D’Avaux was amused by her carefulness. “As your gallant is renewing his Platonic friendship with the Princess, may I escort you to Mr. Sluys’s box? I cannot stand to see you neglected.”
Eliza looked at the Stadholder’s box. Mary was there but William had already sneaked out, leaving the field clear for Monmouth, whose brave resolve to go East and fight the Turk had Mary almost in tears.
“I never even saw the Prince,” Eliza said, “just glimpsed him scurrying in at the last minute.”
“Rest assured, mademoiselle, he is nothing to look at.” And he offered Eliza his arm. “If it’s true that your beau is leaving soon for the East, you’ll need new young men to amuse you. Frankly, you are overdue for a change. La France did her best to civilize Monmouth, but the Anglo-Saxon taint had penetrated too deeply. He never developed the innate discretion of a Frenchman.”
“I’m mortified to learn that Monmouth has been indiscreet,” Eliza said gaily.
“All of Amsterdam, and approximately half of London and Paris, have learned of your charms. But, although the Duke’s descriptions were unspeakably vulgar-when they were not completely incoherent- cultivatedgentlemen can look beyond ribaldry, and infer that you possess qualities, mademoiselle, beyond the merely gyn?cological.”
“When you say ‘cultivated’ you mean ‘French’?”
“I know you are teasing me, mademoiselle. You expect me to say ‘Why yes, all French gentlemen are cultivated.’ But it is not so.”
“Monsieur d’Avaux, I’m shocked to hear you say such a thing.”
They were almost at the door to Sluys’s box. D’Avaux drew back. “Typically only the worst sort of French nobility would be in the box that you and I are about to enter, associating with the likes of Sluys-but tonight is an exception.”
“LOUIS LEGRAND-as he’s now dubbed himself-built himself a new chateau outside of Paris, at a place called Versailles,” Aaron de la Vega had told her, during one of their meetings in Amsterdam’s narrow and crowded Jewish quarter-which, by coincidence, happened to be built up against the Opera House. “He has moved his entire court to the new place.”
“I’d heard as much, but I didn’t believe it,” Gomer Bolstrood had said, looking more at home among Jews than he ever had among Englishmen. “To move so many people out of Paris-it seems insane.”
“On the contrary-it is a master-stroke,” de la Vega had said. “You know the Greek myth of Antaeus? For the French nobility, Paris is like the Mother Earth-as long as they are ensconced there, they have power, information, money. But Louis, by forcing them to move to Versailles, is like Hercules, who mastered Antaeus by raising him off the ground and slowly strangling him into submission.”
“A pretty similitude,” Eliza had said, “but what does it have to do with our putting a short squeeze on Mr. Sluys?”
De la Vega had permitted himself a smile, and looked over at Bolstrood. But Gomer had not been in a grinning mood. “Sluys is one of those rich Dutchmen who craves the approval of Frenchmen. He has been cultivating them since before the 1672 war-mostly without success, for they find him stupid and vulgar. But now it’s different. The French nobles used to be able to live off their land, but now Louis forces them to keep a household in Versailles, as well as one in Paris, and to go about in coaches, finely dressed and wigged-”
“The wretches are desperate for lucre,” Gomer Bolstrood had said.
AT THEOPERA,before the door to Sluys’s box, Eliza said, “You mean, monsieur, the sort of French nobleman who’s not content with the old ways, and likes to play the markets in Amsterdam, so he can afford a coach and a mistress?”
“You will spoil me, mademoiselle,” d’Avaux said, “for how can I return to the common sort of female-stupid and ignorant-after I have conversed with you? Yes, normally Sluys’s box would be stuffed with that sort of French nobleman. But tonight he is entertaining a young man who came by his endowment properly. ”
“Meaning-?”
“Inherited it-or is going to-from his father, the Duc d’Arcachon.”
“Would it be vulgar for me to ask how the Duc d’Arcachon got it?”
“Colbert built our Navy from twenty vessels to three hundred. The Duc d’Arcachon is Admiral of that Navy-and was responsible for much of the building.”
The floor around Mr. Sluys’s chair was strewn with wadded scraps. Eliza would have loved to smooth some out and read them, but his hard jollity, and the way he was pouring champagne, told her that the evening’s trading was going well for him, or so he imagined. “Jews don’t go to the Opera-it is against their religion! What a show de la Vega has missed tonight!”
“’Thou shalt not attend the Opera… ‘ Is that in Exodus, or Deuteronomy?” Eliza inquired.
D’Avaux-who seemed uncharacteristically nervous, all of a sudden-took Eliza’s remark as a witticism, and produced a smile as thin and dry as parchment. Mr. Sluys took it as stupidity, and got sexually aroused. “De la Vega is still selling V.O.C. stock short! He’ll be doing it all night long-until he hears the news tomorrow morning, and gets word to his brokers to stop!” Sluys seemed almost outraged to be making money so easily.
Now Mr. Sluys looked as if he would’ve been content to drink champagne and gaze ‘pon Eliza’s navel until any number of fat ladies sang (which actually would not have been long in coming), but some sort of very rude commotion, originating from this very box, forced him to glance aside. Eliza turned to see that young French nobleman-the son of the Duc d’Arcachon-at the railing of the box, where he was being hugged, passionately and perhaps even a little violently, by a bald man with a bloody nose.
Eliza’s dear Mum had always taught her that it wasn’t polite to stare, but she couldn’t help herself. Thus, she took in that the young Arcachon had actually flung one of his legs over the railing, as if he were trying to vault out into empty space. A large and rather good wig balanced precariously on the same rail. Eliza stepped forward and snatched it. It was unmistakably the periwig of Jean Antoine de Mesmes, comte d’Avaux, who must, therefore, be the bald fellow wrestling young Arcachon back from the brink of suicide.
D’Avaux-demonstrating a weird strength for such a refined man-finally slammed the other back into a chair, and had the good grace to so choreograph it that he ended up down on both knees. He pulled a lace hanky from a pocket and stuffed it up under his nose to stanch the blood, then spoke through it, heatedly but respectfully, to the young nobleman, who had covered his face with his hands. From time to time he darted a look at Eliza.
“Has the young Arcachon been selling V.O.C. stock short?” she inquired of Mr. Sluys.
“On the contrary, mademoiselle-”
“Oh, I forgot. He’s not the sort who dabbles in markets. But why else would a French duke’s son visit Amsterdam?”
Sluys got a look as if something were lodged in his throat.
“Never mind,” Eliza said airily, “I’m sure it is frightfully complicated-and I’m no good at such things.”
Sluys relaxed.
“I was only wondering why he tried to kill himself-assuming that’s what he was doing?”
“Etienne d’Arcachon is the politest man in France,” Sluys said ominously.
“Hmmph. You’d never know!”
“Sssh!” Sluys made frantic tiny motions with the flesh shovels of his hands.
“Mr. Sluys! Do you mean to imply that this spectacle has something to do with my presence in your box?”
Finally Sluys was on his feet. He was rather drunk and very heavy, and stood bent over with one hand gripping the box’s railing. “It would help if you’d confide in me that, if Etienne d’Arcachon slays himself in your presence, you’ll take offense.”