France remembers their names. He remembers the names of every village girl who returned his sly sideways glances, and who usually ended up in his bed (or in a haystack, or against a wall in an alley, or…)
He remembers the names of the young men who turn a fascinating shade of pink when he winks at them across the café, and also the names of those with the audacity to wink back.
He remembers her name, the woman he still doesn't fully understand, even hundreds of years after she lived and died for him. But then again, everyone in France remembers her name.
He takes special care to remember the names of those who die alone. When he tries to sleep at night, he feels the last breaths of his citizens who died that day. The rasping of the homeless woman, hunched in a doorway; the unconscious child on a hospital bed, finally being unplugged from those beeping machines that had postponed death; the young man bleeding out in a dark street as a shadow makes off with his wallet.
France also knows the name of the shadow; murderer or not, he is still one of his people and France loves him.
It is because of his people, because of the names and faces he remembers, that he chooses a name for himself: Francis Bonnefoy. He chooses it when he is young and wide-eyed, still trying to make sense of all those faces and people and names in his head.
And it is because of them that he introduces himself with a flourish, with a rose, with a smile. Because maybe, if he does his best and makes an impression, once he has faded and disappeared, maybe there will be someone who remembers him.