was infinitely safer. Besides, people in Paris had been pestering me, too, and they had more money than Mr. Clarke. So Mr. Clarke had to get in line, as they say in New York.”
“Why were so many pestering you?” asks Godfrey.
“Rich Tories, no less!” adds Ben.
“We did not begin calling such people Tories until a good bit later,” Enoch corrects him. “But your question is apt: what did I have in Leipzig that was wanted so badly, alike by an apothecary in Grantham and a lot of Cavalier courtiers sitting in Paris waiting for Cromwell to grow old and die of natural causes?”
“Something to do with the Royal Society?” guesses Ben.
“Shrewd try. Very close to the mark. But this was in the days before the Royal Society, indeed before Natural Philosophy as we know it. Oh, there were a few—Francis Bacon, Galileo, Descartes—who’d seen the light, and had done all that they could to get everyone else to attend to it. But in those days, most of the chaps who were curious about how the world worked were captivated by a rather different approach called Alchemy.”
“My daddy hates Alchemists!” Godfrey announces—very proud of his daddy.
“I believe I know why. But this is 1713. Rather a lot has changed. In the æra I am speaking of, it was Alchemy, or nothing. I knew a lot of Alchemists. I peddled them the stuff they needed. Some of those English cavaliers had dabbled in the Art. It was the gentlemanly thing to do. Even the King-in-Exile had a laboratory. After Cromwell had beaten them like kettledrums and sent them packing to France, they found themselves with nothing to pass the years except—” and here, if he’d been telling the story to adults, Enoch would’ve listed a few of the ways they had spent their time.
“Except what, Mr. Root?”
“Studying the hidden laws of God’s creation. Some of them—in particular John Comstock and Thomas More Anglesey—fell inwith Monsieur LeFebure, who was the apothecary to the French Court. They spent rather a lot of time on Alchemy.”
“But wasn’t it all stupid nonsense, rot, gibberish, and criminally fraudulent nincompoopery?”
“Godfrey, you are living proof that the apple does not fall far from the tree. Who am I to dispute such matters with your father? Yes. ‘Twas all rubbish.”
“Then why’d you go to Paris?”
“Partly, if truth be told, I wished to see the coronation of the French King.”
“Which one?” asks Godfrey.
“The same one as now!” says Ben, outraged that they are having to waste their time on such questions.
“The big one,” Enoch says, “ the King. Louis the Fourteenth. His formal coronation was in 1654. They anointed him with angel-balm, a thousand years old.”
“Eeeyew, it must have stunk to high heaven!”
“Hard to say, in France.”
“Where would they’ve gotten such a thing?”
“Never mind. I am drawing closer to answering the question of when. But that was not my whole reason. Really it was that something was happening. Huygens—a brilliant youth, of a great family in the Hague—was at work on a pendulum-clock there that was astonishing. Of course, pendulums were an old idea—but he did something simple and beautiful that fixed them so that they would actually tell time! I saw a prototype, ticking away there in that magnificent house, where the afternoon light streamed in off the Plein—that’s a sort of square hard by the palace of the Dutch Court. Then down to Paris, where Comstock and Anglesey were toiling away on—you’re correct—stupid nonsense. They truly wanted to learn. But they wanted the brilliance of a Huygens, the audacity to invent a whole new discipline. Alchemy was the only way they knew of.”
“How’d you cross over to England if there was a sea-war on?”
“French salt-smugglers,” says Enoch, as if this were self-evident. “Now, many an English gentleman had made up his mind that staying in London and dabbling with Alchemy was safer than riding ‘round the
“Why were so many pestering you?” asks Godfrey.
“Rich Tories, no less!” adds Ben.
“We did not begin calling such people Tories until a good bit later,” Enoch corrects him. “But your question is apt: what did I have in Leipzig that was wanted so badly, alike by an apothecary in Grantham and a lot of Cavalier courtiers sitting in Paris waiting for Cromwell to grow old and die of natural causes?”
“Something to do with the Royal Society?” guesses Ben.
“Shrewd try. Very close to the mark. But this was in the days before the Royal Society, indeed before Natural Philosophy as we know it. Oh, there were a few—Francis Bacon, Galileo, Descartes—who’d seen the light, and had done all that they could to get everyone else to attend to it. But in those days, most of the chaps who were curious about how the world worked were captivated by a rather different approach called Alchemy.”
“My daddy hates Alchemists!” Godfrey announces—very proud of his daddy.
“I believe I know why. But this is 1713. Rather a lot has changed. In the æra I am speaking of, it was Alchemy, or nothing. I knew a lot of Alchemists. I peddled them the stuff they needed. Some of those English cavaliers had dabbled in the Art. It was the gentlemanly thing to do. Even the King-in-Exile had a laboratory. After Cromwell had beaten them like kettledrums and sent them packing to France, they found themselves with nothing to pass the years except—” and here, if he’d been telling the story to adults, Enoch would’ve listed a few of the ways they had spent their time.
“Except what, Mr. Root?”
“Studying the hidden laws of God’s creation. Some of them—in particular John Comstock and Thomas More Anglesey—fell inwith Monsieur LeFebure, who was the apothecary to the French Court. They spent rather a lot of time on Alchemy.”
“But wasn’t it all stupid nonsense, rot, gibberish, and criminally fraudulent nincompoopery?”
“Godfrey, you are living proof that the apple does not fall far from the tree. Who am I to dispute such matters with your father? Yes. ‘Twas all rubbish.”
“Then why’d you go to Paris?”
“Partly, if truth be told, I wished to see the coronation of the French King.”
“Which one?” asks Godfrey.
“The same one as now!” says Ben, outraged that they are having to waste their time on such questions.
“The big one,” Enoch says, “ the King. Louis the Fourteenth. His formal coronation was in 1654. They anointed him with angel-balm, a thousand years old.”
“Eeeyew, it must have stunk to high heaven!”
“Hard to say, in France.”
“Where would they’ve gotten such a thing?”
“Never mind. I am drawing closer to answering the question of when. But that was not my whole reason. Really it was that something was happening. Huygens—a brilliant youth, of a great family in the Hague—was at work on a pendulum-clock there that was astonishing. Of course, pendulums were an old idea—but he did something simple and beautiful that fixed them so that they would actually tell time! I saw a prototype, ticking away there in that magnificent house, where the afternoon light streamed in off the Plein—that’s a sort of square hard by the palace of the Dutch Court. Then down to Paris, where Comstock and Anglesey were toiling away on—you’re correct—stupid nonsense. They truly wanted to learn. But they wanted the brilliance of a Huygens, the audacity to invent a whole new discipline. Alchemy was the only way they knew of.”
“How’d you cross over to England if there was a sea-war on?”
“French salt-smugglers,” says Enoch, as if this were self-evident. “Now, many an English gentleman had made up his mind that staying in London and dabbling with Alchemy was safer than riding ‘round the
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