The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World

by Neal Stephenson

  The coat of arms painted on the door of that carriage matched the one on the gates. Or so she guessed. To verify as much would have required a magnifying-glass, a herald, and more time and patience than Eliza had just now. The arms of Charlotte-Adélaide were a quartering of those of de Gex and de Crépy, and to make the arms of d’Ozoir, these had been recursively quartered with those of the House of de Lavardac d’Arcachon—themselves a quartering of something that included a lot of fleurs-de-lis, with an arrangement of black heads in iron collars, slashed with a bend sinister to indicate bastardy. At any rate, what it all meant was that the lord of the manor was back. Just as he stepped down from his carriage, the bells in the old, alienated belfry down the street began to toll noon. Eliza was late for church, and that was an even worse thing than usual, because on this day the proceedings could not go forward until she and her baby arrived. She sent an aide down to explain matters, and to tender apologies, to the Marquis, and hustled out one door with her baby and her entourage just as Claude Eauze entered through another. Presently he did the chivalrous thing, viz. got his carriage turned round and sent it rattling down the street after her. But so close was one thing to another in Dunkerque that, by the time the carriage caught up with her, Eliza was already standing at the church’s door. She might have given it the slip altogether if she had gone in directly. But she had paused to look at the Église St.-Eloi, and to think.

  She favored the looks of this church. It was late-Gothic, and could have passed for old, but was in fact a new fabrique. The Spaniards had levelled the old one some decades past in a dispute as to the ownership of Flanders. All that remained of it was the belfry, and if its looks were any indication, the Spaniards had wrought a great improvement on the appearance of this town. The new one had a great rose window filled with a delicate tracery of stone, like the rosette on the belly of a lute, and Eliza always liked to stop and admire it when she passed by. Now, holding her baby to her bosom, she stopped to admire it one more time. At that moment a counter-factual vision entered her phant’sy, wherein Rossignol was by her side, and the two of them went in to be joined in marriage, and then walked down to the water and boarded ship and sailed off to Amsterdam or London to raise their baby in exile.

  The dream was interrupted by the raucous vehement on-rush of the carriage of the Marquis d’Ozoir, which was about as fitting and about as welcome in this scene as musketry at a seduction. Lest she get trapped outside exchanging pleasantries with the Marquis, she hurried through the door.

  The church’s vault was supported by several columns that were arranged around the altar in a semicircle, reminding Eliza of the bars of a giant birdcage: a birdcage into which she had been chased, not only by the banging and rattling carriage, but by divers other sudden and frightening onslaughts as well. She could fly no farther. She was caught. Best to flutter up onto her new perch, preen, and peer about. The Marquis slipped in alone, and took a seat in his family pew. She peered at him; he peered, discreetly, at her. Jean Bart watched them watching each other. They, and several servants and acquaintances who’d showed up, joined in the standings, sittings, kneelings, mumblings, and gestures of the Mass. Jean-Jacques turned out to be one of those infants who accepts the dunking, not with hysterical protests but with aghast curiosity; this made his godfather immensely proud, while giving his mother a vision of long rambunctious years ahead. The Jesuit crossed his forehead with oil and said that he was a priest and a prophet and that his name was Jean-Jacques: Jean after Jean Bart, who became his godfather, and Jacques after another man of Eliza’s acquaintance who was unable to attend the rite, being either dead, or crazy and chained to an oar. No mention was made of the child’s natural father. Indeed very little notice was given to the mother; for the story being given out was that Jean-Jacques was an orphan rescued from some massacre in the Palatinate and only being looked after by Eliza.

  Over joyous bonging from the belfry, the Marquis—who, she now remembered, was a tall man, physically impressive, and handsome in a disreputable way—insisted on a celebration at his place. The produce of local vines, orchards, and distilleries was made available to a small and select list of guests. Some hours later, Jean Bart could be seen making his way home, tacking down the street in the manner of a ship working to windward.

  The comtesse de la Zeur and the Marquis d’Ozoir kept an eye on Bart from the same room where Eliza had had her audience with d’Avaux three days earlier. She and the Marquis got along very well, which, given his past association with the slave trade, rather made her flesh crawl. He took a sort of avuncular interest in Jean-Jacques, which perhaps stood to reason given that the two had been born in such similar circumstances.*

  The conversation that took place after Jean Bart had gone home, and the servants had been sent away, would have been altogether different if these two had inherited their titles. As matters stood, however, there were no illusions between them, and they could converse freely and without pretense. Though to do so for a few minutes (Eliza decided) was to be reminded that inhibited and pretentious chatter was not always such a bad thing.

  “You and I are alike,” the Marquis said. Which he meant as a compliment!

  He continued, “We have our titles because we are useful to the King. If I were a legitimate son of the Lavardacs, I’d not be permitted to do anything with my life other than sit around Versailles waiting to die. Because I am a bastard, I have traveled to India, Africa, and the Baltic as far as Russia, and in all of these places I have engaged in trade. Trade! Yet no one thinks less of me for it.”

  He went on to explain why, in his view, Eliza was useful to the King. It all had to do with finance, and her links to Amsterdam and London, which he described aptly. This was unusual in a French noble. The very few of them who actually comprehended what went on in a Bourse, and why it mattered, affected ignorance for fear of seeming common. To them Eliza made as much sense as the Oracle of Delphi. By contrast, the Marquis affected to understand more than he really did. To him Eliza was a petty commerçant. Or so ’twould seem from his next remark: “Fetch me some timber, if you please.”

  “I beg your pardon, monsieur?”

  “Timber.”

  “Why do you require timber?”

  “You do know that we are at war with practically everyone now?” he asked, amused.

  “Ask the contrôleur-général whether the Countess de la Zeur knows it!”

  “Touché. Tell me, my lady, what do you see when you gaze out the window?”

  “Brand-new fortifications, very expensive-looking.”

  “Closer.”

  “Water.”

  “Closer yet.”

  “Ships.”

  “Closer yet.”

  “Timber on the shore, piled up like ramparts.”

  “You know, of course, of my family’s connections to the Navy.”

  “Tout le monde knows that your father is Grand Admiral of France and that the Navy has grown prodigiously during his tenure.”

  “During his tenure as a man in a glorious uniform, attending ship-christenings and twenty-one-gun salutes, and throwing magnificent fêtes. Yes. But tout le monde also knows that it was Colbert who was responsible for it. In addition to Grand Admiral, my father was Secretary of State for the Navy until 1669, did you know that? Then he sold the post to Colbert, for a lot of money. Did he want to sell it? Did he need the money? No. But he knew that the funds had been advanced to Colbert—a commoner—by the King himself, and so he could not refuse.”

  “He was fired,” Eliza said.

  “In the most polite and remunerative way imaginable, he was fired. Colbert became his superior—for of course the Grand Admiral of France is accountable to the Secretary of State for the Navy!”

  “When you put it that way, it must have been an interesting time for the Duke.”

  “It is just as well I was living as a Vagabond in India at the time. I could almost hear his screaming from Shahjahanabad,” said the Marquis. “In any case, he was well
paid for the demotion, and he went on to make a great fortune out of the ship-building program that Colbert then instituted. For whenever so much money flows from the Treasury to the military, there are countless ways for those within the system to profit. I should know, mademoiselle.” And he glanced around the interior of the salon. Like much in Dunkerque, it was small. But everything in it was magnificent.

  “You had your title in ’74,” Eliza said, “and made yourself useful as a part of this Navy-building project.”

  “I am always eager to be useful to my King,” he said.

  “God save the King,” Eliza said. “I of course share the same eagerness to be of service to his majesty. Did you say you required some timber?”

  “Oh, but of course. There’s a war on. To this point, naval engagements have been few—a small battle in Bantry Bay when our ships were taking the soldiers to Ireland, and of course the heroics of your friend Jean Bart. But great battles will come. We need more ships. We require timber.”

  “France is blessed with enormous size, and deep forests,” Eliza pointed out.

  “Indeed, my lady.” His eyes strayed inland, to the crests of the dunes, which were held together with scrub, which here and there gave way to the firm straight lines of new earth-works concealing mortar-batteries. “I do not see any forests hereabouts.”

  “No, this is like Holland, or Ireland. But farther inland, as you must know, are forests that cannot be traversed in less than a fortnight.”

  “Fetch me some timber, then, if you wish to be of service to the King.”

  “Would it be as useful to le Roi, if the timber came instead to Le Havre, or Nantes? For Dunkerque is not at the mouth of any great river, but those places are, and this would make the shipping infinitely easier.”

  “We have shipyards in those places, too; why not?”

  Here, Eliza ought to have paused to wonder why there was a shipyard in Dunkerque at all, given its location; but after weeks of boredom here, she was so pleased to have been given something to do that she did not give any thought to this paradox.

  “Timber costs money,” she reminded him, “and I have given all of mine away.”

  He laughed. “To the French Treasury, mademoiselle! And you shall be buying the timber on behalf of the King! I shall send letters to the Place au Change in Lyon. Everyone there shall know your credit is backed by the contrôleur-général. Speak to Monsieur Castan there—it is he who makes payments to those who have had the honor of lending money, or selling goods, to the King of France.”

  “You are suggesting I am to journey to Lyon?”

  “It is a terribly important matter, my lady. My coach is at your disposal. You seem in need of an airing-out. Whether the timber is delivered to Nantes or Le Havre, or even here, is all the same to me; but you, mademoiselle, I will meet back here in six weeks.”

  Book 4

  Bonanza

  Throne Room of the Pasha,

  the Kasba, Algiers

  OCTOBER 1689

  Dwelling on the Sea-coast, and being a rapacious, cruel, violent, and tyrannical People, void of all Industry or Application, neglecting all Culture and Improvement, it made them Thieves and Robbers, as naturally as Idleness makes Beggars: They disdain’d all Industry and Labour; but being bred up to Rapine and Spoil, when they were no longer able to ravage and plunder the fruitful Plains of Valentia, Granada and Andalusia, they fell to roving upon the Sea; they built Ships, or rather, took Ships from others, and ravag’d the Coasts, landing in the Night, surprising and carrying away the poor Country People out of their Beds into Slavery.

  —DANIEL DEFOE,

  A Plan of the English Commerce

  “O MOST NOBLE FLOOR, exalted above all other pavements, nay even above the ceilings and rooves of common buildings, you honor me by suffering my lips to touch you,” said Moseh de la Cruz—in a queerly muffled voice, as he was not kidding about the lips.

  The Pasha of Algiers, and his diverse aghas and hojas, had to lean forward and cock their turbans to make out his Sabir. Or so Jack inferred from the rustling of silk and wafting of perfume all around. Jack, of course, could see nothing but a few square inches of inlaid marble flooring.

  Moseh continued: “Though you have already been generous far beyond my deserts in allowing me to grovel on you, I have yet another favor to request: The next time you have the high honor to come into contact with the sole of the Pasha’s slipper, will you please most humbly beseech said item of footwear to inform the Pasha that the following conditions exist…” at which point Moseh went on to relate some particulars of Jeronimo’s story. El Desamparado, needless to say, had been excluded from the meeting. Dappa and Vrej Esphahnian were somewhere near Jack with their faces likewise pressed to the floor.

  When Moseh was finished, a voice above them spoke in Turkish, which was translated into Sabir: “Sole of our slipper, inform the floor that we are well aware of the existence of Spanish treasure-fleets, and would make them all ours, if we had the wherewithal to assault scores of heavily armed men-o’-war in the broad Atlantic.”

  This led to a palpable cringing from the Turk who owned Moseh, Jack, and the others, and who was kneeling behind them; a position not only correct for a man of his station, but comfortable for one who still had very little skin on the soles of his feet. He began to bleat something in Turkish before the translation was even finished; but Vrej Esphahnian boldly cut him off.

  “O glorious and sublime Floor, please make it known to the sole of the Pasha’s slipper that, according to Armenians in Havana, with whom I have recently corresponded, the Viceroy who figures in this story has finished his time in Mexico and next spring, weather permitting, should be on his way across the Atlantic in his brig.”

  “Whose shot-lockers, it is safe to assume, will be filled, not with cannonballs, but with pigs of silver and other swag,” added Moseh.

  “Slipper,” said the Pasha, “remind the Floor that this ship of the Viceroy’s, when surrounded by the Spanish fleet, is akin to a tempting morsel lodged between the open jaws of a crocodile.”

  Moseh took a deep breath and said, “O patient and noble Floor, concerned as you are with preventing the Pasha’s carpets from falling through into the cellar, no doubt you have scarce concerned yourself with anything so tedious and ignoble as long-term bathy-metric trends in the Guadalquivir Estuary. But, half-breed crypto-Jewish oar-slaves have much leisure to contemplate such matters—so, pray allow me to try your patience even further by informing you that there is a submerged sand-bar at the place where the Guadalquivir empties into the Gulf of Cadiz. For many years it has been the case that the treasure-galleons could pass this bar at high tide and enter the Guadalquivir and drop anchor before Sanlúcar de Barrameda, or Bonanza; or even sail fifty miles up the river to Seville. Those cities, then, were long the destinations of the treasure-fleet, and accordingly it is at Bonanza that the Viceroy, at the beginning of his reign, laid the cornerstone of a palace to receive the proceeds of his relentless, corrupt, and gluttonous pillagings. It has been a-building ever since, and is now complete. But the galleons have grown ever larger, and meanwhile Allah in His wisdom has decreed that the sand-bar I spoke of should wax, and build itself nearer to the surface. For these reasons, as of three years ago, the treasure-fleet no longer ends its journey in the mouth of the Guadalquivir, but at the magnificent deep-water bay of Cadiz, a few miles down the coast.”

  “Slipper, inform our Floor that we understand, now, that when the treasure-fleet reaches Cadiz next summer, the swag-barge of the orgulous and thrice-damned ex-Viceroy will have no choice but to break away from it, and make the passage up-coast to Bonanza by itself. But fail not to remind the Floor that it is no more a wise idea for us to send our war-galleys across the Gulf of Cadiz to assault the sand-choked estuary of the Guadalquivir, than it would be to stage a frontal assault on the high seas.”

  “Floor most polished and enduring, so nigh unto what is holy, and so far from the profanities of the infidels, it would
be difficult, and wholly unnecessary, for you to muddle your thoughts with the shabby fragments of knowledge that so clutter my mind: for example, that while war-galleys of the Dar al-Islam are distinctly unwelcome in the said Gulf, it is common for trading-galleys to be seen there. For whereas the former type of ship is crowded stem to stern with scimitar-, dagger-, blunderbuss-, and pistol-brandishing Janissaries, the latter is occupied primarily by wretches chained to oars, and, hence, is less likely to incite all manner of alarm in the superstitious minds of the bacon-eaters.”

  “Slipper, for that same reason they are useless as offensive weapons.”

  “Seamless Floor, for that reason they can substitute stealth for might, moving among other ships without creating alarm; and if the oar-slaves are unchained at the right moment, and if they happen to be a redoubtable crew of disgraced Janissaries seeking to recover their honor, Jesuit Samurais, harpoon-hurling wrestling champions, Caballero Desperadoes, and such-like, and if one of them happens to be personally familiar with the brig under attack; then, Floor, I put it to you that the Viceroy’s hoard could be taken in the name of the Faith rather easily.”

  “And what then, Slipper? For if we understand the nature of the Viceroy’s smuggling operation, the proceeds will be in the form of silver pigs, which, like the four-legged sort, are unclean, and unwelcome in polite company. The coin of this realm, and of the wide world, is Pieces of Eight.”

  “Floor, the slippers of many travelers have walked upon you and the lips of many learned scholars kissed you, and from some of these you may have learned that, while the supply for all the world’s silver is New Spain, the demand is in the East. According to legend, the Court of the Great Mogul in Shahjahanabad, and the Forbidden City in Peking, are where it all ends up. And just as all the ships on a sea derive their motive power from a common wind, so do all the diverse enterprises and trading-companies of Europe and the Ottoman Empire draw their force from this perpetual eastward flux of silver. Accordingly, the best place to exchange crude silver for goods is as far east as possible, lest middle-men take all the profits. The vessel we will be using is a half-galley, or galleot, obviously unfit to sail round Africa and attempt the passage to the Mogul’s port at Surat, and so the farthest east it can possibly travel is Cairo.”