Newton's Cannon

by J. Gregory Keyes

  The clock struck eight. “Awaken, Sire,” Bontemps said. “Your day has begun.”

  Louis snapped his eyes open. “Good morning, Bontemps,” he said, attempting a smile. He shook his head, gazing at the lean, fiftyish face looking down at him.

  “Are you ready, Your Majesty?” he asked.

  “Indeed, Bontemps,” he said. “You may admit whom you wish.”

  * * *

  The morning lever continued. His doctors came in and inquired about his health. When the chamberlain admitted the first of the courtiers—the ones who had earned invitations to the grande entree through diligence—Louis found himself dreading their presence, their fawning submission, their requests.

  He felt that way until he saw Adrienne de Mornay de Montchevreuil among them.

  “Mademoiselle,” he exclaimed, reaching to embrace her. “To what do I owe this exquisite pleasure?”

  Adrienne returned his embrace and then curtsied. “I am well, as I always am in your presence, Sire.” Her smile was as flawless as a perfect ruby. “I hope Your Majesty is well.”

  “Of course, my dear.” He smiled and cast his eyes over the remainder of the courtiers, all young men, all with that hopeful light in their eyes, all wondering what advantage they might be able to extract from this dear girl.

  Adrienne wore the uniform of Saint Cyr, the simple gown with black ribbons that showed she had achieved that school's highest rank—just as she had always dressed when she was his late wife's secretary. Louis generally disapproved of such informal dress, demanding that the ladies wear the grand habit, but Adrienne's clothing suited her as the clothing of the court ladies did not. It matched her thoughtful features and wide, intelligent eyes. She wore the uniform, he suspected, as a badge, a quiet proclamation that she had attended the school and had passed all of its tests. It meant that she was as educated as any woman in France, and more so than most. Louis was suddenly suspicious that she wore the gown also to remind him of how dear she had been to his wife. What was she about, this young woman?

  “It is good to see you,” he said. “Your letters comforted me greatly after the queen's death.” That would let her know that he had been reminded, and she would now press the advantage she believed she had.

  Adrienne continued to smile, a faint grin not unlike that on the Mona Lisa, which hung across from his bed. “As you know, Sire, I have taken up residence at the Academy of Sciences, serving the philosophers there.”

  “Ah yes, Paris. How do you find it?”

  Her smile broadened. “As you do, Sire: stifling. But the work of your magi is most fascinating. Of course, I understand little of what they do and say, but nonetheless—”

  “I, too, find their theories incomprehensible, yet their results are to my liking. They are a great resource to France—as are those who serve them.”

  She bowed her head. “I shall not waste Your Majesty's precious time, but I will tell you that I did not come to ask a boon for myself. There is a member of your academy, a certain Fatio de Duillier. A most remarkable man—”

  “Near to your heart?” Louis asked, a trifle coldly.

  “No, Sire,” Adrienne replied quite strongly. “I would never bother you on such an account.”

  “And what does this young man desire?”

  Adrienne caught his shifting mood, his growing impatience. “He has tried for many months to receive an audience with Your Majesty and failed,” she said. “He wished only that you receive a letter from him.” She paused and looked him in the eye, something that few dared to do. “It is a short letter,” she finished.

  He considered her for a moment. “I will receive this letter,” he said at last. “This young man should know how fortunate he is to have your favor.”

  “Thank you, Sire.” She curtsied once more, understanding that she was dismissed. A sudden thought struck Louis, and he summoned her back.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said, “I am planning a small entertainment on the Grand Canal several afternoons hence. I would be pleased if you would join my company on the barge.”

  Adrienne's eyes widened slightly, and an expression he could not identify crossed her face. “I would be pleased to, Sire.”

  “Good. Someone will instruct you in your attire.”

  He then turned to the other courtiers, listening politely while they each expressed some sentiment and asked some favor. When they were all dismissed, he stepped out of bed, preparing to dress, to keep his appointments. But he paused to receive the letter that Adrienne had passed to Bontemps. He broke its seal. It was, as the demoiselle had promised, brief.

  Most Reverent Majesty.

  My name is Nicolaus Fatio de Duillier. I am a member of your academy and a former student of Sir Isaac Newton himself. I tell you in all sincerity that if you speak with me but a moment, I can tell you how to win the war against England, with great finality.

  Your humble and most unfortunate servant,

  N. F. de Duillier.

  “Why have I never heard of this de Duillier?” Louis complained to his chancellor, the duke of Villeroy.

  Villeroy's face was drawn beneath his plumed hat. The powder on his face did little to hide his surprise at Louis'statement.

  “Sire?”

  “I have a note from him. He is one of my philosophers.”

  “Yes, Sire,” Villeroy replied. “I know of him.”

  “Has he approached you as well?”

  “This de Duillier has radical, unworkable ideas, Sire. I did not want you bothered with them.”

  Louis gazed down at Villeroy and the other ministers, intentionally letting the silence expand to fill the gallery. Then he said, his voice quite low, “Where is Marlborough now?”

  A general murmur arose among the other ministers. Villeroy cleared his throat. “News came late last night that he has taken Lille.”

  “What of our fervefactum? How can an army take a fortress defended by a weapon that boils its blood?”

  “The fervefactum has grievously short range, Majesty, and is too massive to transport. The alliance uses long-range shells, many of which have been taught magically to seek their targets. In fact, they have instructed such shells to seek our fervefactum when they are in operation. They also—” He grimaced. “At Lille they used a new weapon: a cannonball that rendered the fortress walls into glass.”

  “Glass?” Louis shouted.

  “Yes, Sire. Transmuting the wall and shattering it simultaneously.”

  “What does this mean for the future of the war?”

  Villeroy paused, obviously pained. “Our finances are strained,” he began softly. “The people suffer from taxation and hunger. They are weary of this war, and now the tide has finally turned against us. In three years we have scarcely won a battle. And now Marlborough is moving toward Versailles, and I fear we cannot stop him.”

  “So my chancellor and minister of war has no proposal for staving off our imminent defeat.”

  Villeroy looked down at the table. “No, Sire,” he whispered, shaking his head.

  “Well,” Louis exclaimed, “have any of my other ministers any suggestions?”

  Muttering died to silence before the marquis de Torcy, the minister of foreign affairs, voiced what they were all thinking.

  “Have we given no thought to a treaty?”

  Louis nodded. “As all of you know, I have thrice entreated the alliance against us to conclude a peace, and have each time been cruelly rebuffed—even when I came perilously close to betraying my grandson and surrendering Spain. These people do not want peace with France, they want to destroy France. They fear our might, and they fear our command of the new sciences. Did you know that two members of my Academy of Science have been assassinated in the past year? For that reason I stationed a company of special corps to protect them. I will now move them to Versailles; Paris is too dangerous.”

  “What of Tsar Peter of Russia?” asked Phelypeaux, secretary of the royal household. “He has defeated Sweden and the Turk, securing h
is own power quite beyond question. Could we not entice him into an alliance?”

  “The tsar has more to gain by watching Europe weaken itself than by taking sides. Accepting his aid would be allying with the wolf to battle the hound. Our enemies are at least civilized nations. If we were to ally with Peter, we would soon find dancing bears occupying my gardens. Worse, we would have to join with him against the Turk, and the Turk is our best weapon against Vienna.”

  Villeroy grimaced tightly. “And yet Peter stands only just behind you in the numbers of philosophers he employs. When Gottfried von Leibniz flocked to Peter's standard, many followed.”

  Louis waved that away. “I wish to summarize what has been said here today, rather than to discuss Tsar Peter. We are losing the war for want of proper weapons. You, Villeroy, have just pointed out that I have the greatest philosophers in Europe under my command, and yet England annually produces more effective artillery. How can this be?”

  Villeroy straightened his hat a bit. “Your Majesty, England has Newton and his students. We have more philosophers, it is true—”

  “And yet—” Louis allowed his voice to rise. “—we have one of Newton's students here, who tells me in a letter that he had to smuggle to me that he has the means to bring us victory. And no one thought I should be troubled with this?” He swept his glance about the room. “Monsieurs, I am not myself an adept, and I do not read widely. I am the king, and it is mine to judge the fate of our nation. I want to see this Fatio de Duillier, and I want to see him tomorrow, in the Cabinet des Perruques.”

  Plumed hats nodded like a field of poppies in the wind.

  Fatio was a nervous, pinched-looking man in his midfifties. His face was dominated by a nose like the upturned keel of a boat, behind which lurked evasive, light brown eyes. His lips were continually pursed, as if he had just tasted something bad. Louis regarded him for a moment, and then took his seat in an armchair.

  “Let us come to the point quickly, Monsieur,” Louis stated. “I want only to ask you a question or two before hearing what you have to say about the audacious letter you sent me.”

  “Yes, Sire.” De Duillier's voice was unexpectedly pleasant, if a bit high. Fatio was awed in the presence of the king and entirely at a loss for what to do or say. That was good, Louis felt.

  “You are, I take it by your accent, Swiss?”

  “Indeed, Sire.”

  “And you were a student of Isaac Newton?”

  “Student and confidant, Your Majesty. I have brought my correspondence with him to confirm this.”

  “What I chiefly want to know is, Why are you no longer his confidant?”

  “We had—” Fatio drew what seemed to Louis a shaky breath. “—a falling out. Sir Newton is not an easy man; he is prone to harm his friends.”

  “Harm them?”

  “Yes, Sire. He can be quite harsh, and when his favor is withdrawn from you, it is gone forever.”

  “I see. So Newton cast you out.”

  “Not for any lack of scholarly ability, Your Majesty. His correspondence shows quite clearly that he had nothing but admiration for my skill as a mathematician.”

  “Do not presume, Monsieur de Duillier, to try to guess at my intentions.”

  “Forgive me, Sire.”

  “Was your quarrel with him of proportions sufficient for you to betray him? For are you not here to offer to pit some magical weapon of yours against his?”

  Beads of sweat stood clearly on Fatio's head as he answered. “Majesty, I care not what happens or does not happen to England. But upon Sir Isaac Newton I wish revenge. The weapon I will detail for you will accomplish both your aims and my own. In prevailing over England, I will also show Newton that he was wrong to shun me.”

  “Tell me of this weapon,” Louis commanded.

  Fatio cleared his throat and drew forth a sheet of paper that he unfolded with trembling fingers. “Well, the principle is rather simple, but the mathematics have still to be worked out,” he said. “It involves merely the creation of a certain set of affinities, but as Your Highness may know, the proofs required to actualize such—”

  Louis leaned forward, frowning. “This is not what a king wants to hear,” he whispered. “Kings do not care where your ideas come from. They want only to know what your work will do.”

  “Oh … well—” He paused and lowered his voice. “—it will destroy London, Majesty, or any other city you care to name.”

  Louis stared at him, dumbstruck.

  “What do you mean,” he asked finally, “destroy?”

  “As if it never was. Not one brick shall remain.”

  Louis regarded him for a long moment, careful to keep his mask in place.

  “How?” he asked softly.

  Fatio told him, and the king's eyes widened. Then he stood and went to the window, staring out at his gardens for one quarter of an hour before turning back to where the man awaited, twisting his paper in his hands. “Monsieur de Duillier, you are a scientific man. Perhaps you can tell me this. Why do the shadows lie so long in my garden, though the sun stands at noon?”

  “It is winter, Sire,” Fatio replied. “The earth has tilted such that the angle of the sun is from the south. In the summer the shadows will scarcely be seen.”

  “Let us hope, then, Monsieur de Duillier, that God grants us another summer, for I mislike this long light. As of tomorrow you have my leave to pursue this. Your budget will triple, and I will place a staff at your disposal.”

  Fatio fought to keep his features under control but failed.

  “Go, with my blessing,” Louis said.

  Fatio left, clearly on the very edge of flight, nearly tripping on his own shoe buckles.

  2.

  The Printer's Apprentice

  “Are you certain that permission has been given for this?” John Collins asked, blue eyes dubious.

  Benjamin Franklin straightened his battered tricorn and glanced sidewise at his friend. “Permission? By whose permission does one exercise the natural powers and liberties God has given him? Come, we're harming no one in this, and greatly improving ourselves. And by improving ourselves, how can we not improve our country? This is, in the end, a patriotic endeavor.”

  John snorted. “I've heard that speech before! How old were we—ten?—when you convinced me and the rest to ‘improve’ the millpond by building a quay out into it, the better to catch minnows? Never mind that the stones we used were stolen from a pile intended for building a home. You argued then that we were performing a civic service, and with no more justice.”

  Ben shrugged. “Yes, I admit an error in judgment. Our ends were honest enough; 'twas only our means that were questionable.”

  “Yes, questionable as in my father laid rod to me when the workmen complained of us,” John reminded him.

  “John, John.” Ben sighed, clapping his companion on the shoulder. “I am four years wiser now, and full acquainted with the concept of private property. I've made arrangements with the 'prentice.”

  “But as you well know, a 'prentice has no say in such things, so what is the word of this 'prentice to us?”

  “His word is gold to me, for he offers what I want,” Ben replied, becoming irritated.

  “Now there is the mark of a reasonable man,” John shot back. “He can always find reason to justify what he wants to do.”

  Ben pursed his lips in growing annoyance. There were few people in Boston—man or woman, young or old—who could best him in an argument, but his best friend was one who could.

  The two boys made their way down across the fields that lay between Queen Street—where he worked in his brother's printing shop—and School Street. The sun was bright in an afternoon February sky. They trod a path worn well by other children too impatient to make the square turns of the streets.

  They were a study in contrasts, Ben with his chestnut hair above a plump face and sharp chin, John more nearly towheaded, with high cheekbones and a jaw as blockily solid as an anvil.


  “See here, John,” Ben resumed, “if you have become too timid …”

  “I never said that,” John replied. “It's just that you led me to believe that we had the word of Nicholas Boone the master, not Thomas Perkins the 'prentice.”

  “I never said such, though I apologize if you thought it. What you must understand is that 'prentices have an economy all of their own. That is why I can trust Tom's word.”

  John grunted. “The economy of slavery, perhaps. I can do without the pretty welts and bruises you wear under your shirt, thank you.”

  “Well,” Ben muttered after a moment, tasting acid on his tongue, “all apprenticeships are not like mine. But he is my brother, and we should not speak ill of him.”

  “I shall speak ill of him,” John shot back. “I shall speak ill of him who beats you for no other reason but that you have more of wits in one finger than he has in both clenched fists.”

  “Very eloquent, John. Perhaps you should be a scribbler of poetry rather than a mathematician.”

  John glared at him but persisted stubbornly. “It is far from poetical to observe simple facts,” he insisted. “And where is your lord and master, that you wander so freely in the daylight hours?”

  “Filling those two fists of wit you mention with ale at the Green Dragon,” Ben replied, “for at least another hour and not much more. And so we should make haste.”

  “I thought we were not to speak ill of James.”

  “Speaking the truth can hardly be considered ill,” Ben replied. And then he added, in a quieter voice, “James is well intentioned. He has always had a temper, and it might be that I am too provoking.”

  “Yes, I should think so,” John agreed. “But I should also think one's brother might have more charity. He merely loathes to be outstripped by a boy eight years his junior.”

  Ben thought so, too, but he dismissed the suggestion with a diffident wave of his hand. “Well,” he said, “the business of printing suits me, for the time being. I'm not likely to find a better trade in Boston.”

  “Oh, aye, in Boston,” John agreed, and they shared a brief, conspiratorial glance. They both ached to see what lay beyond the horizon. James made it all the worse when he spoke of London, where he had apprenticed. Sometimes Ben was sure his elder brother did that just to rub it in, knowing that Ben could not honorably break their contract: that he was bonded until the age of twenty-one.