“You’ve been doing a lot of these, my lord?” Eliza asked, looking over at the table, where the sealing process was just entering its opening rounds.
“Rarely for such amounts. Never for such a charming creditor, my lady. But yes, many Persons of Quality have followed the King’s example, and lent idle assets to the Treasury, where they may be put to work.”
“You will be gratified to know that those assets have been working very hard indeed along the Channel,” Eliza said. “Any English Ship of Force that dares sail that way stares up into many new guns, protected by new revetments, fed by powder-houses linked by excellent roads that were only cow-paths when his majesty added those lands to France.”
“It pleases me very much to hear this!” exclaimed the Count, crinkling up his eyes and rocking forward in his chair. Eliza was startled to see that he was entirely sincere; then wondered why it was so startling.
The Count’s face began to sag as he looked at Eliza’s and saw nothing there. “Please forgive me if I am…inappropriately subdued,” she said, “it is just that I have been traveling for some time. And now that I am finally here, there is so much to do!”
“Soon all that will be behind you, my lady, and you can enjoy the season! You should get some rest. This soirée that Madame la duchesse d’Arcachon is hosting tomorrow…”
“Yes. I do need to conserve my energies, if I am to remain awake for even one-third of that.”
“I do hope that when you have recovered from the journey, my lady, we shall have more opportunities to converse. As you know, I am rather new to the post of contrôleur-général. I accepted the position gladly, of course…but now that I have had a few months to settle in, I find that it is far more interesting than I had ever imagined.”
“Everyone imagines it to be interesting in a financial sense,” said Eliza.
“Of course,” said Pontchartrain, sharing her amusement. “But I did not mean it that way.”
“Of course not, monsieur, for you are an intelligent man, not motivated by money—which is one of the reasons his majesty chose you! But now that you are here, you find it fascinating intellectually.”
“Indeed, my lady. But you are one of the very few at Versailles who can understand this.”
“Hence your desire to carry the conversation forward. Yes, I understand.”
Pontchartrain dropped his eyelids and inclined his head minutely, then opened his eyes again—they were large and handsome—and smiled at her.
“Do you know Bonaventure Rossignol, my lord?”
The smile faltered. “I know of him, my lady, but—”
“He is another fish out of water.”
“He does not even live here, does he?”
“He lives at Juvisy. But he will be at La Dunette tomorrow. As will you, I trust?”
“Madame la duchesse has honored us with an invitation. Neither of us would miss it for anything.”
“Seek me out there, monsieur. I shall introduce you to Monsieur Rossignol, and we shall found a new salon, restricted to people who love numbers more than money.”
“AH, HERE COMES OUR CHAPERONE at last!”
“Our chaperone!?”
“But of course, Monsieur Rossignol. Madame la duchesse will join us. Otherwise people would talk! And look, Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain is coming as well! I have wanted to introduce you to him.”
This name was sufficient to make Rossignol turn his head, or want to. But the head was encased in a wig that cascaded over his shoulders, over which he had draped a heavy wool blanket, rendering independent movement of head and torso inadvisable. He rose to his feet, triggering small avalanches—for he and Eliza had been waiting in this open sleigh long enough for drifts to form in their laps. As he tottered around to get a view of the garden entrance of La Dunette, he reminded Eliza of a club balanced on a juggler’s palm. He had much in common physically with Pontchartrain; but where the Count’s eyes were warm and brown, Rossignol’s were hot and black. And not hot in a passionate way, unless you counted his passion for his work.
A recorder arpeggio—some fragment of a minuet—leaked out of the doors for a moment as servants pulled them open. Pontchartrain stepped out, looked up, and blinked at the falling snow, then pirouetted towards his hostess, who had fallen behind, and was shooing him forward in violation of all rules of precedence. An aurora of red silk bloomed around her as she drew out a scarf and allowed it to settle atop her wig. With fingers slowed by cold, fat, and arthritis, she knotted it under a chin, then accepted Pontchartrain’s proffered arm and stepped out into the frozen garden with more gingerness than was really warranted. The gravel paths near the château had been swept clear of snow; the sleigh was stopped a stone’s throw away, on a track that wandered off into the Duke’s hunting-park. Party-goers surged to the door and the fogged windows to bid the Duchess farewell, as if she were sailing to Surinam, and not just going on a quarter of an hour’s sleigh-ride on her own property.
Rossignol rotated back around to gaze at Eliza. There was no point in sitting, as he’d just have to stand up again when the Duchess and the Count arrived.
“Monsieur Rossignol,” said Eliza, “every child knows that the juice of a lime, or a bit of diluted milk, may be used to write secret messages in invisible ink, which may later be made to appear by scorching it before hot coals. When you stare at me in this way, it is as if you phant’sy that some message has been writ upon my face in milk, which you may make visible by the heat of your scrutiny. I beg you remember that more often than not the procedure goes awry, and the paper itself catches fire.”
“I cannot help that God made me the way I am.”
“Granted; but I beg you. Monsieur le comte d’Avaux, and Father Édouard de Gex, have given me enough of such glares, in the last few days, to raise blisters on my brow. From you, monsieur, I should be grateful for a warm, rather than hot, regard.”
“It is obvious enough that you are flirting with me.”
“Flirtation is customarily more or less obvious, monsieur, but you do not have to mention it!”
“You invited me on a sleigh-ride, and led me to think it would be you and me alone together—‘it shall be never so cold, Bon-bon, and I shall freeze to death if I do not have anyone to share my blanket with’—and then we waited, and waited, and now it is obvious that I shall be sharing my blanket with a Count, or a Dowager. It is a little étude in cruelty. I observe such all the time in people’s love-letters. I understand this. But it would be very foolish of you, my lady, to believe that you shall achieve some power over me by playing such girlish games.”
Eliza laughed. “Never crossed my mind.” She lunged forward, spun around, and took the seat next to Rossignol. He looked down at her, startled. “Why not?” Eliza said, “as long as we are chaperoned.”
“Flirting with you without result is more interesting than doing nothing,” Rossignol insisted, “but since our adventure, you really have paid me very little attention. I think it is because you got into some trouble you could not get out of by your own wits, and so became indebted to me in a way; which you chafe at.”
“We will speak of chafing later,” said Eliza, and then actually batted her snow-laden eyelashes at him. She patted the seat next to her.
“I must greet the Count and the—” but he was cut short as Eliza grabbed the back of his breeches and jerked down hard. She had only meant to force him to sit down; but to her shock she all but depantsed him, and would have stripped him naked to the knees had he not sat down violently. Like a bullfighter wielding the cape, she heaved the blanket over his lap just in time to hide all from the Count and the Duchess, who looked their way at the sudden movement.
“You must put some meat on your hips, otherwise what is the point of wearing a belt?” she whispered.
“Mademoiselle! I must stand up for the Count and the—”
“Dowager, is that what you called her? She is no dowager, her husband is alive and well, and tending to the King’s affairs
in the South. Don’t worry, I shall fix it.” She leaned against Rossignol’s shoulder and raised her voice: “Madame la duchesse, Monsieur le comte, Monsieur Rossignol is mortified, for he would stand up to greet you; but I won’t let him move. For his slender frame makes as much heat as a coal-stove, which is the only thing keeping me alive.”
“Sit, sit!” insisted the Duchess of Arcachon. “Monsieur, you are like my son, too polite for your own good!” She had reached sleigh-side. Three stable-hands converged, and helped Pontchartrain help her into the sleigh. She was a big woman, and when she threw her weight on the bench, facing Eliza and Rossignol, the runners broke loose on the snow and the sleigh moved backwards a few inches. All three of the occupants whooped: the Duchess because she was alarmed, Eliza because it was amusing, and Bonaventure Rossignol because Eliza, under the blanket, had shoved her cold hand into his drawers and seized hold of his penis as if it were a lifeline. Presently the Count took a seat next to the Duchess. The horses—a team of two matched albinos—nearly bolted, so cold and impatient were they, and there was harsh language from the driver. But then they settled into a trot. The four passengers waved at the crowd inside, who’d been mopping steam off the windowpanes with their handkerchiefs. Eliza waved with one hand only. After an initial shrinkage, Rossignol had come erect so fast that she was worried about his health. He had squirmed and glared, but only until he recognized that the situation was perfectly hopeless; now he sat very still, listening to the Duchess, or pretending to.
She was matronly, decent, and genuinely popular: the living embodiment of the traditional Lavardac virtues of simple sincere loyalty to King and Church, in that order, without all of the scheming. In other words, she was just what a hereditary noble was supposed to be; which made her both an asset and a liability to the King. By supporting him blindly, and always doing the right thing, she made of her family a bulwark to his reign. But by exhibiting genuine nobility, she was implicitly making a strong case for the entire idea of a hereditary peerage with much power and responsibility, and making the new arrivals—Eliza included—seem like conniving arrivistes by comparison. Sitting in the Duchess’s sleigh and firmly massaging the erect penis of the King’s cryptanalyst, Eliza had to admit the validity of this point; but she admitted it to herself. She had no choice but to make do with what she had—which at the moment was nothing at all, except for a handful of Rossignol. She still did not have more than a few coins to her name.
The sleigh moved briskly on the trail, which had been groomed in advance of the party. In a few moments they passed out of the formal garden and into a huddle of buildings that was concealed from view of La Dunette’s windows by adroit landscaping. The scent of manure from the hunting-stable of Louis-François de Lavardac d’Arcachon was driven away suddenly by a cloud of lavender-scented steam, surging from the open side of a shed where a servant was stirring a vat over a great smoky fire.
“You make your own soap here?” Eliza said. “The fragrance is wonderful.”
“Of course we do, mademoiselle!” said the Duchess, astonished by the fact that Eliza found this worthy of mention. Then something occurred to her: “You should use it.”
“I already impose on your hospitality too much, my lady. Paris is so well-supplied with parfumiers and soap-makers, I am happy to go there and—”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed the Duchess. “You must never buy soap in Paris—from strangers! Especially with the orphan to think of!”
“As you know, my lady, little Jean-Jacques is now in the care of the Jesuit fathers. They make their own soap, probably—”
“As they had better!” said the Duchess. “But you bring clothes to him sometimes. You will have them laundered here, in my soap.”
Eliza did not really care, and was happy to give her assent, since the Duchess of Arcachon was so firm on this point; if she hesitated for a moment, it was only because she was a bit nonplussed.
“You should use the Duchess’s soap, mademoiselle,” said Pontchartrain firmly.
“Indeed!” said Rossignol—who, given the circumstances, would probably be speaking in one-word sentences for a while.
“I accept your soap with all due gratitude, madame,” said Eliza.
“My laundresses do not wear gloves!” huffed the Duchess, as if she had been challenged on some point. This rather dampened conversation for some moments. They had passed clear of the out-buildings, and circumvented a paddock where the Duke’s hunting-mounts were exercised in better weather, and entered now into a wooded game-park, bony and bare under twilight. Pontchartrain opened the shades on a pair of carriage-lanterns that dangled above the corners of the benches, and presently they were gliding along through the dim woods in a little halo of lamplight. In a few moments they came to a stone wall that cut the forest in twain. It was pierced by a gate, which stood open, and which was guarded, in name anyway, by half a dozen musketeers, who were standing around a fire. The wall was twenty-six miles long. The gate was one of twenty-two. Passing through it, they entered the Grand Parc, the hunting-grounds of the King.
The Duchess seemed to regret the matter of the soap, and now suddenly worked herself up into a lather of good cheer.
“Mademoiselle la comtesse de la Zeur has said she will start a salon at La Dunette! I have told her, I do not know how such a thing is done! For I am just a foolish old hen, and not one for clever discourse! But she has assured me, one need only invite a few men who are as clever as Monsieur Rossignol and Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain, and then it just—happens!”
Pontchartrain smiled. “Madame la duchesse, you would have me and Monsieur Rossignol believe that when two such ladies as you and the Countess are together in private, you have nothing better to do than talk about us?”
The Duchess was taken aback for a moment, then whooped. “Monsieur, you tease me!”
Eliza gave Rossignol an especially hard squeeze, and he shifted uneasily.
“So far, it does not seem to be happening, for Monsieur Rossignol is so quiet!” observed the Duchess in a rare faux pas; for she should have known that the way to make a quiet person join the conversation is not to point out that he is being quiet.
“Before you joined us, madame, he was telling me that he has been wrestling with a most difficult decypherment—a new code, the most difficult yet, that is being used by the Duke of Savoy to communicate with his confederates in the north. He is distracted—in another world.”
“On the contrary,” said Rossignol, “I am quite capable of talking, as long as you do not ask me to compute square roots in my head, or something.”
“I don’t know what that is but it sounds frightfully difficult!” exclaimed the Duchess.
“I’ll not ask you to do any such thing, monsieur,” said Pontchartrain, “but some day when you are not so engaged—perhaps at the Countess’s salon—I should like to speak to you of what I do. You might know that Colbert, some years ago, paid the German savant Leibniz to build a machine that would do arithmetic. He was going to use this machine in the management of the King’s finances. Leibniz delivered the machine eventually, but he had in the meantime become distracted by other problems, and now, of course, he serves at the court of Hanover, and so has become an enemy of France. But the precedent is noteworthy: putting mathematical genius to work in the realm of finance.”
“Indeed, it is interesting,” allowed Rossignol, “though the King keeps me very busy at cyphers.”
“What sorts of problems did you have in mind, monsieur?” Eliza asked.
“What I am going to tell you is a secret, and should not leave this sleigh,” Pontchartrain began.
“Fear not, monseigneur; is any thought more absurd than that one of us might be a foreign spy?” Rossignol asked, and was rewarded by the sensation of four sharp fingernails closing in around his scrotum.
“Oh, it is not foreign spies I am concerned about in this case, but domestic speculators,” said the Count.
“Then it is even more safe; for I’ve nothing t
o speculate with,” said Eliza.
“I am going to call in all of the gold and silver coins,” said Pontchartrain.
“All of them? All of them in the entire country!?” exclaimed the Duchess.
“Indeed, my lady. We will mint new gold and silver louis, and exchange them for the old.”
“Heavens! What is the point of doing it, then?”
“The new ones will be worth more, madame.”
“You mean that they will contain more gold, or silver?” Eliza asked.
Pontchartrain gave her a patient smile. “No, mademoiselle. They will have precisely the same amount of gold or silver as the ones we use now—but they will be worth more, and so to obtain, say, nine louis d’or of the new coin, one will have to pay the Treasury ten of the old.”
“How can you say that the same coin is now worth more?”
“How can we say that it is worth what it is now?” Pontchartrain threw up his hands as if to catch snowflakes. “The coins have a face value, fixed by royal decree. A new decree, a new value.”
“I understand. But it sounds like a scheme to make something out of nothing—a perpetual motion machine. Somewhere, somehow, in some unfathomable way, it must have repercussions.”
“Quite possibly,” said Pontchartrain, “but I cannot make out where and how exactly. You must understand, the King has asked me to double his revenues to pay for the war. Double! The usual taxes and tariffs have already been squeezed dry. I must resort to novel measures.”
“Now I understand why you would like the advice of France’s greatest savants,” said the Duchess. Whereupon all eyes turned to Rossignol. But he had suddenly braced his feet and jerked his head back. For a few moments he stared up at the indigo sky through half-closed eyes, and did not breathe; then he exhaled, and took in a deep draught of the cold air.
“I do believe Monsieur Rossignol has been seized by some sudden mathematical insight,” said Pontchartrain in a hushed voice. “It is said that Descartes’s great idea came to him in a sort of religious vision. I had been skeptical of it until this moment, for the very thought seemed blasphemous. But the look on Monsieur Rossignol’s face, as he cracked that cypher, was unmistakably like that of a saint in a fresco as he is drawn, by the Holy Spirit, into an epiphanic rapture.”
The Confusion: Volume Two of the Baroque Cycle Page 16