The Ghost of Richelieu laments the humbling of France

The headlamp I brought from Temu had flickered out half a dozen levels above the subterranean gallery where I picked my way to the circular staircase that led to the secret ossuary of the Carthusian monks, deep below the sewers of Paris.

With a magnum of Chateau Margaux in one hand and a large brass spittoon in the other, I clenched my phone between my teeth and stumbled along the niter-covered walls by its flashlight.

The eroded stone steps of the staircase seemed to wobble under my feet, and I stumbled with tortuous languor until I felt the viscous muck of the ossuary floor. The stacked skulls of long-departed Carthusians grinned at me.

Once again, I kept tryst with the Ghost of Cardinal Richelieu, victor of the Thirty Years War and architect of France’s 200-year dominance on the European continent.

I waited for what seemed an eternity until the second hand on my watch swept towards night and planted the spittoon into the putrescent ooze below me. I uncorked the Margaux and poured it into the spittoon and waited.

Spirits of the French dead filtered out of the walls and drifted toward the wine. I made out the faces of General Weygand, the defeated commander of the Battle of France, and Marshal Ney, who commanded the rear guard during the Grand Armee’s catastrophic retreat from Moscow.

I waved them away until a translucent shadow crept up on the spittoon. It inserted a spectral proboscis into the narrow opening and took on color as it absorbed the Bordeaux, and then extracted its head with an audible pop.

“I warn you,” said the Ghost in his Maurice Chevalier accent. “I am in a rotten mood.”

“Eminence,” I ventured, “what will become of France? It seems ungovernable. President Macron’s party had less than 15% of the votes