One of Britain's outstanding historical writers delivers a romantic and picaresque masterpiece that tells the fascinating story of William Neilson.
In 1720, the young William Neilson leaves Edinburgh to make his fortune in Europe, first sailing to Rotterdam and then on foot to Paris, where he meets and is immediately employed by the banker John Law. A day later he is in the Bastille, but not before he has encountered a young woman of surpassing beauty to whom Neilson will be devoted for the rest of his life.
Imprisoned in the Bastille, he has no possibility of seeing or communicating with his beloved. When at last he recovers his freedom, he is despatched at once to sea, bound for the Indies. He will be shipwrecked, become an equerry on the Île-de-France, anon command a disorderly legion in Persia, become a linguist able to hold his own in diplomatic and mercantile circles, all the while anticipating a summons from the Stuart king in exile in Rome, until he is sent back to France, and thence to Scotland in the service of the Young Pretender.
This is brilliant, irresistibly entertaining fiction. A whole world of adventure and romance comes alive in the hands of one of our most ingenious storytellers, one of our finest writers.
Release date:
September 21, 2022
Publisher:
Headline
Print pages:
272
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In the year 1720, at my age of sixteen years and some months, I went forth from the kingdom of Scotland into France. My father, who had the roup or auction-place by the Chapel in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, died that mid-summer of the stone and my dear mother, appointed principal guardian and tutrix sine qua non by the terms of his testament, could not very well aliment both me and my younger brethren and sisters.
I had been bred for the College, and a congregation of the reformed church, but that scheme fell to ground. I had shown industry at the High School, and my tutors thought good to send me to Mr Andrew Henderson, merchant at the Schiedamse Dijk at Rotterdam, who had a side-trade finding places for Scottish boys to learn book-keeping and commercial practice in Dutch houses.
Thus wise, on the eighth day of September of that year, I boarded the flyboat Prins Willem at the Queensferry, with ten guinea sterling in my belt, and a bill for the same on Mr Henderson, and rolled and vomitted four days and nights to Veere, which is where we Scots have our port or staple.
Thence I went in company in a most cosie barge, drawn by horses at the side, as far as Dordrecht, or Dort as we call it, to find at the inn a letter from Mr Henderson bidding me not to come to him but make my way as best I might to Paris. Our countryman, Mr John Law of Lauriston in Edinburghshire, had erected a bank in that city and had need of trustworthy lads as commis or under-clerks. Having not funds for a horse or the diligence, I walked from Dort to Paris and saw and heard much on the road to interest me.
I learned that great King Lewis XIV had died, leaving a whole bankrupt kingdom to his infant great-grandson under the regency of his brother’s son, the Duke of Orléans, a man of strong parts and excellent nature. Charmed or, some said, bewitched by Mr Law, the Duke-Regent had consented that he found a bank whose paper money-notes did much to revive the ruin’d trade of that kingdom. Mr Law then raised a joint-stock company or copartnery to trade in the East and West Indies in rivalry with the English and Hollanders. For a while, that gentleman had been the toast of Paris and the curce of London and Amsterdam but, of late, both his bank-notes and his actions had fallen into discredit. I quickened my step so as the sooner to be at hand to assist him.
Nothing had prepared me for the sight of Paris from the Abbey of Mont-Martre. I had thought Edinburgh a great city, and so she is, but here was a continent spread below me, towers, palaces and churches all thrasted together in a reek of smoke, and through them a river that glittered in the winter sunshine. I thought that half the town might burn to ash before the other half knew of it.
There are no city walls, as at Edinburgh, but a sort of raised bank called a boulevard, where carts and coaches sailed overhead under leafless trees. I passed without hindrance through an abolished gate. It seemed the city of Paris had defeated its enemies. As I approached the New Street of the Littel Gardens, which was the address given me by Mr Henderson, I came on a tumulte of coaches and foot-passengers gathered in a mob before the courtyard gate of an old-fashioned house or, as we say at Paris, hôtel.
There was nought to be earn’d at the coach gate, so I made a scout about, and came, at the east side of the place, on a heap of debriss where a row of houses had lately been pulled down. By louping up over the rubbish, I reached the garden wall and, sliding along as on horseback, came to an old marronnier or chestnut-tree with a side-branch in reach of a reckless spring. At the far end of the garden, a serpentine line of people of all degrees and sexes shiver’d in the sun, harassed by veteran musketeers. At the head of the snake was one open cash-window.
I found a servants’ door and came into an odorous cellar, baled with pelts of that laborious and amiable creature, the American beaver. The house must have been at another time the palace of some prince or bishop, for busts and pictures justled with sacks of coffee and other spices, while a domed gallery was stacked from floor to painted ceiling with the stumps of bank-note books. There was nobody from whom to inquire the way but I could hear the grumbling of the mob and the belling of the Invalides, and, after many a false turn, won through to the banking-hall. Before the open window, there was a single cashier. Another gentleman stood at a desk, writing in a day-book or ledger. To him I presented Mr Henderson’s letter.
The gentleman looked at me in wonder. He said that Mr Bourgeois was not at the bank that day, and I should return at some other time. I said that I had not come oversea from Scotland just to go back again and that I wished to work. The gentleman, who was named Mr Du Tot, made a shrugg and snapped his fingers at a heap of bank-notes and a jumble of books. I was to match the note against the stump, or souche as we call it, so that I might detect and expose forgeries.
It was a humble task, but adjusted to my powers. Each note had been numbered, and cut with sheares from a book across a pattern of the initial letters JL and a lace-work or arabesque. Once I had put the books and notes in the proper progression, it was no great labour to match the number and pattern of each to each. In the way of such things, my work engrossed my faculties. After a time, I looked up and saw I was alone and the cash-window shut. I ploughed on in my apprentice furrow. My eyes began to strain and I found and lit a silver chaundelabre and did much better. In my pile of forgeries, I noted semblances that I thought could not fail to betray the character and abode of the several counterfeiters. I wrote in my Sunday French a report for Mr Du Tot and placed it on his desk.
I was thirsty, and hungry fit to relish a clagged boot.
Taking up my candle-tree, I blunder’d on a sort of kitchen and an abandoned dinner of broken baps and a jug of water. Having extended my tenemente of life, I climbed a stair with three landing-places and a balester with the same initials and lace-work as the bank-notes, but this time worked in polished iron. At the head was a gallery, and against the walls a scaffald of wooden poles and planks. The floor boards were splattered with paint and plaster-dust. I stopped before a high window. In the garden of some great place across the street, lights flickered in the trees and I heard crums of music and laughter.
“D’ye care for the view fra’ here, Mr Neilson, or wad ye change it for that from atop Dunwhinnie Fell?”
I made a half-turn. Before me in the candle-light stood the handsomest man I ever saw. He was perhaps fifty years of age, tall, well-made, with on his cheek a trace of the small pox. His dress was neat and plain, and his linen and his tie of lace spotless. A full wig fell in curles to his shoulders. His eyes were of the strongest blue. He had in hand Mr Henderson’s letter.
“Mr Law?”
“We shall speak in French, if you please. Would you be so good as to do me a service?”
“With pleasure, sir.”
“Mr Neilson, you do not know what that service will be.”
“I know that it shall be honourable and useful.”
“Why, laddie, ye’ll gae far and your mam will ride in a coach-and-pair doon the High Stret of Edinbro.”
He led the way through the forest of poles. He said: “Mr Pellegrini, Venetian, is painting for me an allegory of commerce. See here . . .”
I held up the lights.
“. . . the Seine and Mississippi embrace beneath the winged spirit of Felicity while at the dock vessels are discharged of merchandise from Louisiane. And here . . .”
I followed him.
“. . . above the door, is the portico of the Stock Exchange, where merchants in their various national costumes do business one with another.” Mr Law smiled at me. “The new world will be made, Mr Neilson, if the old will budge a jot.”
We came into a room beaming with light. A gentleman in a cap and gown was standing on one leg by a table covered in papers and charts. The candles in the wall-lights were of a pearly white and spread an amiable scent about the room. The lights shone off a violoncello in one corner, of deep colour and old fashion. I could tell from the resonation of my step that the ’cello was strung and tuned and that Mr Law kept the instrument in his cabinet not as trophy or item of trade, but to please a leisure hour.
“Maître Lecoq, young Mr Neilson will witness the order.”
The man, who was some writer- or notarie-body, laid a portfolio before me with a single sheet of paper. I signed under his own and Mr Law’s names.
“Why, laddie, will ye not read the screed afore-hand?”
“I am here to serve you, sir, not to spy on you.”
“Oh, Mr Neilson, had I ye by me these eighteen month past!”
The door yawned. There entered, in a sort of sole procession, a gentleman in his middle years, high-wigged, braided, red-faced, evil-looking. He leaned a moment on his cane, as if he were in his own house. Behind him peep’d a young lady, in dress.
Mr Law bowed. I did the same. Maister Lecoq became flat as a shadow and vanished.
“Monseigneur, you do this house an honour. May I present my confidential secretary, Mr Neilson?”
The gentleman looked through me. The young lady’s glance brushed the ’cello. Mr Law saw what I saw.
“Will mademoiselle accept the violoncello as a present from the directors?”
“By no means, sir.”
She walked to the end of the room and sat on a chair, out of ear-shot.
Her Court costume and coiffeor made her appear a fine lady, but she was slender, and gay as a button, and could not have been more than twelve or thirteen years of age. I surmis’d she had come from some infantine entertainment for the King at the palace of the Tuileries, a ballet or dancing-party or some tables at cards. In my life to that moment I had seen but slates and chimneys, and pigs rooting in the kennel of the High Street, and stone tenemente-lands in the rain, and red-armed wives in the Fishmarket Close, and the steading at Kerfield Mains and the arse-ends of Galloway kine and the portal of the High School and Maister Robert taking down Durham on Death.
Mr Law was speaking at me. “Mr Neilson, will you have the steward bring the young lady a cup of chocolate?”
I graped through the poles to the steps. As I descended, I balanced if Mr Law had private business with the angry gentleman or wished to spare me his bad manners, or both together. There was not a servant about, so I retrieved my candle, made the cordial myself, and carried it up the stair on a trey.
I heard a voice raised. The doors of Mr Law’s cabinet split open and the visitor burst out, blazing like a coal. The sight of me infuriated him. He struck me with his cane. The trey flew in the air, splashing my face with hot liquor.
Through tears of rage and shame, something loomed and skimmered before me. I shook the liquid from my eyes.
The young lady stood before me, with her hand out-stretched. She said: “You are wounded, sir. Let me give you a plaster.”
I took the handkerchief and put it to my scalded face. The young lady was walking away between the scaffalds. From the end of the gallery, there was a squawl but the young lady did not mend her pace. I said under breath: At the end, mademoiselle, do not turn your head. Whatever you do, mademoiselle, do not turn your head.
The young lady reached the end of the gallery and then, to cross me, turned and sought me through the scaffalds with her eyes and smiled.
Mr Law put his hand on my shoulder. “Shall we, Mr Neilson, attend to business?”
I took down four letters and copied them fair for Mr Law to sign. The church clocks sounded ten and Mr Law said he was commanded to wait on His Royal Highness. At the door, he half-turned and said:
“Have you dined, Mr Neilson?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And your lodging?”
“Near hand, sir.”
“Have the kindness to attend me here at seven of the morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr Neilson.”
I extingued the lights in Mr Law’s cabinet and bunked down in an elbow-chair in an anti-chambre, where a fire still had some life in it. As I tumbled into sleep, I said aloud: “Shall I fall, mademoiselle, into your dream?”
II
Mr Law failed his appointment. At eight, I went down to the banking-hall which was empty as a sinners’ kirk. I had come too late to save the bank from stopping. Through the window, I saw some working men, attended by a squadrone of archers, affixing seals to the main door. I minded to stay out of eye.
Of all places to be emprisoned for the Sabbath day, the hôtel of the Royal Bank and Company of the Indies at Paris was not the least convenient. I found some dried fruits of Persia, and coffee of Moka, and sugar from the isles, and wine of Shiraz, and made a good breakfast. Believing that I should make myself useful to the King’s receivers, I enterprised a budget or inventoire of the active in the house: a very littel silver coin, a great many letters of exchange, stock in trade, spices, Indian cloths, furs, pictures, busts, printing-irons, books and looking-glasses.
I had never in my life been so happy and never more so than when, walking the length of Signor Pellegrini’s gallery, I saw, in the plaster-dust, the print of mademoiselle’s little wee shoe. As for the handkerchief, it was embrodered with a coronet and a coat of arms, formed of a silver cup on a black field. Surely, there could not be so very many families in France with such an achievement. I found a lavandrie and washed my linen to be ready for business on the morrow.
I was standing within the main door at seven of the Monday morning when I heard the seals being broke. The receveurs were five in number. They jumped.
“Gentlemen, I have drawn up a preliminary statement of assets.”
“And you, sir, are?”
“Will. Neilson, Scottish, underclerk.”
They took my inventoire and made their way to Mr Law’s cabinet.
An hour later, I was summoned from my bank-note pudding. The gentlemen were seated behind the great table, as in a tribunal or se. . .
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