Thus far, in these parts, Louis’ declaration of war against England seems to have had little effect. The duc d’Arcachon’s navy is dominant in the Mediterranean, and is rumored to have taken many Dutch and English merchantmen around Smyrna and Alexandria, but there have not been any pitched sea-battles that I know of. Likewise, James II is said to have landed in Ireland whence he hopes to launch attacks on England, but I have no news thence.

My chief concern is for you, Eliza. Huygens gave me a good description of you. He was touched that you and those royals you have befriended-the Princess Eleanor and little Caroline-went to the trouble of seeing him off on his voyage to London, especially given that you were quite enormously pregnant at the time. He used various astronomical metaphors to convey your roundness, your hugeness, your radiance, and your beauty. His affection for you is obvious, and I believe he is a touch saddened that he is not the father (who is, by the way? Remember I am in Venice, you may tell me anything and I cannot be shocked by it).

At any rate-knowing how strongly you are attracted to the financial markets, I fret that the recent upheavals have drawn you into the furor of the Damplatz, which would be no place for one in a delicate condition.

But there is little point in my worrying about it now, for by this time you must have entered into your confinement, and you and your baby must have emerged dead or alive, and gone to the nursery or the grave; I pray both of you are in the nursery, and whenever I see a picture of the Madonna and child (which in Venice is about three times a minute) I phant’sy it is a fair portrait of you and yours.

Likewise I send my prayers and best wishes to the Princesses. Their story was pathetic even before they were made into refugees by the war. It is good that in the Hague they have found a safe harbor, and a friend such as you to keep them company. But the news from the Rhine front-Bonn and Mainz changing hands, amp;c.-suggests that they shall not soon be able to return to that place where they were living out their exile.

You ask me a great many questions about Princess Eleanor, and your curiosity has aroused mine; you remind me of a merchant who is considering a momentous transaction with someone she does not know very well, and who is casting about for references.

I have not met Princess Eleanor, only heard strangely guarded descriptions of her beauty (e.g., “she is the most beautiful German princess”). I did know her late husband, the Margrave John Frederick of Brandenburg-Ansbach. As a matter of fact I was thinking of him the other day, because the new Tsar in Russia is frequently described in the same terms as were once applied to Eleanor’s late husband: forward-thinking, modern-minded, obsessed with securing his country’s position in the new economic order.

Caroline’s father went out of his way to welcome Huguenots or anyone else he thought had unusual skills, and tried to make Ansbach into a center of what your friend and mine, Daniel Waterhouse, likes to call the Technologickal Arts. But he wrote novels too, did the late John Frederick, and you know of my shameful weakness for those. He loved music and the theatre. It is a shame that smallpox claimed him, and a crime that his own son made Eleanor feel so unwelcome there that she left town with little Caroline.

Beyond those facts, which are known to all, all I can offer you concerning these two Princesses is gossip. However, my gossip is copious, and of the most excellent quality. For Eleanor figures into the machinations of Sophie and Sophie Charlotte, and so her name is mentioned from time to time in the letters that fly to and fro between Hanover and Berlin. I do believe that Sophie and Sophie Charlotte are trying to organize some sort of North German super-state. Such a thing can never exist without princes; German Protestant princes and princesses are in short supply, and getting shorter as the war goes on; beautiful princesses who lack husbands are, therefore, exceptionally precious.

If precious Eleanor were rich she could command, or at least influence, her own destiny. But because her falling-out with her stepson has left her penniless, her only assets are her body and her daughter. Because her body has shown the ability to manufacture little princes, it is enfeoffed to larger powers. I shall be surprised if a few years from now, your friend Princess Eleanor is not dwelling in Hanover or Brandenburg, married to some more or less hideous German royal. I would advise her to seek out one of the madly eccentric ones, as this will at least make her life more interesting.

I hope that I do not sound callous, but these are the facts of the matter. It is not as bad as it sounds. They are in the Hague. They will be safe there from the atrocities being committed against Germans by the army of Louvois. More dazzling cities exist, but the Hague is perfectly serviceable, and a great improvement over the rabbit-hutch in the Thuringer Wald where, according to gossip, Eleanor and Caroline have been holed up for the last few years. Best of all, as long as they remain in the Hague, Princess Caroline is being exposed to you, Eliza, and learning how to be a great woman. Whatever may befall Eleanor at the hands of those two redoubtable match-makers, Sophie and Sophie Charlotte, Caroline will, I believe, learn from you and from them how to manage her affairs in such a way that, when she reaches a marriageable age, she shall be able to choose whatever Prince and whatever Realm are most suitable to her. And this will provide comfort to Eleanor in her old age.

As for Sophie, she will never be satisfied with Germany alone-her uncle was King of England and she would be its Queen. Did you know she speaks perfect English? So here I am, far away from home, trying to track down every last one of her husband’s ancestors among the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Ah, Venice! Every day I get down on my knees and thank God that Sophie and Ernst August are not descended from people who lived in some place like Lipova.

At any rate, I hope you, Eleanor, Caroline, and, God willing, your baby are all well, and being looked after by officious Dutch nurses. Do write as soon as you feel up to it.

Leibniz

P.S. I am so annoyed by Newton’s mystical approach to force that I am developing a new discipline to study that subject alone. I am thinking of calling it “dynamics,” which derives from the Greek word for force-what do you think of the name? For I may know Greek backwards and forwards, but you have taste.

Dear Doctor,

“Dynamics” makes me think not only of force, but of Dynasties, which use forces, frequently concealed, to maintain themselves-as the Sun uses forces of a mysterious nature to make the planets pay court to him. So I think that the name has a good ring to it, especially since you are becoming such an expert on Dynasties new and old, and are so adept at balancing great forces against each other. And insofar as words are names for things, and naming gives a kind of power to the namer, then you are very clever to make your objections to Newton’s work a part of the very name of your new discipline. I would only warn you that the frontier between “ingenious” (which is held to be a good quality) and “clever” (which is looked at a-skance) is as ill-defined as most of the boundaries in Christendom are today. Englishmen are particularly distrustful of cleverness, which is odd, because they are so clever, and they are wont to draw the boundary in such a way as to encompass all the works of Newton (or any other Englishman) in the country called “ingenious” while leaving you exiled to “clever.” And the English must be attended to because they seem to be drawing all the maps. Huygens went to be among the Royal Society because he felt it was the only place in the world (outside of whatever room you happen to be in) where he could have a conversation that would not bore him to death. And despite the never-ending abuse from Mr. Hooke, he never wants to leave.