WATERHOUSE:Leibniz has been trying to make sense of Descartes’ dynamics for years, and finally given up. Descartes was wrong. His theory of dynamics is beautiful in that it is purely geometrical and mathematical. But when you compare that theory to the world as it really is, it proves an unmitigated disaster. The whole notion of vortices does not work. There is no doubt that the inverse square law exists, and governs the motions of all heavenly bodies along conic sections. But it has nothing to do with vortices, or the c?lestial ?ther, or any of that other nonsense.
RAVENSCAR:What brings it about, then?
WATERHOUSE:Isaac says it is God, or God’s presence in the physical world. Leibniz says it has to be some sort of interaction among particles too tiny to see…
RAVENSCAR:Atoms?
WATERHOUSE:Atoms-to make a long story short and leave out all the good bits-could not move and change fast enough. Instead Leibniz speaks of monads, which are more fundamental than atoms. If I try to explain we’ll both get headaches. Suffice it to say, he is going at it hammer and tongs, and we will hear more from him in due course.
RAVENSCAR:That is very odd, for he avers in a personal letter to me that, having published the Integral Calculus, he’ll now turn his attention to genealogical research.
WATERHOUSE:That sort of work entails much travel, and the Doctor does his best work when he’s rattling round the Continent in his carriage. He can do both things, and more, at the same time.
RAVENSCAR:In the decision to study history, some will see an admission of defeat to Newton. I myself cannot understand why he should want to waste his time digging up ancient family trees.
WATERHOUSE:Perhaps I’m not the only Natural Philosopher who can put together a “moderately sophisticated ploy” when he needs to.
RAVENSCAR:What on earth are you talking about?
WATERHOUSE:Dig up some ancient family trees, stop assuming that Leibniz is a defeated ninehammer, and consider it. Put your philosophick acumen to use: know, for example, that the children of syphilitics are often syphilitic themselves, and unable to bear viable offspring.
RAVENSCAR:Now you are swimming out into the deep water, Daniel. Monsters are there-bear it in mind.
WATERHOUSE:’Tis true, and when a man has got to a point in his life when he needs to slay a monster, like St. George, or be eaten by one, like Jonah, I think that is where he goes a-swimming.
RAVENSCAR:Is it your intention to slay, or be eaten?
WATERHOUSE:I have already been eaten. My choices are to slay, or else be vomited up on some bit of dry land somewhere-Massachusetts, perhaps.
RAVENSCAR:Right. Well, before you make me any more alarmed, I’m off to the printer’s.
WATERHOUSE:It may be the finest errand you ever do, Roger.
APTHORP:Woe. Bad tidings and alarums! Fear for England… O miserable island!
WATERHOUSE:What can possibly have happened, in the Temple of Mercury, to alter your mood so? Did you lose a lot of money?
APTHORP:No, I made a lot, buying low and selling high.
WATERHOUSE:Buying what?
APTHORP:Tent-cloth, saltpeter, lead, and other martial commodities.
WATERHOUSE:From whom?
APTHORP:Men who knew less than I did.
WATERHOUSE:And you sold it to-?
APTHORP:Men who knew more.
WATERHOUSE:A typical commercial transaction, all in all.
APTHORP:Except that I acquired knowledge as part of the bargain. And the knowledge fills me with dread.
WATERHOUSE:Share it with Pluto, then, for he knows all secrets, and keeps most of ’em, and basks in Dread as an old dog lies in the sun.
APTHORP:The buyer is the King of England.
WATERHOUSE:Good news, then! Our King is bolstering our defences.
APTHORP:But why d’you suppose the Jew braved the North Sea to come and buy it here?
WATERHOUSE:Because ’Tis cheaper here?
APTHORP:It isn’t. But he saves money to buy it in England, because then there are no expenses for shipping. For these warlike commodities are supposed to be delivered, not to some foreign battle-ground, but here -to England-which is where the King intends to use ’em.
WATERHOUSE:That is extraordinary, since there are no foreigners here to practise war upon.
APTHORP:Only Englishmen, as far as the eye can see!
WATERHOUSE:Perhaps the King fears a foreign invasion.
APTHORP:Does it give you comfort to think so?
WATERHOUSE:To think of being invaded? No. To think of the Coldstream Guards, the Grenadiers, and the King’s Own Black Torrent Guards fighting foreigners, ‘stead of Englishmen, why yes.
APTHORP:Then it follows, does it not, that all good Englishmen should bend their efforts to bringing it about.
WATERHOUSE:Let us now choose our words carefully, for Jack Ketch is only just round the corner.
APTHORP:No man has been choosing his words more carefully than you, Daniel.
WATERHOUSE: Lest native arms fraternal blood might shed,
For want of alien foes and righteous broil,
We’d fain see foreign canvas off our shores,
And English towns beset by armed Boers.
Our soldiers, if they love by whom they’re led,
May then let foreign blood on English soil.
And if they don’t, and let their colors fall,
Their leader never was their King at all.
To d’Avaux, March1687
Monseigneur,
Finally, a real spring day-my fingers have thawed out and I am able to write again. I would like to be out enjoying the flowers, but instead I am despatching letters to tulip-land.
You will be pleased to know that as of last week there are no beggars in France. The King has declared beggary illegal. The nobles who live at Versailles are of two minds concerning this. Of course they all agree that it is magnificent. But many of them are scarcely above beggars themselves, and so they are wondering whether the law applies to them.
Fortunately-for those who have daughters, anyway-Mme. de Maintenon has got her girls’ school open at St.-Cyr, just a few minutes’ ride from the chateau of Versailles. This has complicated my situation a little. The girl I have supposedly been tutoring-the daughter of the Marquise d’Ozoir-has begun attending the school, which makes my position redundant. So far, there has been no talk of letting me go. I have been putting my free time to good use, making two trips to Lyons to learn about how commerce works in that place. But apparently Edouard de Gex has been spreading tales of my great skills as a tutor to the Maintenon, who has begun making noises about bringing me to St.-Cyr as a teacher.
Did I mention that the teachers are all nuns?
De Maintenon and de Gex are so shrouded in outward Godliness that I cannot make out their motives. It is almost conceivable that they believe, sincerely, that I am a good candidate for the convent-in other words, that they are too detached from worldly matters to understand my true function here. Or perhaps they know full well that I am managing assets for twenty-one different French nobles, and they wish to neutralize me-or bring me under their control by threatening to do so.
To business: returns for the first quarter of 1687 have been satisfactory, as you know since you are a client. I pooled all of the money into a fund and invested it mostly through sub-brokers in Amsterdam, who specialize in particular commodities or species of V.O.C. derivatives. We are still making money on India cloth, thanks to King Louis who made it contraband and thereby drove up the price. But V.O.C. shares fell after William of Orange declared the League of Augsburg. William may be full of bluster about how the Protestant alliance is going to rein in the power of France, but his own stock market seems to take an extremely dim view of the project! As does the court here- tout le mondefinds it tremendously amusing that William, and Sophie of Hanover, and a grab-bag of other frostbitten Lutherans believe they can stand up to La France. There is brave talk about how Father de Gex and Marechal de Catinat, who suppressed the Protestants in Savoy with such force, ought now to ride North and and give the same treatment to the Dutch and the Germans.