The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World (175 page)

Doctor,

I have been a few days in Juvisy, a town on the left bank of the Seine, south of Paris, where Monsieur Rossignol has a château. This is a natural stopping-place for one who has come up from the south. I have been in Lyon for almost a month tending to some business, and am just now returning to Île-de-France. Juvisy is a sort of fork in the road; thence one may follow the river into Paris, or else strike cross-country westwards toward Versailles. Monsieur Rossignol placed his stables and staff at my disposal so that my little household, and our brief train of horses and carriages, could refresh themselves while they waited for me to make up my mind. Jean-Jacques is at Versailles, and I have not seen him since I departed for Lyon, and so my heart told me to go that way; but there is much to be done in Paris, and so my head bid me go thither. I am going to Paris.

When I woke up this morning, the estate was strangely quiet. I drew a blanket over my shoulders and went to the windows, where I beheld a grotesque scene: during the night the garden had become matted with unsightly lumps of damp straw. The gardeners, sensing an unseasonable drop in temperature yester evening, had been out late into the night packing straw around the smaller and more delicate plants, like nurses tucking their babies in under duvets. All was now dusted with silver. Taller plants, such as the roses, had frozen through. The little pools around the fountains were glazed, and the statues had picked up a frosty patina that gave keen definition to their rippling muscles and flowing garments. The place was quiet as a graveyard, for the workmen, having toiled half the night to erect ramparts of straw against the invading cold, were all sleeping late.

It was quite beautiful, especially when the sun came up over the hills beyond the Seine and suffused all of that frost with a cool peach-colored light. But of course for such cold to strike France in September is monstrous—it is like a comet or a two-headed baby. Spring was late in coming this year. France’s hopes for an adequate harvest depended on a long, warm autumn. As much as I admired the beauty of those frosted roses, I knew that grain, apples, vines, and vegetables all over France must have suffered the same fate. I sent word to my staff to prepare for an early departure, then tarried in M. Rossignol’s bedchamber only long enough to bid him a memorable farewell. Now—as you will have discerned from my wretched penmanship—we are in the carriage, rattling up the Left Bank into Paris.

During my earlier life here, I’d have been beside myself, for this early frost would have sent the commodities markets into violent motion, and it would have been of the highest importance for me to get instructions to Amsterdam. As matters stand, my responsibilities are more profound, but less immediate. Money surges and courses through this realm in the most inscrutable ways. I suppose one could construct some sort of strained analogy—Paris is the heart, and Lyons the lungs, or something—but in any event, the system does not work, and money does not flow, unless people
make
it work, and I have become one of those people. At first I worked mostly for the
Compagnie du Nord,
which imports Baltic timber to Dunkerque. Through this I came to know more than I should care to about how
le Roi
finances the war. Lately I have also become embroiled in some scheme of M. le duc d’Arcachon whose details remain vague. It was the latter that took me down to Lyon; for I traveled down there in August in the company of the Duke himself. He installed me in a
pied-à-terre
that he maintains in that city, then journeyed onwards to Marseille where he planned to embark on his
jacht
for points south.

We are coming up on the University already, we move too fast, the streets are empty as if the whole city mourns for the lost harvest. All is frozen except for we who move quickly so as not to freeze. Soon we shall cross the river and reach the
hôtel particulier
of Arcachon, and I have not got to the main points of my letter yet. Quickly then:

§ What do you hear from Sophie concerning Liselotte, or, as she is addressed here, Madame? For a few weeks, two years
ago, she and I were close. Indeed I was prepared to jump in bed with her if she gave me the sign; but contrary to many steamy rumors, it never happened—she wanted my services as a spy, not as a lover. Since I returned to Versailles, she and I have had no contact at all.

She is a lonely woman. Her husband the King’s brother is a homosexual, and she is a lesbian. So far, so good; but where Monsieur gets to indulge in as many lovers as he pleases, Madame must find love furtively. Monsieur, even though he does not desire Madame, is jealous of her, and persecutes and sends away her lovers.

If Court gossip has any truth in it, Madame had become close, in recent years, to the Dauphine. This is not to say that they were lovers, for the Dauphine had been having an affair with her maid, a Piedmontese woman, and was said to be quite faithful to her. But as birds of a feather flock together, Madame and the Dauphine, the maid, and a few other like-minded women had formed a little clique centered upon the Private Cabinet of the Dauphine’s Apartment, just next to the Dauphin’s quaint little library on the ground floor of the south wing.

I was aware of this two years ago, though I never saw the place with my own eyes. For I was engaged in those days as a tutor of the niece of M. la duchesse d’Oyonnax, who was lady-in-waiting to the Dauphine. By no means was the Duchess ever part of this little circle of
clitoristes,
for she is clearly an admirer of young men. But she knew of it, and was in and out of the Private Cabinet all the time, waiting on these people, attending their levées and couchées and so on.

Now as you must have heard, a few months ago the Dauphine died suddenly. Of course, whenever anyone dies suddenly here, foul play is suspected, especially if the decedent was close to M. la duchesse d’Oyonnax. Over the summer, everyone was expecting the Dauphin to marry Oyonnax, which would have made her the next Queen of France; but instead he has secretly married his former mistress—the maid-of-honor of his half-brother. Not a very prestigious match!

So nothing is clear. Those who cannot rid their minds of the conviction that the Dauphine must have been poisoned by Oyonnax, have had to develop ever more fanciful hypotheses: that there is some secret understanding between her and the Dauphin, for example, that will bring her a Prince of the Blood as her husband, &c., &c.

Personally, while harboring no illusions as to the moral character of Oyonnax, I doubt that she murdered the Dauphine, because she is too clever to do anything so obvious, and because it has deprived her of one of the most prestigious stations at Court: lady-in-waiting to the next Queen. But I cannot help but wonder as to the state of mind of poor Liselotte, who has seen her most intimate social circle exploded, and no longer has a comfortable haven within the Palace. I believe that Oyonnax may have positioned herself so as to be drawn into that vacuum. I wonder if Madame writes to Sophie about this. I could simply ask M. Rossignol, who reads all her letters, but I don’t wish to abuse my position as his mistress—not yet, anyway!

§ Speaking of M. Rossignol:

Though my stay at Château Juvisy was cut short by the frost, I was able to notice several books on his library table, written in a queer alphabet that I recognized dimly from my time in Constantinople but could not quite place. I asked him about it, and he said it was Armenian. This struck me as funny since I had supposed that he would have his hands quite full with all of the cyphers in French, Spanish, Latin, German, &c., without having to look so far afield.

He explained that M. le duc d’Arcachon, prior to his departure for Marseille in August, had made an unusual request of the
Cabinet Noir:
namely, that they examine with particular care any letters originating from a Spanish town called Sanlúcar de Barrameda during the first week of August. The
Cabinet
had assented readily, knowing that letters came into France from that part of the world only rarely, and that most were grubby notes from homesick sailors.

But oddly enough, a letter had come across M. Rossignol’s desk, apparently postmarked from Sanlúcar de Barrameda around the fifth day of August. A strange heathenish-looking thing it had been, apparently penned and sealed in some Mahometan place and transported none too gently across the sea to Sanlúcar. It was written in Armenian, and it was addressed to an Armenian family in Paris. The address given was the Bastille.

As bizarre, as striking as this was, even I might have let it pass without further notice had it not been for the fact that on the sixth of August a remarkable act of piracy is said to have taken place off Sanlúcar: as you may have heard, a band of Barbary Corsairs, disguised as galley-slaves, boarded a ship
recently returned from New Spain and made off with some silver. I am certain that M. le duc d’Arcachon is somehow implicated.

[Written later in a more legible hand]

We have reached the Paris dwelling of the de Lavardacs, the Hôtel d’Arcachon, and I am now at a proper writing-desk, as you can see.

To finish that matter of the Armenian letter: I know that you, Doctor, have an interest in strange systems of writing, and that you are in charge of a great library. If you have anything on the Armenian language, I invite you to correspond with M. Rossignol. For though he is fascinated by this letter, he can do very little with it. He had one of his clerks make an accurate copy of the thing, then re-sealed it, and has been trying to track down any surviving addressees, in hopes that he may deliver it to them. If they are alive, and they choose to write back, M. Rossignol will inspect their letter and try to glean more clews as to the nature of the cypher (if any) they are using.

§ Speaking of letters, I must get this one posted today, and so let me raise one more matter. This concerns Sophie’s banker, Lothar von Hacklheber.

I saw Lothar recently in Lyon. I did not
wish
to see him, but he was difficult to evade. Both of us had been invited to dinner at the home of a prominent member of the
Dépôt.
For various reasons I could not refuse the invitation; I suspect that Lothar orchestrated the whole affair.

To shorten this account somewhat, I shall tell you now what I only divined later. For as my driver and footmen would be tarrying in the stables for some hours with Lothar’s, I had given instructions to
mine
that they should find out all that they could from
his.
It had become obvious that Lothar was trying to dig up information concerning me, and I reckoned that turnabout was fair play. Of course his grooms and drivers could know nothing of what Lothar had been thinking or doing, but they would at least know where he had gone and when.

Through this channel, I learned that Lothar had set out from Leipzig in July with a large train, including a prætorian guard of mercenaries, and made his way down to Cadiz, where he had transacted certain business; but then he had withdrawn up the coast to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, where he had apparently expected some momentous transaction to come off during the first week of August. But something had gone
wrong. He had flown into a rage and made a tremendous commotion, despatching runners and spies in all directions. After a few days he had given orders for the whole train to ride up to Arcachon, which is a long hard journey over land; but they had done it. Lothar meanwhile accomplished the same journey in a hired barque, so that he was waiting for them when they arrived at Arcachon late in August. Immediately he announced that they would turn around and make for Marseille. Which they did, at the cost of several horses and one man; but they reached the place a few days too late—late for
what,
these informants knew not—and so they withdrew up the Rhône to Lyon, which is a place where Lothar is much more comfortable. Of course I was already in Lyon, having been dropped off there by M. le duc d’Arcachon a week earlier; from which it was easy enough to guess that the person Lothar had hoped, but failed, to intercept in Marseille had been M. le duc. Now perhaps it was his intention to tarry in Lyon, and wait for the return of d’Arcachon. I was going to add “like a spider in his web” or some such expression, but it struck me as absurd, given that Lothar is a mere baron, and a foreigner from a country with which we are at war, while the duc d’Arcachon is a Peer, and one of the most important men in France. I stayed my quill, as it would seem ludicrous to liken this obscure and outlandish Baron to a spider, and the duc d’Arcachon to a fly. And yet
in person
Lothar is much more formidable than the duc. At the House of Huygens I have seen a spider through a magnifying-glass, and Lothar, with his round abdomen and his ghastly pox-marked face, looked more like it than any other human I have beheld. Spider-like was he in the way that he dominated the dinner-table, for it seemed that every other person in the room was noosed to a silken cord whose end was gripped in his dirty ink-stained mitt, so that when he wanted some answer from someone he need only give them a jerk. He was absurd in his determination to find out from me precisely
when
M. le duc would be returning from his Mediterranean cruise. Every time I beat back one of his forays he would retreat, scamper around, and attack from a new quarter. Truly it was like wrestling with an eight-legged monster. It demanded all of my wits not to divulge anything, or to tumble into one of his verbal traps. I was tired, having spent the day meeting with one of Lothar’s competitors discussing certain very complicated arrangements. I had gone to this dinner naïvely expecting persiflage. Instead I was being
grilled by this ruthless and relentless man, who was like some Jesuit of the Inquisition in his acute perception of any evasions or contradictions in my answers. It is a good thing I had come alone, or else whatever gentleman had escorted me should have been honor-bound to challenge Lothar to a duel. As it was, our host
almost
did, so shocked was he by the way that Lothar was ruining his dinner-party. But I believe that even this was a sort of message that Lothar intended to send to me, and through me to the duc: that so angry was he over what had occurred off Sanlúcar de Barrameda that he considered himself in a state akin to war, in which normal standards of behavior were cast aside.