Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [94]
“The seven days that followed have come to be known as La Semaine Sanglante, the Bloody Week. In short order, Thiers’s forces took the western districts; the east, however, was the seat of the Commune, and the fighting there was fierce. Travel through the streets was difficult, sometimes impossible, but it wasn’t necessary to go very far to know what was happening. All you had to do was walk to your window to hear the crack of the rifles, the boom of the cannons. The sharp smells of gunpowder and burning wood stained the air. Later, I read that, at the president’s request, the Prussians had expedited the release of thousands of the French soldiers they had captured, in order to swell the ranks of the national army. The Commune had no centralized plan for defense; rather, each district was charged with its own security. This allowed the army to divide and conquer the Commune. I, who had missed the civil war in the land of my birth, found myself at the heart of another.
“Nor was the Bloody Week the worst of it. Following the army’s conquest of the city, the members of the Commune were subject to extended reprisals. Having been associated with the city’s government to the slightest degree might lead to trial and execution. The cemetery at Père Lachaise, the Luxembourg Gardens, were taken over by firing squads. I might have fallen under suspicion, myself, were it not for my old friend the professor of the classics, who testified to my character.
“I could have stayed, I suppose, but the prospect of remaining in the ruin of the Commune was too bleak. Rupert Cook had lost interest in my reports, so I judged the time right to depart Paris. I stopped at Geneva for a few months, spent the winter in Florence, and settled in Venice. There I remained for the next fifteen years, for the first five of which Paris remained under martial law. Needless to say, the novel I had hoped would emerge from my time in the city remained unwritten. It has only been the past few years that I have been able to return to Paris. I had thought I might live there again, but it was impossible. The ghosts of seventeen years past would not allow it.
“So to hear that Mr. Dunn had built his early fortune by trading in the Commune’s weapons was . . . unsettling. To say the least.” His smile was humorless.
Another balloon had drawn close to them. “I believe your husband’s afternoon session should be drawing to a close,” Coleman said. He walked away from the balloon, towards the house.
VII
“Were you of age during the War Between the States?” Dunn asked.
“I was,” Coleman said without turning his gaze from the swords racked between two of the library’s considerable bookcases. He touched the pommel of a rapier. “May I?”
“Of course.”
The sword was heavier than Coleman anticipated. It took him a moment to find its balance, after which, he slashed right to left, left to right, theatrically.
“You were an officer,” Dunn said.
“I was not,” Coleman said, replacing the sword. “I suffered an . . . injury a few years before the outbreak of hostilities. I was visiting family friends, and there was a fire in their barn, which I joined the effort to extinguish. I was standing too close to one of the walls when it collapsed and showered me with debris. The quick response of my fellows saved me, but I was left unfit for service. Both my older brothers, Will and Bob, distinguished themselves in the war; in fact, Bob became one of Grant’s aides.” He spared a glance at Dunn, who was studying him intently. Coleman went on, “Since moving to London I’ve taken up fencing as a way to hold the effects of aging at bay.”
“The effects of your injury have lessened with the years,” Dunn said.
“They have not hindered my exercise, no.”
“Perhaps they would have allowed you to join your brothers.”
“Perhaps,” Coleman said. “I was in England when Sumter was shelled, and my father insisted