"And that don't even touch the split between Catholics and Huguenots," said Squirrel. "And between Bretons and Normans and Provencals and Parisians and a weird little group of Poitevin fanatics."

"That's the French," said Moose. "They may not know what's right, but they know everybody else is wrong."

"What about the Americans?" asked Alvin. "I hear English on the street more than French or Spanish."

"That depends on the street," said Moose. "But you're right, this city has more English-speakers than any other language. Most of them know they're just visitors here. The Americans and Yankees and English care about money, mostly. Make their fortune and head back home."

"The dangerous plotters are the Cavaliers," said Squirrel. "They're hungry for more land to put into cotton."

"To be worked by more and more slaves," said Alvin.

"And to restore some glory to a king who can't get his country back," said Squirrel.

"The Cavaliers are the ones who want to start a fight," said Papa Moose. "They're the ones who hope that a revolution here would make the King step in to bail them out-or maybe they're already sponsored by the king so he'd just use them as an excuse to send in an army. There's rumors of an army gathering in the Crown Colonies, supposedly to guard the border with the United States but maybe it's bound for Barcy. It's one and the same-if the King came in here, in control of the mouth of the Mizzippy..."

Alvin understood. "The United States would have to fight, just to keep the river open."

"And any war between the U.S. and the Crown Colonies would turn into a war over slavery," said Papa Moose. "Even though parts of the United States allow slavery, too. Free-state Americans may not care enough to go to war to free the blacks, but if they won the war, I doubt they'd be so stone-hearted as to leave the slaves in chains."