Chapter 12 Everyone is Feeling so Cooperative and Enthusiastic
“Unser volck ist dermassen obedient und behertzt gewesen, das ich es nicht genuch beschreiben kan.”
April 1635
Nancy, Lorraine
“Newspapers,” Doña Mencia de Mendoza announced happily. “Frankfurt on top.” The lady-in-waiting cum shrewd political advisor deposited the pile in front of the queen in the Low Countries.
As a response to the Irish colonels’ raid upon Pechelbronn–—ostensibly, at least–—the King in the Low Countries has proclaimed his annexation of the left-bank territories of the archdiocese of Cologne, their former employer, and moved his army into them, despite some previous rumors to the effect that they, like Cologne city-state itself, would join the USE. He has reached a detente with the USE, negotiated by the Republic of Essen, in regard to this move, by promising not to make any effort to annex the city state of Cologne itself (with hinterland) which is already a city-province of the USE.
Maria Anna looked up from her reading. “Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?”
Claudia de’ Medici, formerly regent of Tyrol and currently grand duchess of the County of Burgundy by virtue of her third marriage, which had taken place a scant couple of weeks before, giggled. “Wait until you get to the next paragraph. The writer becomes more opinionated.”
That accomplished, this upstart “king” has extended his “protectorate” over Metz, Toul, Verdun, and northern Lorraine while the emperor of the USE is preoccupied by the campaigns in the east. He has accompanied this action with many sanctimonious statements in regard to how the ineffective government of the Lorraine duke creates openings for such events as the recent passage of the Irish dragoons formerly in the employ of Ferdinand of Bavaria through Lorraine and beyond through the Palatinate and into Swabia (see editorial below in regard to the scandalous lack of alertness on the part of the USE military that permitted the Pechelbronn raid) and the incursion by Gaston d’Orleans.
“Not bad,” Maria Anna said judiciously. “A person can almost envision the editor frothing with righteous indignation as he writes.”
Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, brother of the new USE prime minister who has so ineffectively responded to the recent spate of Committee of Correspondence-instigated riots, with equal sanctimony, has seen fit to occupy southern Lorraine. Officially, he also has disguised this act of sheer political opportunism as a response to the Pechelbronn raid and Monsieur Gaston’s adventurousness. What the USE now faces, therefore, is a bastardized “joint protectorate” over Lorraine, the specific terms of which were, we hear, negotiated by Maria Anna quondam archduchess of Austria now claiming the title of queen and Claudia de’ Medici quondam grand duchess of Tuscany, now claiming the title of grand duchess of the county of Burgundy.
This time, it was Maria Anna who giggled. “Is that why Bernhard picked that particular title, really? So he would be equal to the one you had by birth?”
“It’s as good an explanation as any. Personally, I think it’s the result of being the youngest of the surviving sons. He wants to score off his older brothers by ending up with more than they have. More land. More prestige. Umm–not more endless forms of address on his correspondence. More, more, more. It’s one of those tendencies I will have to try to moderate with time. He’s really quite brilliant in his own way,” Claudia said kindly. “He was just at the wrong age when his mother died––not quite thirteen. He needs a woman’s influence.”
Both participants in this travesty have stationed occupying forces in Lorraine.
Maria Anna peeked out the window at streets filled with marching men. “Why, what do you know? So they have.”
✽✽✽
Jacques Callot produced a series of engravings to supplement the one of some years earlier, The Horrors of War.
The past couple of years had created enough new horrors to make it worth his while. Now there were such things as the death of Hans Richter in his flying machine, the death of the diver in Copenhagen, the sinking of the ironclad ship––the new technologies to insert as a counterpoint to the continuation of the “traditional” types of horror in this spring’s Lorraine campaign.
Balthasar Moncornet produced a series of not-necessarily-flattering engraved portraits of the important guests and visitors. Like van de Passe, he had purchased the copies of Daumier drawings that were published from photographs taken in Grantville.
Both did reasonably well from the current turn of events. As Moncornet said, the van de Passes weren’t the only people in Europe who were capable of producing graphical comments on society and politics. Both sets also sold quite well at the Frankfurter Buchmesse, making a substantial profit for both the artists and the publisher––their very own Lorraine ducal court printer, right here in town.
Nancy had its own resources when it came to satire.
✽✽✽
Bernhard strode into Claudia’s private room. “My Lady Wife, we have a guest. A rather unwilling guest, but a guest nonetheless.”
Claudia looked up. “Dr. Volmar?”
Dr. Volmar, formerly chancellor of the Tyrolese administration in Alsatian Ensisheim, was clearly rather unwilling to be a guest. Each of his arms was firmly held by a rather large member of the grand duke’s uniformed bodyguard.
“We––well, Moscherosch, to be precise, along with some of his friends who are prone to publish the occasional supposedly funny political commentary––have determined that he is the author of the satires.” Bernhard did not seem inclined to be amused.
“The ones about the new constitution in Tyrol? I suspected as much, but aren’t they covered under the new ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of the press’ provisions?”
“Those,” Bernhard said, “And yes, they are. But that is not all.”
Volmar was looking sicker and sicker.
“He also wrote the rude satires on our marriage,” Bernhard said. “The obscene ones. The ones which insulted your dignity, your...”
“My decision to marry a French-allied Lutheran,” Claudia said. “Dr. Volmar’s pro-Austrian sympathies are well-known.”
“Your honor, your virtue,...”
“The fact that I have been married three times now, with some unfortunately spicy allusions to the probable events of our wedding night.”
“I found the allegations based upon the fact that several years ago, the Tyrolese commander of Breisach had named two of the bastions ‘Leopold’ and ‘Claudia,’ combined with his comments on my conquest of the fortress, particularly rude and offensive. He will now,” Bernhard said, “do penance. Very suitable, since he is, after all, a Catholic, and thus may regard it as an opportunity for contrition on his part rather than retribution on my part. Let us move this discussion to the grand salon and send for every important person who is still in this city.”
✽✽✽
The grand duke had copies of the satires. All of them. No individual pamphlet was particularly thick, but together they amounted to quite a pile of ink-printed rag paper.
The personal satires, only. The grand duke invited impartial witnesses to observe that the purely political satires on Tyrol’s entry into the USE, no matter how venomous, were not included in the stack.
“No,” the grand duke said in answer to the chancellor’s stammered request. “You may not boil them. You do not deserve the courtesy of a kitchen. Neither may you have water, beer, or wine with which to wash them down.”
“My Lord and Husband,” Claudia protested. “The man is past fifty years of age.”
“Old enough to think before he picks up his pen to write. He will swallow his literary productions uncooked.”
In the presence of the assembled dignitaries, Dr. Isaac Volmar ate his words.
Magdeburg
“So Charles IV remains titular Duke of Lorraine,” Philipp Sattler said.
“God in heavens, why?” Prime Minister Stearns was not happy.
“Something to do with the principle of legitimacy,” Francisco Nasi answered. “Both Claudia and Maria Anna apparently consider it to be important. Would you care to apply your excellent mind, Michael, to figuring out why that is the case?”
Sattler kept going. “He’s titular duke of a Lorraine which somehow during the negotiations has absorbed the intermixed former ecclesiastical principalities of Metz, Toul, and Verdun and any number of French enclaves. Their bishops will remain bishops, but no longer sovereign princes––not that they have have actually been sovereign princes since the French occupation, in any case. That’s old news. The French have held all three dioceses since 1552––the Holy Roman Empire has just refused to recognize the occupation as legal for the past eighty years.”
Nasi nodded. “I’m sure that seemed familiar enough to the king in the Low Countries. He’s already absorbed Liège. I expect the left-bank territories of the Archdiocese of Cologne to vanish in the same direction just any minute now, since Gustavus is preoccupied in the east. If Essen doesn’t nibble some of them up, of course.”
“I agree,” Sattler said. “The emperor has been made aware of these developments.” His face took on a frustrated expression. “By the time the emperor has time to consider the implications, it will probably be too late for him to intervene outside of outright war.”
“Which the USE cannot afford. No two fronts.” Stearns said it, but Wilhelm Wettin would have if Stearns hadn’t gotten there first. If neither of them had said it, Hermann of Hesse-Rotenburg would have. There were a few topics on which the USE cabinets, current and shadow, were pretty much unanimous.
Nasi kept going with his original train of thought. “The Spanish don’t have these independent ecclesiastical principalities that were dotted through the old Holy Roman Empire. Fernando doesn’t like them. Plus, being a Habsburg, he can make a colorable claim that he’s merely righting a past injustice to imperial principalities.”
Sattler cleared his throat. “A very pastel shade, to be sure. I assure you that neither Fernando nor Bernhard had, from the beginning, the slightest intention of returning Charles IV from Brussels to his hypothetical domains. Not given his rather clear lack of talent for either civil administration or military enterprise, combined with his overweening self-esteem, not to mention his matrimonial and extra-matrimonial tangles. Duchess Nicole has indeed, as rumored, petitioned for a legal separation.”
“So?” Stearns drummed his fingers on the table.
“For the time being, they have established Lorraine under a ‘joint protectorate’ of the king in the Low Countries and Grand Duke Bernhard, with Claudia de’' Medici as the official regent. Not only is her mother Christine of Lorraine, which makes her the first cousin of this whole generation of the ducal house, but the theory appears to be that she’s likely to look out for the interests of both her current husband and the Habsburg relatives of her prior husband and her children––the king and queen in the Low Countries being among such relatives. For day-to-day administrative purposes, she will be represented on-site and in practical military matters by Johann Aldringen. They’ve hired him jointly.”
“Aldringen?” Wettin exhaled with surprise. “That’s... Really, that’s a brilliant choice. If I were still a field commander, mind you, I’d prefer not to be facing off against Aldringen. But with Franz von Mercy out of the picture––if Aldringen is going to be facing off against someone, I’d far rather see him in Lorraine opposing the French than also working for Ferdinand III with the prospect that he might be facing Gustavus some time soon.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s really convenient for the USE military,” Mike Stearns said. “But why so brilliant?”
“Born at Thionville and his father worked as a municipal lawyer in Luxemburg, so acceptable to Isabella Clara Eugenia,” Nasi said. “Former imperial commander, loyal to Ferdinand II, so acceptable to Fernando––or, at least, to Maria Anna. He fought in the Netherlands, of course.”
Mike snorted. “Didn’t everybody?”
“That war did go on for eighty years,” Hermann of Hesse-Rotenburg said mildly. “It’s not surprising that so many professionals got their early training in that theater.”
“There’s even more than what Francisco has told you. He worked for Archduke Leopold at the Tyrol court in Innsbruck, so he’ll be acceptable to Claudia, not to mention that he’s fluent in Italian. He’s experienced in both flatland and mountain fighting. Experience under Wallenstein, though the king of Bohemia never liked him––called him an ‘ink drinker’ because he started as Madruzzi’s secretary rather than as a fighter. Since his wife died last year, he’s no longer tied to Gallas because they married sisters, not that he was ever given to wine, women, and song the way Gallas was.” Wettin laughed suddenly. “And once upon a time, in your other world, he was roundly defeated by one Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. His grace in dying in battle under those particular circumstances should make him acceptable even to my brother.”
“How old is he?” Stearns asked.
“Close to fifty,” Nasi answered.
“Children whose interest interests he’ll be pushing?”
“His own children, two boys, died as an infants. Brothers and sisters, though not as many nephews and nieces as you might expect from a family that large.” Nasi looked around. “Are there any?”
Hermann made a vaguely negative motion. “One of his brothers––Paul, I think his name is––is the suffragan bishop of Strassburg. That means he does all the diocesan work for Maria Anna’s little brother Leopold Wilhelm, who’s been the politically appointed bishop there since he was twelve years old. That should make coordinating with Bernhard and Claudia when it comes to confessional problems easier. The other brother is also a bishop, but not of a wealthy or prominent see.” He glanced around for assistance.
“Marcus,” Philipp Sattler said. “He’s bishop of Seckau, over in Austria. Out of the picture for us. There were several sisters, but I think that only two married. One is a nun in Cologne. At least one of the girls who married has children and she’s still young enough to have more.”
“Not highly born, then?”
Amalie shook her head. “Respectable, certainly. Middle-class. Snobs tend to refer to his father as a ‘city clerk,’ and not to mean it as a compliment.”
“Hell,” Mike said. “Maybe he really is a brilliant choice.”
“We down-timers do have our moments.” Francisco Nasi took off his glasses and polished the lenses.
Nancy, Lorraine
“It’s a formal letter of congratulations on your marriage, from Landgrave Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel and Landgravine Amalie.” Michael John entered it into his ledger of letters received and placed it on the desk.
“Anything special?” Bernhard grunted absentmindedly.
“The landgravine references your prior occasions of working together with her brother Philipp Moritz, and encloses a separate letter for the grand duchess.”
Claudia reached out a slender hand. “Let me see.” She read aloud:
Please call upon Philipp if he can be of assistance to either Bernhard or Fernando in Lorraine, since he is still in Metz. His wife Sybille Christine has left Metz and gone to Jena, to see if the physicians at the new hospital there can enable her to bear stronger children, since only the one little girl born two years ago is still alive and she is expected to deliver soon. I hope the up-timers can be of assistance, for if our line fails, Münzenburg will fall to the Hanau-Lichtenberg line, which is Lutheran. With the new USE constitution’s requirement for freedom of religion, that might not be so disastrous to our people’s Reformed faith as it would have been otherwise, in that other world, but still, I would prefer to see the succession of my nephews. Wilhelm Wettin’s wife Eleonore strongly recommended this course of action to her sister, which I find generous, considering the religious situation in the principality.
She laughed. “Layers of political implications in and beneath every word.”
Bernhard nodded. “As always.” He paused. “I really like Amalie.” Then he stretched. “I’ll be so glad to get back to Schwarzach. I just loathe getting dressed up for these diplomatic things.”
Schwarzach
“What is this?” Claudia asked.
She, Bernhard’s French correspondence secretary Feret, and the monks of Schwarzach were deeply involved in writing thank-you letters for wedding presents. There may not have been many guests, as important weddings went, but there most certainly were a lot of presents. As the courts of Europe caught up with the news, the presents kept arriving, piled in the abbey’s corridors and, once acknowledged, shipped on to Besançon, where more of the grand duke’s clerical staff, under the leadership of another secretary, were doing the same.
At some time, they would have to coordinate the two lists.
“Hmmn.” Bernhard picked up the package. “It’s a book, from Friedrich Hortleder and wife Catharina. Why am I not surprised that it’s a book? Hortleder is my old tutor. He’s head of the County of Saxe-Weimar chancery now, working out of Jena.” He gave her one of his rare smiles. “And doing double-duty by still providing all of us Saxe-Weimar boys with a constant stream of indubitably excellent advice. I have no doubt that he will continue that practice until he dies, which he shows no sign of doing––he kindly double-checked all the legalities having to do with the modus vivendi after my own staff thought it was finished and caught a couple little points. Certainly, he would like to have seen me better educated than I am.” He pulled off the remainder of the wrappings and thumbed through the pages.
“A hymnal.” He looked more carefully at the title page. “University of Jena, Printed for the Ducal Saxe-Weimar Academy of Evangelical Church Music, 1635. Hot off the press, too.” He leaned against the wall.
“What is the, aahh...?”
“Academy. One of Ernst and Albrecht’s inspirations, if I recall rightly. One of the up-timers had a Lutheran hymnal, with an accompanying handbook. The compilers were thorough. Kind enough, from our perspective, to provide not only the names of the authors of the lyrics––including the Bible verses on which each set of lyrics was based––and composers of the melodies, but also their dates of birth and death, with short biographies containing such useful information as where they were born. So we––well, they, since I am not directly involved––are out beating the bushes for the already-born-but-still-very-young leading hymn writers of the century, in order to provide them with the best possible musical education that can possibly be afforded. We––they––are planning to bring in the best poets and musicians of this generation to teach them. The theory, I believe, is that since they will not be called upon to write what is in this book––he waved the hymnal in the air––having already done so in that other world, we will prepare them to do even better.”
He pushed himself away the wall again. “Ah, Teschner’s music for Valet will ich dir geben. One of my favorite tunes. I learned it when I was with Great-Uncle Johann Casimir at Coburg, between Jena and the army. After our mother died, that was, I guess, the best year of my life. The music was brand new then––he kept wonderful musicians in his Kapelle. I’m sorry the old man is gone.”
He examined the page more closely. “But new words, and based on my own motto from Romans: Si Deus pro nobis, quis contra nos? by some fellow named Paul Gerhardt who’s working in Magdeburg since the rebuilding got started and in that other world would have written this”––he peered more closely at the tiny print of the notes at the bottom of the page––“some twenty years from now.”
He started to hum, then to sing in a surprisingly tuneful baritone,
If God Himself be for me,
I may a host defy;
For when I pray, before me,
My foes, confounded, fly.
“Now there’s a sentiment with which I can concur wholeheartedly. I only wish it worked that way. It would be a lot less effort than making sure every single man in every single regiment knows exactly where he is supposed to be when the assault starts. Give me a piece of paper, Lady Wife, and I will thank the Hortleders in person. And borrow the book.”
He scratched a note in his own imitable scrawl while Father Bonifacius wrote the names of the donors on his list and then checked the entry off.
“Fifteen verses and no refrain.” Bernhard produced a grin that sat rather unexpectedly on his usually rather grim face. “That’s what I call a hymn with meat on its bones. I don’t have much patience with the kind where you sing one line and then the choir goes off into six or eight repeats of Alleluia, alleluia, allelu-u-u-u-u-u-i-i-i-a-a-a. How can any author fit doctrinal teaching into that sort of thing?” He meandered out the door, hymnal in hand, still singing. His spurs clanked on the tile flooring as he made his way down the cloister walk, past the rounded arches with their worn Romanesque pillars.
Claudia looked at the big Benedictine monk who was currently her amanuensis. “My confessor, Father Malaspina, assured me that one of the benefits of this marriage, making it acceptable in the eyes of Mother Church, was the possibility that I might convert my heretical husband to the true faith. He based this hope on the conversion of the grand duke’s former tutor Nihusius by the Jesuits at Cologne.”
Bonifacius looked at the door rather than at the grand duchess. “We at Schwarzach have been acquainted with Grand Duke Bernhard longer than you have, Your Grace. Your confessor is an Italian Jesuit who does not know him at all. He is reasonable. His original contract with France provided that in the regions where he fought against Gustavus, he would neither prohibit the exercise of Catholic worship nor confiscate church property. Since establishing an independent county, he has continued to adhere to this––as you will note, he has not confiscated the Abbey of Schwarzach from us, although he is making rather free use of our buildings. But barring direct divine intervention, there is no more likelihood that he will be budged from his attachment to the Lutheran teachings than that the earth will end tomorrow. Of the two, the latter might be slightly more probable.”
She smiled. “I was beginning to suspect as much already. So, I guess, I can scratch one item off my ‘to do’ list altogether.”
She looked out at the now-empty walkway. “I suspect that the introduction of opera into the court of the County of Burgundy has just dropped to the bottom of my priority list as well. Do you suppose he would enjoy equestrian ballet?”
Brussels
“Unfortunately,” Fernando said, “the message that was just dropped off for me says that Monsieur Gaston is no longer in our hands. He was here for the birth. I had every intention of putting him in stronger constraints than a very loose and polite house arrest once that was done with. However, he has slipped through my noose, along with Clicquot and Marchéville, and is, apparently, now out of the Low Countries.”
“Treachery?” Maria Anna asked.
“Undoubtedly. With all three of them gone, it can’t possibly have happened by accident. I suspect involvement on the part of his mother, although what she could have accomplished from Savoy, other than providing funds to someone else...”
“The Lorrainers? Treachery there?”
“Possibly. Henriette is...still gone. Presumably with Puylaurens. I have placed the duke under a polite house arrest. I hate to do it to Nicolas and Claude, though. They seem to be conscientious. Honest, dutiful, and reasonably hard-working.
“All things considered, the best tilt I can put on it,” Isabella Clara Eugenia said, “is that at least Gaston’s wife and daughter are in Habsburg hands, here in Brussels. That is a considerable improvement, from our perspective, than having them in the hands of Louis XIII and Richelieu. Make sure that you keep them.”
“How are things progressing in regard to Cologne?” Isabella Clara Eugenia asked.
Fernando went into official mode. “We will extend Our formal protection to the left-bank territories next week, thus ensuring that a largely Catholic population will be protected from the annexation efforts of the Calvinist Hessians who have been acting, ostensibly, on behalf of the USE. Unfortunately, Our efforts to come to an amicable arrangement with Archbishop Ferdinand and arrange a comfortable retirement for him during his severe illness and impending old age have not been welcomed in the manner We would have wished. However,...”
He stopped and smiled.
“The occupation is complete. I’ll make the announcement at Euskirchen.”
Maria Anna sighed. “Too bad that Cologne itself and its hinterland made it into the USE as a city state before the Low Countries could get there.”
“Some days, chicken,” Isabella Clara Eugenia said. “Some days, feathers.”
She was, after all, an old woman who had earned the right to say what she thought.
Schwarzach
Claudia, coming from early mass, paused at the door of the monastery’s old-fashioned Romanesque cathedral.
Maybe, as a sign of gratitude for their hospitality, she should arrange for these impoverished Benedictines to receive a nice modern altar. A completely redecorated side chapel, perhaps.
Father Bonifacius was walking a couple of steps behind her.
She gestured toward the field where the grand duke’s regiments were drawn up. “German is not my best language, and with so many voices, it is hard to make out the words. What are they singing?”
He listened for a minute. “It’s an old folk tune, one of the grand duke’s favorites. The author of the words was a teacher from Thuringia.” He cleared his throat. “It is the day of the week that the grand duke’s field chaplains review the soldiers’ religious instruction under the unaltered Augsburg Confession. I hear that the grand duke is most particular about the word ‘unaltered.” They are singing,
Lord, help us ever to retain
The Catechism’s doctrine plain
As Luther taught the Word of truth
In simple style, to tender youth.
“Oh.” Claudia didn’t move.
“The grand duke’s chaplain holds morning prayers in front of his tent; evening prayers in front of his tent. He is assiduous in attending Sunday services, though I must say that not all of his colonels are equally dedicated in the matter. While a person does not wish to succumb to curiosity...he has been in residence here for some time.”
“Did, ah, someone succumb?”
“We are all fallible. If not, we would scarcely stand in need of divine mercy.”
“What did, ah, someone, find out?”
“He reads the Bible. He keeps a catechism, a small prayer book, and Johann Arndt’s True Christianity within easy reach. In many ways, if he had not been reared as a heretic, his temperament would seem to make him an ideal candidate for a military order such as the Knights of Malta or Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. He was, however, reared as a heretic.”
“Father Bonifacius.”
“Yes, my child.”
“I married the grand duke in order, well, mostly in order to retain the revenues from Tyrol’s Swabian territories for my children. Mining rights...”
He nodded. “Nobody ever doubted it.”
“Was my decision over-hasty?”
“Only you can answer that question.” He looked up at a cloud that was floating along through the morning sky. “You may wish to contemplate the question in the light of what our Lord Jesus Christ has to say about putting the things of this world ahead of the kingdom of heaven.”
He looked down again, out at the field. “I only wish the religious theory could be observed to have more application in practice. Many of these men are quite raw in their daily behavior if anyone thwarts their wishes. Of course, the problem is not unique to the Lutherans. I must be fair. In 1622, after Wimpfen, the Catholic forces also behaved abominably. That was an annus horribilis for the people of this region.”
✽✽✽
The grand duke of the County of Burgundy finished up the instructions that Michael John and Feret would find waiting the first thing in the morning.
“I am enclosing several letters of recommendation in regard to promotions for officers who have proved themselves competent. I have made the field promotions myself, but please arrange appropriately showy and multi-colored parchments. For the amount of good will those garner, they are cheap, and the monks at Schwarzach should be able to produce appropriate ones without recourse to the chancery in Besançon. As soon as they are finished, send them by courier. Otherwise...”
He walked across the room, dropped them on his secretary’s pedestal, and returned to his own.
“After last month’s direct military expenditures in Lorraine,” Bernhard wrote in a memo to himself, “not to mention the continuing costs associated with the occupation forces We felt obliged to leave there, ....”
He wasn’t about to send this one to Richelieu. There was no sense in letting one’s technical employer know precisely how close to the edge of bankruptcy one was wavering. Closer than he had been since the year he entered military service at eighteen, when the Kipper und Wipper inflation of 1622 had reduced the buying power of his already tiny income from Saxe-Weimar by half. Hell, he paid each of his colonels per month as much as he drew from Weimar per year.
There was especially no sense in letting your employer know that you were close to the edge when he owed you a lot of money––that was a very bad bargaining position. The French contract had been a constant irritation since he made it. He should have received a million livres each quarter.
First the French lawyers fiddled with the schedule and argued that the payments would be due at the end of each three-month period rather than at the beginning, which meant he had been working on credit from the start. Then they argued that garrison troops in important places should not be counted as the part of the number he had agreed to keep “in the field.”
He had never received the full amount, nor had he ever received a payment on time. They underpaid him, every time. After he withdrew the cavalry from Mainz last year, France had withheld an entire quarterly payout. The resumption was at a sharply reduced rate.
He added and subtracted some figures. Overall, thus far, he had received not quite half of what was due him. Last quarter, Richelieu sent only three hundred thousand livres. There was the citadel. There was the fortress on the Rhine island, near Solingen, with its bridgeheads. Once that was finished...never again would he find himself without a secured way to cross the winding multiple channels of the Rhine...
After the events of this March, he was not anticipating the arrival of any more subsidy installments from Paris. None at all.
He couldn’t share that news with the rest of Der Kloster. He needed every ounce of their confidence in his ability to bring off the firm and permanent establishment of a County of Burgundy.
John probably guessed, but would not have had time to do the precise calculations.