For a presidential visit I’d expected security to be tighter on this occasion, but the commissionaire’s table inside the door was unattended. I was able to walk through the busy kitchen and the chambermaid’s quarters unchallenged. Nobody knew what to say to me. And suddenly, there I was in the grand ballroom, which that day looked more like a book emporium. Men in monocles and tailcoat suites fussed over last-minute preparations, and hotel staff stood at attention in a line receiving their final in-house briefing. I was able to browse at leisure and even paid for and put aside my book selection at one of the secondhand booths.

A bell chimed from the direction of the reception area, and the staff hurried to the front of the hotel. I followed them because I admit I had become infected by the atmosphere. I wasn’t even an employee, but I’d been there long enough to want the hotel to do its very best—even for a bastard like Doumer. I needn’t have worried. The welcome committee was regimental. Everyone knew of his or her function and where they should stand. Except me. I retreated behind one of the stone pillars and from there I could see through the two enormous glass doors and beyond them I witnessed the arrival of two motorized police vans. The rear doors were thrown open and a dozen gendarmes stumbled out of each. Some took up positions on the hotel steps. The others wrestled open the doors, secured them in the open position, and spread themselves around the foyer. If they were armed, their weapons were well concealed. But I suspected there were more qualified plain-clothed officers strategically dotted around. One, quite obviously a military man with a crew cut and the nervous twitch of a security guard on alert, was in place behind the next pillar. I smiled at him and he ignored me. I’d expect nothing less from my bodyguard.

It was a very long, tense ten minutes before the President’s Citroën arrived. An aide hurried to open the rear door but the president was already halfway out before he got there. I’d seen Doumer on newsreels at my cinema. He was a portly man with a fancy white beard, and I had a theory that this was what Father Christmas did for the other eleven months of the year. I couldn’t help smiling at that thought as he stopped on the top step, turned and waved at the grannies and the bemused children. He entered the hotel and the male staff members leaned forward into a respectful bow. The women curtsied. There was silence apart from the manager welcoming the President on behalf of the hotel and the Fund for Wounded Soldiers.