I encounter odd reactions when his name, which has been mentioned only in passing in the newspapers, comes up in conversation. One attorney involved with the family looks startled when I ask about Gonzalez. “How did you know that?” he snaps. But eventually he offers the information that “Guillaume left a suitcase with that name on it” at Philippe’s house. Jean Marchand says that juge d’instruction Lorentz told him that the court was close to charging Tilly’s accomplices, and that Lorentz specifically said, “Jacques Gonzalez is next on the list.”

One day a Sud Ouest reporter mentions that he has a possible address for Gonzalez, in Paris, but hasn’t pursued it. (The name “Jacques Gonzalez” is not uncommon in France.) On a blustery afternoon, I decide to pay the man a visit. Emerging from a Paris Métro stop, I walk to the address, a very fancy, ostentatiously secure building in a very unfancy, possibly dangerous neighborhood. The lobby is a blaze of hectic geometries in brass and marble. When told that I am here to see Jacques Gonzalez, the concierge gives directions to his apartment. He makes no further inquiries and does not call ahead to announce my visit.

The door of the apartment is freshly painted red and emblazoned with the name “J. Gonzalez” in big letters. I ring the bell. A short, gray-haired man who looks to be in his early 60s cracks the door open about six inches and, peering out through gold-rimmed spectacles, says “Yes?” Which is odd: a Parisian would no more greet a visitor with that word than a Chicagoan would answer the door with “Oui?” I introduce myself in French, and he interrupts: “You can speak English.” He disclaims knowledge of every subject I raise. “When did you first meet Thierry Tilly?” Smiling, he says, “I don’t know him.” “When did you start working for the Blue Light Foundation?” Smiling, he says, “I do not know the Blue Light Foundation.” “L’Équilibre du Monde?” … “Oxford?” … “The de Védrines?” He knows nothing, he says. Gonzalez’s manner is equable, patient, resolutely incurious. The replies are not “Thierry who?” or “Blue Light what?” or even “Who are you? Why are you asking me these things?”

I leave the apartment building not knowing what to think. Had I simply been speaking with the wrong Jacques Gonzalez? Or had I indeed met the real Gonzalez, as wily as ever? Or was the Jacques Gonzalez in this story nothing more than a chimera?

Six months later, police knocked on the same door. The man I met was arrested, his home searched and, according to a Bordeaux court statement, his property seized: 34,000 euros in cash, “along with numerous objects … including lithographs, watches of great value, bottles of fine vintage wines … an opulent wardrobe,” and a BMW 645—with another 86,000 euros in the trunk. That same day, also in Paris, police arrested a second man who has been identified only as Pascal and was described by a court spokesperson as a go-between who received money and other property from the de Védrines for delivery to Gonzalez. Both Gonzalez and Pascal were taken to Bordeaux, jailed, and charged with “possession of criminally obtained property and complicity in the crimes of taking advantage of the weakness of a person in a state of psychological or physical subjection, extortion, fraud, and money laundering.” Gonzalez, who had no previous criminal record, was also charged with “failure to report assets by a person in ongoing collusion with a perpetrator of extortion.”

The trials of Tilly and his alleged accomplices will not only decide justice. They will also sort myth from fact. But certain realities are already known and will not change. The relationship between the de Védrines and Thierry Tilly has devastated the family. It has also demonstrated the family’s aristocratic indestructibility. The events of the past decade have damaged or scarred many other people—the teachers, the landlords, the family’s friends and associates—and not all of these sins can be hung on Thierry Tilly. For all that, neither the courts of law nor those of public opinion have gone out of their way to recognize any victims in this tale except for the de Védrines. As the saying goes, they still have their name.

Yet nothing can restore to the family what has been lost. The château is irretrievable. It was sold again last year to a couple with a small boy. In Château Martel’s driveway, the boy’s mother, wearing a red fake-fur coat, waved her small, pale fist at a reporter and shouted, “There is nothing to see here! The château is mine now! Voilà!”