Babazouk is the old city of Nice, a historic urban quarter set beside the port and below the rocky Colline du Château. In the novel, its public streets become part of a tightly managed security operation, while its nighttime rooftops offer Paul Darac a quieter but unresolved aftermath to the violence he has endured and witnessed.

Setting and Approach

From the port, the Colline du Château rises between the waterfront and Babazouk, placing the old city beside the route followed by the Garde Républicaine during the Tour de France operation. In postcard-perfect sunshine, Yves Dauresse, Roger Lascaux, and David Jarret drive along the quayside at the hill’s foot, where the procession’s approach draws a crowd behind crash barriers. Babazouk is thus introduced not as an isolated picturesque quarter but as part of a closely watched urban landscape, where spectators, streets, and elevated viewpoints bear directly on security.

The Waterfront Operation

At Station 37, opposite the Monument aux Morts, Roger Lascaux slows to a stop, dismounts, and acknowledges a spectator’s wave. His arrival signals to the crowd that the riders are coming. A little farther along, at Station 38 on the Quai des États-Unis, Yves Dauresse is responsible for directing the cyclists across to the carriageway’s left-hand side. Rather than attending to the crowd, he checks the surrounding terrain and becomes concerned about the Ponchette, a broad, flat-roofed terrace opposite the promenade.

Dauresse’s suspicion is confirmed when he catches sight of a familiar silhouette above an archway leading through to the daily market on Cours Saleya: what appears to be the short muzzle of an MP5 submachine gun. The view across the waterfront turns the city’s built fabric into a potential line of threat. The terrace, archway, and market entrance are not incidental scenery; they are positions that a vigilant officer must read as part of his assignment.

Night on the Rooftops

Later, after Darac has freed Agnès from her shackles and carried her outside, he steps onto a roof terrace in Babazouk at 11:15 p.m. The nighttime quarter is rendered through sound and atmosphere: Charlie Mingus’s “Goodbye Porkpie Hat” drifts in the slipstream, and the terrace hums with the sounds and scents of the neighborhood. The setting has shifted from the exposed, crowded waterfront to a private perch above the old city.

After three days of oppressive heat, the breeze from the Baie des Anges feels cooler. Darac puts down a cold beer, sits, and looks at a clear sky. Yet the apparent calm cannot deliver consolation: he turns from the stars to the Holocaust and doubts that the universe can offer any help with it. The roof provides distance and stillness, but not escape from the history and suffering occupying his thoughts.

A Place of Aftermath

Darac’s attention returns to Agnès. Her immediate prognosis is good, and doctors expect her to make a full physical recovery, but he understands that she will need fortitude to face the trauma that remains. His own body bears a visible reminder of the ordeal: a Steri-Strip covers the bullet furrow in his left forearm. He drinks his beer contemplatively and finds it only marginally better than the universe as a source of comfort.

Babazouk therefore holds two sharply contrasting scenes. Its waterfront is a public space of procession, crowds, and surveillance, where a suspicious shape above the market entrance threatens to turn celebration into danger. Its rooftops later shelter Darac’s solitary reflection, but the old city’s nighttime quiet cannot resolve the trauma of Agnès’s captivity, the wound on his arm, or his meditation on the Holocaust.