The Confusion (The Baroque Cycle, #2)

by Neal Stephenson

asked Étienne. “The

thing I can think of that you and I have in common, monsieur, is a predilection

Versailles—“we are what meteors, comets, sunspots are to astronomers: monstrous deviations, fell portents of undesired change, proof that something is wrong in a system that was supposedly framed by the hand of God.”

follow their noses. Finally

“On the pages I see numbers. Rumor has had it, Mr. Halley, that you have hired