Michel Déon - The Foundling Boy

‘You mean they’re not real thieves?’

‘No. They’re heroes. But you must never talk about them, even if the police start asking questions.’

‘I won’t, ever. I promise.’

‘To anybody?’

‘Not to anybody, Father.’

‘That’s good, it means you’re a man.’

Jean thought that if Monsieur Le Couec were to say these words in front of Antoinette she would no longer think him a child and would let him take the same liberties with her that she had allowed that swine Gontran. But such a thought stained his soul before communion, and he chased it away. He did his best to serve mass well, and afterwards followed the priest into the sacristy, where he helped him take off his chasuble. One of the ladies who lived next to the church brought them bowls of milky coffee and thick slices of bread and butter that they devoured at the sacristy table.

‘Now it’s time for you to go home, my son. Lips sealed.’

He planted a kiss on both of Jean’s cheeks, kisses that smelt of milk and coffee.

As Jean reached the doorway, the priest called to him.

‘Tell me, these stories about girls that got you such a wigging? There wasn’t anything in them, was there?’

‘Oh no, nothing, father … nothing at all.’

Pedalling home in the glorious morning, Jean told himself that in fact his stories with girls were nothing at all, that real life was the life that men like Yann and Monsieur Carnac led, heroes who moved in the shadows. Everything else was childishness, kids’ games with little hussies. Gontran could indulge himself with Antoinette all he wanted. He wouldn’t be challenging him for her.

At La Sauveté he found Jeanne and Albert at the kitchen table, their bowls of coffee in front of them.

‘At last!’ his mother said.

‘I served mass at six o’clock.’

‘Oh, that is a fine way to start the day!’

Albert grumbled that no priest should be disturbing the good Lord’s rest at such an hour. It was in poor taste.

‘Don’t listen to your father!’ Jeanne said. ‘He served mass more often than his turn and now he’s just talking big.’

‘It’s not about talking big. I’m for freedom of conscience!’ Albert said, with a mouthful of bread and kidney beans.

Perhaps for the first time, Jean realised his father was talking nonsense, and it pained him, in the way it pains us when someone we admire suffers a humiliating defeat. Antoine du Courseau had disappointed him in a similar way: how could you be so removed from life, so distracted? It felt like a sort of resignation, when men like Yann and Monsieur Carnac were living life’s great adventure. One day he, Jean Arnaud, would defy the forces of the law for a noble cause which was yet to reveal itself, but which the grave events announced by Albert would doubtless make sure they brought about.

Jean never discovered the reason why Yann and Monsieur Carnac had been forced into hiding. The secret has stayed well kept. We may nevertheless advance a hypothesis by consulting the newspapers of the period. During the night of 6–7 August, in other words two days before the arrival of Monsieur Carnac at Tôtes, a person or persons unknown had blown up the monument erected at Rennes for the quatercentenary of the union of Brittany and France. This act of vandalism could have been justified on aesthetic grounds: the work of one of those sculptors much cherished by the Third Republic of Doumer and Lebrun, the monument symbolised the triumph of overblown pomposity. It showed Brittany on her knees before the king of France. The clandestine nationalist movement Gwenn ha Du had been determined to demonstrate with maximum impact against the visit of Édouard Herriot,8 who in turn had responded with more modest impact by refusing to attend the mass said at Vannes by Monseigneur Duparc, bishop of Quimper and Léon. Were Yann and Monsieur Carnac numbered among the perpetrators of that act? It is possible, even probable, but nobody knows any more today than they did then, and we leave the reader entirely at liberty to imagine other hypotheses that justify the attitude — singular for a priest — of the abbé Le Couec. What is certain is that, overnight, Jean Arnaud matured by several years, learning that a priest may also be a plotter, and that without being thieves or murderers men might have to hide from the police because they were defending a noble cause. The world was not built of flawless blocks, of good and bad, of pure and impure. More subtle divisions undermined the picture he had so far been given of morality and duty. For another boy than Jean, this discovery would have been dangerous. It was only useful to him because his innocence kept him out of temptation’s way better than all the lessons he had been taught. He therefore decided, in the days that followed, not to punch Gontran Longuet in the face the next time he saw him, and to forgive Michel du Courseau his spiteful nastiness towards him. What had Gontran really done, apart from make the most of what he was offered and would have been a hero of Spartan self-denial to refuse? And if Michel loathed him, it must be because Michel had guessed a long time ago, with remarkable intuition, that one day Chantal de Malemort would elope with his rival. And if Antoinette found it hard to keep her knickers on, it was a quality she had inherited from her father, about whom there was enough gossip among the locals for Jean to be fairly fully informed. In short, the world was not just full of guilty parties, and if you looked hard enough, you could find an excuse for everything. This philosophy has no technical name. For young Monsieur Arnaud it is called the Arnaud philosophy, for Jean Dupont it is called the Dupont philosophy. Each practitioner shapes it in the way that works for him or her, with personal variations. It was in this state of mind that Jean, with a return ticket from Dieppe to Newhaven in one pocket and a thousand-franc note in another, both given to him by Antoine du Courseau, wheeled his bicycle on board the ferry at the end of August 1932, en route for London. His fingers also frequently felt for the visiting card that Antoine had given him, to make sure it was still there. It was for Geneviève, Antoine’s daughter, and had these few words written on it: ‘Here is Jean Arnaud, whom I spoke about in my letter. A few days in London will complete his education. Be kind and look after him, and send him back to us at the end of the week. With love from your affectionate father, Antoine.’

When Marie-Thérèse du Courseau heard the news of Jean’s departure, she displayed all the symptoms of an attack of nerves, but she was also one of those intrepid, dauntless souls who, in the face of catastrophe, find the means to triumph over circumstances yet again with their composure and coolness.

No, no, I have not forgotten Mireille Cece, Marie-Dévote, or Toinette, Théo or Charles along the way. Before I recount Jean Arnaud’s London expedition, it may indeed be a good thing — so as not to displease readers who might be interested in what happens to them — to pass on news of them, even if only in a few sentences. They are still there, although removed from the theatre of our action — Jean’s adolescence — as that becomes clearer; for they belong to Antoine du Courseau’s secret existence, which is a secret we can only draw out by following Antoine south to the Midi. Jean may have left for London, but Antoine will not leave La Sauveté at the end of August 1932. The heat, the crowds on the beach, the packed roads are not to his taste. He no longer recognises the pretty, quiet port where he discovered a little café at the edge of a sandy beach. Hotels have sprung up, the fishermen no longer fish, and everyone hams up their southern accent to charm the tourists, to the point where one might imagine one was listening to some northerners acting in a play by Pagnol. At Marie-Dévote’s hotel, big changes are afoot. She no longer serves in bare feet, nor is she even to be seen at the reception desk, where she has taken on a Swiss clerk to attend to the details. She has instead an office, on the door of which is written ‘Manager’. There are eighty beds in the hotel, a car park, and the beach is more or less for guests’ use only. A lifeguard is on duty, a handsome fellow who rolls his shoulders and whose wandering hands make the more mature ladies coo. The hotel does not interest Théo, who has bought his ‘yacht’, a former submarine hunter with two powerful diesel engines, and from early June to early September he is available for charter. His secret pleasure is his collection of naval caps: caps from every country, with gold insignia he has no right to wear, but he does not care, he is happy. Toinette is eight years old, and we shall have more to say especially about her in 1939. One more thing to add: on the walls of her office Marie-Dévote, now well and truly overtaken by middle-aged spread, has a Picasso and a Matisse. Chez Antoine is featured in the guidebooks for its collection of paintings. Antoine’s early purchases have been added to with work by the Surrealists: Dalí, Tanguy, Magritte, De Chirico, Max Ernst. Antoine still knows nothing about art, but he is a lucky buyer, and has a gallery in Paris to advise him so that he scarcely puts a foot wrong. All of it is in Marie-Dévote’s name.