Joel Matowski, somewhat more articulately, replied, "I don't believe that I have."
Joel actually didn't believe that he had even heard of anyone named Montaigne, but didn't think that it would be tactful to say so right at the moment, since the author, whoever he might be, was clearly near and dear to the hearts of the Mainz CoC, who seemed to talk about him a lot more than they talked about Spartacus and the other people who were writing pamphlets for Gretchen Richter.
"But you're up-timers," Simrock protested. "You have all those books. Everyone's heard about your libraries. Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essais has been in print since 1603. That's thirty years. Longer than any of us have been alive."
He looked over at the senior Donners—parents, aunt, and the aunt's friends. "Longer than most of us have been alive. You must have read it."
Reichard Donner intercepted the glance. "Eat up, everybody. There's plenty of food left from the wake."
"The wake that didn't happen," Justina said. "The wake that didn't happen because somebody . . ." She glared at Simrock. ". . . somebody planted an article in the paper that caused a riot and the city council called out the watch and the soldiers to put it down and they wouldn't let anybody at all come to the Horn of Plenty afterwards."
Jeffie was still thinking about Montaigne. "I think the people who stuck with Mrs. Hawkins's French classes at high school until the fourth year read something by that guy. They read it in French, though."
"So you have read the Essais."
"Well, no, I didn't take French. I took Spanish. It was kind of complicated. My dad came from Baton Rouge and was Cajun and he and Mom were divorced, so she didn't want me to learn French."
Theo, sublime in not caring that he was no more familiar with the concepts "Baton Rouge" and "Cajun" than Jeffie Garand was familiar with the Essais, turned to his sister and whispered, "Montaigne also wrote, 'I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.' Maybe that's the variety of up-timer we've got here."
"Well," Simrock said, "it's still true whether you've read the book or not. Every person, no matter how high-born, is still what one of your up-time writers called a 'work in progress.' You're not finished until you're dead. As Montaigne wrote, 'How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!' In your world, Gustavus Adolphus seems to have acquired a remarkably bright and shiny reputation. It remains to be seen what he's going to end up with in this one."
Both Duke Eberhard and Corporal Hertling shifted a little uncomfortably and looked around. Aside from the two up-timers, though, only the regulars were in attendance. Reichard's recruiting scheme had proven to be a singular failure.
"Montaigne also says that ambition is not a vice of little people," Friedrich said. "Ambition isn't necessarily a bad thing. 'Since ambition may teach men valor, temperance, generosity, and justice . . . ' "
Eberhard hoped that his brother was just trying to be helpful, rather than to fan the flames. He himself found political debates a little unsettling, even though his tutors had, obviously, trained him, as a future ruler, to take part in them. And, of course, Montaigne himself had written, "There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees."
Jeffie Garand leaned over and whispered to Joel, "Remember that musical we did in high school about the English girl? The one where she sang about the two guys who talked all the time and finished up, 'I'm so sick of words?' I think these guys have got a words monopoly."
He picked up a stack of flyers that were lying on the table. "What are these?"
Corporal Hertling moved over to the up-timers and looked over Jeffie's shoulder.
"Cartoons by Crispijn van de Passe," Simrock said. "The older Crispijn, that is. He's famous. He's been working out of Utrecht for the past several years."
"He's also as old as the hills," Reichard griped. "He must be nearly seventy. Can't you kids ever talk about anyone modern?"
"I've heard of his daughter," Joel said. "Magdalena. She works for Markgraf and Smith Aviation, the ones who are building the Monster. She's Dutch, I think."
"Oh, yeah." Jeffie nodded. "I've heard about her, too. Never heard of her father, though." He frowned at the cluttered design and dark, heavily hatched background of the engraving. "Not exactly Doonesbury. Not even L'il Abner. I don't like it."
A declaration of Arminian principles at a conclave of Counter-Remonstrants could not have caused a more violent eruption of indignation. The up-timers learned far more than they had ever wanted to know about the scene that van de Passe had most recently depicted—the archbishop-elector of Mainz, the archbishop-elector's conflicts with Nils Brahe who was Gustavus Adolphus's military administrator, the archbishop-elector's attempts to mediate some kind of an ecumenical version of religious tolerance with a man named Georg Calixtus.