Chapter 8
Besançon
April 1636
“Ron Stone has notified me,” Henri de Rohan said to Grand Duke Bernhard, “that your wife will be accompanied by a member of his family to serve in your vaccination campaign.”
“Just as well,” Bernhard grumbled. “They told me that Lambert, a decent second option since he’s the administrator of the Leahy Medical Center and also has been in Burgundy before, has other commitments.”
The Monster touched down with a flurry of air from its skirts. Grand Duchess Claudia emerged, followed by a nursemaid who was carrying her infant son, followed by Gerry Stone.
Bismarck whispered to Ruvigny, “The mountains were in labor and they brought forth a mouse.”
“Morning, Your Grace,” Gerry said to Rohan as the grand duke turned and bore his spouse and heir away. “Since you’re here to meet me, I guess Ron radioed that because the Prague trip with Dad and Magda already ruined this semester anyway, he thinks I might as well be useful and come be the ‘public face’ for universal, or at least as universal as the grand duke can get it, smallpox vaccination in the County of Burgundy. Being as I’m a member of the Lothlorien Pharmaceuticals family and all that.”
“We’re delighted to have you.”
“Honestly?” Gerry asked. “Do you mean it? The grand duke didn’t look exactly ecstatic. This face? I’m sure some maire is going to be thrilled off his gourd when a kid with bright red hair and a pointy nose wanders into his village and announces, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.’”
“There’s been a glitch,” Kamala Dunn said that evening, “and nobody notified Ron. Not that I can blame the grand duke’s staff for being overwhelmed, with all the high muckety-mucks in the Catholic church who are going to be arriving like a deluge. Nobody is ready to start.”
“Oh, double-disgust. What a pain.”
“Come on. I’ll take you to dinner, at least. You can talk to some of the rest of the up-timers here and I can introduce you to a couple of local guys I know.”
The food wasn’t bad, and neither were the guys, even though they were a lot older, probably over twenty. Not as old as Ms. Dunn, but older than Gerry.
“So,” he said to August von Bismarck. “What next? There’s not even a university here and I’m pretty sure my French isn’t good enough to take lecture notes, even if there was one. What am I going to do now?”
“Everybody knows that the best way to learn a language . . . ” Bismarck began.
* * *
The news of Louis XIII’s death and Gaston’s assumption of the throne reached Besançon almost immediately—rumors first and confirmation following close on their heels.
“What Rohan seemed to be saying,” Gerry remarked to Bismarck, “is that his wife and daughter need to get the hell out of Dodge, and this time he’s not taking ‘no’ for an answer. Amid all the rabid frothing at the mouth that he did.”
“What’s ‘Dodge’?” Bismarck asked.
“Who’s Ruvigny?” Gerry countered. “Dodge was a town in Kansas where a lot of wild west movies were set. A lot of the plots involved that it wasn’t safe for someone to stay in Dodge, usually because a U.S. Marshal was after him.”
“Ruvigny’s the guy I went to Paris with last fall. He was standing next to me when you got off the Monster. He didn’t come to the dinner that Madame Dunn held.”
Ruvigny came hurrying into the room. “I’m the guy you’re going to Paris with again, August. The order this time is to remove the ladies, by persuasion if possible and by skullduggery if necessary. And leave yesterday, if not the day before.”
“Can I go?” Gerry asked.
“No, ye gods! Why?”
Gerry pointed his thumb at Bismarck. “He says that spending time in France is the best way for me to improve my French. There’s nothing else for me to do here until Ms. Dunn and the cordon sanitaire folks get their act together. It’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Why not?”
“We’re leaving now. Right now.”
“I haven’t even unpacked my duffel bag.”
On the Road Again
May 1636
Camped beside a poorly maintained track in eastern France, Ruvigny tapped his finger on his kneecap. “I should have given him time to unpack that cursed duffel bag, no matter how much of a hurry we were in.”
“It wouldn’t have done any good,” Bismarck pointed out. “The infernal instrument is small and portable. He could have slipped it into his pocket.”
It turned out that Gerry played the harmonica, but not well. “It’s an old up-time tradition,” he assured them. “People sit around a fire and some guy plays a harmonica.”
Oh bury me not, on the lone prairieeeee . . .
Paris
May 1636
“I would say . . . ” Soubise hoisted himself to his feet with more ease than rheumatic knee joints would normally allow a man, walked over to the sideboard, and decanted his own brandy. Among the lessons that had been dinned into him by Raudegen, by young Cavriani, even by the formidable Madame Cavriani in Brussels, over the past weeks was the infallible truth that servants had ears. He and Anne were alone. He turned and lifted his glass.
“I would say that although I haven’t heard from Henri since before we left London, I doubt that he will embrace the idea of Gaston as king of France. His fits and starts caused Bernhard too much trouble in Lorraine last year.”
“Is it certain that Anne of Austria is in the Low Countries with her son and that man?”
Soubise wrinkled his forehead at his sister’s implication that Anne of Austria’s son might not also be the son of the late Louis XIII. “That man” would be Cardinal Mazarin.
“Yes, the dowager queen is in Brussels. Fernando and Maria Anna, and perhaps more importantly the old infanta, have taken the infant king under their protection.”
“Infant king!” Mademoiselle Anne, who was hostile to Anne of Austria at the best of times, stamped her foot.
“He isn’t the same child,” Soubise said. “Not the one who grew up to revoke the Edict of Nantes in that other world.”
“Oh, I know he isn’t the same child,” Anne said, slapping the table. “For one thing, he’s two years older than that one was. But this baby will be brought up by the same people, a Spanish woman and an Italian churchman. He will be under the same influences, so I prophesy that he will do the same thing, or something very like it, if he mounts the throne and has an opportunity.”
* * *
Marguerite pelted into the breakfast room. “Henri is back again! With M. von Bismarck and an up-timer. A genuine up-timer. I’ve never met one before. I saw Madame Mailey when she came to negotiate the treaty after the League of Ostend débâcle, but I never got to meet her because Maman,” she waved at her mother, “could not decide if it was acceptable etiquette for us to be presented to her, or if she must insist that the USE’s ambassador plenipotentiary, being a commoner, must be presented to us. And I saw the famous physician, too, but at a distance. He is impressive, for a barber-surgeon.”
“Why,” the older duchess asked, her voice like ice, “is he here?” Her well-planned morning seemed likely to descend into chaos.
“With all due respect, Your Grace,” Ruvigny said as he came through the door, “you must know.”
“The duke wants us to leave Paris? Still wants it? Wants it again?”
Ruvigny handed over a packet of letters.
“I would not say that he merely wants it, Your Grace. I would say that this time he requires it.”
As soon as Raudegen and Marc dropped into the stables at the Hôtel de Sully, they encountered the emissaries from Grand Duke Bernhard. Or, to be precise, the emissaries from Henri de Rohan who happened to be employees of Grand Duke Bernhard. Complicated by the presence of Gerry Stone, the up-timer. Layers upon layers. Emissaries from Rohan who had strict orders to remove the duke’s wife and daughter from the troubled situation in France whether the ladies wanted to be removed or not.
They reported back to Soubise that their group might be moving on.
“I just got here,” Soubise moaned. “My muscles ache. My joints ache. I’m never moving again.”
“You’ve been in Paris for nearly two weeks, so you should be fairly well recovered from your travels,” Raudegen pointed out.
“There’s no need for you to go with the duchesses when they leave,” Mademoiselle Anne said. “You are always welcome to stay with me, for as long as necessary.”
“I don’t think his joints ache all that much,” Marc commented as they walked back to the Palais Rohan. “He wasn’t any worse off than the rest of us while we were riding in the mud; he was a lot better off than his valet. He may have gotten a bit soft while he was in London, but he’s been in the salle every morning since we got to Mademoiselle Anne’s.”
“Where has Colonel Raudegen gone this morning?” Marguerite asked the next day.
“To start making overtures, more or less.” Ruvigny cocked his head to one side. “Put out feelers at the court by way of military men who know Grand Duke Bernhard, get some sense of the mood from former associates of your Grand-père Sully, that sort of thing. Marc is speaking to various associates of his father—bankers, financiers, people that Gaston will need if the government is to have funds. This all has to be done before your aunt starts hinting at salons and soirées that the allegiances of the Rohans would be more likely to move in the king’s favor if he revoked the exile decree. The king has a lot of popular support right now, but it’s still far from universal support. If quite a few people start murmuring about how it would be desirable for your uncle to come back to France, he and his advisers may conclude that it is their own idea.”
Marguerite rested her chin on the heel of one hand. “Yes, it would be harder if we were asking him to allow Papa to come, because they know that Papa is calculating and ambitious. He shows it. I suspect that Uncle is also. He just isn’t obvious. But Uncle is already here.”
“You know that,” Susanna said. “I know that.” She waved one hand. “Colonel Raudegen knows that; your mother and aunt know that. I don’t doubt that several dozen royal spies know that. The new king does not officially know that. Right now, it will be a lot better if he and his advisers don’t officially know that.”
“If he reverses the edict as a ‘gesture of magnanimity,’” Raudegen interrupted, “then we will wait a couple of weeks of discreet ‘travel time’ before your uncle ‘arrives.’ Otherwise, if the king won’t reverse his exile, we’ll have to take him on to Burgundy. But if the hints to the court receive favorable hints from the court, then your Maman and Tante can make a formal request.”
“Will the king let Uncle Soubise stay?”
That was also a question that Soubise was discussing with Mademoiselle Anne, but not the only one. Assuming that Gaston did give permission for him to “return” to Paris and he would be able to reside there openly, his choice of residence would have implications. Ramifications. Connotations. Public relations considerations. He would be far more comfortable if he remained with Anne. He had never liked his sister-in-law and never would. But . . .
“I think you should take up residence at the townhouse,” Anne said. “Residing with the duchess and Marguerite would make you seem to be accepting charity from Sully and perhaps appear to lend substance to any rumors that we are in financial difficulties. However, occupying Rohan’s townhouse on the Place Royale will make a statement that you are now the senior adult representative of the family in France: a member of the house by birth rather than marriage.” Further discussion ensued. And ensued. And ensued.
* * *
“This is the morning that Soubise is to ‘arrive’?” Susanna asked a few days later. “In public, that is, and take up residence at the townhouse?”
Marc nodded. “We ‘expect’ him shortly before noon. The king issued his proclamation. I—well, people I know—planted quite true reports in the Amsterdam newspapers that he had left England some time earlier this spring and met with the Stadhouder in The Hague. We discreetly avoided pinning down when this occurred. Vague is your friend. The Paris papers picked that up, of course. Raudegen has managed to cobble together a decent-sized retinue to ‘accompany’ him, since he would not be expected to travel with just a secretary, cook, coachman, and valet. He’s hired several plain but good quality carriages and a half-dozen bodyguards, and rented a couple of dozen trunks. The trunks are empty, but as far as the reporters and the gawkers along the street are concerned, he’ll have about as much luggage as would be expected if he were coming from the Low Countries. He’ll hold a news conference, of course.”
“Will Sully and his wife be coming? Not today, but eventually?”
Monsieur Gaston, not one to lose a public relations opportunity, had not only revoked Soubise’s exile, but also added a lagniappe by ending the house arrest of his father’s former first minister.
“No.” It was Marguerite who replied to Susanna. “My grandfather is old; my grandmother asserts that she is not well, though she may outlive us all. In their case, it’s the appearance that they are again welcome at court that matters. My grandfather is happy and grateful, but they won’t return to Paris.”
“Your uncle’s servants that he brought from London will ‘come’ with him as part of his public entourage. That’s obvious.” Susanna turned to Marc. “Are we moving? You and I and Colonel Raudegen?”
“We’re not moving as part of this morning’s entourage,” Marc said. “Think! Just think! In the public narrative, Soubise has no association with any of us. And shouldn’t have. I rather doubt that Mademoiselle Anne has any wish to extend us her hospitality an instant longer than she must. I assume that Raudegen will find us an apartment. The rest of us will transfer to wherever it may be in a couple more days, with no fanfare whatsoever. Or, perhaps, simply go on to Burgundy.”
“But I want Susanna,” Marguerite squealed.
Marc quirked a smile. “I want Susanna, too, but I hardly ever get her.”
“I will ask Maman.” She looked at Marc. “If she agrees, you could ask the colonel if you could come to us. Henri and Bismarck are staying with us. There’s an immense amount of space. Please come. It would be such fun to have you.”
“It will also save us a significant amount of money,” was Raudegen’s contribution to the plan. “We are instructed by the grand duke to remain here for the time being and render all due assistance to Rohan’s emissaries.”
Laubach, Solms-Laubach
May 1636
Katharina Juliana opened the letter from Albert Otto’s Aunt Sofie that had arrived in the mail sack, addressed to her rather than to him. The widow of Margrave Joachim Ernst von Brandenburg-Ansbach, Aunt Sofie had been regent since his death. It had been a heavy responsibility in these times of war. Friedrich would have come of age next year, but with his death last fall at Warta, in the same battle that took the life of Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel, Sofie would continue to bear the burden until Albrecht, now sixteen, came of age. That had required another letter of condolence last November, among many others. Warta had not been merciful to Gustavus’ officer corps.
She started to nibble on her right thumbnail; then pulled it out of her mouth, made a face, and pulled on a glove to remind herself not to do that.
In another world, King Louis XIV of France had revoked the Edict of Nantes that granted toleration to the French Huguenots, their fellow Calvinists. Sofie had learned that in that other world, the ruler of Ansbach had opened its borders to the refugees, bringing in large numbers of skilled workers in specialized trades that redounded to the economic advantage of the territory for centuries thereafter.
Käthe’s hand came up involuntarily and she got a mouthful of fabric. Wincing, she pulled it out of her mouth.
If there should be such a revocation in this world, Aunt Sofie was making generous plans to take maximum advantage of the Huguenots’ misfortune. She had also written to Amalie Elisabeth suggesting that, in case of necessity in this world, Hesse might do likewise, given its precarious economy. Pharmaceuticals would help Kassel, and the revival of the university at Marburg should attract talent, but having more resources available never hurt anyone.
It’s time for Amalie Elisabeth to require Albert Otto to start representing her to the Estates or on committees of the confidential council, or something. He’s old enough now. The rest of the world should see that the male members of the family support her regency.
Then maybe we could go to Magdeburg. Or at least to Kassel. And I could see my sisters.
Käthe frowned. It wouldn’t hurt Solms-Laubach, either, to have an influx of skilled workers. Albert Otto rarely gave a lot of thought to remote contingencies, but she put his aunt’s letter on top of the stack of correspondence his secretary had left for him and wrote a letter of her own to her sister offering their services to Hesse should they ever be needed.
Besançon
May 1636
Rohan, as Bernhard’s Statthalter and present on the spot, learned the truth of the papal assassination “attempt” almost at once. With the grand duke not only out of town but away in Lorraine, he had his hands full. Far too full to pay detailed attention to what his family was doing or envoys were accomplishing in Paris.
Paris
May 1636
“I’m glad Uncle Soubise will be here for quite a while,” the little duchess said over a folder of fabric samples. “I hadn’t seen him for ages, but I like him even though he blusters most of the time and mutters the rest of it. He doesn’t really mean any of his complaints. I think he’s cute.”
Susanna looked up. “Should I be sitting in your presence, Your Grace? I have been concerned about this. After all, your status and mine . . . ”
“You’re not here as a dressmaker for me. You are here as the fiancée of M. Cavriani, whose father, if not noble, is rich and knows everyone. You are here as Maman’s guest, not to work for us. You will stand in my presence in the public rooms, of course, should you be called to be present. In the private rooms, you are my own guest because I invited you in. Here, I say that you may sit. Maybe you are even someone who might become my friend, if we know one another long enough. Friends can sit to look over a book of fabric swatches, can’t they?”
“I guess so.”
“Then that’s settled. Now, about Uncle Soubise, what I wanted to say is . . . ”
Susanna meditated for a moment on whether or not she was now on such terms with Marc that she ought to start practicing how to acquire intelligence data.
Yes, she was.
“Marc says that your uncle is much shrewder than he pretends to be.”
“Papa thinks so, too, that Uncle Soubise is undervalued.” Marguerite hesitated, as if she were about to reveal a secret sin. “I have read some of the drafts of Papa’s mémoires. Grand-père Sully’s also. I started because I miss them, but parts are interesting. Don’t tell my mother. She loathes the femmes savantes, even though she owns quite a lot of books herself. More than Papa has. It’s probably because Tante Anne is one: she reads Hebrew and writes poetry. So I wouldn’t want Maman to think that I am in danger of becoming intellectual. I don’t think it’s likely that I will become a savante, do you, even though Grand-mère Rohan was almost one? I don’t think they had a word for it, way back then. In any case, she was a most indomitable woman, as shown by her actions during the year in which she and my Tante Anne were held captive by the Catholics after La Rochelle surrendered. Such splendid recalcitrance in the face of persecution!” She giggled. “Richelieu said that she was malignant to the last degree. But, what was I talking about? Papa thinks that if the English commanders and the authorities in La Rochelle had listened to Uncle’s advice during the last revolt, then things might not have gone so badly for us. I don’t remember much about that time, though.”
“How old were you?”
Marguerite calculated. “Ten, when it started. Eleven when it finished. I don’t remember the revolt before that at all, because I was only six. For it, I know what people tell me.” She closed the sample book. “They don’t tell me much.”
“Marc thinks . . . ” Susanna began.
Marguerite’s mind flitted away. “I saw Marc kiss you at breakfast this morning.”
“I kissed him back,” Susanna said. “It wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last time. I’ll probably marry him some day, when we are old enough, if I can learn to live among Calvinists.”
“I thought that you are already his fiancée.”
“Our families haven’t signed any contracts. His father forwards our letters to one another, though. My mother and stepfather are aware that his father, though a Calvinist, is also in a position to provide for his future very well indeed. So. Well. ‘Flirt to convert’ is what my stepfather said. Not that there is any prospect that he would. Anyway, M. Cavriani was there the first time we kissed each other.”
“So. Well. Anyway,” Marguerite mocked her. “It sounds to me as if you are indeed his fiancée, whether you know it or not. I have never kissed anyone. I never will, unless I get married. Perhaps then I will have to. Would I have to kiss a man if we were betrothed but not married yet? I hope my husband will be businesslike about begetting and not . . . ” Marguerite made a little gesture that somehow reminded Susanna of worms, spiders, slugs, snails, and swarms of things that crept and crawled. “ . . . not put his hands all over me or slobber all over my face. How can you stand it? How can Maman stand it?
“Also . . . ” The little duchess assumed a facial expression that would have better suited a Scots preacher’s wife with seven decades of life under her belt. “It’s bad for your reputation.”
Susanna raised her eyebrows. “Don’t you have something more important to worry about than my reputation? You’re in the middle of a country that’s cheering for a usurper, and from all I hear, the usurper is on the other end of the spectrum from trustworthy. For what it’s worth, Your Grace, I assure you that my virtue is quite intact. As for reputation, girls like me don’t have one. Or need one, for that matter.”
“Girls like you? It’s women like Maman and the other court ladies who don’t have reputations. Not, at least, good reputations. Don’t you want a good reputation?”
Susanna’s forbearance snapped. “Where would I get one? You’ve lived in courts all your life. You know what the morals are, and they aren’t what your Calvinist preachers would like them to be. They’re not even the way your ordinary provincial official or school teacher or shopkeeper or artisan manages his household. Even in the Netherlands, where both couples—the king and queen and the Stadhouder and his wife—are so generally well behaved most of the time, although it is said that Frederik Hendrik only married Amalia of Solms because she refused to become his mistress and his brother said he had to get married to someone, it doesn’t mean that all the people who revolve around them follow their example. No one raises an eyebrow when a servant becomes a nobleman’s mistress. And if, when he ends it, she comes away with a generous settlement, she has a better prospect of marrying some other upper servant rather than a worse one. If I had given into that Lorrainer colonel and he’d really had as much money as he claimed to have, my dowry would have been a lot bigger than it is.”
“Well, I will never take a lover. A husband will be more than enough.” Marguerite bowed her head. “My Tante Catherine, one of Papa’s other sisters, died before I was born, but they tell me that when Henri IV made a galant advance to her, she answered, ‘I am too poor to be your wife and too well-born to be your mistress.’ Too poor or too proud, I will never be any man’s mistress. It’s hard to think of virtue separate from reputation, though. Isn’t reputation a mirror of a person’s character?”
Then she popped her head up again, her eyes bright. “What colonel?”
Susanna tsked. “Not one you know. Just remember. Reputation is nothing but what ‘they’ say. A lot of what ‘they’ say can be malicious—rumor, insinuations, allegations. But I don’t have to care. I am who I am, and Marc believes me and not anyone else’s gossip. And if he damages my ‘reputation’ by kissing me, he’ll take the greatest of care for me, for myself and not for what anybody says about me.”
“It’s almost worse,” the little duchess concluded, “when what ‘they’ say is true rather than false.”