ENTR’ACTE
“I am the contr?leur-général 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 r?le 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, étienne.”
“Well, if they are not of independent means, it would seem to suggest that—” and here étienne 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.
étienne 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 étienne.
“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 étienne.
“On the contrary, there is Monsieur Castan, an old confrère 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.