Read Online Paris Noir by Jacques Yonnet - Free Book Online Page B

of wind tore the clothes from the dismayed priest’s hands. And the slow train came to a halt.
    Waiting on the platform‚ heaped with wild flowers‚ singing sweetly‚ and accompanied by nuns‚ were some fifty very innocent young schoolgirls from a very Christian orphanage.
    The impending danger causing him to completely lose his head‚ Théophile just had time to dive under the seat. Some of the innocent band piled into his compartment. And the train was off again!
    His trepidation‚ the dust‚ the wild flowers being shaken about‚ were a torture to our poor wretched priest. He couldn’t help sneezing into one young girl’s calves‚ and she instantly screamed blue murder. Steeled with pious courage‚ the chaperon nun dared to bend down. A satanic vision met her eyes: a pair of buttocks blue with shame. She fainted and the young girls pulled the communication cord. The train stopped in open countryside while panic-stricken screams spread from carriage to carriage. Stoker‚ engine driver and conductor all came running‚ and had the greatest difficulty in dragging Théophile out from under his seat‚ more dead than alive. On the rail track‚ he was subjected to countless taunts‚ insults and jibes to which he was unable to respond‚ entirely preoccupied as he was with holding together his (much too short) shirt- tails‚ as a mischievous evening breeze contrived to set them aflutter.
    The satyr‚ as he’d immediately been dubbed‚ was handed over to two employees of the Railway Company‚ who marched him off to the gate-keeper’s house at the nearest level crossing (several kilometres away).
    From there a phone call was made to the police. Théophilehad some difficulty in establishing his bona fides. He spent the night in a cell‚ and it was only next morning that his clothes were found scattered along the embankment. At Auteuil he came up with some sheepish excuse‚ not daring to recount his misadventure‚ and for the first time ever lied to his superiors.
    Within the next few days the local press‚ alerted by the police report‚ had got hold of the story. The Seine-et-Marne Progress ‚ an anticlerical rag‚ indulged in sarcastic comments‚ no less humorous than ironic‚ while the Independent ‚ a self- righteous weekly‚ deplored both the incident and its rival’s lack of charitableness. That was enough for a Parisian columnist‚ Monsieur de la Fourchardière‚ to seize his opportunity and give free rein to his mordant wit. All mentioned the name of Théophile Trigou‚ in itself cause for amusement. And that was how from one day to the next this priest of ours was unceremoniously kicked out of the institution where his livelihood had been assured. Moreover‚ he was so violently traumatized by his experience‚ he never got over it.
    He doesn’t talk about the life he led during those subsequent months; but he was soon back in the Maubert neighbourhood‚ and also seen round the lycées – Charlemagne‚ Henri IV and St Louis. He’s grown a beard. Dressed in a jacket stiff with dirt‚ he wears a shirt-front and wing collar‚ but practically never a shirt. For a couple of glasses of wine or a bit of small change‚ he wonderfully assists school kids and university students with their Latin versification and translations. He’s known as ‘the Doctor’ or ‘the Professor’. He accepts his fate philosophically.

    At the same time as what happened at Rue de Bièvre‚ another house in Paris disappeared. It was in the newspapers. A gentleman from Lille – in the prohibited zone – who owns a building in Paris‚ on Rue Labrouste‚ put his property up for sale. It was an old dilapidated town house‚ long abandoned by its inhabitants.
    A vet in the southern zone decided to buy the building‚ with the intention of setting up a dog clinic there once the war was over. A Paris notary conducted the transactionwithout stirring from his office. But when some sort of quantity surveyor or