He's been visiting these Frenchmen at de Ron's and taking piles of paper under his arm when he leaves again.
The guy named Curtius left Soubise's house. He's not gone back to England. Somebody told Wayne Higgenbottom that he was going to meet Soubise's brother in a town called Besançon, which I never heard of, but it's not around here.
Speaking of Wes, him and his second wife are going to have a baby. Chandra says that it's caused a fair amount of excitement in Grantville.
Best wishes,
Nathan Prickett
Grantville, late January 1635
Under the circumstances, Wes found it a little embarrassing that he was still chairing the initiative in regard to uniform statewide matrimonial legislation.
Solving the problems by simply declaring separation of church and state wasn't as simple as a person might think. Take the problems of Jarvis Beasley's wife Hedy, for instance. Even if down-time betrothal contracts were handled procedurally in the church courts, they still were included in the civil laws of the various territories as well. Even in the unlikely event that Saxony abolished its state church, its civil laws of marriage would still be in force in those Henneberg territories south of the Thüringerwald.
Until Gustavus Adolphus managed to do something definitive about John George, at least.
Unless the SoTF congress simply got rid of any variant marriage laws below the level of the province as a whole? Passed a law saying that this was a state-level matter and no longer the concern of the individual territories that had coalesced to create the SoTF?
Wes had never considered himself a radical. A conservative, rather. In no way a revolutionary. A caretaker. That was, in a way, why he had been interested in parks and such, originally. Once upon a time. Up-time.
But there were times when the thought of abolishing the whole diddly-squat mess and starting over, the way Gustavus had done with the new USE provinces in western Germany the previous June, was very appealing. Times like this one. Put the whole USE on a grid. Make it look like Kansas.
He shook his head. No. When you came right down to it, he was an old West Virginia boy. Hills and hollows, curves and bends. He'd lived with them all his life, geographical or jurisdictional. He'd figure something out.
Frankfurt
Nathan Prickett looked at the letter from his mother again.
You know, she had written, I think that I caused a lot of trouble without ever meaning to.
She explained the tour of Vital Statistics that she had given to Jacques-Pierre Dumais.
Everyone knows that's he's a friend of Veda Mae Haggerty, so I think that's the only way it could have gotten out. All the gossip seems to have started with her. But Jenny was so mad that I don't dare tell her. I don't know what I ought to do about it.
Nathan had a feeling that he knew what he ought to do about it. Had to do about it, really.
Dear Don Francisco.
I'm enclosing a letter that I got from my mom.
He finished up.
If you can think of some way to handle this without getting Mom fired from her job, I'd really appreciate it. Jenny Maddox will fire her if she finds out, but all Mom meant to do was show him how the system works and raising a stink about Chandra's dad's second marriage doesn't count as international sabotage or a plot against the USE, if you ask me.
Wes was mad as hell, from what Chandra wrote me, but they are public records. There's nothing Top Secret about a marriage license.
You might want to keep a closer eye on this Dumais character, though.
Thanks a lot.
Nathan Prickett.
Chapter 39
Frankfurt am Main
"You might as well leave now, Fortunat."
Deneau raised his eyebrows. "Go where?"
"To Thuringia, of course. You, Gui, and Weitz, now that Boucher and Turpin have arrived from La Rochelle. Weitz has already contacted like-minded individuals in various Franconian and Thuringian towns. In fact, it is likely that the industrial towns on the south slope of the Thüringerwald will provide more people willing to take action against the Grantville synagogue than you will find in Thuringia. Certainly more people who will be qualified to find temporary work in Grantville than rural villages will.
"In any case, do not let any of the locals know that there is a Huguenot connection. Weitz and his associates are to do the recruitment. They are to be told of it in connection with the men in Frankfurt who were frustrated last fall. Assure, them, of course—have Weitz assure them, that is—that there is plenty of money available to back a major riot. They will expect recompense for the time they miss from work. Everyone has expenses, and many of them will have families to support.
"If Weitz is doing all the work, why are the rest of us going?"