The Bataclan is the Paris concert venue where Thierry and his young companion were killed in the November 13, 2015 terrorist attack. Its significance in the novel extends beyond the attack itself: the deaths bring a close relative and research partner of Loïc and Laurence into the history surrounding the cameo, while details of the concert sharpen Loïc’s sense of the object’s possible reach.

The Attack and Its Victims

A few months before the account of the attack, news reached Laurence and Loïc of the deaths at the Bataclan. Thierry, their young cousin from Lot, was among the 137 people killed by Islamist terrorists. He and his young companion died at the venue on November 13, 2015.

The Bataclan was also the setting for a bitter coincidence: Eagles of Death Metal were performing, and the song playing when the attack began was titled Kiss the devil. When Loïc learned this detail later, it gave him chills. He wondered whether it might be another long-term, long-distance effect of the devilish stone; the narrative presents this as his suspicion, not as a confirmed cause of the attack.

Thierry and the Cameo Investigation

The loss matters personally to Loïc and Laurence because Thierry was not only their cousin but someone to whom Loïc had grown deeply attached. Thierry had provided valuable help with Loïc’s research into the cameo and the Castelmonts. The attack therefore cuts short a relationship tied both to family and to the investigation that connects the cameo’s history to later events.

Thierry had gone on to build a successful career as a journalist. A few weeks before his death, he told Loïc that he increasingly felt silenced at his newspaper: some subjects had become taboo, including Islamist radicalization in the suburbs and the burning and desecration of churches. His disclosure gives the loss an additional dimension: the novel presents the place not only as the site of his death, but as the endpoint of a life and a journalistic voice that had recently described mounting constraints.