To amend our deal with the Hansa is a poor decision but then we would be pleasing the Austrians and the Imperial Crown. Perhaps, to build the city of our dreams a mighty city we must align ourselves with the crown! He would not finance it but he would be far from interfering until it is too late. Maybe, just maybe, a Venetian and French backing would lead to greatest metropolis in the western known world. The Fourth Crusade brought many treasures from the Greeks that reach millennia back before the Romans but, then perhaps, a great deal cash could be infused directly into the Tuscans to give us some of their goods and treasures.
To resurrect the past would be only one part of the prince’s ambitions! Or mine ambitions guiding the prince! The war decimated a lot of land, sure, but only a third of the Imperial’s population! That is almost as much as the great death only three hundred years before and look at the prosperity that brought. We do need a pope, which they seem to be all Italian, perhaps some monies can bring us a good and nice Italian Cardinal, perhaps two to help bring in the new Papal Dynasty. So much to do!
“Sir, the Hansa have called foul against the Danish!” One diplomat said in time, or weeks too late!
“Great! Those Danes will feel the Hapsburg retribution and bring the Hansa closer to the crown! All Hail the Empire!” I said casually and aloud for no words should be left in my head.
“Dear advisor, what is it you are planning?” The prince asked politely.
“Nothing of your concern but only your sovereignty. Your grace will spread your suzerainty farther then our worldly affairs! Yours is a life of being ordained by the grace of god! Your will is my will and you must trust my will because god put me at your father’s service and yours as well.” I said!
“Architects! Assemble! Start.” I yelled in the next room. “Send two diplomats at once! One to those Prussians and another to Austria! We are joining the war and Brandenburg will follow! They must or they are merely a weak country! Play on their ambitions!”
“Commanders do not fret and send none of our troops in the thick of this war. There will not be a war but make sure our army is good and strong! It is merely for show! Make sure you get the Holy Emperor to notice you! Make sure you wine him and laugh at everything he says! Be promoted! If it comes to battle do your best to survive but do not look cowardly.”
“But sir,” One commander started.
“NO! Our wars are for us! You are not adventurers! You are professional men with the finest education! This is given to you by your family and our young prince! He is your obligation such as mine! There will be no war, I am telling you this! There are always conflicts but none come to combat when two forces meet. Who are the Danes? Really!” I said quickly
So the city must be circular. Always circular. There have been many cities spread throughout without any care! Now there is steel and water works and a thousand of other technologies! Oh those Venetians and the lady Estella. She is there still old and grey but I was there and she was too! I wonder how her life unfolded without me! Regardless, the doge with friendly and gave us great deals. Better time spent in his presences then hers, I suppose. –Two colleges and perhaps a small bishopric to one side will flank the Grand University and the place will sit facing the schools and the church. The Cathedral will remain as it has always remained but highlighted but various parks, and a grand boulevard accentuating hundreds of years of labor by the people. The population will be divided all over the city to keep circulation flowing freely and allowing congregations of as many different classes as possible. There will be two granaries, one to the north and one to the south on the open side of the wall. The river will split right in the middle of the city, perfectly, no matter what engineering mastery or money is needed to move it. It will capture the flow and commerce of the great Italian Republics with the order of the German Principalities. It will have the reason of the great city of London’s recent development with the administration of the fabled Athens. Word has it from Marco Polo the Chinese hidden city was much like this according to what Kublai Khan told him. This is the beginning and all the artist and architects have been drawing and planning for years.
“Sir the Danes have complied to the demands of the Emperor!” the diplomat stated.
“Of course it was all bolster! Just because they blockaded Lübeck for a few day does not mean they want nothing more then a few more merchants. Did we get any credit?” He said.
“We did, we did! They saw our forces and heard we made Prussia aid the Crown!” The diplomat said.
“Great! Did our commanders show their distinction?” he queried.
“Some what.”
“Some is better than none!” He was satisfied.
He walked around the small city guessing what would be knocked down, what would be renewed and kept. The Synagogue opened it doors without a coincidence of his passing. She came out last and curtsied from a far and he bowed back openly. Then he went on to his house for the evening. A little knock on his window indicated she was there and they spoke in the garden all night. The next day he was working with the finances of the principality when he realized that they were now richer than before. This news gave him the relief that he had been hoping for. The first year with a truly great bounty of grains. The Americas had been prosperous for the English and French. The Spanish had not declared bankruptcy in a few years. The hordes of silver were gaining in value in the vaults and the gold was plentiful.
Everything was right to set about his ambitions. For only a forty-year-old man he was elderly in body and mind, but his over thirty years of service was to be paid off. He remembered when his father served the prince and he would take messages back and forth from the officials from their taverns to the Prince himself. The old Prince favored the boy and had him read out all the notices to him aloud. He was privileged with the finest Jesuit and Humanist teachings. The old Prince would have each visitor talk to the boy in the language to ensure that knowledge would flow directly in to his mind. He became gifted in a matter of years, and his penchant for hard work allowed him to stay on after the coronation of the old Prince’s son.
The architects were now working vigorously and furiously to complete each plan, and engineers were brought in throughout Europe and the Orient. This was not just his plan, but the plan of the whole wing of his officials. The city would be The City, the cosmopolitan dream, the city on the Modern Hill. The workings had spread out in pamphlets and lectures and even the Pope had heard of this new renovation. This would not simply be a Capitol but the home of the world. There was a series of lectures complaining about building the city too perfect to prevent growth. So this tacit complaint was introduced as the very fulcrum of its design, it was to be continuous and never ending in it mutations.
The Prince walked in the room where he sat constantly working for months. “Hello,” the Prince said snidely. “Grace!” he said, “Are you here to see my works! Let me show you all what you will be known wide and far for! How the world will come to respect you and our principality!” The Prince laughed. Then he put hand on his hip, “I am here to say we are going to expel the Jews.” The Prince looked directly at the minister. “You cannot!” the minister almost pleaded. “Yes, yes I know your little dream is to settle with her,” the Prince was smiling “Did you not think that you were above being spied upon just because my father loved you so much?” The minister was holding his stoic disposition “You need them, you cannot just throw them out!” The Prince smiled ”Sure I can! You had made me so rich and prestigious! We are the most powerful small state in Germany! We might even have an Elector!” The minister laughed “What a waste of money!” “Not as much as this,” he threw some of the plans on the ground for the city. “This will make a nice fire don’t you think? Now I know you have plans for me to marry that Bourbon woman, she is pretty but too mouthy, plus she is not a Hapsburg! Now you will go to Spain and get me a nice little wife. That is you last duty and then you can retire, perhaps live the rest of your life in peace. I don’t care really.”
The Minister left the principality with the young woman and left for Versailles that evening. The court welcomed him as an oddity and he languished, rarely would some one from the Kings service ask of him. He will show up and it would only be merely to ask about an anecdote or some Ovid saying that they had forgot.
The Praxis Polis 