The Confusion

“Everyone in this business knows-or claims to-that to get French timber to French shipyards is an impossibility. And because they know this, they never even try. And if no one ever tries, how can we be certain it is still impossible? And so every few years, just to find out whether it’s still impossible, I ask some enterprising person who does not know it’s impossible to attempt it. I do not blame you for being annoyed with me. But if you had somehow succeeded, it would have been a great deed. And in failing, you learned much that will be useful in the next phase of our project-which I assure you is not impossible.”

He had risen to his feet and approached the window, and by a look and a twitch of the shoulder he invited her to join him there. Gone were the days when one could look out over the Channel and see blue sky above England; today they could barely make out the harbor wall. Raindrops were whacking the windowpanes like birdshot.

“I confess the place looks different to me now, and not just because of the weather,” Eliza said. “My eye is drawn to certain things that I ignored before. The timber down at the shipyard: how did it get here? Those new fortifications: how did the King pay for them? They were put there by laborers; and laborers must be paid with hard money, they’ll not accept Bills of Exchange.”

The Marquis was distracted, and perhaps a bit impatient, that she had strayed into the topic of fortifications. He flicked his fingers at the nearest rampart. “That is nothing,” he said. “If you must know, the nobility have a lot of metal, because they hoard it. Le Roi gets to them at Versailles and gives them a little talk: ‘Why is your coastline not better defended? It is your obligation to take care of this.’ ” Of course they cannot resist. They spend some of their metal to put up the fort. In return they get the personal gratitude of the King, and get to go to dinner with him or hand him his shirt or something.”

“That’s all?”

He smiled. “That, and a note from the controleur-general saying that the French Treasury owes him whatever amount of money he spent.”

“Aha! So that’s how it works: These nobles are exchanging hard money for soft: metal for French government debt.”

“Technically I suppose that is true. Such an exchange is a loss of power and independence. For gold can be spent anywhere, for anything. Paper may have the same nominal value but its usefulness is contingent on a hundred factors, most of which are impossible to comprehend, unless you live at Versailles. But it is all nonsense.”

“What do you mean, it is all nonsense?”

“Those debts are worthless. They will never be repaid.”

“Worthless!? Never!?”

“Perhaps I exaggerate. Let me put it thus: The nobleman who built these new fortifications around the harbor knows he may never see his money again. But he does not care, for it was just some gold plate in his cellar. Now the plates are gone, but he has currency of a different sort at Versailles; and that is what he desires.”

“I am tempted to share in your cynicism, for I don’t wish to seem a fool,” Eliza said slowly, “but if the debt is secured by a sealed document from the controleur-general, it seems to me that it must possess some value.”

“I don’t wish to speak of fortifications,” he said. “These were built by Monsieur le comte d’-” and he mentioned someone Eliza had never heard of. “You may make inquiries with him if you are curious. But you and I must not let our attention stray from the matter at hand: timber for his majesty’s shipyards.”

“Very well,” Eliza said, “I see some down there. Where did it come from?”

“The Baltic,” he returned, “and it was brought in a Dutch ship, in the spring of this year, before war was declared.”

“No shipyard could exist in Dunkerque, unless it got its supplies from the sea,” Eliza pointed out, “and so may I assume that this was a habitual arrangement, before the war?”

“It has not been habitual for rather a long while. When I came back from my travels in the East, around 1670, my father put me to work in the Company of the North down at La Rochelle. This was a brainchild of Colbert. He had tried to build his navy out of French timber and ran afoul of the same troubles as you. And so the purpose of this Compagnie du Nord was to trade in the Baltic for timber. Of necessity, this would be shipped mostly in Dutch bottoms.”

“Why did he put it all the way down in La Rochelle? Why not closer to the North-Dunkerque or Le Havre?”

“Because La Rochelle was where the Huguenots were,” the Marquis answered, “and it was they who made the whole enterprise run.”

“What did you do, then, if I may inquire?”

“Traveled to the north. Watched. Learned. Gave information to my father. His position in the Navy is largely ornamental. But the information that he gets about what the Navy is doing has enabled him to make investments that otherwise would have been beyond his intellectual capacity.”

Eliza must have looked taken aback.

“I am a bastard,” said the Marquis.