London - Edward Rutherfurd [434]
As he grew older, Meredith found that he had less and less desire to concentrate upon such things. What, in the end, were these temporary affairs of men compared to the great mysteries of the universe? Especially when one of the greatest of all mysteries was being unravelled that very year in London?
It had been Halley’s idea, supported by Pepys, the then president, that the Royal Society should publish the theories which Isaac Newton, a rather dyspeptic Cambridge professor, had been expounding. For months now, as he prepared his great theory for publication, Newton had been sending a stream of requests to the Greenwich Observatory for astronomical information. From all this Meredith already had a fair idea of Newton’s system of gravity and it fascinated him. He knew that the attraction between two bodies depended upon the square of the distance between them; he also understood that two objects dropped from a height, regardless of their mass, should fall together at the same speed. And now, looking down, it suddenly occurred to him that the Monument itself would be an excellent place for such a demonstration. Indeed, he considered wryly, two objects dropped together just now should land on O Be Joyful’s head at exactly the same time.
Carpenter, two hundred feet below, was oblivious to these dangerous ideas. It was not the first time he had come to the Monument. Some months before, when he was admiring the fine carving of the panels at the base, a kindly gentleman had translated one of the inscriptions in Latin which accompanied it. Having described the course of the Great Fire, an additional sentence had been added a few years later:
But Popish frenzy, which caused
these horrors, is not yet quenched.
“For you know,” the gentleman had explained, “it was the papists who started the Great Fire.”
The fact that it was in writing, and upon such a great structure as the Monument must, O Be Joyful supposed, prove it beyond a doubt. And for another half-hour, while Meredith became rather cold above, he sat there and gloomily wondered what terrible things the Catholics would do next.
When everything was ready, they prayed. Then they put the children in the barrels.
Eugene’s father-in-law was a stout, sturdy man, not unlike a barrel himself. Eugene knew that the Bordeaux merchant was better placed to help them than most and he had also guessed that the sooner they left the better. “There will be so many other Huguenots trying to do the same thing that the escape routes will soon be jammed – or discovered by the authorities,” he told his wife.
Louis XIV, the Sun King as they called him, was an autocrat whose power even Charles I of England, with his belief in Divine Right, could hardly have dreamed of. The king who built the vast palace of Versailles and nearly destroyed the Protestant Dutch, and who could tear up the Treaty of Nantes, would certainly be thorough. Only an hour after they had sneaked into the merchant’s house, one of his children reported that the troops were on the quays, inspecting every ship.
Eugene’s faith in his father-in-law had not been misplaced. “The ship I’m putting you on is English. The captain and I have done business for years. He can be trusted.” He had sighed. “It’s your best chance.” It was sailing to the English port of Bristol.
Eugene thanked the merchant for putting himself at risk in this way and asked if he intended to follow them.
“No,” the older man replied sadly. “I shall have to convert.” He shrugged. “You’re younger. You also have a craft – you can work anywhere. But I’m a wine shipper. All I have is here and I still have five children to look after. So, for the moment anyway, I’ll have to be a Catholic. Perhaps in time