But he left the words unsaid. Turenne would have found saying them distasteful in the extreme, for one thing. For another, like Cardinal Richelieu himself, Turenne did not really care much about a man's private conscience-so long as he was faithful, in his public activities, to his duty to crown and country.

"Ha!" repeated du Barry. Turenne had chosen him for the assignment because Robert, unlike most officers, was familiar with the world of manufacture. As Turenne had suspected-and planned-he was finding the challenge an interesting one.

Du Barry picked up a sheaf of pages and began leafing through them. "Any suggestions for where to start?"

Turenne, as it happened-and much to his own surprise-had become quite fascinated with the challenge himself. "I can tell you where not to start," he growled. "You'll be working closely with Yves Thibault-you know him, I believe?"

Robert nodded.

"Well, don't let the old man convince you to devote much effort to"-again, Turenne stumbled over the pronunciation-"these 'breechloaders' he's become a fanatic about. Oh, to be sure, he's a master gunsmith-so let him fiddle around with a few. Who knows? We might even find he can make enough to be of use. But keep his nose to the wheel, Robert. Simplicity. Learn from the Americans themselves-you'll find more than a few spy reports in that stack also. 'Gearing down,' they call it. Make what you can now, in large enough quantities to affect the world in time."

Du Barry nodded, but Turenne could see that he was already becoming engrossed in what he was reading.

Good enough. What I need.

"Percussion caps, Robert. I can't tell, from the materials I had, exactly how they were made. But from the hints, we should be able to find out. And rifled muskets-not much different from today's hunting pieces. But with a clever American adaptation which enables quick loading on the battlefield. Again, I don't know exactly how it works. Richelieu's books weren't detailed enough. So find out-try different things. But it can be done, Robert. Huge armies, larger than any in Europe today, fought pitched battles with rifled muskets-muzzleloaders, not breechloaders-with which they could somehow maintain a fantastic rate of fire. Three shots a minute-and accurate to several hundred yards."

Du Barry's eyes widened. Turenne grinned.

"The best of it all, however… They called it a 'Miniй ball.' Which-ha!-they got from a Frenchman in the first place."

Du Barry's eyed widened. Turenne barked another laugh.

"Oh, yes! Welcome to the new world, Robert-and who is to say it can't be a French one?"

Chapter 22

"The streets are in chaos," Rebecca said, as soon as she came through the front door of the U.S. delegation's house in The Hague. "I never even made it to my interview with the prince."

Heinrich Schmidt came in after her, and closed the door. "It probably doesn't matter, anyway. According to most rumors, Frederik Henrik left The Hague yesterday. On his way north, according to some, trying to find out what happened. Others claim he went south-or east-in order to bolster the Dutch forces guarding the line of fortresses."

Rebecca sighed and rubbed her face. "Rumors, rumors-everywhere. Every corner is filled with knots of people arguing and exchanging rumors. Who knows what's really happening?"

Gretchen scowled. Jeff, sitting next to her on a couch, took a deep breath. "Well… if Frederik Henrik's really gone… there went our best chance to get a hearing from anybody who'd listen."

Rebecca went over to a nearby chair. "Yes, true enough." As she sat down, her hands slapped the arm rests in a gesture of exasperation. "Damn the Dutch and their obsessive sectarianism! Ever since we got here, the burghers and the regents have had us pigeon-holed as 'Arminians.' As if we care in the least about their stupid doctrinal disputes!"

Heinrich leaned back against the door and grinned coldly. "Calvinists, what do you expect? If you support freedom of conscience-as we do-you are no better than a spawn of Satan, Rebecca. Arminians-the devil's wolves already-dressed in sheep's clothing."

Wearily, Rebecca nodded her head. "Arminianism," in the parlance of the day, was what hardcore Calvinists called the moderate tendencies within Calvinism itself. The term was a vague one, measured by any objective intellectual standards, since it swept under one label such very different men and schools of thought as the Dutchman Grotius-now in exile-or the forces gathered around Bishop Laud in England.

But that very vagueness was an advantage to the hardcore Calvinists in the United Provinces. Under the official theology lurked hard-headed immediate material interests; and the real issues at stake were at least as much political and economic as they were religious. The bastions of hardcore Calvinism in Holland-the Counter-Remonstrants, as they were called-were in such towns as Haarlem and Leiden and Utrecht: manufacturing towns, basically, whose prosperity depended largely on the textile trade. A state of hostility with Spain worked to their advantage, since the Dutch blockade of the Flemish coast and their control over the outlets of the Rhine served to protect them against their Flemish and Brabantine competitors in the Spanish Netherlands. And thus they were hostile to any tendency within the United Provinces which, along theological lines, suggested the possibility of a compromise with Spain.

For its part, Arminianism in Holland had an equally material underpinning. The strongholds of the Arminians were the major port cities-Rotterdam and Amsterdam, along with the smaller towns of Dordrecht and Alkmaar and Delft. These cities depended for their prosperity on the carrying trade and fishing, and for them the continued state of hostilities since the end of the Twelve Years Truce in 1621 had been a major burden. Fine for the manufacturers of textiles-or the Zeeland merchants who depended on the inland trade-to wax hot and eloquent about the Anti-Christ and the devious ways of Popery. It wasn't their ships which were seized by the Spanish-backed privateers operating out of Dunkirk; nor was it their trade with Iberia and the Levant which had been destroyed; nor was it their herring fisheries which were suffering.

Complicating the mix was the long-standing political tug-of-war between the various levels of Dutch government, which was a complex entity: Holland versus the other six provinces; between the town councils and the States of Holland and the States General; the ongoing conflict between the merchant oligarchs who dominated the town councils of Holland and the nobility who were still the dominant class in the more agricultural areas.

Overriding everything else, perhaps, was the role of the House of Orange, the premier noble family of the United Provinces. In the summer of the year 1618, Mauritz of Nassau-the stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland provinces as well as the prince of Orange-had carried through, with the support of the hardcore Calvinists, what amounted to a coup d'йtat. The existing Arminian regime led by Oldenbarnevelt and Grotius had been overthrown. Oldenbarnevelt had been executed, and Grotius cast into prison.

For the next seven years, until his death in 1625, Mauritz had wielded greater personal authority in the United Provinces than any man since his father William the Silent had been assassinated in 1584. He had used that power to entrench the forces of hardcore Calvinism throughout the country. By the time of his death, however, the rigidities of the Counter-Remonstrants had produced a great deal of unrest, and under his successor Frederik Hendrik the balance had begun swinging the other way. Mauritz's half brother, if he lacked some of the martial glamour of other members of the illustrious House of Orange, possessed in full measure the political adroitness and skill of their great father William the Silent. So, steadily but surely, he had worked toward a more even balance of power between the various factions of Dutch society.