Matthew Pearl - The Poe Shadow

"You are for the Corneille, monsieur?"

At my assent he released a hoarse sigh, as if to thank heaven he could rest from shouting. "This way, if you please!" He brought me to his carriage, where he labored to secure my bags above, occasionally pausing to examine me with an air of exuberant happiness at having a New World visitor as a passenger.

"You have come on business, monsieur?"

I contemplated an answer. "I suppose not exactly. I am a lawyer back home, monsieur. But I have left my situation as of late. I am attending to a rather different type of affair-to say sooth, as I feel already I can hold your confidence, I am here to procure the help of someone who will attend to it."

"Ah!" he replied, not listening to a word. "You are friendly with Cooper, then?"

"What?"

"Cooper!"

After we repeated the exchange, it became clear he meant the author James Fenimore Cooper. I'd discover that the French thought America quite too intimate for any two people of the country not to know each other, even were one a backwoodsman and the other a Wall Street speculator. The adventure novels of Cooper were inexplicably popular in even the finest circles of Paris (bring an American copy and you shall be deemed a regular hero!), and we were all presumed to live among those stories' wild and noble Indians. I said I had not met Cooper.

"Well, the Corneille will fulfill every one of your needs, upon my honor! There are no wigwams there! Watch the step up, monsieur, and I'll retrieve the rest of your bags from the porter."

I had not misjudged my first choice of transportation in this city. The carriage was wider than the American kind and the interior fittings indeed very comfortable. It was the most enjoyable luxury I could imagine at that moment, to sink against the cushions of a carriage as we neared a well-appointed private chamber of my own. This ride, remember, had followed two weeks at sea, starting from the Baltimore harbor, stopping in Dover for a night before sailing again, and finally arriving in France, where I then began six hours on the train into Paris. Just the idea of sleeping in a bed enthralled me! I could not know I was about to be removed from my newfound comfort, and at the threat of a sword.

My tranquillity was jolted when the coach abruptly tilted at a sharp angle before coming to a jagged and rough stop. The commissionnaire cursed and stepped down from his box.

"Just a ditch!" he called to me with relief. "I thought a wheel had come loose! Then we'd be-"

From my window I could see the features of his face suddenly flatten as he fell into an overrespectful silence. This expression mingled with one of fear before he skulked away.

"Now see here, driver!" I shouted. "Monsieur, where are you going?" Leaning out the window, I observed a squat man, buttoned to the collar in a flowing great-coat of bright blue. He had a large mustache and an exquisitely sharpened beard. I thought to step down and ask the stranger if he had seen the path taken by the runaway commissionnaire. Instead, this man opened my door and climbed in with great suavity.

He was saying something in French, but I was too flustered to employ my improving knowledge of the language. My first thought was to slide myself out the other side; I shifted my position only to find, upon opening that door, the way blocked by another man in the same kind of single-breasted coat. He was pulling his coat back to reveal a saber falling perpendicularly from his shiny black belt. I felt mesmerized by the sight of the weapon glinting with sunlight. His hand casually found its hilt and tapped at it as he nodded to me. "Allons donc!"

"Police!" I exclaimed, feeling half relieved and half frightened. "You men are from the police, monsieur?"

"Yes," the one inside said, his hand reaching out. "Your passport now, if you please, monsieur?"

I complied and waited in confusion as he read it. "But who are you looking for, Officer?"

A brief smile. "You, monsieur."

It was explained to me at a later time that the watchful eye of the Parisian police fell on any American entering their city alone who was a young man-and especially an unmarried young man-as potential "radicals" who had arrived with intent to overthrow the government. Considering that the government had been overthrown quite recently, when King Louis-Philippe was replaced three years earlier by a popular republican government, this imminent fear of radicalism seemed mysterious to one not well versed in the politics of France. Did they worry that the mobs, having gotten their legislature and duly elected president, and now bored of republicanism, would be instigated to riot to have their kings back again?

The police officers who had intercepted my coach merely explained that the prefect of the police proposed for me to call on him before beginning my stay in the city. Mesmerized and strangely captivated by the sabers and elegant uniforms, I followed willingly. A different carriage, with a faster span of horses, brought us directly to the Rue de Jerusalem, where the prefecture was located.

The prefect, a jovial and distracted man named Delacourt, sat beside me in his chamber as had his functionary in the carriage and performed the same ritual of reading my passport. It had been properly made up by the French emissary in Washington City, Monsieur Montor, who had also provided a letter attesting to my respectable character. But the prefect seemed to have little interest in any written proof of my harmless intentions.

Was I here on "business," "touring," or "educational"? I responded in the negative on all counts.

"If not these, then how have you come to be in Paris this summer?"

"You see, Monsieur Prefect, I am to meet a citizen of your city regarding an important affair back in the United States."

"And," he replied, hiding his interest with a casual smile, "who is that?"

When I told him, he became quite still, then exchanged a glance with the officer sitting across the prefect's chambers. "Who?" the prefect then said, as though entirely moonstruck, after some moments had passed.

"Auguste Duponte," I repeated. "You do know him then, Monsieur Prefect? I have communicated with him by mail over the last months-"

"Duponte? Duponte has written you ?" the other police officer, a small and fat old man, interrupted gruffly.

"No, of course not, Officer Gunner," said the prefect.

"No," I agreed, though irritated by the queer presumption of the prefect. "I have written Duponte, but he has not written in return. That is why I have come. I am here to explain myself in his private ear before it is too late."

"You shall have a hard time of that, " mumbled Gunner.

"He is not…he is alive?" I inquired.

I think the prefect replied, "Almost," but he swallowed his word up whole and returned abruptly to his more jovial and freewheeling personality. (I had not noticed the reduction in his joviality, you see, until it was just then restored.) "Never mind this," he said of my passport, handing it to his colleague to be stamped with an apparently meaningful series of hieroglyphics. "A tool of the next Inquisition, no?"

He abruptly dropped the subject of Duponte, welcomed me to Paris, and assured me that I could call upon him if I should ever need assistance during my stay. On my way out, several sergents de ville regarded me with hard glares of suspicion or dislike, which provoked my great sense of relief upon reaching the anonymity of the busy street.

That same afternoon, I paid Madame Fouché, proprietress of the Hôtel Corneille, for a full week's stay, though in fact I anticipated a quicker end to my business.

I suppose there were signs, though, that I should have noted. For instance, the attitude of the concierge at the grand Paris mansion where I had addressed my letters to Duponte. This was my first stop the morning after arriving. When I inquired at the door, the concierge narrowed his eyes at me, shook his head, and spoke: "Duponte? Why would you want to see him?"