The Confusion

Eastwards on the boat continued Jack, Mr. Foot, Dappa, Monsieur Arlanc, Padraig Tallow, Vrej Esphahnian, Surendranath, and Gabriel Goto, with van Hoek as their captain and Moseh as their designated Prophet. It was a role in which he seemed uncomfortable until one day, after many wanderings and lesser adventures, they came to a place where the reeds parted into something that could only be the Red Sea.

There Moseh stood in the bow of the boat, lit up by the rising sun, and spoke a few momentous words in half-remembered Hebrew-prompting Jack to say, “Before you part the waters, there, please keep in mind that we’re on a boat, and have nothing to gain from being left high and dry.”

Van Hoek ordered the masts stepped and the sails raised, and they set a course for Mocha and the Orient, free men all.

Book 5 The Juncto Eliza to Leibniz LATE SEPTEMBER 1690

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 chateau. 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 Ile-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-a-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 hotel particulier of Arcachon, and I have not got to the main points of my letter yet. Quickly then: