The Confusion

And it was a near thing; but working feverishly, and with some help from Eliza, the Coiners were able to get the balance of Lothar’s London correspondent up above one hundred dough-pieces by 4:23. This was slammed down triumphantly before “Signore Punchinello,” who disgustedly shoved it across the table into the embrace of “Pierre Dubois.” It was 4:27 exactly. The entire crowd, players, audience, and servants alike, now burst into applause, thinking that the play was over. The only exceptions were Monsieur le chevalier d’Erquy, who had been left holding the dough, and the twin six-year-old pirates who-not satisfied with the amount of swordplay, swash-buckling, and derring-do in the play thus far-had begun trying to sever his hamstrings and Achilles tendons with blunt force trauma.

“In all seriousness, Mercury,” complained d’Erquy, “how are the coins to be transported from London to the front? For if half of what is said of England is true, the place is full of runagates, Vagabonds, highwaymen, and varlets of all stripes.”

“Never fear,” said Eliza, “if you only wait a few days, the front will come to you, and French and Irish troops will march in good order to your doorstep in the Strand to receive their pay!” Which prompted a patriotic cheer and a standing ovation, and even a couple of tossed bouquets, from the crowd.

“But if I may once again play the role of the uncouth banker,” said Etienne-who had abandoned his post in “Lyon” to watch the denouement-“why on earth should the English Mint strike coins whose purpose is to finance a foreign invasion of England?”

This quieted the crowd so profoundly that Etienne felt rather bad about it, and began to formulate what showed every sign of being a lengthy and comprehensive apology. But Eliza was having none of it. “You don’t know England!” she said, “But I do, for I am Mercury. England has factions. The one that rules now is called the Tories, and they make no secret that they loathe the Usurper, and want him out. Indeed, our invasion plans are predicated, are they not, on the assumption that the English Navy will look the other way as our fleets cross the Channel, and that the common folk of England, and much of the Army, will joyfully throw off the yoke of the Dutchman and welcome our French and Irish soldiers with open arms. If we grant all of these assumptions, why, there is no difficulty in supposing that the Tory masters of the Mint will strike a few coins for the House of Hacklheber-”

“Or whichever bank we elect to deal with,” put in Pontchartrain.

“-without asking too many awkward questions as to where those coins are intended to end up.”

“Yes-I see the whole thing now as if you have painted a picture,” said Etienne. At which most of the party-guests attempted to get faraway looks in their eyes, as though gazing raptly at the same picture that Etienne was viewing in his mind’s eye.

Though there were exceptions: “Samuel Bernard,” unable or unwilling to let go of the scheming-Jew impersonation that had garnered him so many laughs and so much attention, was still back in the Petit Salon, storming to and fro between “Paris” and “Lyon,” waving his stick around and demanding to know when he was going to see some of this dough that Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain had spoken of so convincingly; and “Castan,” his partner in billiards, finance, and (now) drinking (for they had got control of a decanter of something brown), was also beginning to make himself heard on the matter. “What are they on about?” inquired Etienne.

“Don’t worry, ‘Lothar the Banker,’ ” said Eliza. “You will be paid back.”

Etienne’s brow furrowed. “That’s right-I quite forgot! I haven’t seen any dough! Is that what those two are so upset about?”

Pontchartrain intervened, sharing a warm private look with Eliza. “Those two, monsieur, have just discovered something called liquidity risk.”

“It sounds dreadful!”

“Never mind, Monsieur le duc. It is a phantom. We do not have such things in France.”

“That’s fortunate,” said the duc d’Arcachon. “They were starting to make me a bit anxious-and I’m not even a banker!”

Eliza to Lothar von Hacklheber 12 APRIL 1692

Mein Herr,

PRIDE is a vice to which a woman is no less susceptible than a man, and I, perhaps, more than other women. PRIDE, like other vices, is arrogant of what room it can claim in the human breast, and jealous of that occupied by the Virtues, which it ever seeks to trample on or drive out.