“That isn’t true either. Countless Christians live in Constantinople and carry on their trades there freely. But I’ll go even further. Suleiman the Magnificent, like his predecessors, chose the highest ranks of the Ottoman state from the devsirme, the so-called ‘harvest’: the nursery of fifteen thousand Christian children who were kidnapped every year on his orders in Rumelia, the European part of the Ottoman Empire, for example in Hungary. These children were then brought up in Constantinople, because he secretly believed they were more intelligent than the Turks.”
From this “harvest” they then chose the ones who would join the janissaries, the elite and highly trained army corps. The janissaries were therefore all Christians by birth, and had not a drop of Turkish blood, also because originally they were obliged to remain celibate, and so had no offspring: year by year the old members were replaced by kidnapping new children. When they arrived in the territories of the Muslim empire, the children were carefully studied from a physiognomical point of view: depending on their facial features, which revealed this or that inclination, they were sent to serve in the Sultan’s private palace, in the state administration or in the army, among the janissaries.
“But I imagine that the highest-ranking dignitaries, the ones closest to the Sultan, were Turkish,” I objected.
“On the contrary. The Grand Vizier, or the prime minister, subordinate in authority only to the Sultan, has hardly ever been Turkish, and not even Muslim. Of the forty-seven Grand Viziers who succeeded to the Porte between 1453 and 1623 only five were of Turkish origin: the others included eleven Albanians, six Greeks, a Circassian, an Armenian, a Georgian, ten Chaldeans and even an Italian. And Ibrahim Pasha, the famous Grand Vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent, was not Turkish but Venetian.”
“Venetian?”
“Certainly! He was born in the territories of the Venetian Republic. That is why I say: the destructive power of Mahomet in reality does not exist, it is a creation of the West, turned against the West itself.”
These words made me thoughtful: Atto’s explanations tallied with what Simonis had told me about Maximilian and his struggle against Suleiman the Magnificent. Had not the fire of Ottoman aggression against the Empire, according to my assistant, been lit by the German Protestant princes and their secret emissaries, Ilsung, Ungnad and Hag? After seeking in vain to convert Maximilian to Lutheranism, they had taken their revenge by unleashing the Turkish armies against him.
“But the financiers of the siege that Suleiman laid against Vienna in 1529 were from Constantinople,” I objected.
“And where do you think they came from, if not from Europe? Families of merchants who had moved to Constantinople for the greater freedom they could enjoy there in trading. There have never been any Turks so rich that they could choose to bleed themselves dry for the sole pleasure of seeing the Sultan take up arms against the Holy Roman Empire.”
I was surprised. It was hard for me to think that beneath the Turkish turbans, the distinctive mark of Mahomet’s fearsome followers, more Christians were concealed than Turks.
“With Joseph and the Grand Dauphin,” Atto went on, “we are faced with two assassination attempts in which the victims are fortunately still alive. To solve the case, we must presume the instigator is someone manipulating the Turks and capable of striking at the highest level. But who?”
The Abbot now indicated that he was tired. I suggested returning to the Golden Eagle.
“Better to rest here, by the side of the road,” he answered.
The old spy was forever afraid of eavesdroppers, I thought. I led him to a staircase leading up to a small building set back from the road, which appeared to have been closed for years. I cleaned the dust and dirt from the steps as best I could and helped the Abbot to sit down.
There are a thousand people who might desire these deaths, Atto continued in a low voice, each one for a different motive.
“The maritime powers, Holland and England, are interested in weakening the two greatest contenders in the conflict, the Empire and France, to prevent whichever of them wins the war from gaining a position of supremacy. If the anti-French alliance won the conflict, and Joseph’s brother Charles ascended to the throne, the Habsburgs would hold Europe in a vice-like grip from east to west, from Vienna to Madrid, becoming far too powerful a giant.”
“That’s exactly what the English and Dutch want to stop France from becoming,” I remarked.
“Precisely, and you don’t change your mind after eleven years of war. Now they have almost reached their objective: to make France powerless. The country is already on its knees financially. In addition, the grandson of the Most Christian King has not proved as pliant to his grandfather’s wishes as was feared. It is rumoured that he is even thinking of proclaiming a formal renunciation of the throne of France, just to finish the war. There is only one last step: to deprive the Most Christian King of an heir who might disturb their plans to weaken France.”
“How could the Grand Dauphin disturb them?” I said in surprise. “From the gazettes it’s clear that he doesn’t have his father’s strong temperament.”
“That is all outward show, as with his mother, the deceased Queen Maria Theresa of Habsburg – may the glory of God be upon her. He is a man of few words and has made it clear that he has no wish to interfere in political and military matters. But it is not from want of experience, but rather on account of the great respect and deference he has for His Majesty. France and the whole of Europe would suffer a great loss if the Grand Dauphin were to die, because if he ever becomes king, his reign will be a golden century for his own people and for those of other states: “For, unlike his father,” and here the Abbot pronounced his words very carefully, “ambition would not lead him into any enterprise prejudicial to the general peace, as he is a prince of justice, of prudence and fairness, full of humanity and charity towards the poor.”
“And why should such a good, peace-loving sovereign be a source of trouble for the maritime powers?”
“The power of Holland and England is based on large-scale commerce throughout the world, which makes its greatest profits through war.”
“I thought war was the ruin of commercial transactions.”
“Small transactions, certainly. But large-scale trafficking thrives on the weakening of nations. The Lord God gave man the possibility to live on an earth fecund with fruits. But when the fields are made barren by the raids, fires and ravages of war, the people fall into the hands of speculators and usurers, who make them pay for their goods fifty times what they are worth! Peasants can no longer rely on the efforts and skill of their own hands to survive; they need money, a great deal of money, to buy for its weight in gold what in peacetime they used to produce for themselves with no difficulty. Without money one can no longer do anything, even in the remotest village. You don’t know how many have grown immensely rich thanks to war! Take the Thirty Years’ War, which broke out under a century ago. The usurers of then are the powerful of today. And when it was kings that incurred debts, those vultures were even rewarded with noble titles.”
From a wily and unscrupulous castrato to a moralising old codger: what changes life can bring about, I reflected while Atto talked. Now the Abbot was even railing against the aristocracy. His arguments were quite different from those I had heard from him twenty-eight years ago; they almost sounded like the grumblings of my late father-in-law, who had been a Jansenist.
“With a king like the Grand Dauphin,” Melani went on, “France would finally emerge from its downward spiral of arrogance and destruction; England and Holland want the opposite to happen. The country must continue to degenerate, the court must be hated by the people. It annoys them that the Most Christian King has adult sons and grandsons; the ideal would be if there were no heir, or if he were a baby, which amounts to the same thing. It would not be like the days when the Most Christian King ascended the throne, aged just four: then there were the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria and the Prime Minister, Cardinal Richelieu and
later Cardinal Mazarin, who defended the country from any interference by other potentates. Now there is no longer a queen, nor a prime minister. Louis XIV has taken everything into his own hands. After his death a regency would leave the country at the mercy of the first scheming meddler, who might just happen to be sent by England or Holland to set off a mine under France’s backside.”
But there was more to it than that, continued Atto:
“There has been a rumour going round since February that Joseph I is thinking of proposing to France that Spain should be divided, so as to leave his brother Charles at least with Catalonia and its capital Barcelona.”
“Really? That would solve the Spanish question.”
“Quite. But you know what it would really mean? That the two major contenders, France and the Empire, would lead the peace process, and the destiny of Europe would remain in their hands, as has been the case for centuries. This is just what England and Holland do not want: the commercial powers are planning to sweep away the old world order and create a new one under their auspices. No, France and the Empire must not make peace, it must be imposed on them. On conditions set by England, above all, and Holland.”
“So you think that Joseph I is not going to find favour with England and Holland, no matter what he does.”
“Exactly. War or peace, the Empire, France and Spain must no longer be arbiters of their own destiny. The English and Dutch want an end to national sovereignties. That’s why they entered the war, and why they cannot wait to carve up the possessions of the Spanish Crown in the New World. A rich, boundless, virgin land, with no law or morality: sharp-eyed merchants as they have always been, they know perfectly well that whoever dominates it will rule the world. And they have no intention of leaving it to the Spanish, French or Germans.”
“So you say it’s for these reasons,” I summed up at the end of Atto’s harangue, “that the two maritime powers are plotting against His Caesarean Majesty.”
“It’s a possibility. But it’s not the only one.”
There was a second hypothesis: a motive within the Empire.
“You know that Charles and Joseph detest each other,” said Atto. “They have always done so, ever since their father set them against each other, favouring the younger over the elder. Nature made them different, the family made them enemies. And ever since Joseph became emperor, Charles has hated him even more profoundly, he himself being forced to fight for his throne.”
If Joseph were to die, Charles would lose an uncertain crown, that of Spain, for one that was perfectly secure and far superior: that of Emperor, in Vienna.
“Joseph has only two daughters; his only son died as a child. If he died, Charles would succeed him. Does that not strike you as a slight motive for murder?”
But that was not all. During his short life, Joseph had left a formidable trail of hatred and envy.
“The Jesuits hate him: when he ascended the throne he at once excluded them from government, and was quite brusque about it. You may have heard about the threatening remarks a Jesuit made to Joseph as soon as he ascended the throne, and Joseph had him expelled. But his father’s old ministers also hate him: even as a boy Joseph fought them mercilessly, until he finally became emperor and drove them all out. All except one. But he hates Joseph too.”
I knew who we were talking about.
“Signor Abbot, you have already shown me a letter from Prince Eugene, and it was forged.”
“Yes, but everything else I told you – about Landau, Eugene, his jealousy of the Emperor, his fear of being cast aside when the war finishes – is true.”
“And if Joseph really comes to an agreement with France to carve up Spain, leaving his brother Charles with Catalonia, there will be peace.”
“Exactly. And there’s no way that Eugene can make the young but inflexible emperor change his mind. And so our prince, at the age of forty-eight, will have to submit to the decisive temperament of an emperor aged just thirty-three. If he is really implicated in the poisoning of His Caesarean Majesty, I have to admit that he has made his calculations very carefully: unlike Joseph, Charles has a weak character and will not stop him from pursuing the war, even without the support of England and Holland. And when this one dies down, there will always be another one. One war is as good as another for Prince Eugene; he will always need a war from which he can reap honours and power, at least until he retires from old age. But it’s a game that Joseph will no longer tolerate.”
“True,” I agreed, “the Emperor is making peace with everyone, even with the Pope, who is on the French side.”
“Quite. Believe me for once, now that I’ve even confessed the truth about that letter. The moment has come for everyone to show their cards.”
“I’ve always done that with you.”
“Yes, you have. But Eugene is one who does not know what a straight line is. He is twisted, oblique, sinuous. Like all those of his race.”
“What race?”
He rolled his eyes to heaven, as if entreating the Most High to grant him the strength to keep quiet.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said evasively. “What I am anxious to make you realise is that Eugene’s military envy – which is all one with his craving for glory and power – is a real scourge. It was born long before him, and will die after the last soldier.”
“But one doesn’t kill out of military envy, least of all one’s own sovereign!” I protested.
“It’s obvious you know no history. I could give you scores of examples, starting with ancient Athens, where this unhealthy and underhand passion has led to the best commanders of the fleet being put to death unjustly,” said the Abbot, lifting the palm of his hand to emphasise the great worth of these captains. “It brought the city to defeat in the Peloponnese War, it led to the destruction of the walls of the Piraeus and finally to ruin.”
At that moment a group of passers-by, seeing Atto’s outstretched hand and his blind man’s glasses, took my working clothes for those of a beggar and casually tossed us a coin.
“What was that?” asked Melani, at the tinkling sound.
“Nothing. A few coins slipped out of my pocket,” I lied in embarrassment.
“What was I saying? Ah yes. Mind, we are only making conjectures to identify which of the various suspects is really plotting against the Emperor: to work out whether it’s England and Holland, or Charles, or the Jesuits, or the old ministers, or Eugene. As for military envy, leaving aside the numerous exempla from history, I would rather talk to you about a case closer to our own days: Count Marsili. Do you remember?”
It was odd that Atto should mention Marsili. Just a few hours earlier I had been reading of his feats until interrupted by my assistant’s knock at the door.
“Of course I remember,” I answered. “The Italian who suggested the winning strategy to Joseph, denouncing the errors of Margrave Louis of Baden.”
“Exactly. The continuation of that story will make you realise what role military envy might be playing in Joseph’s fatal disease: since it – envy, that is – almost always kills.”
A few years before the siege of Landau, narrated Atto, Marsili had taken part in the siege to free Belgrade from Turkish occupation.
There the first incident took place. General Guido Starhemberg, in order to impose his own personal strategy, caused grave loss of life among the imperial troops. The 59th Infantry Regiment was almost wiped out. For too long now the imperials had been wearing themselves out pointlessly around the fortress. Marsili openly criticised Starhemberg’s strategy, even though the latter was superior to him in rank. And Marsili did not spare his subordinates either: he demanded swiftness, discipline, parsimony in expenses (quite a few officers took advantage of the availability of military money to pocket a few “tips”). He had one of his lieutenant-colonels locked up for insubordination; this man then denounced him for tyranny and had him removed from the service. Only at the end of the conflict did he obtain justice.
“In battle Count
Marsili had always demanded fidelity, honesty and courage from every soldier. But he courageously denounced his superiors if they made mistakes that cost human lives.”
“Bold,” I remarked.
“And very dangerous. Fortunately, his enemies could do little or nothing against such a valuable officer: no one knew the territories where the war against the Turks was being fought as well as he did.”
With the capture of Landau the military star of Joseph the Victorious was in the ascendant, continued Abbot Melani. It was before him that the French garrison laid down their arms, but a good share of the glory fell upon Marsili. By now he was considered the greatest expert in fortifications and sieges in the Caesarean camp. He knew the secrets of every military school, be it French, German or Italian. He had even won the sympathy of the troops, whom he had treated so strictly, and that of his fellow officers, who recognised his loyalty and impartiality. Because dishonesty, like ignorance, is an offence to the nobility of war.
But the Margrave of Baden foamed with rage at the way Marsili had denounced his shortcomings directly to the King of the Romans. This Italian had not only shamed him, but was also insufferably cultivated, honest and virtuous. Just who did he think he was?
The Margrave soon found a way to avenge himself. In December that same year, 1702, the French were threatening the Austrian fort of Brisach on the Rhine, vital for control over Breisgau. The Prince ordered Marsili to go to Brisach to help another Italian, Marshal Dell’Arco, in case this latter (a strange and equivocal excuse) should fall ill. The Margrave of Baden knew perfectly well that Marsili and Dell’Arco were on very bad terms, and that together they would achieve very little.
There were 24,000 French besiegers. The Brisach garrison had only 3,500 men, Marsili was told; in fact they were even fewer. He found ill-armed men, half-broken cannons, no sappers or miners (indispensable for the defence of a fortified place), and not even any water in the moats to keep the besiegers out. He wrote at once to the Margrave of Baden that the situation was desperate, but received no answer. So he set about strengthening the fortifications, but at once quarrels arose with Dell’Arco, and shortly afterwards Marsili was put under arrest for six weeks. Money ran out, and the troops, who were no longer being paid, complained. So he tried to obtain a loan on the nearby market of Freiburg; the attempt failed, and consequently he had a lead coin struck on the field, which was distributed to the soldiers. Marsili guaranteed it with his own personal property.
Veritas (Atto Melani) Page 49