Poirgade has made the most of his opportunity and now de Vèze understands why he wanted to speak to him, heard anything more about that couple? The historian and his wife? As if you didn’t know, you hypocrite, it hardly seems possible that Poirgade is unaware that the historian and his wife have divorced, or that he doesn’t know what the grounds for it were, he looks pleasantly at de Vèze who feels like replying: I don’t know about the husband but the latest on the wife is that when I’m in Paris I still give her a good rogering, it works out very nicely, thanks, she’s got a bit of a short fuse and doesn’t care for red braces, but is very affectionate in her middle age.
Poirgade is a busybody who sprays gossip around, people think he sells information about strategy but in reality it’s the gossip that interests his clients, his clientele is apparently drawn from the highest levels, international seminars, those dinners, he measures his words carefully over the coffee, heard the latest? Handsome de Vèze, still shacked up with Morel’s ex! Wonderful example of fidelity, she leads him an awful dance but he always goes back, de Vèze is about to ditch Poirgade on the stairs, Poirgade senses it coming, I must leave you, Mr Ambassador, I gather the Minister is waiting, good day.
‘The Great Adventure is buggered!’ and it’s not in this ministerial office that de Vèze is likely to retrieve it, with this other dimwit with the crewcut and cockerel strut they’ve foisted on him, and all on account of a rumour, hearsay, yes many tongues wagging and many ears flapping, it’s hard to say exactly what’s being said but it’s common knowledge, it acquires credibility by sheer weight of numbers, no one’s laughing now, and when the talking stops it’s worse, there’s a shabby silence every time you want to talk to the allies, you go to meetings, to begin with everything’s fine, the flags flap, present arms, doors are opened for you, people greet you, there is warmth in the handshakes and because you’re there they make the most of the opportunity to discuss the diameter of waste-paper baskets, even the Germans give you the treatment, though every six months one of them feels the need to jump out of the window of his office.
The Iron Curtain? The Wall? The Germans are all jolly good pals! Every summer they all get together in Hungary and after the fourth glass of schnapps there is only one Greater Germania, über alles, with Bayreuth as capital! And this stupid clod of a Minister allows the strutting plumber to say his piece, my God they’re giving me instructions, a mole, at home in France, they take us for Englishmen, and today the English are laughing their socks off, saying we’re just imitating them.
The worst of it is that everyone knows now, and the President can’t come up with anything better than to put a woman on the case, of course he can bring women into whatever he likes, create all the State secretariats he wants for the distaff side, but he shouldn’t bring them into serious matters.
And he did bring one in, intriguing name, Chagrin, Michèle Chagrin, a spinster’s name, flat-chested, large chin, hair prematurely grey which she hasn’t bothered to dye, the President made her responsible for the file, direct orders from the Élysée, Chagrin began her career in the Army Ministry in 1964 or ’65, ex-student of the École nationale d’administration, did not graduate with flying colours, no way could she be called an intelligence expert, her field was administrative law, but for those military types even legal expertise was too much in a woman, they pushed her out, she left Paris.
What did she do then? she got herself noticed in the provinces for her serious approach to work, in the Auvergne, a prefect who says to the Minister of Finance I’ve got a remarkable woman in charge of my legal department, and the Minister poached her from the prefect, the minister becomes President with a capital P, Chagrin follows him, still on the legal side.
When the tale of the mole became a subject for a proper file, and a proper file is a file with a legal dimension, someone was needed to manage it properly, she was on hand, at least she was good at keeping on top of files, she ended up as overall coordinator, a woman of the shadows, never seen in receptions, never observed outside office hours, she was neither acolyte nor friend.
The men who came to report to the Élysée didn’t like her, they’d found a nickname for her, and they’d made sure she knew what it was, she even used it herself on occasions: ‘Lady Piddle’, civilians had never accepted her any more than the military did, but there had to be someone — not to make them agree, that was impossible, and just as well — but to provide liaison, syntheses, avoid catastrophic short-circuits, yes, and years down the line it was still her nickname, a rather good one, don’t you say it isn’t, I like it, and it suits me better and better because I’m getting on now and I stay in my small corner, even if it is in the Elysée, and also because when they walk into my little old lady’s office they get more and more nervous because they’ve got older too, because I know more and more about them and because I’ve acquired more and more responsibilities, not power, power is political.
I am Michèle Chagrin, civil service administrator, my responsibilities are defined by departmental order, I take no action which lies outside my official remit, I draft notes, and when a note seems to be satisfactory, then an officer, a colonel or higher, may be sent to Mourmelon or Lure, what a life, that’s why it makes them nervous when they walk into my office, they’re all incompetent, they see traitors everywhere, that prevents them from rooting out the real spies, especially the one who’s been making life difficult for us these last ten years, yes, I’ve also been useless at winkling the swine out, but that’s no reason for not managing the file properly.
Lady Piddle did not summon de Vèze, she bumped into him in town, as the saying goes, she was very nice to him, she looked like an unmade bed, we’ve got a lot of problems just now, she didn’t ask anything of him, she talked about people with experience, ones you could still, thank God, count on, right?
At what point did people really start to be afraid of Lady Piddle? when she got the scalp of a minister, a blabbermouth, confidential documents — no, not top-secret defence documents, papers from Cabinet meetings, yes, one set per minister, and some of it very sensitive — documents which often made a public appearance on the front page of a certain large-circulation evening newspaper.
Little Miss Chagrin was endlessly patient, low-ranking and high-powered, it took almost a whole parliamentary session, she made small changes in the figures in selected files which were handed out to Cabinet members, doctoring the set of figures given to this or that minister, just one set, not all of them, a small alteration after the decimal point, she did it each time she switched her attention to a new suspect, until one day a figure she had lightly modified found its way into the columns of a well-known evening paper, even so that proved nothing in itself, a minister may have a score of close colleagues who have sight of the same documents as their chief, Chagrin didn’t get excited, she multiplied the opportunities for temptation, one day she circulated three pages of a draft general budget to all ministers.
The minister under suspicion happened to be ill that day, the file was sent to him at home by motorcycle messenger, in it one of the figures that had been changed just for him, he got it a quarter of an hour before the leading daily was put to bed, and the figure in question was published on page one in the early afternoon edition, with the small alteration, the Lady went to see the President, very well, Chagrin, tell him I want to see him and you shall be present at the interview, you’ll be there with the correct version of the file. No need to get unduly worked up, this sort of thing never goes to court, a month later the minister resigned, entered a clinic, he’d known the President for a quarter of a century, it was such a stupid thing to do, so why did he do it?