The Kill

  Saccard had long studied these three networks of streets and boulevards, the plan for which he had been careless enough to describe in reasonably accurate terms to Angèle. When she died, he was by no means upset to know that she took with her to the grave all memory of his loose talk from that day on the Buttes Montmartre. There, in the slashes he had made with his hand in the heart of Paris, lay the seeds of his fortune, and he had no intention of sharing his idea with anyone, knowing full well that when the day came to divide the spoils, there would be plenty of crows circling the gutted city. His initial plan had been to acquire, at a good price, a building he knew to be slated for imminent demolition and then to make a killing on the indemnity. He might have gone ahead and taken his chances without a cent to his name, buying the building on credit and pocketing the difference when the price went up as in buying shares of stock on margin, but then the 200,000-franc bonus from his marriage encouraged him to think big. His calculations were now complete: he would use a front to purchase his wife’s house on the rue de la Pépinière, leaving his name out of the transaction entirely, and triple his investment thanks to the knowledge he had acquired in the corridors of the Hôtel de Ville and through his connections with certain influential individuals. The reason he had been startled when Aunt Elisabeth mentioned the location of the house was that it happened to be situated right in the middle of a proposed new thoroughfare, knowledge of which was still confined to the offices of the Prefect of the Seine.20 The boulevard Malesherbes was to sweep away everything in its path. This was an old project of Napoleon I, which there was now talk of reviving in order “to allow a normal traffic flow to and from neighborhoods cut off by the maze of narrow streets on the slopes of the Paris perimeter,” to use the earnest official phraseology. That phraseology of course avowed nothing of the interest the Empire had in opening the spigots of cash or in the vast projects of excavation and filling that would capture the imagination of the working class. Saccard had once taken the liberty of examining the famous map of Paris in the prefect’s office on which “an august hand” had traced in red ink the main roads of the second network. Those bloody strokes of the pen had cut into Paris even more deeply than the hand of our surveyor of roads. The boulevard Malesherbes, which would require the demolition of any number of superb mansions on the rue d’Anjou and the rue de la Ville-l’Evêque as well as the construction of substantial embankments, was one of the first slated to be put through. When Saccard went to inspect the building on the rue de la Pépinière, he thought back on that autumn night, on that dinner he had eaten with Angèle on the Buttes Montmartre, during which showers of gold louis had rained on the neighborhood around the Madeleine at sunset. He smiled. The shining cloud had just burst over his head, above his courtyard, and he was soon to start scooping up those golden coins.

  While Renée, luxuriously installed in the apartment on the rue de Rivoli, right in the middle of the new Paris of which she was soon to become one of the queens, pondered her future wardrobe and tried her hand at the life of the socialite, her husband devoted himself to his first important business transaction. His first move was to buy from his wife the house on the rue de la Pépinière, using a certain Larsonneau as an intermediary. Larsonneau was someone he had come to know while prying into the secrets of city hall but who had been foolish enough to get caught going through the prefect’s files. He had then set himself up as a real estate agent in an office off a dank and dismal courtyard at the lower end of the rue Saint-Jacques. This was a cruel blow to Larsonneau’s pride, as well as to his greed. He found himself in the same position Saccard had been in prior to his marriage. He, too, claimed to have invented a “money machine,” only he lacked the initial funds needed to capitalize on his invention. Saccard quickly came to a tacit understanding with his former colleague, who did his job so well that he managed to purchase the house for 150,000 francs. After only a few months, Renée was already badly in need of cash. Her husband intervened solely to authorize his wife to sell. When the deal was done, she asked him to invest the proceeds on her behalf and entrusted 100,000 francs of the money to him, no doubt hoping to win him over with this show of confidence and encourage him to overlook the 50,000 francs she kept for pocket money. He smiled knowingly. In his calculations he had already taken into account the fact that she would be shoveling money out the window. The 50,000 francs that would soon vanish in lace and jewels would come back to him with a hundred percent profit. He was so pleased with this first transaction that he carried honesty to the point of actually investing the 100,000 francs that Renée had given him in bonds, which he then turned over to his wife. Since she could not sell them, he was certain of being able to recover his nest egg should the need arise.

  “My dear,” he said gallantly, “these will do for your rags.”

  Once he was in possession of the house, he was shrewd enough to resell it twice to fronts, raising the price each time. The final buyer paid no less than 300,000 francs for the property. Meanwhile, Larsonneau, who acted as sole representative of the successive owners, harassed the tenants. He was merciless, refusing to renew their leases unless they agreed to substantial rent increases. The tenants, having gotten wind of the impending confiscation of the property, were desperate. In the end they agreed to accept the rent hike, especially after Larsonneau made the conciliatory gesture of announcing that the increase would exist only on paper for the first five years and no additional sums would actually be collected. The few tenants who refused to back down were replaced by shills to whom free housing was offered in exchange for signing any document placed in front of them. This yielded two benefits: the nominal rents went up, and the indemnity to be paid to the tenant for his lease would go to Saccard. Mme Sidonie wanted to help her brother out by setting up a piano shop in one of the ground-floor boutiques. At this point Saccard and Larsonneau got a bit carried away: they concocted fake books for the business and forged signatures to make it appear as though the shop was doing a huge volume of sales. They spent several nights together scribbling away. As a result of all these efforts, the building tripled in value. Thanks to the final contract of sale, the rent increases, the sham tenants, and Mme Sidonie’s shop, it was possible to propose an estimated value of 500,000 francs to the commission on indemnities.

  Confiscation by eminent domain—the powerful machine that bulldozed its way through Paris for fifteen years, leaving wealth and ruin in its wake—could not be simpler in its operation. As soon as the decision to build a new street is made, surveyors map out the affected parcels of land and estimate the value of the properties. In the case of rental properties, they make inquiries to determine the income stream from rentals in order to calculate an approximate value of the building as a capital investment. The indemnity commission, made up of members of the municipal council, then makes an offer that is always less than this calculated figure, knowing that the owners will ask for more and that the eventual price will be reached through compromise. If agreement cannot be reached, the case goes to a jury, which has the final say in arbitrating between the city’s offer and the price asked by the landlord or lessee facing expropriation.

  Saccard, who had decided to remain in his job at city hall until after the crucial decisions were taken, had briefly entertained the impudent idea of having himself named as estimator on the boulevard Malesherbes project, which would have allowed him to set the value of his own house. But he was afraid that in doing so he would inhibit his ability to exert influence on the members of the indemnity commission. So he had one of his colleagues appointed instead, a pleasant, amiable young man named Michelin, whose strikingly beautiful wife often appeared in person to present her husband’s excuses to his superiors when he stayed away from work. He stayed away frequently. Saccard had observed that the lovely Mme Michelin, who had such a discreet way of slipping into offices when doors were left ajar, could work wonders. Michelin came away from each of his illnesses with a promotion; he made his way in life by taking to his bed. During one of hi
s absences, when he was sending his wife to the office nearly every morning with news of his condition, Saccard twice ran into him on the outer boulevards smoking his cigar with his usual expression of bemused delight. These encounters left Saccard with sympathy for both this fine young man and this happy couple, which had demonstrated such ingenuity and pragmatism in its dealings with the bureaucracy. Indeed, he admired any skillfully operated money machine. After securing the appointment for Michelin, he went to see the young man’s charming wife, insisted on introducing her to Renée, and spoke in her presence of his brother the deputy and illustrious speechmaker. Mme Michelin got the point. From that day on, her husband reserved his most significant smiles for his colleague. Saccard, who did not want to take the worthy youth into his confidence, simply turned up as if by chance on the day the building on the rue de la Pépinière was to be inspected. He offered his assistance. Michelin, who was stupider and more empty-headed than one might imagine, followed the instructions given him by his wife, who had recommended that he do everything possible to please M. Saccard. In any case, he suspected nothing. He thought that the clerk wanted him to hurry through his work so that they could go off together to a café. The leases, the rental receipts, and Mme Sidonie’s amazing books passed through his colleague’s hands while Saccard looked on, and there was not even time to verify the figures, which Saccard himself read out loud. Larsonneau, who was also present, treated his accomplice as a stranger.

  “Go ahead, put it down as 500,000 francs,” Saccard said in the end. “The house is worth more. . . . Hurry up, I think there’s going to be a change in personnel at city hall, and I want to discuss it with you so that you can pass it on to your wife.”

  That sealed the deal. Saccard was still anxious, though. He was afraid that the 500,000-franc figure might strike the indemnity commission as somewhat inflated for a house well-known to be worth 200,000 at best. The remarkable rise in real estate values had yet to take place. An investigation would have subjected him to a risk of serious unpleasantness. He remembered what his brother had said to him: “No unseemly scandals, or I’ll get rid of you.” And he knew Eugène to be the kind of man to carry out such a threat. The honorable members of the commission would need to have the wool pulled over their eyes, and their goodwill would have to be secured. He looked to two influential men whose friendship he had won by the way he greeted them in hallways when they met. The thirty-six members of the municipal council were handpicked by the Emperor himself, on the prefect’s recommendation, from among the senators, deputies, lawyers, doctors, and leading industrialists who knelt most devoutly before the majesty of the government. Of all of them, however, two had earned the favor of the Tuileries by their zealousness: Baron Gouraud and M. Toutin-Laroche.

  All of Baron Gouraud is summed up in this brief biography: made a baron by Napoleon I for supplying the Grand Army with spoiled rations, he was a peer under Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Louis-Philippe21 in succession and became a senator under Napoleon III. He was a worshiper of the throne, of four gilt boards covered with velvet; the man who happened to sit on it mattered little to him. With his enormous belly, bovine face, and elephantine gait, he proved to be a charming rogue. He sold himself in the most majestic manner and committed the most dishonorable acts in the name of duty and conscience. His vices were even more astonishing. There were rumors about him that could only be whispered. Despite his seventy-eight years, monstrous debauchery was his element. On two occasions his filthy escapades had had to be hushed up in order to keep his sumptuous senatorial robes from being dragged through the criminal courts.

  M. Toutin-Laroche, a tall, thin man known for having invented a mixture of suet and stearin used in the manufacture of candles, dreamed of becoming a senator. He stuck to Baron Gouraud like a leech, rubbing up against him with the idea that this would somehow bring him luck. At bottom he was a very pragmatic man, and had he found a senate seat for sale he would have haggled ferociously over the price. The Empire was about to make a celebrity of this greedy nonentity, this narrow-minded entrepreneur with a genius for shady industrial deals. He was the first to sell his name to a dubious company, one of those corporations that sprang up like poisonous mushrooms on the dung heap of imperial speculation. Some time ago a poster could be seen glued to the walls of Paris and bearing the following words in big black letters: SOCIÉTÉ GÉNÉRALE DES PORTS DU MAROC. It featured the name of M. Toutin-Laroche together with his title as municipal councilor at the head of a list of members of the board of directors, each more obscure than the next so far as the general public was concerned. This technique, much abused since, worked wonders. People rushed to buy stock in the company, even though a great deal remained unclear about what was to be done with the “ports of Morocco,” and the good people who invested their money could not themselves explain what project it was to be used for. The poster offered a superb description of commercial stations to be established along the Mediterranean coast. For two years previously, certain newspapers had been singing the praises of this ambitious venture, which every three months they reported to be prospering as never before. At the municipal council, M. Toutin-Laroche enjoyed a reputation as a top-flight administrator. He was one of the big thinkers of the group, and the harsh tyranny he exercised over his colleagues was rivaled only by the abject devotion he showed to the prefect. He was already at work setting up a major financial venture to be called the Crédit Viticole, which proposed to lend money to wine growers, and he spoke of this in such a halting, grave manner that all the imbeciles around him burned to invest in it.

  Saccard won the protection of these two personages by doing them favors, the importance of which he shrewdly pretended not to notice. He introduced his sister to the baron, who was mixed up at the time in a most unsavory affair. He took her to the baron’s house on the pretext of soliciting his support for Mme Sidonie’s long-standing effort to obtain a contract to supply the Tuileries with draperies. After they spent some time alone together, however, it turned out that it was she who promised the baron to negotiate with certain individuals ill-mannered enough not to be honored by the friendship that a senator had deigned to show their daughter, a little girl of ten. Saccard himself took the initiative with M. Toutin-Laroche. He contrived a meeting in a corridor and turned the conversation to the much-discussed Crédit Viticole. Before five minutes had passed, the great administrator, alarmed and dumbfounded by the astonishing things he was hearing, took the clerk familiarly by the arm and kept him standing in the hallway for the next hour. Saccard whispered in his ears details of the most wonderfully ingenious financial schemes. On taking his leave, M. Toutin-Laroche squeezed the clerk’s hand in a most meaningful way and gave him a conspiratorial wink.

  “You’ll be in on it,” he mumbled. “You’ve got to be in on it.”

  Saccard was at his best throughout these maneuvers. He was prudent enough not to make Baron Gouraud and M. Toutin-Laroche each other’s accomplices. He visited them separately and whispered in each man’s ear a word in favor of one of his friends whose property on the rue de la Pépinière was about to be taken by eminent domain. He was careful to tell each of his two cronies that he would not breathe a word about this business to any other member of the commission, that it was all still up in the air, and that he was counting most especially on the help of whichever one he was speaking to.

  The clerk was right to be wary and take precautions. When the dossier on his building came before the indemnity commission, it turned out that one of the members lived on the rue d’Astorg and knew the house. This man objected to the figure of 500,000 francs, which he said ought to be reduced by more than half. Aristide had been impudent enough to ask for 700,000. That day, M. Toutin-Laroche, who was normally extremely unpleasant to his colleagues, was in an even fouler mood than usual. He became incensed and took up the defense of property owners.

  “We all own property, gentlemen. The emperor is out to do great things. Let’s not haggle over trifles. . . . This house ought
to be worth 500,000 francs. The figure was set by one of our own people, an employee of city hall. . . . You’d think we were living in a den of thieves. Keep this up and we’ll end up being suspicious of one another.”

  Baron Gouraud, sunk deep in his chair, glanced with surprise out of the corner of his eye at M. Toutin-Laroche fulminating on behalf of the owner of the rue de la Pépinière property. A suspicion crossed his mind. But since Toutin-Laroche’s vehement diatribe made it unnecessary for him to speak out, he simply nodded vigorously to signal his approval. Disgusted, the member from the rue d’Astorg dug in his heels and refused to give in to the two tyrants of the commission on a matter about which he was more competent than they. At that point, M. Toutin-Laroche, having noted the baron’s gesture of approval, grabbed the dossier and curtly said, “Very well, then. We’ll dispel your doubts. . . . If you’ll allow me, I’ll look into the matter, and Baron Gouraud will join me.”

  “Yes, of course,” the baron added gravely. “Our decisions must be beyond reproach.”

  The file had already vanished into M. Toutin-Laroche’s ample pockets. The commission was obliged to go along. On the way out, the two accomplices met on the quay and looked at each other without cracking a smile. They sensed that they were in this together, which only added to their poise. Men of commoner stamp would have insisted on explaining themselves, but these two continued to argue the case for property owners, as if the others could still hear them, and to deplore the distrustful attitude that was becoming so ubiquitous.

  As they were about to part, the baron paused for a moment and smiled. “Oh, I almost forgot, but I’ll be leaving shortly for the country. Would you be kind enough, my dear colleague, to conduct this little inquiry without me? . . . And whatever you do, please don’t give away my secret: those fellows are always complaining that I take too many vacations.”