Newton's Cannon Read Online Free Page B

hence. I would be pleased if you would join my company on the barge.”
    Adrienne's eyes widened slightly, and an expression he could not identify crossed her face. “I would be pleased to, Sire.”
    “Good. Someone will instruct you in your attire.”
    He then turned to the other courtiers, listening politely while they each expressed some sentiment and asked some favor. When they were all dismissed, he stepped out of bed, preparingto dress, to keep his appointments. But he paused to receive the letter that Adrienne had passed to Bontemps. He broke its seal. It was, as the demoiselle had promised, brief.
    Most Reverent Majesty.
My name is Nicolaus Fatio de Duillier. I am a member of your academy and a former student of Sir Isaac Newton himself. I tell you in all sincerity that if you speak with me but a moment, I can tell you how to win the war against England, with great finality.
    Your humble and most unfortunate servant,
N. F. de Duillier.
    “Why have I never heard of this de Duillier?” Louis complained to his chancellor, the duke of Villeroy.
    Villeroy's face was drawn beneath his plumed hat. The powder on his face did little to hide his surprise at Louis'statement.
    “Sire?”
    “I have a note from him. He is one of my philosophers.”
    “Yes, Sire,” Villeroy replied. “I know of him.”
    “Has he approached you as well?”
    “This de Duillier has radical, unworkable ideas, Sire. I did not want you bothered with them.”
    Louis gazed down at Villeroy and the other ministers, intentionally letting the silence expand to fill the gallery. Then he said, his voice quite low, “Where is Marlborough now?”
    A general murmur arose among the other ministers. Villeroy cleared his throat. “News came late last night that he has taken Lille.”
    “What of our fervefactum? How can an army take a fortress defended by a weapon that boils its blood?”
    “The fervefactum has grievously short range, Majesty, and is too massive to transport. The alliance uses long-range shells, many of which have been taught magically to seek their targets. In fact, they have instructed such shells to seek our fervefactum when they are in operation. They also—” He grimaced. “At Lille they used a new weapon: a cannonball that rendered the fortress walls into glass.”
    “Glass?”
Louis shouted.
    “Yes, Sire. Transmuting the wall and shattering it simultaneously.”
    “What does this mean for the future of the war?”
    Villeroy paused, obviously pained. “Our finances are strained,” he began softly. “The people suffer from taxation and hunger. They are weary of this war, and now the tide has finally turned against us. In three years we have scarcely won a battle. And now Marlborough is moving toward Versailles, and I fear we cannot stop him.”
    “So my chancellor and minister of war has no proposal for staving off our imminent defeat.”
    Villeroy looked down at the table. “No, Sire,” he whispered, shaking his head.
    “Well,” Louis exclaimed, “have any of my other ministers any suggestions?”
    Muttering died to silence before the marquis de Torcy, the minister of foreign affairs, voiced what they were all thinking.
    “Have we given no thought to a treaty?”
    Louis nodded. “As all of you know, I have thrice entreated the alliance against us to conclude a peace, and have each time been cruelly rebuffed—even when I came perilously close to betraying my grandson and surrendering Spain. These people do not want peace with France, they want to
destroy
France. They fear our might, and they fear our command of the new sciences. Did you know that two members of my Academy of Science have been assassinated in the past year? For that reason I stationed a company of special corps to protect them. I will now move them to Versailles; Paris is too dangerous.”
    “What of Tsar Peter of Russia?” asked Phelypeaux, secretary of the royal household. “He has defeated Sweden and the Turk, securing his own power quite