“No shipyard could exist in Dunkerque, unless it got its supplies from the sea,” Eliza pointed out, “and so may I assume that this was a habitual arrangement, before the war?”
“It has not been habitual for rather a long while. When I came back from my travels in the East, around 1670, my father put me to work in the Company of the North down at La Rochelle. This was a brainchild of Colbert. He had tried to build his navy out of French timber and ran afoul of the same troubles as you. And so the purpose of this Compagnie du Nord was to trade in the Baltic for timber. Of necessity, this would be shipped mostly in Dutch bottoms.”
“Why did he put it all the way down in La Rochelle? Why not closer to the North—Dunkerque or Le Havre?”
“Because La Rochelle was where the Huguenots were,” the Marquis answered, “and it was they who made the whole enterprise run.”
“What did you do, then, if I may inquire?”
“Traveled to the north. Watched. Learned. Gave information to my father. His position in the Navy is largely ornamental. But the information that he gets about what the Navy is doing has enabled him to make investments that otherwise would have been beyond his intellectual capacity.”
Eliza must have looked taken aback.
“I am a bastard,” said the Marquis.
“I knew he was wealthy, but assumed ’twas all inherited,” Eliza said.
“What he inherited has been converted inexorably to soft money, in just the manner we spoke of a few minutes ago,” d’Ozoir said. “Which amounts to saying that he has slowly over time lost his independent means and become a pensioner of the French Government—which is how le Roi likes it. In order for him to preserve any independent means, he has had to make investments. The reason you are not aware of this is that his investments are in the Mediterranean—the Levant, and Northern Africa—whereas your attentions are fixed North and West.” And here he reached out and took Eliza firmly by the hand and looked her in the eye. “Which is where I would like them to stay—and so let us attend to the matter of Baltic timber, I beg you.”
“Very well,” Eliza said, “You say that in the early seventies, you had Huguenots doing it in Dutch ships. Then there was a long war against the Dutch, no?”
“Correct. So we substituted English or Swedish ships.”
“I am guessing that this worked satisfactorily until four years ago when le Roi expelled most of the Huguenots and enslaved the rest?”
“Indeed. Since then, I have been desperately busy, trying to do all of the things that an office full of Huguenots used to do. I have managed to keep a thin stream of timber coming in from the Baltic—enough to mend the old ships and build the occasional new one.”
“But now we are at war with the two greatest naval powers in the world,” Eliza said. “The demand for ship timber will go up immensely. And as the de la Vegas and I have just finished proving, we cannot get it from France. So you want my help in re?stablishing the Compagnie du Nord here, at Dunkerque.”
“I should be honored.”
“I will do it,” she announced, “but first you must answer me one question.”
“Only ask it, mademoiselle.”
“How long have you been thinking about this? And did you discuss it with your half-brother?”
Jean-Jacques, with an uncanny sense of timing for a six-monthold, began to cry from the next room. D’Ozoir considered it. “My half-brother étienne wants you for a different reason.”
“I know—because I breed true.”
“No, mademoiselle. You are a fool if you believe that. There are many pretty young noblewomen who can make healthy babies, and most of them are less trouble than you.”
“What other possible reason could he want me?”
“Other than your beauty? The answer is Colbert.”
“Colbert is dead.”
“But his son lives on: Monsieur le marquis de Seignelay. Secretary of State for the Navy, like his father before him, and my father’s boss. Do you have the faintest idea what it is like, for one such as my father—a hereditary Duke of an ancient line, and cousin of the King—to see a commoner’s son treated as if he were a peer of the realm? To be subordinated to a man whose father was a merchant?”
“It must be difficult,” Eliza said, without much sympathy.
“Not as difficult for the Duc d’Arcachon as some of the others—for my father is not as arrogant as some. My father is subservient, flexible, adaptable—”