"Ay, but thou didst see Luxemburg; thou wast entertained by Colonel Stoupe, of the Swiss regiment."
"True, but he is theologian as well as soldier."
"He did not offer to bribe thee?"
"Ay, he did," said Spinoza, smiling. "He offered me a pension—"
The bookseller plugged his ears. "'Sh! I will not know. I'll have no hand in thy murder."
"Nay, but it will interest thee as a bookseller. The pension was to be given me by his royal master if I would dedicate a book to his august majesty."
"And thou refusedst?"
"Naturally. Louis Quatorze has flatterers enough."
The bookseller seized his hands and wrung them with tears. "I told them so, I told them so. What if they did see these French gentry visiting thee? Political emissaries forsooth! As well fear for the virtue of the ladies of quality who toil up his stairs, quoth I. They do but seek further explications of their Descartes. Ah, France may have begotten a philosopher, but it requires Holland to shelter him, a Dutchman to understand him. That musked gallant a spy! Why, that was D'Hénault, the poet. How do I know? Well, when a man inquires for D'Hénault's poems and is half-pleased because I have the book, and half-annoyed because he must needs buy it—! An epicurean rogue by his lip, a true son of the Muses. And suppose there is a letter from England, quoth I, with the seal of the Royal Society!"
"Is there a letter from England?"