Ardennes

The Ardennes is the secluded woodland setting The Jackal chooses to practise with his newly assembled rifle before attempting to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. Its forest tracks, distance from Brussels and quiet clearing give him the privacy and open range he needs; the journey also lets him present his preparations as a visit to his elder brother’s grave, said to lie in the region where he died in the Battle of the Bulge. The landscape becomes a practical part of the plot: a place where the weapon can be tested away from scrutiny.

Setting and access

The Jackal asks M. Goossens where in Belgium he could test a new rifle in complete secrecy, at an open-air distance of roughly 130 to 150 metres. Goossens recommends the forest of the Ardennes, explaining that its extensive woodland could leave a man alone for several hours and that the journey could be made there and back in a day. Because the weekend might bring picnickers into the woods, he suggests Monday the 5th, when the site is more likely to offer the quiet the test requires.

The proposed excursion follows a weekend in which The Jackal has stayed in Brussels and made himself look like an ordinary traveller. He spends Saturday at Zeebrugge and, on Sunday, drives through the Flemish countryside, stopping in Ghent and Bruges before returning towards Brussels. He asks the hotel desk clerk for an early call, breakfast in bed and a packed lunch, explaining that he intends to drive into the Ardennes the next day to visit his brother’s grave. That account supplies a personal, credible reason for the journey; the preparations for the rifle test remain concealed beneath it.

The journey into the forest

On Monday, The Jackal leaves Brussels in a Simca Aronde, carrying a rucksack and a packed lunch. His map gives the distance to Bastogne as ninety-four miles, and he allows for extra travel into the hills and forest south of the town. He passes through Namur and Marche before reaching Bastogne, a town associated in the narrative with the destruction wrought by German tanks during the winter of 1944. From there, the road takes him south into increasingly dense woodland, where trees shade the winding route and break up the sunlight.

Five miles beyond Bastogne, he turns onto a narrow forest track, then follows a second trail far enough to hide the car behind undergrowth. He waits in its shade while the engine cools, then changes out of his dove-grey suit and town shoes into denim trousers, a checked shirt and hiking boots. These are concrete precautions as well as a change of appearance: his equipment and clothing are now suited to moving on foot through the woods, while the car is kept out of sight.

A concealed firing range

The rifle travels in separate components, which The Jackal assembles beside the hidden car. He keeps the silencer and telescopic sight apart from the main parts, and carries ordinary cartridges separately from a single explosive round still wrapped in tissue paper. Before leaving for the clearing, he retrieves a honeydew melon bought at a Brussels market stall, puts it in the rucksack with paint, brushes and a hunting knife, and locks the car. The ordinary shopping purchase becomes part of a carefully prepared test rather than an incidental detail of the journey.

Within ten minutes, he finds a narrow clearing with a clear view across 150 yards. He measures out that distance, chooses a tree from which he can see the place where he has left the rifle, and paints the melon to resemble a human face. Brown paint covers its upper and lower sections, pink marks the centre, and he draws eyes, a nose, a moustache and a mouth with his finger. He suspends the fruit in a string shopping bag, whose open mesh does little to disguise either the melon or its painted features. The improvised target gives him a visible point of aim at the range he has come to test.

The Jackal fits the silencer and scope, loads the rifle and sights along the clearing. On firing, he finds that the first shot has crossed the edge of the melon, broken part of the bag’s string and lodged in a tree. A second shot lands similarly; after four shots without changing the scope, he concludes that it is shooting high and slightly to the right. He then adjusts the scope’s screws. The scene records not merely that he fires the weapon, but how he tests its accuracy and responds to a specific fault before the planned assassination.

Narrative significance

The Ardennes episode connects preparation to concealment. The Jackal has said that he needs time to acclimatize himself to the rifle and a quiet place to practise; the forest provides both. His claimed family pilgrimage offers a cover story, while the hidden car, changed clothes, dismantled weapon and disguised target show how the practical details of the outing serve the secret purpose. The sequence makes the woodland a working space in the assassination plot, not simply a backdrop to travel.

The setting also establishes a sharp contrast between the relative privacy of a remote clearing and the security around Charles de Gaulle’s public appearances. Later, preparations for those ceremonies include searched buildings, barriers, roof watchers and extensive searches of the areas around the crowds. The forest episode shows the assassin using distance and solitude to refine his means before confronting that much more controlled public space. Its significance lies in this transition: in the Ardennes, the threat is still a rifle, its sight and a melon on a string; beyond the forest, those preparations belong to an attempt against a guarded President.