Requiem for Paris: The Song of the Catacombs

Paris, 1800. The hunger has eased. The bells are still silent.

The Charbonneau family is surviving — which is not the same as whole. Marguerite sells violets on the Rue de Rivoli with twelve-year-old Alain, who has always drawn the same cracked bell on every wall without knowing why. Mathis counts bread in the palace kitchen of Napoleon Bonaparte, pressing a pewter button against his chest each morning like a prayer. Bastien has disappeared into the underground church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxe...