The Confusion

Chateau d’Arcachon, St.-Malo, France
11 APRIL 1692

“THE ENGLISH HAVE DEVISED an extraordinary scheme for the military defense of their homeland, which is that they have no money,” said Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain, controleur-general of France and (now) Secretary of State for the Navy.

This curious gambit was meant for Eliza, for Pontchartrain was gazing directly into her eyes when he came out with it. But others were privy to the conversation. Five were seated around the basset-table in the Petit Salon: besides Eliza and Pontchartrain, there were Etienne d’Arcachon, who was serving as dealer; a Madame de Bearsul, who was the very young wife of a captain of a frigate; and a Monsieur le chevalier d’Erquy, who was from just down the coast. These latter two were, of course, unique souls, precious in the eyes of God, endowed with any number of more or less interesting personal quirks, virtues, vices, amp;c., but Eliza could scarcely tell them apart from all of the other people who were at this moment seated around card-tables in her Petit Salon, playing at billiards or backgammon in her Grand Salon, bowling outside on her damp lawn, or noodling around on her harpsichord.

This was St.-Malo in the spring of ’92. An invasion force was massing. It would quite obviously be departing from Cherbourg, which was only half as far from the shore of England as was St.-Malo; but facilities there, at the tip of the peninsula, were not adequate to sustain so many ships and regiments during the weeks it would take for them to gather and draw up into a coherent force. The regiments-ten thousand French and as many Irish, the latter evacuated from Limerick-were obviously not as mobile as the ships, and so they had first claim to the territory, food, fuel, whores, and other military musts in the immediate vicinity of Cherbourg. By process of elimination, then, the ships of the Channel fleet, and the galleys of the Mediterranean fleet that had lately passed the Gates of Hercules and voyaged north to take part in the invasion, were stationed in Channel ports within striking distance: most important, Le Havre and St.-Malo. Of those, Le Havre was twice as close to Paris, and a hundred times easier to reach from there, since the Seine joined them. So, much larger and more fashionable parties must, at this moment, be going on in noble chateaux around Le Havre. St.-Malo, by contrast, was hardly connected to France at all. A doughty pedestrian like Sergeant Bob Shaftoe could get to it, but such a journey was not recommended for normal people; everyone came to St.-Malo by sea. The family de Lavardac had for a long time maintained a chateau, which looked out over the harbor to one side, and had farms and an excellent potagerie out back. As the fortunes of that family had waxed, this had become the grandest house in St.-Malo, and the former duc d’Arcachon had loved to come here and pace to and fro on the terrace with a golden prospective-glass gazing down upon his privateer-fleet. Eliza had heard much of the place. Having spent most of her married life pregnant at La Dunette, she’d never laid eyes on it until a month ago. But she’d loved it immediately and now wished she could live here year-round.

The astonishing appearance of Bob Shaftoe-who, along with his regiment of Irish mercenaries, had marched right past, en route to Cherbourg from their winter quarters above Brest-had enlivened her first week’s stay at the place. His return visit last week had forced her to put her rusty scheming-and-intriguing skills to use again, there being no proper, sanctioned way for a French Duchess and nursing mother to meet with an English sergeant and probable spy who just happened to be the brother of the most infamous villain in Christendom.

Eliza and Etienne, the infant Lucien, and their household had reached St.-Malo a fortnight in advance of the Mediterranean Fleet. More recently, other Ships of Force had come in from Brest, Lorient, and St.-Nazaire. All of these galleys and ships had officers, who quite often were of noble rank. The social obligations placed upon le duc and la duchesse d’Arcachon were correspondingly immense. Another duchesse would have welcomed those obligations in the same way as generals welcomed wars, or architects cathedral-commissions. Eliza delegated all of the work to women who actually enjoyed such things (she had inherited a large household staff from the previous duchesse d’Arcachon). Her old trusted aides, such as Brigitte and Nicole, and a few retired privateers deeded to her by Jean Bart, she kept close. The retinue of social climbers that had arrived in the wake of her marriage to Etienne, she put to work arranging parties, which kept them busy and, though it did not make them happy, infused them with feelings that they were wont to confuse with happiness.

Eliza, then, merely had to get dressed, show up, try not to forget people’s names, and make conversation. When she became insufferably bored, she would claim she could hear Lucien bawling, and flit off to the private apartments in the other wing of the chateau.

And so the only thing the least bit novel about her situation at this moment-viz. seated at a basset-table watching her husband deal out cards to idle nobles-was that the fellow seated directly across the table from her was of titanic importance. At any other of the parties that the Arcachons had hosted in the few weeks just past, it would have been the captain of some Ship of the Line, cringing and servile in the presence of his master, the Grand Admiral of France (for Etienne had inherited the title). Today, though, it was Pontchartrain who, technically, ranked Etienne d’Arcachon! Etienne was under no obligation to toady, however, as he and Pontchartrain were both of such lofty stature as to be essentially equals. Pontchartrain had turned up unexpectedly this morning on a jacht that had sailed in from Cherbourg. He had spent all of dinner trying to catch Eliza’s eye, and not because he wanted to flirt with her. She had invited the count to join her and Etienne at basset. Then, to prevent the gentlemen from crossing swords, or the ladies from poisoning each other, for the other seats at the table, Eliza had picked out this Madame de Bearsul and this Monsieur d’Erquy, precisely because they were nobodies who would not interfere too much in the conversation. Or such had been her phant’sy. Of course each of them had turned out (as mentioned) to be fully autonomous souls possessed of free will, intelligence, and an agenda. D’Erquy had heard, through the grapevine, that Eliza had been buying up bad loans from petty nobles like him who had been foolish enough to lend money to the government. De Bearsul was angling for a position in the household of some higher and mightier Court personage. To Pontchartrain, who was accustomed to meeting with the King of France almost every day, they might as well have been ants or lice. And so, about five hands into this basset-game, he had locked his brown eyes on Eliza’s and made this curious remark about the English and their lack of specie.

Basset was simple, which was why Eliza had chosen it. Each player was dealt thirteen cards face up on the table, and placed money on any or all of them. The dealer then dealt cards from the bottom and the top of the deck alternately, gaining or losing wagers on all cards of matching ranks. As turns went on, the wagers escalated by a factor of as much as sixty. The dealer was kept very busy. Etienne had had to strap on his basset-dealing prosthesis: a cupped hand with spring-loaded fingers, made to grip a deck of cards. The players could be busy or not, depending on how many of their cards they elected to put money on. Eliza and Pontchartrain had laid only token wagers, which was a way of saying that they were more interested in conversation than in gambling. D’Erquy and de Bearsul were more heavily engaged in the game, and their squeals, moans, stifled curses, sudden outbursts of laughter, amp;c., provided a ragged, bursty continuo-line for this duet between the other two.

“My English friends have been complaining of this lack of coin for years-especially since the onset of war,” said Eliza, “but only you, monsieur, would have the penetration to see it as a defensive strategy.”

“That is just the difficulty-I did not penetrate it until rather late,” said Pontchartrain. “When one is planning an invasion, one naturally makes plans to pay the soldiers. It is as important as arming, feeding, and housing them-perhaps more so, as soldiers, paid, can shift for themselves when arms, food, and shelter are wanting. But they must be paid in local money-which is to say the coin of the realm in whatever place is being invaded. It’s easy in the Spanish Netherlands-”

“Because they are Spanish,” said Eliza, “and so you can pay them in Pieces of Eight-”

“Which we can get anywhere in the world,” said Pontchartrain. “But English pennies can only be gotten in England. Supposedly they are minted-”

“At the Tower of London. I know,” said Eliza, “but why do you say supposedly?”

Pontchartrain threw up his hands. “No one ever sees these coins. They come out of the Mint and they vanish.”

“But is it not the case that anyone may bring silver bullion to the Tower of London and have it minted into pennies?”

Pontchartrain was nonplussed for a moment. Then a smile spread over his face and he burst out in laughter and slapped the table hard enough to make money jump and buzz atop the playing-cards. It was a rare outburst for one of Pontchartrain’s dignity, and it stopped the game for a few moments.

“Monsieur, what an honour and a privilege it is for us to bring you a few moments’ diversion from your cares!” exclaimed Etienne. But this only brought an echo of the first laugh from Pontchartrain.

“It is precisely of my cares that your magnificent wife is speaking, monsieur,” said Pontchartrain, “and I believe she is getting ready to suggest something cheeky.”

Etienne’s face pinkened. “I pray it shall not be so cheeky as to create an embarrassment for our guests-”

“On the contrary, monsieur, ’tis meant to embarrass the English!”

“Oh, well, that is all right then.”

“Pray continue, madame!”

“I shall, monsieur,” said Eliza, “but first you must indulge me as I speculate.”

“Consider yourself indulged.”

“The jacht on which you arrived is under conspicuously heavy guard. I speculate that it is laden with specie that is meant to cross the Channel with the invasion force and be used to pay the French and Irish soldiers during their campaign in England.”

Pontchartrain smiled weakly and shook his head. “So much for my efforts at secrecy. It is said of some that he or she has a nose for money; but I truly believe, madame, that you can smell silver a mile away.”

“Do not be silly, monsieur, it is, as you said, an obvious necessity of a foreign invasion.”

For some reason she glanced, for a moment, at D’Erquy, and then regretted it. The poor chevalier was so transfixed that it took all her discipline not to laugh aloud. This poor fellow had melted down the family plate and loaned it to the King in hopes that it would get him invited to a few parties at Versailles. The interest payments had at first been delayed, then insufficient, later nonexistent. The man with the power to make those payments, or not, was seated less than arm’s length away-and now it had been revealed that he had sailed into St.-Malo on top of a king’s ransom in silver, which was locked up on a jacht a few hundred yards down the hill. A word, a flick of the pen, from Pontchartrain would pay back the loan, or at least pay the interest on it-and not just in the form of a written promise to pay, but in actual metal. This was the only thing D’Erquy could think about. And yet there was not a single word he could say, because to do so would have been impolite. Etiquette had rendered him helpless as effectively as the iron collar around a slave’s neck. All he could do was watch and listen.

“Want of silver is not your difficulty, then,” Eliza continued. “Very well. You must needs translate it across the Channel-very risky. For in the annals of military history, no tale is more tediously familiar than that of the train of pay-wagons, bringing specie to the troops at the front, that is ambushed and lost en route, with disastrous consequences to the campaign.”

“We have been reading the same books,” Pontchartrain concluded. “Even so, as we laid plans for this operation during the winter, I am afraid I paid more attention to my role as Secretary of State for the Navy, than that of controleur-general. Which is to say that I placed more emphasis on preparations of a purely military nature than on the attendant financial arrangements. Not until I reached Cherbourg the other day, and was confronted with the invasion in all of its complexity and scale, did I really grasp the difficulty of getting this specie to England. To send it across in an obvious and straightforward manner seems madness. I have considered breaking it up into small shipments and sending them over in the boats of those who smuggle wine and salt to remote ports of Cornwall.”

“That would distribute the risk, but multiply the difficulties,” said Eliza. “And even if it succeeded, it would not address the great difficulty, which is that if the silver is not accepted on the local-which is to say, English-market, then the troops will not deem themselves to have been paid.”

“Naturally we should like to pay them in English silver pennies,” said Pontchartrain, “but matters being what they are, we may have to use French coins.”

“This brings us back to the conversation we had in the sleigh at La Dunette two years and some months ago,” Eliza said; and the answering look on Pontchartrain’s face told her that she had struck home.

But here Madame Bearsul threw a quizzical look in the direction of the Politest Man in France, who intervened. “On behalf of those of our guests who were not in that sleigh,” Etienne said, “I beg permission to interrupt, so we may hear-”

“I speak of the recoinage, when all of the old coins were called in and replaced with new,” said Eliza. “By royal decree, the new had the same value, and so to those of us who live in France, it made no difference. But they contained less silver or gold.”

“Madame la duchesse, who in those days was Mademoiselle la comtesse, said to me, then, that it must have consequences difficult to foretell,” said Pontchartrain.

“Before Monsieur le comte says a word against himself,” said Eliza, “I would have the honor of being the first to rush to his defense. The favorable consequences of the recoinage were immense: for it raised a fortune for the war.”

“But Madame la duchesse was a true Cassandra that evening in the sleigh,” said Pontchartrain, “for there have been consequences that I did not foretell, and one of them is that French coins are not likely to be accepted at full value in English market-places.”

“Monsieur, have you given any thought to minting invasion coin?” asked d’Erquy.

“Yes, monsieur, and to using Pieces of Eight. But before we take such measures, I am eager to hear more from our hostess concerning the English Mint.”

“I am simply pointing out to you, monsieur,” said Eliza, “that there already exists a mechanism for importing silver bullion to England, at no risk to France; having it made into good English coin in London; and transferring the coin into the hands of trusted French agents there.”

“What is this mechanism, madame?” inquired d’Erquy, suspicious that Eliza was having them on.

“France’s chief connection to the international money market is not here in St.-Malo, or even in Paris, but rather down in Lyon. The King’s moneylender is of course Monsieur Samuel Bernard, and he works hand-in-glove with a Monsieur Castan. I know Castan; he is a pillar of the Depot. He can deliver money to any of several merchant banking houses who maintain agencies in Lyon, and get negotiable Bills of Exchange which can be endorsed to French agents who can transport them to London in advance of the invasion. These may be presented well in advance of the expiry of their usance to bankers in London who, upon accepting them, will make whatever arrangements may be necessary to have the coin ready on the date the bills come due-which may mean that they shall have to ship bullion over from Amsterdam or Antwerp and have it minted at the Tower. But that is their concern, not ours, and their risk. The coin shall be delivered to our agents, who need merely transport it to the front to pay the troops.”

Early in this discourse, the mouth of Madame de Bearsul fell open, as if she might more easily take in these difficult words and notions through her mouth than her ears; and as Eliza went on, similar transformations came over the faces of all her other auditors, including some at adjacent tables; and by the time she reached the terminal phrase pay the troops, they had all begun glancing at each other, trying to build solidarity in their confusion. And so before anyone could give voice to his amazement, Eliza, with unfeigned, uncharacteristic ardor for her role as entertainer to the bored nobility of France, had got to her feet (obliging Etienne, Pontchartrain, and d’Erquy to stand) and begun to arrange a new parlor-game. “We are going to put on a little masque,” she announced, “and all of you must sit, sit, sit!” And she called to a servant to bring quills, ink, and paper.

“But, Eliza, how can gentlemen sit in the presence of a lady who stands?” asked Etienne.

“The answer is simple: In the masque, I am no lady, but a God: Mercury, messenger of Olympus, and patron deity of Commerce. You must phant’sy wings on my ankles.”

The mere mention of ankles caused a little intake of breath from Etienne, and a few eyes flicked nervously his way. But Eliza forged on: “You, Monsieur de Pontchartrain, must sit. You are the Deliverer: the controleur-general of France.”

“That should be an easy role for me to play, Mercury,” said the controleur-general, and, with a little bow to Eliza, sat down.

Now-since the ranking man in the room had done it-all others were eager to join in.

“First we enact the simple Bill of Exchange,” said Eliza, “which requires only four, plus Mercury. Later we will find roles for the rest of you.” For several had gravitated over from different tables to see what the commotion was about. “This table is Lyon.”

“But, Mercury, already I cannot suspend my disbelief, for the controleur-general does not go to Lyon,” said Pontchartrain.

“We will remedy that in a few minutes, but for now you are in Lyon. Sitting across from you will be Etienne, playing the role of Lothar the Banker.”

“Why must I have such a ridiculous name?” demanded Etienne.

“It is an excellent name among bankers-Lothar is Ditta di Borsa in Lyon, Bruges, and many other places.”

“That means he has impeccable credit among other bankers,” said Pontchartrain.

“Very well. As long as the fellow is as well-reputed as you say, I shall accept the role,” said Etienne, and sat down across the table from Pontchartrain.

“You have money,” said Eliza, and used one hand as a rake to sweep a pile of coins across the table so that it ended up piled before Pontchartrain. “And you wish to get it-here!” She strode through the double doors to the Grand Salon where a backgammon game had been abandoned. “Madame de Bearsul, you are a merchant banker in London-this table is London.”

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 controleur-general, give your silver-which is to say, France’s silver-to Lothar the Banker.”

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

“Merci beaucoup, monsieur,” said Etienne, 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.”

Etienne 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 controleur-general give it,” said Eliza. “And now you, controleur-general, 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 controleur-general 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 role 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 role; 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.”

“Voila!” 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 controleur-general 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 controleur-general 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 role 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, Etienne.”

“Well, if they are not of independent means, it would seem to suggest that-” and here Etienne 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.

Etienne 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 Etienne.

“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 Etienne.

“On the contrary, there is Monsieur Castan, an old confrere 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 roles 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 controleur-general 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?” Etienne 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 Etienne 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 Depot,” 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 been 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 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!”