The third letter, I’d deliberately left for last, uncertain what I wanted to learn.
Pushing aside my plate, I broke the seal on the thick paper and found James Denis’s spare and slanting handwriting inside.
I made inquiries about the name you sent me, he began without preamble. Lucien Potier began life in a village north of Paris and served a few years in the army of Louis the Sixteenth. After the more radical of the national governments took power, he joined their number, helping to round up the king and his family as well as others slated for execution.
After Lyon’s surrender in 1793, he was sent to help coordinate the quelling of that city, arresting and executing anyone considered a traitor.
He curated a list of names for arrest that covered almost every aristocrat or any person with means in and around Lyon. Some of those were forewarned by friends and managed to escape, but Potier and others had many people rounded up and dispatched, including Christian Devere, grandfather of your soon-to-be son-in-law.
Potier kept careful records, which he sent back to Paris, documenting the deaths. The names on his lists who were not aristocrats, or wealthy men, or even attempting to aid the accused, he brushed aside as necessary casualties. It was war, he claimed, and civilians sometimes got in the way.
The officers in charge did complain about his heavy-handed tactics, one sending a plea to his superiors in Paris that Potier be recalled. This officer claimed that Potier was detrimental to order rather than helping to restore it. I have noted that this officer was soon reassigned to another regiment.
The last communication from Potier was in April of 1795. He sent in his lists of those he’d executed that week along with detailed information on property and money he’d seized.
The letter also mentioned his next targets. Potier had become highly suspicious of a family’s continuing treachery, even though their ringleader had already been dispatched. Potier decided they were covertly plotting their revenge, and so he would pay them a visit.
That family’s name was Devere.
Chapter 22
I laid down the letter and sat still.
That Potier had fixed upon the Deveres did not surprise me. They were an esteemed and successful family whose forebears had once served France’s monarchy.
That Potier’s very last dispatch mentioned he would visit them filled me with misgivings.
Moreau had told me that Potier would personally knock on the door of those he would condemn, demanding their wealth to spare them, and then drag them off to the guillotine anyway. This had happened to Madame Paillard’s family, and she’d escaped only due to the bravery of her father.
Potier had noted his plan to visit the Deveres, and shortly after that, he’d disappeared forever.
I drew a breath and returned to Denis’s letter, which had more to impart.
When his superiors in Paris heard nothing more from Potier, they wrote to the commander in charge of the city. This man told them that Potier had expressed a wish to retire, and one day simply packed a bag and walked off into the hills.
An official was sent to Lyon to make an inquiry, but all in authority there maintained that Potier had departed of his own volition, never to return. The official wrote his report and filed it.
Not long later, the government in Paris changed again, Bonaparte’s career was on the rise, and Lyon was left to recover by itself. No one cared very much what had happened to Potier, as he was never a popular figure, even to those who employed him. It was noted that he had retired somewhere in the south of France, and forgotten.
Filled with uneasiness, I read the letter again. The second perusal did not change the words, and I set down the paper once more, my thoughts troubled.
Potier had disappeared, and the conquerors of Lyon at the time hadn’t minded that he’d gone.
I wondered if one of their number had murdered Potier, either deliberately or during a confrontation that turned deadly. This would make a neat ending, but if so, would people like Beaumont and the Deveres be as zealous in their effort to quell all mention of him?
Or perhaps, realizing that Potier had likely been killed by a citizen of Lyon, his fellow officers had collaborated in the coverup. Potier had been so hated that even those sent to punish the city for its rebellion had been happy that he’d vanished.
Or else, the Lyonnais had banded together to make certain the story that Potier walked away of his own accord was taken as truth by the Parisian officials.
Denis had many contacts in all walks of life, including those in governments, and I did not doubt what he wrote. I imagined all had happened exactly as Denis put forth.
I heaved a sigh and picked up the last page of the missive, which I had not yet read.
I have learned of a letter in Italian that you turned up during your investigation of a dead blackmailer, one from a collection of Comte Lejeune. I would like to purchase said letter, as it is of interest to me, and wish for you to negotiate its sale.
Speak to Comtesse Lejeune, rather than the comte, as she will be more reasonable and accept a fair price. An agent of mine in Lyon will provide the cash. I will instruct you how to reach him once you have come to an agreement with the comtesse over its purchase.
He ended the letter as abruptly as he’d begun it, signing it simply as
