“I suppose there is some moderate comfort to be derived from that knowledge.”
“They also re-used other traditions––those of the Arthurian cycle, for example. There is a book in the Grantville library titled The Once and Future King and also another of these musicals, called ‘Camelot.’ based on that novel. However, at the most fundamental level, the characteristics which the up-time authors provided for a ‘superhero’ were...”
Chapter 28 My Lady’s True Friend and Servant at All Times
“Meiner Herrin dinstwolliger treuer freund allezeitt.”
Nancy, Lorraine
September 1635
“D
amned fools. Listen to me, Fernando. There is no way––none, do you understand me, none––no way I will agree to having another go-round of leaving these idiotic Lorrainers in place on the northern border of Burgundy.”
An inkwell flew across the elaborate tent, leaving a trail of splatters behind it.
Not many splatters. Michael John, upon noting his employer’s mood, had prudently removed most of the ink earlier that morning, along with the carpet between the desk and the most likely targets.
“Duke Charles has been dead for a while, now,” the king in the Low Countries replied calmly.
“You know as well as the rest of us that while he was alive, he made no effort whatsoever to rein in Gaston’s activities. Not that anyone expected any practical help from him––hell, you had him, plus his brother and wife and sister-in-law, under house arrest––but he didn’t even make diplomatic contacts or issue any public statements. Neither has his brother since this last round.”
The Grand Duke of Burgundy was in the full spate of one of his temper tantrums.
As tantrums went, they were widely famous.
Johann Ludwig von Erlach looked concerned. Reinhold von Rosen chomped on his mustache, looking satisfied.
Friedrich von Kanoffski leaned back to enjoy the show. He had been getting a little bored with civil administration of the Breisgau. It was good to be with the rest of “the cloister” again.
✽ ✽ ✽
“No matter how much the grand duke yells,” Erlach commented, “we know that the Habsburgs are going to insist on some principle of legitimacy. Aldringen can’t run Lorraine all by himself, not even with Claudia as a titular regent. He just can’t.”
“True. But if they exclude Nicole from Bar as the rightful titular duchess, or Nicolas as equally rightful titular duke of Lorraine for himself and possibly for Bar in right of Claude if Nicole were willing to renounce in favor of her sister, what ends up in their place?” Rosen chewed on the left end of his moustache.
“I hear the younger brother is not so bad.” Poyntz waved in Kanoffski’s direction. “Ask him. He heard the same thing when we were up in the Low Countries. Congratulations on your marriage, by the way.”
Rosen smiled. “I managed it during the summer, in between Gastonian eruptions.”
“A nice Alsatian girl,” Kanoffski said. “With nice Alsatian estates. Highly suitable for a Latvian soldier of fortune who has more expectations than current income.”
Rosen swatted him.
“Back to the brother,” Rosen said. “An ex-cardinal installed by an ex-cardinal?”
“Hey, the Catholics have to park their younger sons someplace that’s politically useful and brings in an income while they decide whether or not they’ll need to put them out to stud.”
“That’s sick, Kanoffski.”
“Maybe, but true. It’s not as if they make them priests. Look at Hatzfeld.”
“He wasn’t a cardinal.”
“No. But he was a bishop.”
“Pay attention,” von Erlach said. “Think politically. You’re supposed to be an advisory council. If they do get rid of the ducal house, what then? As I was saying, the Habsburgs are going to insist on some kind of principle of legitimacy. We don’t want Fernando taking it over. He’s grabbed enough out of this year’s campaigning–think diocese of Cologne.”
“I think that Aldringen’s done a damned good job,” Ohm said. “Not that anybody’s going to ask me.”
“He doesn’t have the rank to hold the duchy. That’s just a simple fact,” Poyntz said. “They may keep him on to do the actual work, but even if they keep Claudia as the official regent, they’ll have to find someone she can be regent for. Do another set of negotiations.”
“Rerun the Ladies’ Peace?”
Moscherosch perked up. “Did I hear ‘first’ Ladies’ Peace? Is there going to be another one? Are Fernando and Bernhard going to bring in Maria Anna and Claudia for a second set of negotiations?”
“I don’t think so,” von Erlach said. “Both gentlemen say that their wives aren’t up to flying, right now. They’ve been feeling a little queasy in the mornings.”
They looked at each other.
“Heirs,” Moscherosch said happily. “Heirs make wonderful publicity.”
“Continuity,” von Erlach said. “A future for all of us. And if this leaks out before the grand duke is ready to make the announcement, you will be one very sorry poet.”
“Timing,” Moscherosch said cheerfully. “It’s all in the timing. I assure you that I have a great sense of timing.”
Brussels
“It hasn’t been easy to bring them all to this point,” Maria Anna wrote to her brother Ferdinand. “Tante Isabella Clara Eugenia and Doña Mencia have been very helpful in getting the crucial parties to agree to the arrangement I am suggesting. You do see, I hope, how much sense it makes. In that other world, Papa raised Aldringen to the rank of Reichsgraf, after all (please see the enclosed pages from C.V. Wedgwood, The Thirty Years War, which I am finding to be an invaluable up-time reference work). Imperial countships have been so useful to the family that I truly hope you have not abandoned them, along with the other trappings of the Holy Roman Empire. You can just make such men imperial counts of the new Austro-Hungarian empire.”
She paused, chewing on a thumbnail.
“It occurred to me as a possibility because Katharina Charlotte of Zweibrücken has married Melchior von Hatzfeldt who is now an imperial count, which is really a quite similar arrangement, but the preconditions were not in place at the time of the April settlement.”
There. That was a truly tactful way to say, Charles of Lorraine wasn’t dead, then––yet.
“One problem is that before he became an imperial count, Hatzfeldt was at least of the lower nobility, whereas Aldringen’s family is not. Nicole is not happy about having to remarry at all, but she sees where her duty lies. At least, we have been able to assure her, in all honesty, that Aldringen has never displayed the kind of behavior she found so undesirable in her late cousin, and should be a conscientious and effective steward of her heritage.”
She frowned at the letter.
“Additionally, Aldringen told her a long, sad, story about the first young woman he hoped to marry and her decision to become a nun instead. I did not think that a simple Fräulein Anna Maria Schmidt would make a particularly persuasive precedent in the eyes of a duchess of Lorraine, but Aldringen believed that the narrative of how she preferred him, a simple soldier, to a richer suitor favored by her brother but was eventually persuaded by the mother superior of the convent where she went to school that she had a religious vocation would play on the duchess’ sympathies. He turned out to be correct. He followed that by the equally sad story of his rise through the officer’s ranks, eventual practical but contented political marriage, and his wife’s unhappy death in childbirth at Passau. It was all really quite touching, I understand. Nicole was moved to sentimental tears, involving, according to Doña Mencia, the application of numerous lace-trimmed handkerchiefs to her eyes by the hovering Marguerite.”
Now that had really been a surprise.
The lace as much as the tears.
“Perhaps Wallenstein is not so far off the mark to call him an ‘ink-drinker.’ Aldringen appears to have a considerable gift with words and
exerted himself to use it.
“Of course, I doubt that any man ever exerted himself on Nicole’s behalf since her father died nearly a dozen years ago, so she probably found it to be quite a change.
“In any case, touching or not, it is absolutely necessary, because Claudia is not able to persuade Bernhard to agree to accept Nicolas François and Claude as regents in Lorraine and Bar, a lapse on her part which I consider very disappointing. I believe his final word on the matter was that we were welcome to ship them off somewhere to breed a generation of heirs, but that was as far as he was willing to go, and the ‘somewhere’ had better be as far as possible from anywhere close to here. If, therefore, you have some suitable occupation available for them, preferably on the Hungarian border, Fernando and I would be most grateful. They both really are quite hard-working and competent.”
She nodded. For the time being, it seemed, in the interest of continued cooperation with the County of Burgundy, it would be better to get every Lorrainer but the comparatively staid Duchess Nicole herself well out of the way. Out of sight, out of mind. The grand duke had a choleric temperament. She did not envy Claudia the task of dealing with him.
“Nicole has consented to an October wedding, saying that Charles deserved no mourning period at all, but the citizens of Nancy do deserve a couple of months in which to prepare the appropriate festivities, so if you would be kind enough to send me a patent of ennoblement for Johann Aldringen as expeditiously as possible, I remain, your devoted sister. Maria Anna R.”
Besançon
Claudia looked at the latest letter. “Signed, ‘Meiner Herrin dinstwolliger treuer freund allezeitt.’”
“My lady’s true friend, willing to serve her at all times,” Marcie said meditatively. “That’s practically effusive.” She looked at Claudia. “The thing is, I’m beginning to think he actually means it. You might want to consider that.”
The grand duchess laughed. “Have you taken a look at the topic?”
Marcie looked at the body of the letter.
Since the up-time encyclopedias indicate that the Moselle valley from Nancy through Metz to Thionville was highly industrialized, with coal-mining and steel manufacture, Fernando would appreciate it if you would send the “steel girl” or up-time engineeress to consult with Aldringen, his administrative staff, and Abraham Fabert on the resources there.
She cleared her throat. “I’m moving again?”
The grand duchess answer was short and to the point. “Yes. To Metz. Fabert, in addition to being a soldier and local politician, is an iron-master. Some years ago, he took over the managment of his father'’s works at Moyoeuvre. That’s where the Conroy runs into the Orne river, a few miles above Thionville. Since 1632, he has channelized the water power and made such progress that the works now profit him to the amount of approximately sixty thousand livres per year. He is seriously interested in further improvements and modernization.”
“Where’s Matt going to be?”
“I don’t recall at the moment. Check with Motzer if Knorr doesn’t know. You may be excused.”
Marcie bowed herself out of the room.
Claudia picked up a quill and began a letter. “Unser hertzgeliebtester herr unndt gemahl.”
This was, after all, one request from her “most dearly and heartily loved lord and husband” with which she could easily comply, with no trouble to anybody.
Chapter 29 Now that All the Inquiries Have Come Back
“Nachdem unsere parteyen undt aussgeschickte kuntschaftenwider zurück kommen...”
Magdeburg
“O
n the basis of the intelligence that has come back to all concerned parties,” Hermann of Hesse-Rotenburg said, “with all due respect, Your Majesty, in my office as Secretary of State, it is my duty to inform you that the settlements in the proposed treaty are the best we can hope for. The USE has added the wealth of Cologne itself and its hinterland, Bonn, and the other right-bank territories of the Archdiocese of Cologne, if not the remainder of the left-bank lands, which Fernando has annexed and secularized. The settlements that have been negotiated around the Republic of Essen in regard to the former principalities of Jülich, Cleves, Mark, and Berg are also incorporated. This treaty, combined with the modus vivendi, represents the best we can hope for––in the northeast, in Swabia, and in regard to Lorraine and...” He paused. “Burgundy.”
Wilhelm Wettin looked at the proposed treaty articles with distaste. “At least we’re headed for the cold season and it looks like the plague has been, for the most part, kept out of the USE. There have been no more than the usual occasional report of local outbreaks. For a lot of which, in all honesty, we have to thank my brother Bernhard. Yes, his main interest, without the slightest doubt, was keeping it out of Burgundy and then, after his and Fernando’s maneuvering during the spring and summer, out of Lorraine. That did, though, have the effect of keeping it almost entirely out of the USE, for which we can only be thankful.”
Philipp Sattler nodded. “True. Our earlier considerations were directed toward what benefit we might derive from having Fernando and Bernhard set up a military screen, no matter how narrow, between the USE and France in Lorraine. Now, it seems that a screen can have other benefits––let other countries expend their resources keeping the plague out. That’s been the usual pattern, the public health people tell us. The plague waves start at the Mediterranean and sweep northeast, usually. With quarantines at the French and Italian borders...”
“It can still come in through the Balkans,” Amalie pointed out.
Hermann made a face. “Oh, yes. The Balkans we have always with us. They are like the Biblical poor.”
“So, in the light of everything...”
Philipp Sattler decided to direct people’s attention back to the paperwork lying on the table in front of them. “Given the unexpected strength of the Saxon resistance, the potential problems with Poland, the possibility of chaos in the Balkans, truly, Your Majesty, I, like the honorable Secretary of State, do not really see any practical alternative to compromising with Bernhard and Fernando. You don’t have to like it, given that they have made off with quite a lot of territory that you would have preferred to include in the USE. However, with the ‘carrot’ that has been negotiated in regard to a possible eventual reversion of the Grand Duchy of Burgundy should Claudia de Medici and Bernhard remain childless...” He let his voice trail off.
Gustavus Adolphus, emperor of the United States of Europe, agreed to sign both the modus vivendi and proposed treaty. He would sign reluctantly, but he would sign. On one condition.
✽ ✽ ✽
“That is absolute,” Gustavus said. “Non-negotiable. The final version of the treaty must include a provision that I have the right to repurchase––using my own funds, not USE tax funds––the Protestant territories that Counts Georg Johann and Georg Gustav of Pfalz-Veldenz first pawned in 1583 and subsequently sold to Lorraine in 1608 in order to establish them as an independent principality for my aunt’s surviving sons and grandsons.
“As it happens,” Gustavus added, a beatifically innocent smile on his face, “Johann Friedrich is already in Mainz, serving in one of Nils Brahe’s regiments. He spent most of the summer in Swabia.”
Wettin looked at him. “Very convenient.”
The emperor nodded. “I thought it would be. I am glad that everyone else finds it so.”
Everyone else agreed to find it so.
The emperor withdrew.
✽ ✽ ✽
“Convenient?” Hermann of Hesse-Rotenburg raised his eyebrows. “That’s not precisely the word I would use for it, considering that those are the territories constituting Henriette of Lorraine’s little principality of Pfalzburg. She’s currently in deep negotiations with the Province of the Upper Rhine about commerce and industrialization. I’ve received a whole sheaf of reports from Johann Moritz of Nassau-Siegen. For what it’s worth, Scaglia––the Savoyard who has become one of Fernando’s main advisers–�
�considers her to be very clever.”
“She’s not married, is she?” Wettin asked. “Just at the moment, I mean? Johann Friedrich isn’t married, either. I know that Gustavus instructed him to propose to the oldest sister of the young dukes of Württemberg, with which he duly complied, but she firmly refused, both for herself and on behalf of her sisters as they reach marriageable age. His cousin Georg Otto isn’t married either, but he’s marginally too young for an ideal match with Henriette and Leopold Ludwig is still a child.”
“It would help guarantee the rights of the Protestants in that part of Lorraine.”
Wettin shrugged. “The Pfalz-Veldenz line is Protestant, true. But Calvinist––Reformed, not Lutheran.”
“Oh,” Amalie commented. “What a pity.”
“You do not find it a pity, my dear landgravine,” Wettin said.
“That’s why the counts built up those territories and founded the new towns to start with––as sanctuaries for the Huguenots expelled from France. I’m sure that one of Ferdinand II’s designs when he approved Pfalzburg for that Lorraine girl at the time of her marriage to Guise’s bastard was to have them introduce the Catholic Reformation there.”
“Which, you must admit, la Henriette has done only most indolently, if at all.”
“Sattler,” Wettin. “See to it. The next time I see you in this room, I will expect news of a betrothal, if not an actual marriage. The marriage would be better. The emperor will be happy enough to achieve the same effect without having to spend any money on it, and letting her keep them, even if jointly and under some kind of protective pre-nuptial contract, should help to sweeten the pot for Fernando once we explain what the emperor’s original intentions were.”
Ring of Fire - 1635_ The Legions of Pestilence Page 24