Gaviali said he was ready to work for anyone who paid well, and Simonini in the meantime gave him enough to survive on without having to collect rags for at least a month. There’s nothing like the threat of jail to encourage obedience to another’s commands.
It was some time later that Hébuterne told Simonini what Gaviali had to do. In December 1893 an anarchist, Auguste Vaillant, had thrown a small explosive device, filled with nails, in the Chamber of Deputies, shouting: «Death to the bourgeoisie! Long live anarchy!» It was a symbolic gesture. «If I had wanted to kill, I’d have filled the bomb with shot,» said Vaillant at his trial. «You don’t expect me to lie to give you the pleasure of cutting off my head.» They cut off his head all the same, to set an example, but that was not the problem. The secret service was worried that gestures of this kind might seem heroic and would therefore be imitated.
«There are those who set a bad example,» Hébuterne explained to Simonini, «who defend and encourage terror and social unrest, while they remain comfortably ensconced in their clubs and restaurants discussing poetry and drinking champagne. Look at Laurent Tailhade, a gutter journalist who enjoys a double influence on public opinion since he’s also a parliamentary deputy. This is what he wrote about Vaillant: ‘What does it matter about the victims if the gesture was laudable?’ The Tailhades of this world are more dangerous than the Vaillants because it’s more difficult to cut off their heads. It is time these intellectuals who never pay for what they do were taught a public lesson.»
And the lesson had to be arranged by Simonini, and by Gaviali. At Foyot, in the very corner where Tailhade was enjoying one of his expensive meals, a bomb exploded a few weeks later and he lost an eye. (Gaviali was indeed a genius: the bomb had been devised in such a way that the victim, rather than dying, would be injured just enough.) The government newspapers made the most of it, writing sarcastic comments such as, «So, Monsieur Tailhade, was this a laudable gesture?» A great success for the government, for Gaviali and for Simonini. And, in addition to his eye, Tailhade lost his reputation.
Most satisfied of all was Gaviali, and Simonini was pleased to restore a livelihood and respect to someone who, through life’s vicissitudes, had had the misfortune to lose them.
Hébuterne had entrusted Simonini with other assignments over these same years. The Panama scandal was by now losing its impact on public opinion—people get bored after a while when the news is always the same. Drumont was no longer interested in the case, but others were still fanning the flames, and the government was worried that it might (how would one put it today?) all backfire. It was time to distract attention from the last dregs of a story that was now stale, and Hébuterne asked Simonini to organize a riot—big enough to fill the front pages of the newspapers.
Simonini said organizing a riot would not be easy, and Hébuterne suggested that those most inclined to cause a disturbance were students. The best approach was to get the students to start something and then call in a specialist in public disorder.
Simonini had no contacts among students, but those who did, he immediately thought, were revolutionaries and, better yet, anarchists. And who knew the anarchist groups better than anyone? Someone whose job it was to infiltrate and expose them, and therefore Rachkovsky. So he sent word to Rachkovsky, who, displaying all his lupine teeth in a smile that was meant to be friendly, asked for details.
«All I want is a few students who can cause a disturbance when required.»
«That’s easy,» said the Russian. «Go to the Château-Rouge.»
The Château-Rouge in rue Galande appeared to be a meeting place in the Latin Quarter for down-and-outs. It stood at the end of a courtyard, with a guillotine-red façade. As you entered, you were hit by the asphyxiating stench of rancid grease and mildew, and of soup that had been cooked and recooked over the years, leaving tangible traces on those greasy walls—though there was no apparent reason for this, since you had to bring your own food with you, and the house offered wine and plates only. The noxious haze of tobacco smoke and gas escaping from the lamps seemed to have cast a drowsiness over the dozens of tramps sitting there, three or four on either side of the tables, each sleeping on the shoulder of the other.
But the two inner rooms admitted no vagrants. Here instead were old whores wearing cheap jewelry, fourteen-year-old tarts with a premature air of insolence, sunken eyes and the pallid mark of tuberculosis, and local rogues wearing showy rings with fake stones and redingotes a cut above the rags in the first room. Wandering about in that reeking confusion were well-dressed women, and men in evening wear. A visit to the Château-Rouge had become an experience not to be missed: late in the evening, after the theater, elegant carriages arrived—le tout Paris came to enjoy the thrill of the demimonde, most of whom had probably been recruited by the landlord (with free absinthe) to attract the respectable people, who would pay twice the proper price for the same absinthe.
But the two inner rooms admitted no vagrants. Here instead were old whores wearing cheap jewelry, fourteen-year-old tarts with a premature air of insolence, sunken eyes and the pallid mark of tuberculosis, and local rogues wearing showy rings with fake stones and redingotes a cut above the rags in the first room.
At the Château-Rouge, on Rachkovsky’s advice, Simonini met a man called Fayolle, a fetus trader by occupation. He was an elderly man who spent his evenings there drinking 160-proof eau de vie, spending what he had earned that day from his tour of the hospitals, where he collected fetuses and embryos to sell to students at the École de Médecine. Fayolle stank of rotten flesh as well as alcohol, and was obliged, because of the stench, to sit alone, even in the fetid atmosphere of the Château-Rouge; but he was said to have good connections with the student world, especially with those who had become professional students over the years—those who were more inclined toward interests other than studying fetuses, and ready to cause trouble whenever the occasion arose.
At that time, as luck would have it, the youngsters in the Latin Quarter had become annoyed at an old prig, Senator Bérenger, whom they had nicknamed Père la Pudeur. He had proposed a law to put a stop to offenses against morality, of which (he said) the prime victims were the students themselves. The pretext was a series of performances at the Bal des Quat’z Arts by a certain Sarah Brown, who appeared semi-naked, exposing ample quantities of flesh (and was probably clammy with sweat, Simonini imagined with horror).
Woe to anyone depriving students of the honest pleasures of voyeurism. Fayolle and his group were already planning to go one night and cause a disturbance under the senator’s windows. All Simonini had to do was find out which night and arrange for a few ruffians to be in the neighborhood, ready and waiting for a fight. For a modest sum Fayolle was prepared to handle everything. All Simonini had to do was tell Hébuterne the date and the time.
The students had barely begun their disturbance when a company of soldiers or police (or whatever they were) arrived. There is nothing better than the arrival of policemen to kindle feelings of violence among students. A few stones began to fly and there was plenty of shouting. Then some poor wretch who happened to be passing was struck in the face by a bullet fired by a soldier. Here was the vital death. And that was it, the beginnings of a proper revolt. At this point Fayolle’s thugs arrived. The students stopped a bus, politely asked the passengers to get off, unharnessed the horses and overturned the vehicle to use as a barricade, but the professionals weighed in immediately, setting the bus alight. In short, a noisy protest turned into a riot, and from a riot to a hint of revolution. Plenty to keep the front pages busy for quite some time. Adieu, Panama.
The Bordereau
The most profitable year for Simonini was 1894. It happened almost by chance, though chance always needs a helping hand.
Around that time Drumont’s bitterness about the number of Jews in the army had deepened.
«No one talks about it,» Drumont ranted. «No one wants to compromise our faith in the army by speaking out about these potential traitors to our fatherland at the very heart of our most glorious institution, or to say that the army is being corrupted by so many of these Jews,» and he pronounced the words «ces Juëfs, ces Juëfs» with his lips protruding, as if his fierce, impetuous words would reach out directly to the whole infamous Israelite race. «But someone must speak out. Do you know how the Jew is now trying to make himself respectable? By making a career as an officer, or mixing in the drawing rooms of the aristocracy as an artist and pederast.
Adultery with old-fashioned gentlemen or with respectable clergymen no longer amuses our duchesses. They never tire of the bizarre, the exotic, the monstrous; they let themselves be wooed by patchouli-scented characters made up like women. Whatever perversions the aristocracy gets up to are of little interest to me—those countesses
