by Tim Sayeau | Oct 16, 2018
Paris Mid-September, 1633 Sunday in the d’Aubray household presented difficulties. Before, Sundays had been idyllic, the Lord’s Day, the Day of Rest. Marie Ollier and Antoine Dreux d’Aubray mère et père would attend either morning or evening Mass at Notre-Dame...
by Tim Sayeau | Aug 14, 2018
Paris Early September, 1633 Marie-Madeleine Marguerite d'Aubray clutched her Barbie and peered through balcony railings to the scene below. For a wonder, neither of her parents were with her. She loved Papa and Maman, she really did. Papa would always pick her...
by Tim Sayeau | Jun 11, 2018
December, 1630 Nicolo Amati stared at the plague-pit of Cremona. Inside it were his father Girolamo, mother Laura, sisters Margherita Caterina, Vittoria Caterina, Elisabetta Caterina, and Elisabetta's husband Vincenzo Tili. The plague season this year had done...
by Tim Sayeau | Apr 9, 2018
"Attention on deck!" barked Marine First Sergeant Petrus Saalwächter as First Lieutenant Matthias Valentiner entered the large room within the Hamburg USE Marine barracks set aside for the daily administrative duties of India Company, Third Battalion, First Marines....
by Tim Sayeau | Dec 19, 2015
As Colonel Nils Ekstrom worked his way through the various reports sent to Lübeck from Torstensson's adjutants, he spotted an oddity. Thorsten Engler, that sergeant the princess wanted made a count, had captured both the French cavalry commander and the French army...
by Tim Sayeau | Dec 14, 2015
Paris, 22 July 1633 Master Antoine Dreux d'Aubray, Prefect of Paris in The Year of our Lord 1633, stood listlessly against a door jamb, staring into the room in which his little daughter Marie Madeleine Marguerite slept. The moonlight coming in from a window...
by Tim Sayeau | Aug 2, 2014
Ferdinand III stared at the slim, up-time object on the table before him. “This,” he announced to the courtier who had brought it to his attention, “is ridiculous.” “Yes it is,” agreed the courtier. “But . . .” “Indeed,” mused Ferdinand. “But . . .” “It’s honestly not...