by Umberto Eco
"In your debt?"
"For your life. Naturally it is not in our power to pardon you, but we have the power to intercede. Let us suppose you manage to avoid the rigor of the law through escape. After a year, or even more, the memory of the witness would no doubt be clouded, and he could swear, with no blot on his honor, that the man of three evenings ago was not you; and it could be verified that at that hour you were elsewhere playing tric-trac with Captain de Bar. Then—we do not decide, mind you, we presume, and the opposite could also happen, but we are confident that we are correct—you would be accorded full vindication and unconditional freedom. Be seated, please," he said. "I have a mission to propose to you."
Roberto sat down. "A mission?"
"And a delicate one. In the course of which—we will not shirk the fact—you might risk losing your life. But this is a transaction: you are saved from the certitude of the executioner, and are allowed many chances of returning safe and sound, if you are alert. A year of hardship, shall we say, in exchange for a whole life."
"Your Eminence," Roberto said, seeing the image of the executioner at least fading, "from what I gather, it is pointless for me to swear, on my honor or on the Cross, that—"
"We would be lacking in Christian charity if we absolutely denied the possibility of your innocence or of our being victim of a misunderstanding. But the misunderstanding so coincides with our plans that we see no reason to examine it. For that matter, you would not wish to insinuate that we are proposing to you a dishonest exchange, as if to say either you are innocent and to the block with you, or self-confessed guilty and, by perjury, in our service...."
"Far be it from me to make any such disrespectful suggestion, Your Eminence."
"Very well, then. We offer you some possible danger, but certain glory. And we will tell you how we happened to have our eye on you, even before your presence in Paris was known. The city, you see, talks much of what happens in the salons, and all Paris has gossiped about an evening not long ago during which you shone in the eyes of many ladies. Yes, all Paris: do not blush. We refer to that evening when you passionately expounded the virtues of a so-called Powder of Sympathy, and when in discoursing (as is said in those places, am I not right?), your ironies gave that subject spice, as your paronomasias lent it grace; your assertions, solemnity; hyperbole, richness; and comparisons, perspicuity...."
"Ah, Your Eminence, I was merely repeating things I had learned..."
"I admire modesty, but it seems to me that you revealed a thorough knowledge of certain natural secrets. Now I need a man of such learning, who is not French and who, without compromising the crown, can discreetly board a ship sailing from Amsterdam with the intention of discovering a new secret, connected in a way with the use of that powder."
He forestalled another objection from Roberto: "Never fear, we require you to know well what we are seeking, so that you can interpret even the vaguest signs. We would have you thoroughly instructed in the subject, as we see you now so disposed to satisfy us. You will be assigned a gifted master, and do not be deceived by his youth." He reached out and pulled a rope. No sound was heard, but the act must have made a bell ring somewhere or given some other signal—or so Roberto deduced, in those days when great lords still yelled for their servants in loud voices.
In fact, a short time later, a young man deferentially entered; he looked to be slightly over twenty.
"Welcome, Colbert, this is the person of whom we were speaking today," Mazarin said to him, then turned to Roberto. "Colbert, who is being initiated in a promising fashion into the secrets of the administration of the State, has for some time been considering a problem that means much to Cardinal de Richelieu, and consequently to me. You may know, San Patrizio, that before the Cardinal took the helm of this great vessel of which Louis XIII is captain, the French navy was nothing compared to the navies of our enemies, in war as in peace. Now we can be justly proud of our ship-builders, of our eastern fleet and of the western, and you will recall with what success, no more than six months past, the marquis de Brézé commanded off Barcelona forty-four galleons, fourteen galleys, and I do not recall how many other vessels. We have consolidated our conquests in New France, we have won dominion over Martinique and Guadeloupe, and many of those Islands of Peru, as the Cardinal likes to say. We have begun establishing commercial companies, though not yet with complete success. While in the United Provinces, in England, Portugal, and Spain, there is no noble family that does not have one son off at sea making his fortune, in France, alas, this is not so. The proof is that whereas we know enough perhaps of the New World, we know little of the Very New. Colbert, show our friend how empty of lands the other part of that globe still appears."
The young man turned the globe, and Mazarin smiled sadly: "This expanse of waters is not empty because of a grudging Nature; it is empty because we know all too little of Nature's generosity. And yet, after the discovery of a western passage to the Moluccas, this whole vast unexplored zone is at hazard, extending from the western shores of the American continent to the last eastern outcrops of Asia. I refer to the ocean called the Pacific, as the Portuguese have named it, in which surely lies the Austral Terra Incognita, of which only a few islands are known, a few hazy coasts, but still enough for us to assume that it conceals fabulous riches. And now, for some time, too many adventurers who do not speak our language have been swarming over those waters. Our friend Colbert, with something I consider more than just youthful caprice, cherishes the idea of a French representation in those seas. The more plausible, as we presume that the first to set foot on an Austral land was a Frenchman, Monsieur de Gonneville, sixteen years before the voyage of Magellan. And yet that worthy gentleman, or ecclesiastic as he might be, neglected to record on maps the place where he landed. Can we imagine a good Frenchman being so imprudent? No, surely not. The fact is that in those remote days there was one problem he did not know how to solve completely. And this problem—you will be amazed to learn what it is—remains a mystery even for us."
He paused, and Roberto understood that since both the Cardinal and Colbert knew, if not the solution, at least the name of the mystery, the pause was solely for his benefit. He thought it wise to play the part of fascinated listener, and he said: "And what is this mystery, if I may ask?"
Mazarin exchanged a knowing look with Colbert and said: "It is the mystery of longitude." Colbert gravely nodded his assent.
"For the solution of this problem of the Punto Fijo," the Cardinal continued, "seventy years ago Philip II of Spain offered a fortune, and later Philip III promised six thousand ducats of perpetual income and an annuity of another two thousand, while the Estates General of Holland offered thirty thousand florins.... By the way, Colbert, we've been keeping that Dr. Morin waiting for eight years...."
"Your Eminence, you yourself have expressed your conviction that this business of the lunar parallax is a chimera...."
"Yes, but to sustain his quite dubious hypothesis the man has effectively studied and criticized the others. Let us allow him to take part in this new project; he could enlighten Monsieur de San Patrizio. Offer him a pension; there is nothing like money to stimulate good inclinations. If his idea contains a seed of truth, we will be enabled better to ensure it for ourselves and at the same time we will avoid his feeling abandoned by his own country, and hence succumbing to the lures of the Dutch. It seems to me that it is indeed the Dutch who, seeing the hesitation of the Spaniards, have started negotiating with that Galilei, and we would be wise not to remain outside the matter...."
"Your Eminence," Colbert said hesitantly, "you will be pleased to recall that Galilei died at the beginning of this year...."
"Really? Let us pray God he is happy, more so than he was in life."
"And in any case his solution seemed for a long time definitive, but it is not...."
"You have felicitously anticipated us, Colbert. But let us assume that Morin's solution, too, is worthless. Nevertheless, we will support it, cause it to
rekindle the debate around his ideas, stimulate the curiosity of the Dutch, see that he allows himself to be tempted, and thus we will have set our adversaries on the wrong track for a while. It will be money well spent in any case. But we have talked enough of this. Continue, please; as San Patrizio learns I will learn with him."
"Your Eminence taught me everything I know," Colbert said, blushing, "but your kindness encourages me to speak." With this, he must now have felt he was on friendly terrain: he raised his head, which he had kept bowed, and moved nonchalantly to the globe. "Gentlemen, on the ocean—where even if you encounter land, you do not know what it is, and if you go towards a known land, you must proceed for days and days amid an expanse of water—the navigator has no points of reference save the stars. With instruments that made the ancient astronomers illustrious, the altitude of a star above the horizon is established, its distance from the zenith is deduced; and knowing its declination, and since zenith distance plus or minus declination determines latitude, you know immediately on which parallel you are, that is, how much you are north or south of a known point. That is clear, I think."
"A child could understand it," Mazarin said.
"We must believe," Colbert went on, "that in similar fashion it can be established also how far to the east or to the west of the same point you are, in short, at what longitude, or on what meridian. As Sacrobosco says, the meridian is a circle that passes through the poles of our world and through the zenith directly above our head. And it is called meridian because wherever a man is and at whatever time of the year, when the sun reaches his meridian, for that man in that place it is noon. Alas, through a mystery of nature, every means conceived to establish longitude has always proved faulty. How much does it matter, the profane might ask? It matters a great deal."
Gaining confidence, he turned the globe, pointing to the outline of Europe. "Fifteen degrees of meridian, approximately, separate Paris from Prague, a little more than twenty separate Paris from the Canaries. What would you say to the commander of a land army who thought he was fighting at the White Mountain, and instead of killing Protestants he slaughtered the doctors of the Sorbonne at Mont-Sainte-Genevieve?"
Mazarin smiled, holding out his hands, as if to convey the expectation that such things would happen only on the correct meridian.
"The tragedy," Colbert continued, "is that errors of such dimensions are made with the means used to determine longitude. And thus dreadful things happen: almost a century ago, that Spaniard Mendaña discovered the Islands of Solomon, lands blessed by Heaven with fruits of the soil and gold beneath the soil. This Mendaña fixed the position of the land he had discovered, came home to announce the event, and in less than twenty years ships had been fitted out for him four times to return to the islands and definitively assert the rights of Their Most Catholic Majesties, as they are called in their country, and what happened? Mendaña was never able to find those islands again. The Dutch did not remain idle: at the beginning of this century they set up their Dutch East India Company, they created in Asia the city of Batavia as point of departure for many expeditions to the east, and they reached a New Holland; while other lands probably to the east of the Solomon Islands were discovered by English pirates, to whom the court of Saint James's quickly granted charters of nobility. But of the Solomon Islands no one was to find a trace, and it is understandable that some are now inclined to consider them a legend. Legendary or not as they may be, Mendaña actually found them, but, while he fixed their latitude properly, he mistook their longitude. And even if, through celestial help, he had established it correctly, other navigators seeking that longitude (and he himself, on his second voyage) did not know clearly what their own longitude was. And even if we knew where Paris was but could not establish whether we were in Spain or among the Persians, you see well, sir, that we would be proceeding like blind men leading the blind."
"Truly," Roberto ventured, "I can scarcely believe, with all I have heard about the advancement of learning in this century of ours, that we still know so little."
"I will not give you a list of the methods proposed, sir, from the one based on lunar eclipses to the one considering the variations of the magnetic needle, on which our Le Tellier labored even recently, not to mention the loch method, which our Champlain guaranteed with many promises.... But all proved insufficient, and they will continue to be so until France has an observatory where all these many hypotheses can be tested. There is of course one sure method: keep on board a clock that always tells the time of the Paris meridian, then determine the local time at sea, and from the difference in times deduce the difference of longitude. This is the globe on which we live, and you can see how the wisdom of the ancients divided it into three hundred sixty degrees of longitude, usually starting from the meridian that crosses the Isla de Hierro in the Canaries. In its celestial course, the sun (and whether it is the sun that moves or, as they have it nowadays, the earth, is a question of little consequence in this instance) covers fifteen degrees of longitude in one hour, so when in Paris it is midnight, as it is at this moment, then at one hundred eighty degrees of meridian from Paris it is noon. So if you know for sure that in Paris the clocks say, for example, noon, and you can determine that in the place where you are now it is six in the morning, you calculate the difference in time, translate every hour into fifteen degrees, and you will learn that you are ninety degrees from Paris, and hence more or less here...." He turned the globe and indicated a point on the American continent. "But while it is not hard to determine the time in the place where you are making your calculation, it is quite difficult to keep a clock that will continue to tell the correct time after months of navigation on board a ship tossed by the winds, such movement causing error even in the most ingenious of modern instruments, not to mention hourglasses and water clocks, which to function properly must rest on an immobile plane."
The Cardinal interrupted him: "We do not believe that Signor di San Patrizio need know any more for the present, Colbert. You will see to it that he is given further enlightenment during the journey to Amsterdam. After which it will no longer be we who teach him, but he, we trust, who teaches us. In fact, my dear San Patrizio, the Cardinal, whose eye has seen and will see—for a long time, let us hope—farther than ours, provided in the past for a network of trusted informants, who would journey to other countries, frequent the ports, question captains setting out on a voyage or just returning from one, to learn what the other governments were doing and what they knew that we did not, for—and this seems to me obvious—the State that discovers the secret of longitude, and manages to prevent word of it from spreading, will obtain a great advantage over the others. Now..." And here Mazarin paused again, once more smoothing his moustache, then folded his hands as if to concentrate and at the same time implore the support of Heaven. "Now we have learned that an English physician, one Dr. Byrd, has devised a new and prodigious means to determine the meridian, based on the use of the Powder of Sympathy. How, dear San Patrizio, do not ask us, for I barely know the name of this deviltry. We are certain that this powder is employed, but we know nothing of the method Byrd plans to adopt, and our informant is most surely not versed in natural magic. However, it is certain that the English admiralty has agreed to fit out a ship to brave the seas of the Pacific. The matter is of such moment that the English have chosen not to have the ship appear as one of their own. It belongs to a Dutchman, who pretends to be eccentric and claims that he wants to repeat the course of his compatriots who, about twenty-five years ago, discovered a new passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific, beyond the straits of Magellan. But since the cost of the venture could prompt suspicion of secret financing, the Dutchman is overtly loading cargo and seeking passengers, as if he were concerned with meeting expenses. Seemingly by chance, Dr. Byrd will also be on board, with three assistants, to collect exotic flora, they say. In fact they will be in complete charge of the expedition. And among the passengers there will be you, San Patrizio: our agent in Amsterdam
will take care of everything. You will be a Savoyard gentleman who, pursued by a warrant in every land, feels it is wise to disappear for a long period at sea. Obviously, you will not even have to lie. Your health will be delicate—and the fact that you have an eye affliction, as we have heard, is a touch that perfects our plan. You will be a passenger who spends almost all his time indoors, with some poultice or other on his face, and for the rest you will not see beyond your nose. But, vague vagabond, you will seem to divagate, while in reality you will keep both eyes open and your ears pricked. We know you understand English, but you will pretend not to, so the enemies will speak freely in your presence. If someone on board understands Italian or French, you will ask questions and remember what you are told. Do not disdain to engage common men in conversation, who for a few coins will disclose anything. But let the sum be small, and it must appear a gift, not a bribe, else they will grow suspicious. You will never ask anything directly, and after questioning someone one day, you will ask the same questions on the morrow in different terms, so that if the man at first lied, he will be led to contradict himself: foolish men forget the tales they tell, and the next day they invent an opposite story. You will recognize liars: when they laugh, they have dimples in their cheeks, and they keep their fingernails closely trimmed; similarly, beware of men of short stature, who utter falsehoods out of vainglory. In any case keep your dialogues with them brief, and do not appear content: the person with whom you must speak is Dr. Byrd, and it will be natural for you to crave the company of the only passenger who is your equal in education. He is a man of learning, he will speak French, perhaps Italian, certainly Latin. You are ill, and you will seek advice and solace from him. You will not behave like those who eat berries or red earth and pretend to spit blood, but you will have your pulse taken after supper, for always at that hour one seems to have a fever, and you will tell him you never close your eyes at night; thus you will have an excuse if you are surprised somewhere, wide awake, which is bound to happen if their experiments involve the stars. This Byrd must be a man possessed, as for that matter are all men of science: invent some fancies and talk to him about them, as if you were confiding a secret, thus he will be led to talk about the obsession that is his secret. Show interest, but pretending to understand little or nothing, so he will tell it to you better a second time. Repeat what he says, as if you have understood, and make some mistakes, so that out of vanity he is prompted to correct you, explaining in detail what he should remain silent about. Never affirm, always allude: allusions are made to test the spirit and probe the heart. You must inspire trust in him: if he laughs often, laugh with him, if he is bilious, be bilious also, but always admire his knowledge. If he is choleric and insults you, tolerate the insult, knowing you began punishing him even before the insult was uttered. At sea the days are long and the nights endless, and there is nothing that consoles an Englishman in his boredom better than many beakers of that cervisia, or beer, as they call it, of which the Dutch always carry a supply in their hold. You will pretend to be a devotee of that beverage, and you will encourage your new friend to partake of it more than you do. One day he might become suspicious and have your cabin searched: for this reason you will put no observation in writing, but you may keep a diary in which you complain of your ill-luck, or implore the Virgin and the Saints, and pour out your despair of seeing your Beloved again; and in this diary there must appear notes on the doctor's virtues, praising him as the one friend you have found on board. You will not quote any of his words pertinent to our object, but only pompous pronouncements, no matter how trite they may be: if he uttered them, he did not consider them so and will be grateful to you for having recorded them. In short, we are not here to offer you a breviary of the good secret informant: a man of the church is not versed in such matters. Trust your talent, be keenly on guard and guardedly keen, let the penetration of your gaze be the opposite of its reputation and in proportion to your alacrity."
