"Can you save him?"

And just then Charles' whisper rises up to us:

"Don't."

But Vidocq has already turned back toward the crowd, and in his most imperious voice, he's bellowing:

"Find me a tar pot! "

Such is his ability to remain in character that a good dozen people set off running in as many directions, crying "Yes, Monsieur! " as they go. The first to come back is a fish merchant, who has somehow discovered a roofer, who is bearing with him even now a pot of black sludge, oozing steam.

"Many thanks," says the counterfeit Comte d'Artois, using his own coat to take the pot. "Hector, give Charles your hand. He'll need something to squeeze."

The eyes of the lost dauphin are still glazed and opaque when Vidocq pulls the bloody towel from his arm and stares at those dangling fringes of vein and artery.

"Very sorry, Your Majesty," he says, making a quick genuf lection. "It's how we used to do it at sea."

And then he plunges Charles' arm into the tar pot.

Even Sanson f linches before the conf luence of f lesh and heat. The sizzle can be heard twenty yards away, the smell much farther. As for the scream, well, the Duchess must stop her ears for a good three minutes before it dies out.

It's so consuming, Charles' pain, that only much later in the evening do I think to look at my own hand, where I find two fingers swollen and purple. Broken by the sheer force of his grip.

CHAPTE R 4 6.

Foiled Hopes M uc h late r that night-after Charles has at last been lulled to sleep, after the Duchess has left us with promises to return the next morning-only then do Vidocq and I feel at ease to tell each other our stories.

" Four men? " he shouts into his wineglass. "That's all it took to bring you down? Ha! They needed eight for me."

He was stepping onto the Marquis's portico when they came at him. With everything they had, he said. Saddler's awl. Poleax. Sheath knife. Cooper's adze.

He could tell right away they were trying to subdue, not kill, so he made it as hard for them as he could. Disarmed one with a welltimed kick. Clocked another with his elbow. Took out a kneecap or two, broke a windpipe. Might still be there if they hadn't come at him with a road mender's hammer.

"At least I think that's what it was. Too late to duck."

Taking advantage of his stupor, they trussed him like a horse in a rope and martingale, dragged him down the steps, and locked him in the Marquis's wine cellar.

"That was the cruelest stroke of all, Hector. Leaving me a foot away from all those vintages and no means to drink."

The wine, however, was his salvation. With his bound feet, he was able to pull one of the bottles from the racks and shatter it against the stone f loor. The shards of glass he used to cut his ropes.

Before him and freedom stood only a locked door. A small barrier indeed, once he'd located a corkscrew. After reviving his spirits with a bottle of the Marquis de Monfort's best Burgundy, he proceeded to overpower the man assigned to guard him. Two more soon followed, at which point Vidocq seized the hammer and started swinging freely. Another three picked up their heels and ran.

"And then I turn round-and there stands our Monsieur, real as life. A pair of blackguards on either side of him. And in each of his hands, a fisticuff pistol, wrapped in a monogrammed handkerchief. Well, I was treed, I don't mind telling you. Calm as I could be, I said, 'You've gone to a great deal of trouble, Monsieur.'

"And he said, 'Oh, I'd hoped to avoid all this mess, but I can't have you taking someone else's rightful throne. It won't do, you know.' "

"What happened then?"

"Well, I figured my only chance was to prick the bugger's vanity. 'Come now,' I said. 'Shooting a man's not the way for you. Aren't you one of the premier swordsmen in the land? Why don't we settle this, just the two of us? Let's take the buttons off your foils and have at it.' "

"You challenged him to a duel?"

"Well, what I failed to mention is I'm a bit of an old hand with the foil myself. Learned when I was a kid, roistering with the soldier boys in Arras. First man I ever killed was a fencing instructor."

Never mind, Monsieur accepted the offer straightaway and set the time and place. Now. In the courtyard.

Strange sort of duel. Not pistols at dawn but blades in the middle of the afternoon. No seconds present, unless you count the two hired knaves cheering Monsieur on-even threatening to tilt the contest in his favor.

Vidocq had the advantage of being younger and larger. Monsieur, on his side, was spryer and, having fenced more recently, possessed the more dazzling technique. ("The footwork was a joy, Hector.") Round and round they went on the parterres, as evenly matched as combatants could be. Every parry led to its natural riposte. Counterparry followed counterriposte. The sound of the blades resounded against the white plaster walls, the rooks cawed from the roof line, Monsieur's knaves cheered and booed . . . and Vidocq soon realized he was running out of time.

"Oh, I was breathing hard, my friend. Then, out of nowhere, Monsieur comes out with the rose couverte. Wings me in the side, knocks me on the back. Next thing I know his foil's jabbing into my neck. You can see the scab right there."

"What did you do?"

"Well, the thing that saved me is this. I'm no gentleman. Many years ago, in the galleys, Goupil taught me a little savate move called the snapping turtle. Came back to me in a trice. And when I heard Monsieur's leg go, I suddenly remembered: 'That's where the snapping part comes from.'