The Confusion: Volume Two of the Baroque Cycle

by Neal Stephenson

  Madame de Bearsul approached London with a show of cringing, blushing, and hand-wringing that made Eliza want to slap her. “But, madame, I know nothing of such occupations!”

  “Of course not, for you are so well-bred; but just as Kings may play Vagabonds in masques, you are now a merchant banker named Signore Punchinello. Here, Signore Punchinello, is your strong-box.” Mercury clapped the backgammon-set closed, imprisoning the game pieces, and handed it to de Bearsul, who with much hair-patting and skirt-smoothing took a seat at London. Monsieur le chevalier d’Erquy pulled her chair out for her, for, anticipating Eliza’s next command, he had followed them into the Grand Salon.

  “Monsieur, you are Pierre Dubois, a Frenchman in London.”

  “Miserable fate! Must I be?” complained d’Erquy, to general amusement.

  “You must. But you need not sit down yet, for you have not yet made the acquaintance of Signore Punchinello. Instead, you wander about the city like a lost soul, trying to find a decent loaf of bread. Now! Places, everyone!” and she walked back into the Petit Salon, where the Lyon table had been supplied with quills, ink, and paper.

  “Monsieur le contrôleur-général, give your silver—which is to say, France’s silver—to Lothar the Banker.”

  “Monsieur, s’il vous plaît,” said Pontchartrain, shoving the pile across the table.

  “Merci beaucoup, monsieur,” said Étienne, a bit uncertainly.

  “You must give him more than polite words! Write out the amount, and the word ‘Londres,’ and a time, say five minutes in the future.”

  Étienne dutifully took up his quill and did as he was told, putting down “half past three,” as the clock in the corner was currently reading twenty-five minutes past. “To the contrôleur-général give it,” said Eliza. “And now you, contrôleur-général, write an address on the back, thus: ‘To Monsieur Pierre Dubois, London.’ Meanwhile you, Lothar, must write an avisa addressed to Signore Punchinello in London, containing the same information as is in the Bill.”

  “The Bill?”

  “The document you have given to the contrôleur-général is a Bill of Exchange.”

  Pontchartrain had finished addressing the Bill, and so Mercury snatched it out of his hand and pranced out of the room and gave it to “Pierre Dubois,” who had been watching, bemused, from the doorway. Then she returned to “Lothar,” who was writing out the avisa with a good deal more formality than was called for. Mercury jerked it out from under the quill.

  “Good heavens, I haven’t even finished the Apology yet.”

  “You must learn better to inhabit the rôle of Lothar. He would not be so discursive,” said Mercury, and wafted the avisa out of the room to “Signore Punchinello.” “In truth, there would be two or even three copies of the Bill and the avisa both, sent by separate couriers,” said Mercury, “but to prevent the masque from becoming tedious we shall only use one. Signore Punchinello! You said earlier you did not know how to play your rôle; but I tell you now that you need only know how to read, and be capable of recognizing Lothar’s handwriting. Do you? (The correct answer is ‘Yes, Mercury.’)”

  “Yes, Mercury.”

  “Monsieur Dubois, I think you can guess what to do.”

  Indeed, “Pierre Dubois” now helped himself to a seat at the London table across from “Signore Punchinello,” and presented the bill.

  “Now, signore,” said Eliza to Madame de Bearsul, “you must compare what is written on Monsieur Dubois’s Bill to what is in the avisa.”

  “They are the same,” answered “Punchinello.”

  “Do they appear to have been written in the same hand?”

  “Indeed, Mercury, the hands are indistinguishable.”

  “What time is it?”

  “By yonder clock, twenty-eight minutes past the hour of three.”

  “Then take up yonder quill and write ‘accepted’ across the face of the Bill, and sign your name to it.”

  Madame de Bearsul did so, and then, getting into the spirit of the thing, opened up her backgammon-set and began to count out pieces.

  “Not yet!” said Mercury. “That is, it’s fine for you to count them out, and make sure you have enough. But good banker that you are, you’ll not give them to Monsieur Dubois until the Bill has come due.”

  But they only had to wait for a few more seconds before the clock bonged twice, signifying half past three; then the backgammon pieces were pushed across the table into the waiting hands of “Pierre Dubois.”

  “Voilà!” announced Mercury to the audience, which by this point numbered above twenty party-guests. “The first act of our masque draws to a happy ending. Monsieur le contrôleur-général has transferred silver from Lyon to London at no risk, and even converted it to English silver pennies along the way, with practically no effort! All by invoking the supernatural powers of Mercury.” And Eliza took a little curtsey, and basked for a few moments in the applause of her guests.

  ENTR’ACTE

  “I am the contrôleur-général of France, madame; I know what a Bill of Exchange is.” This from Pontchartrain, who had maneuvered her into a niche and was muttering out the side of his mouth with uncharacteristic harshness.

  “And I know your title and your powers, monsieur,” said Eliza.

  “Then if you have more to say concerning the Mint, I would fain hear it—”

  “In good time, monsieur!”

  Madame de Bearsul was pitching a minor scene at “London.” Petulance was something she did well. “I have given up my coins to Monsieur Dubois—in exchange for what!?”

  “Bills written in the hand of a banker who is Ditta di Borsa—as good as money.”

  “But they are not money!”

  “But Signore Punchinello, you may turn them into money, or other things of value, by taking them to an office of Lothar’s concern.”

  “But he is in Lyon, and I am stuck in London!”

  “Actually he is in Leipzig—but never mind, for he maintains an office in London. After the Usurper took the throne, any number of bankers from Amsterdam crossed the sea and established themselves there—”

  “Wait! First Lothar was in Lyon—then Leipzig—then Amsterdam—now London?”

  “It is all one thing, for Mercury touches all of these places on his rounds.” And Eliza thrust an arm into a boozy-smelling phalanx of young men and dragged forth a young Lavardac cousin and bade him sit down near the backgammon table. “This is Lothar’s factor in London.” She grabbed a second young man who had been snickering at the fate of the first, and stationed him in the short gallery that joined the two salons, calling this Amsterdam.

  “I must register an objection! (Pardon me for speaking directly, but I am trying to inhabit the rôle of an uncouth Saxon banker),” said Eliza’s husband.

  “And you are doing splendidly, my love,” said Eliza. “What is your objection?”

  “Unless these chaps of mine in Amsterdam and London are titled nobility, which I’m led to believe is generally not the case—”

  “Indeed not, Étienne.”

  “Well, if they are not of independent means, it would seem to suggest that—” and here Étienne colored slightly again, “forgive me, but must I—” and he balked until both Eliza and Pontchartrain had made encouraging faces at him, “well, pay them—” he half-swallowed the dreadful word—“I don’t know, so that they could—buy—food and whatnot, presuming that’s how they get it? For I don’t phant’sy they would have their own farms, living as they do in cities.”

  “You must pay them!” Eliza said loud and clear.

  Étienne winced. “Well, it hardly seems worth all the bother for me to be taking in silver here, and sending Bills to one place, and avisas to another, all so that I can end up handing the silver over to Signore Punchinello in the end.” He scanned nearby faces uncertainly, taking a sort of poll—but everyone was nodding profoundly, as if the duc d’Arcachon had made a telling point. All of those faces now turned towards Eliza.

 
“You get to keep some of the money,” Eliza said.

  Everyone gasped as if she had jerked the veil from a statue of solid gold.

  “Oh, well, that puts it in a whole new light!” exclaimed Étienne.

  “The amount collected by Pierre Dubois in London was not quite as large as what I gave to you,” said Pontchartrain. He then turned to look at Eliza. “But, madame, I live in Paris.”

  Eliza went into the opposite corner of the Petit Salon and patted a gilded harpsichord. Pontchartrain excused himself from Lyon and sat before it. Then, to amuse himself and to provide incidental music for the second act of the masque, he began to pick out an air by Rameau.

  Eliza beckoned to a middle-aged Count dressed in the uniform of a galley-captain. Until recently, he and a friend had been playing at billiards. “You are Monsieur Samuel Bernard, moneylender to le Roi.”

  “I am to portray a Jew!?” said the dismayed Count.

  The music faltered. “He is an excellent fellow, the King speaks highly of him, monsieur,” said Pontchartrain, and resumed playing.

  “But now there is no one in Lyon!” said Étienne.

  “On the contrary, there is Monsieur Castan, an old confrère of Monsieur Bernard,” said Eliza, and dragged the Count’s erstwhile billiards-opponent over to occupy the chair warmed by Pontchartrain.

  Lately the room had become a good bit louder, for the galley-captain playing Samuel Bernard had adopted a hunchbacked posture and begun rolling his eyes, leering at the ladies, and stroking his chin. Meanwhile the “Amsterdam” and “London” crowd, which consisted mostly of younger people, had become restive, and begun to engage in all sorts of unauthorized Transactions.

  “Fetch me a bowl of dough,” Eliza said to a maid.

  “Dough, madame?”

  “Dough from the kitchen! And an empty fruit-bowl or something. Hurry!” The servant hustled out. “Places, everyone! Act the Second begins. Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain, pray continue playing your beautiful music, it is entirely fitting.” Indeed, some of the guests who had not been assigned specific rôles had begun dancing to it, so that “Paris” had already become a center of beauty, culture, and romance.

  “I am your servant, madame,” said Pontchartrain.

  “No, I am Mercury. And I say you have dough!”

  “Dough, Mercury?” Pontchartrain looked about curiously but continued to play.

  “You rarely see it, of course, and you never handle it. Pourquoi non, for you are a member of the Conseil d’en-Haut and a trusted confidant of le Roi Soleil. But you know that you have dough!”

  “How do I know it, Mercury?”

  “Because I have whispered it into your ear. You have a thousand kitchens in which it is being prepared, all the time. Now, call Monsieur Bernard to your side, and let him know.”

  Monsieur Bernard did not need to be summoned. Using his billiard-cue as cane, he staggered over—for he had perfected his Jew act—and bent close to Pontchartrain, rubbing his hands together.

  “Monsieur Bernard! I have dough.”

  “I believe it, monseigneur.”

  “I should like to see, oh, a hundred pieces of dough transferred safely and swiftly to the hands of Monsieur Dubois in London.”

  “Hold!” commanded Mercury, “you do not yet know the identity of your payee in London.”

  “Very well—make the Bill endorsable to one of my agents, to be determined later.”

  “It shall be done, my lord!” announced “Bernard,” who then leered up at Eliza for his cue.

  “Go and tell your friend,” Eliza said.

  “Don’t I get anything?”

  “Monsieur! You have got the word of the contrôleur-général of France! What more could you possibly ask for?”

  “I was just asking,” said “Bernard” a little bit resentfully, and then crab-walked across the Petit Salon to “Lyon,” where his billiards-partner awaited. “Mon vieux, bonjour. Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain has dough and wants a hundred pieces of it in London.”

  “Very well,” said “Castan” after some sotto voce prompting from Mercury. “Lothar, if you would get a hundred pieces of dough to our man in London, I shall give you a hundred and ten pieces of dough here.”

  “Heavens! Where is this dough?” Étienne demanded—a bit confused, for in the first run-through, he had been given actual silver.

  “I don’t have any just now,” said “Castan,” who had been a bit quicker than Étienne to see where this was going, “but my friend Monsieur Bernard has heard from Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain who has heard from Mercury himself that there is dough aplenty, and so, in the sight of all these good Lyonnaise—”

  “We call them le Dépôt,” put in Eliza, indicating several persons who had gathered round the basset-table to watch.

  “—I say that I shall pay you a hundred and ten pieces of dough any day now.”

  “Very well,” said “Lothar,” after looking up at Eliza for permission.

  Now some time was spent in draughting the necessary papers. Meanwhile Eliza had thrust her hands into a great warm ellipsoid of bread-dough that had been fetched out of the kitchens by a cook, and torn it apart into two pieces, a small and a large. The small she placed in an empty fruit-bowl, which she took into the Grand Salon and slammed down on a gilded sideboard near the backgammontable, astonishing Madame de Bearsul. “Tear this in half, and continue tearing the halves in half, until you have thirty-two pieces of dough,” decreed “Mercury,” then stormed away before de Bearsul could pout or fret. Eliza fetched the great bowl containing the larger amount of dough, and set it into the arms of the young banker she had posted in “Amsterdam.” Three younger guests, eight to twelve years of age, had already converged on the sideboard, overturned the fruit-bowl, and begun tearing the dough into bits. “Very good, you are the English Mint, and that is the Tower of London,” Eliza informed them. Then, because they were being a bit too enthusiastic, she cautioned them: “Remember, I desire only thirty or so.”

  “We thought a hundred!” said the oldest of the children.

  “Yes; but there is not enough dough in London to make so many.”

  By now the paperwork had been settled in “Lyon.” A new wrinkle had been added: this time, “Lothar” made the Bill out, not to “Dubois” but to “Castan,” who was sitting across the table from him. “Castan” then had to flip it over and write on the back that he was transferring the Bill to Monsieur Dubois. It was due in fifteen minutes. “Castan,” handed it to “Dubois” on the outskirts of “Lyon” at 4:12 and “Dubois,” after a detour for a thimble of cognac, arrived in “London” at 4:14 and handed it to “Punchinello,” who compared it as before to the avisa, and checked the time. She was just about to write “accepted” across it when ever-diligent “Mercury” stayed her hand.

  “Stop! Think. Your solvency, your credit hang in the balance. How many pieces of dough do you have?”

  The eyes of “Punchinello” strayed towards the “Tower of London,” where thirty-two dough-balls were arrayed eight by four.

  “Those don’t belong to you,” said Mercury. She scooped them into the fruit-bowl and handed it to the Lavardac cousin who was pretending to be Lothar’s factor in London.

  Madame de Bearsul was starting to get it. “I’m going to be needing those—I’ve a note from your uncle, right here, says you owe me a hundred.”

  “I don’t have a hundred!” complained the young banker.

  “Mercury comes to the rescue, as usual!” announced Eliza. “Does anyone else here in London have dough?”

  “I’ve got a great bowl of it,” said an adolescent voice from the next room.

  “You’re not in London!” answered “Mercury.” And she turned to the “London” nephew and gave him an expectant look.

  “Cousin! Come in here and bring me some of the family dough!” he called.

  The young man with the dough-bowl staggered into the room. Whereupon Eliza gave the nod to a pair of six-year-old boys who had b
een crouching in a corner with wooden swords. They rushed out and began to batter the dough-bearer about the shins and ankles. “Augh!” he cried.

  “Pirate attack in the North Sea!” Eliza announced.

  The dough-carrier was hindered badly by his inability to see the little boca-neers, for the bowl blocked his view. Nevertheless, after having been chased several times around the entirety of Britain, he arrived in port some minutes later (4:20) listing badly to starboard, and upended the bowl, dumping out the dough-load at the Tower of London. “Hurry!” said Eliza, “only five minutes remaining until the Bill expires!”

  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 rôle of the uncouth banker,” said Étienne—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?”