last two weeks.