The Devil's Apple

Just as the king waited in anxious anticipation, Fouquet's and Colbert's messengers arrived before him on the very same day, and both brought good news. Fouquet had not only purchased some thousand Maltos' worth of wheat—one Malto was roughly 500 liters—but had also managed to smuggle cannons and muskets from the Sicilians. The king immediately summoned Friedrich Schomberg—the commander Mazarin had summoned to lead roughly a thousand infantrymen in protecting the king. He had been born in Heidelberg and was a Protestant, so Queen Mother Anne had never treated him with even the slightest courtesy. Fortunately, he had little contact with that noble lady—and he obeyed the king's arrangements.

Although the cardinal had told him before he came that, aside from marching and fighting, he could obey the king's orders in all things, General Schomberg had still been rather puzzled. The king was underage, merely a child, and it was said that during the years when he ought to have been studying, he had been living in exile and had received no proper, continuous education. Schomberg had prepared himself to deal with a hot-tempered and naïve little boy, but reality proved far easier than he had imagined—the king was exceedingly tolerant of him and almost never interfered with any of his military decisions. Even regarding the refugees following in the royal train, though His Majesty had his own ideas, he had consulted Schomberg at once.

As for the king's decision—Schomberg meant not to drive them away, but to take them in—he approved of it from a commander's standpoint, for no other reason. Here, Europe's peculiar system of recruitment needed to be mentioned.

As everyone knew, the size of a nation's standing army ought to match its national strength, so that its provisions, pay, equipment, horses, camps, and other unavoidable expenses could be sustained. Yet it was equally plain that France now seemed like a miniature of all Europe: every country was fighting another country, or several countries at once. Sometimes it was for prestige, sometimes for status, sometimes for wealth and territory, and more often for the defense of themselves and their families—the confusion of inheritance laws only worsened the situation. Thus, even the smallest nations possessed enormous armies utterly disproportionate to their size. In order to satisfy the needs of soldiers and officers while easing their own burdens, countries had long engaged in mercenary transactions: one nation would lease its armies and equipment to another. Italy was the most renowned in this regard, but the Holy Roman Empire, England, and even France in former days were no exceptions. Thus, if someone were to visit a battlefield of this era, he would be astonished to find that a Holy Roman Empire general might have artillerymen from Italy, musketeers from France, infantrymen from Denmark or other German states, and perhaps even cavalrymen from heathen lands.

Schomberg's army was no exception. Since the march had dragged on for too long, some soldiers had fallen behind or deserted, and he urgently needed reinforcements. In his eyes, those refugees who had been forced by famine to abandon their homes and trail behind the royal train were ideal candidates.

First: they were almost all young men—hunger was the cruelest and finest sorting machine. Children and the elderly were always the first to fall, while women would rather starve to death than leave their villages or towns, for they knew full well what awaited them.

Second: a single loaf of bread was enough to recruit these men into the camp. There was no need to tempt them with pay or force them with violence, and they would not readily run away. Though remaining in the camp might mean dying on the battlefield, leaving it meant certain death by starvation.

Third: compared with soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire, these French peasants naturally preferred to trust their own king. Otherwise, they would not have dragged their weary legs after the royal train at the first opportunity.

But Schomberg also understood clearly that, just as Queen Mother Anne had fiercely opposed—even quarreling bitterly with the king—taking these people in meant they had to be given food. Yet famine was raging throughout France. Though they possessed enough gold louis, they might not be able to exchange them for large quantities of food. When that time came, these several thousand people would instead become a threat to them—most infuriating of all, the nobles in the places they passed through had not only failed to offer, according to law and custom, food for the king and his attendants, but had instructed merchants to raise food prices to a terrifying degree.

Only—whenever Schomberg thought of this, he wanted to laugh. Even the cardinal, or the Queen Mother, probably had never imagined that the first battle he fought here, and many battles thereafter, would not be against rebel armies, but against those merchants who hoarded goods and sought exorbitant profits, devoid of all morality and loyalty. Some merchants had hired guards, but while those guards might handle a few pitiful unarmed people, they had no power to resist soldiers who had survived the Thirty Years' War.

This was what the king had ordered Schomberg to do.

At first, Schomberg had hesitated somewhat, but he soon discovered that this sort of thing was truly entertaining and satisfying—especially when certain hopelessly foolish nobles still dared to shout and demand that the king give them justice. Bontemps, the king's First Valet, widened his eyes and asked them curiously: before this, had they not been pleading to the king that nothing but wheat bran remained in their castles? Then where had this wheat they now spoke of come from? If they were pleading on behalf of merchants, France had laws and courts. They should go to Paris and submit their grievances to the judges of the Parlement. Surely those honorable gentlemen would give them justice.

But how could those nobles and merchants dare go? Everyone knew that in Paris now, whether the judges of the Parlement or Gaston, Duke of Orléans, were all frantically amassing wealth. Once they entered Paris, they would not emerge without being skinned alive several times over.

Unfortunately, such methods could be used once, even twice, but not a third time. The nobles and merchants they encountered afterward had grown wiser. Though they could not entirely support this immense company or replenish all its supplies, they could at least put on the proper show. The problem was that, as a result, mountains of wheat began flowing away in an endless stream like a river.

Yet the moment the general entered the room and saw the king's cheerful face, he knew that the two men in whom they had placed such high hopes had fulfilled their trust. He hurriedly removed his hat and bowed deeply to the king. Then, once granted permission, he stepped forward and accepted the opened letters. He read Fouquet's letter first, and his smile never faded from beginning to end. He even drew deep breaths, as though he could smell the fresh fragrance of wheat between the lines.

"The cannons and muskets?"

"Arrange them as you see fit," the king said. No one understood Schomberg's army better than Schomberg himself. According to Bontemps's reports, the general devoted the utmost care to his soldiers. Thus, even though their term of service had ended and it was harvest season, most of the soldiers had remained with the army. Schomberg had also inspected each newly recruited soldier personally and assigned his most trusted officers to instruct and train them.

"I already have an idea," Schomberg said excitedly.

"And this is Colbert's." The king gestured for Bontemps to hand the second letter to Schomberg. Schomberg opened and read it. Colbert's gains were even greater than Fouquet's, but there was one shipload of goods—roughly ten Maltos' worth—that he could not understand. "Forgive me, Your Majesty, but what are these 'pommes'?"

They were potatoes.

But Louis could not say it so directly. The Spanish, who had discovered the Americas, had been the first to discover potatoes, but they had eaten them raw. Naturally, they were not only astringent but poisonous. From the very beginning, the Scots had rejected them, because potatoes were not mentioned in the Bible, and because they grew underground, like the devil's apples. As for the French, they had found another path and tasted the berries potatoes bore. Needless to say, that sour, astringent flavor was simply beyond human endurance.

There were also green potatoes causing death outright, and cut potatoes turning black and thus being believed connected to leprosy—but there was no need to mention all that. In any case, potatoes had since become the plant Europeans found most repulsive. Only a few nobles cultivated them in their gardens because their flowers were rather pretty.

Colbert's potatoes had come from the Americas. He was a man of ideas and courage. In his letter to the king, he said that he had roasted and boiled some potatoes according to the natives' methods. No mishaps had occurred; he remained energetic and clear-minded. Moreover, only a small portion of this fruit was needed to fill one's stomach, and its preparation was simpler than wheat's. Even unwashed, it could be thrown directly into a bonfire, cooked, and eaten.

"A novel food," Louis said. "But if prepared properly, it can be very delicious." He smiled at the still somewhat puzzled general. He had already decided that, once the potatoes arrived, the royal family would set an example themselves. Given people's curiosity, they might be willing to try this tuber that could save them from hunger both now and in the future.

They were currently in Rethel, on a highland along the right bank of the Aisne River. It had been an important military fortress since the tenth century, with stout walls and formidable artillery. Fortunately, the noble here was a thoroughgoing royalist. The moment he received the king's messenger, he galloped after him all the way to pay homage to the king and Queen Mother. He also attended most diligently to the royal family and their entourage, and preparing a kitchen that satisfied the king was hardly difficult.

Potatoes—were a wonderful thing that could serve as a staple, a snack, or a dish. The lavishly bound cookbook Bontemps brought out with utmost solemnity made everyone in the kitchen hold their breath, not daring to utter a single unnecessary word. Following the instructions Bontemps read aloud, they washed these things that looked exactly like clumps of mud, peeled away their knobbly skins, then diced them, sliced them, shredded them... braised them with chicken, boiled them with pork, stuffed them into geese to roast, or baked them with cheese. They even extravagantly heated up a huge pot of oil and dropped in potato strips that had been soaked in salt water to fry.

The golden fried potato strips were served first. Naturally, they were first brought before the king. Everyone watched him as he pinched up a little salt and carefully sprinkled it evenly over them, stirred them slightly with a fork, then picked them up with his fingers and bit into them with gusto.

The rich fragrance could not help making mouths water. When their own portions were placed upon their plates, every guest at the banquet imitated the king, sprinkling salt over them, turning them with forks, and taking them up with their fingers—some impatient people grabbed them directly with their hands and were burned. Fortunately, almost everyone was immersed in the crisp exterior and soft interior of the fried potato strips, as well as the sweet flavor brought by the starch, and few noticed their embarrassment.

Afterward came chicken braised with potatoes, pork stewed with potatoes, potatoes baked with cheese... The new delicacies set people guessing wildly. Some guessed they were sweet potatoes, which resembled potatoes. Curiously, sweet potatoes were almost no different from potatoes, yet they had entered European royal courts decades ago and been warmly received, while potatoes had endured a far more troubled fate.

When the king announced the answer, people were somewhat surprised, but they did not panic. After all, they had eaten potatoes many times during the banquet. No one had been poisoned to death, and no one had contracted leprosy. Besides, even the exalted Queen Mother and the king had eaten them. What was there for them to fear?