Read Online Memory of Flames by Isabel Reid (Translator) Armand Cabasson - Free Book Online

lodgings?’
    ‘Auberge Arcole, practically on your doorstep. The street doesn’t even have a name, but it’s on the banks of the Bievre, between two tanneries. Monsieur Fernand Lami. What am I to Chevalier Quentin de Langes?’
    A soldier who served under me in the 84th. You support the King because you think that will earn you money and because you’ve had enough of the war.’
    A role   almost   tailor-made for me! I’ll go and find Monsieur Natai tomorrow morning and see what reports he has for me. Then I’ll be able to tell you all about them in the evening.’
    ‘No. I don’t think you should do that. I’m not supposed to know the members of the organisation. If you tell me a lot about them now, I’m worried I’ll give myself away when I meet them.’
    ‘I don’t agree! The more you know about them, the better you’ll be able to adapt your conversation and tell them what they want to hear, if they’re going to accept you as one of theirs.’
    The first meeting with them will be fraught with difficulty. The strain of it might make me reveal something written in the police reports ...’
    ‘You’ll just have to be careful! And if you do ever make a mistake, you can always say that Charles de Varencourt told you about them.’
    ‘No. That’s against their rules and you can’t assume they’re stupid. The Revolution tried to paint the aristocracy as imbeciles and degenerates. But it never does to underestimate your enemies. No, I’ve made my decision. My strategy is going to be to get into the skin of my character as much as possible, and Chevalier Quentin de Langes doesn’t know much about them. So it must be the same for Lieutenant-Colonel Margont. You mustn’t talk to me about them until after I’ve met them for the first time. That leaves you enough time to study as many police reports as possible.
    Afterwards, in my other meetings with them, if I mention something I’m not supposed to know, then I’ll be able to say that I researched them after I had been admitted to the group. That’s exactly what Chevalier de Langes would do.’
    ‘Well ... all right, perhaps you’re right. You decide - it’s you who has to be Quentin de Langes ...’
     
    Rue du Pique looked unprepossessing. It was dirty, and the smell! The emanations from the tanneries, hide-makers and dye works mingled with the stink of mounds of rubbish ... Number 9, which had been converted into an inn, was so dilapidated it looked as if it might crumble to the ground at any minute. Margont presented himself to the owner as Monsieur Langes and was given the key to a room under the eaves.
    He studied the documents Joseph had given him. To help him memorise the events of his life, he imagined them unfolding before his eyes. When he was capable of reciting the life of Quentin de Langes, he burnt anything compromising and got rid of the
    ashes.
    The room had been suitably furnished before his arrival to suit his new persona. But he spent a little time rearranging things so that they better suited his own preferences. He chased away the cockroaches that scuttled under the floorboards at the approach of his candle, leafed through the books and scribbled notes in some of them, went to the window and hailed a water-carrier, who brought him up a bucket filled with water from the Seine. He ground his teeth when he opened the trunk. All the clothes were brand spanking new! He decided to throw them away and go to a second-hand clothes shop the next day. He would also buy a Bible. He thought about his situation, he was worried ... He felt like a ferret about to be released into an earth filled with foxes and expected to pass himself off as one of them.  

CHAPTER 8
    AFTER three days spent trying to perfect his royalist persona and avoid being observed, Margont was no longer quite himself. He was so successful in his new role that little by little he was starting to lose his bearings.
    He went to ‘his’ printing works, Imperial Press