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By Catherine Delors
The investigation into the Rue Nicaise bombing attack, which is the topic of FOR THE KING
, is considered the first modern police investigation. As I researched it in great detail, I was struck by the modernity of the investigators’ thinking.
For instance, their first reflex was to look for the license plate of the cart where the bomb had been detonated, or for any witnesses who might remember the number. Yes, in 1800 Paris, all horse-drawn carts and carriages had license plates, just like modern cars. In this case, however, the license plate had been blown apart by the explosion, and no one had noticed the number.
The investigators made full use of the scientific techniques available to them. Letters from Georges Cadoudal, the famous royalist insurgent who had directed the conspiracy from afar, were identified by handwriting analysis. The gunpowder found in a barrel at the home of one suspect was analyzed and found to be of English manufacture.
But what fascinated me about the investigation was the first clue: the mare pulling the cart where the bomb, the infernal machine, had been brought to the scene. Little remained of the poor animal. But the head and one of the forelegs was intact. And, lo and behold, the hoof had been newly shod! Does it not remind you of a car with a brand-new tire?
It was the perfect clue, of course. All the police had to do was to round up all of the blacksmiths in Paris. Sure enough, one of them remembered three men bringing a little mare to get shod. The blacksmith identified the remains of the animal, and was able to provide a precise description of the three men who had taken her to his smithy. Soon it was posted all over the streets of Paris, with a reward of 2,000 gold louis, an enormous sum. It was only a matter of weeks before the assassins were caught…
Catherine Delors was born and raised in France. She graduated from the University of Paris-Sorbonne School of Law and became the youngest member of the Bar of Paris at the age of twenty-one. Her second novel, For the King, (Dutton Adult) was released July 8, 2010. Catherine is currently writing on a third novel, a prequel to Mistress of the Revolution. She is also researching a fourth one, which shall revolve about Jane Austen and her French connections. To read more about the book and the author, please click here.
IMAGE: Bombing attack at Rue Saint-Nicaise, Paris, 24th December 1800
Congratulations to the following W & M winners of this book:
Eric, Karen, and Carol
by Catherine Delors
Charles Perrault was born in Paris in 1628 into a family of wealthy bourgeois. As befitted his status, he received a careful education, on occasion running afoul of his school’s rules. There must have been a stong element of whimsy in him, for he wrote a burlesque version of Virgil’s most serious Eneid. He then went on to law school and became of member of the Bar, but discovered in short order that the practice of law was not to his liking.
As a well-connected young man, he had other options. He became a clerk in the Ministry of Finances, rose through the ranks and soon reported directly to Louis XIV’s most famous and influential minister, Colbert. He became Comptroller General of the Royal Buildings, a position of great importance, given the Sun King’s passion for architecture. The colonnade of the Louvre was build under his supervision.
He waited until middle age to marry, a much younger woman of course. But poor Madame Perrault died in childbirth after bearing him five children in six years, not an unusual occurrence at the time. Another misfortune followed a few years later: Colbert died, and Perrault, as his protégé, was dismissed from all of his public functions.
A widower and unemployed, Perrault returned to his first love, writing. Not that he has ever neglected literary endeavors during his years as what we would call an upper civil servant. He had been one of the most vocal proponents of “modern” literature versus the classics, and had played a major role in establishing the procedings of the French Academy.
Now he could dedicate his full time to writing. During the 1690s he published various literary versions of traditional folk tales. Perrault was not a mere scrivener. He chose between concurrent versions of the same stories, embellished, polished, removed what he did not like. Perrault’s fairytales are very much his own stories. They are terse, brisk, subtly ironic, unsentimental and beautifully written. If you read French, I recommend the original 1697 text, far superior to the better known “modernized” versions.
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