Dedication

Dearest Grand Duke;

I have gathered the best recollections from my adventures, as you requested. I hope you find them entertaining.

I also hope I might someday publish this collection in the form of a book. It may be foolishness, but I hold onto the thought that others may also enjoy their telling.

So while it is you who inspired me to write these remembrances, I have written them as if I were recounting my adventures to a stranger. I hope you will forgive my vanity in this matter.

With admiration and gratitude.

Baron Britpop Blastfurnace

05 July 1776

Silent Horseshoes

As a young man, I was struck by unrelenting wanderlust and so ventured off to France. It was the most foolish decision of my life, and the best.

France seemed a practical choice for an adventure. It neighbors the Austrian Netherlands, which made it far enough to be exotic, but not far enough to be unattainable. Fortunately, I had ample means for my journey thanks to attaining the title of Baron at an unusually young age.

How I became a Baron is a tale worthy of sharing, and brief, so I will share it now.

I am the son of a blacksmith, and like all good sons, I learned the trade of my father. One day, a merchant stopped at my father’s shop to have new shoes put on his horse. The man was particularly talkative and rambled on about several topics as I worked. Eventually, he introduced a subject that caught my interest.

He told me about his delivery of cabbage to the Royal Palace. And how the palace steward was complaining about the clacking noise horseshoes made on the cobblestone courtyard.

Emperor Joseph was visiting and was a notoriously light sleeper. Morning deliveries had to be carried across the courtyard by hand to avoid waking the Emperor. This slowed things down considerably and required a great deal of labor.

His rambling story caused me to think. Having recently acquired a gooey substance from the New World called rubber, I began to imagine a practical use for the material. I figured if I could coat horseshoes with the rubber, it would muffle the noise they made on the cobblestones. I knew I would have to heat the rubber to get it to stick to the horseshoes, so I cooked the rubber in my father’s furnace until it melted. I mixed in some sulfur and coated the shoes with the substance. It worked amazingly well.

As I was testing my invention, it began to rain. I soon discovered that rubber-coated horseshoes were slippery on wet cobblestones—a flaw that would likely lead to disaster. That was precisely when a flash of inventiveness I cannot explain happened.

It is well-known that waffles are a source of pride in Brussels. You are not considered a real citizen if you do not own a waffle iron. I took a heated waffle iron and applied it to the rubber-coated horseshoe. It created channels in the rubber that allowed the water to drain away and also provided traction.

It worked so well, I immediately rode to the palace and demonstrated them to the steward. He ordered several shoes and asked if I could coat wagon wheels also.

News eventually reached Emperor Joseph of this new quiet horseshoe. In his gratitude, I was made a Baron and given an estate out of the Emperor’s own holdings. The Emperor said it was a small estate of little importance. But to a blacksmith’s son, it was wealth beyond imagination.

With that bit of business taken care of, I will continue the tale of my adventure to France.