Friends + Interlocutors,

Here as promised is a document of historical significance. The quest for truth continues. This is a small piece of the puzzle. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Patrick 

BARON MUNCHAUSEN,

THE FINAL CHAPTER

New Upstarts, Pimps, Bastards, Whores,

That locust like devour the Land…—Lord Rochester

No explication on world affairs in the modern era would be complete, entirely understandable, without a perusal of the last and heretofore unpublished notations of Baron Hieronymus von Münchausen… 

For over two hundred years there have been rumors in the halls of academia concerning the existence of a long-lost chapter in these legendary tales. None of the rumors has withstood the test of independent, scholarly verification. That is, until now. 

Please be advised that what you are about to read is not a rumor but an exact copy of this misplaced and possibly suppressed tale. Yes, it does exist—albeit in a slightly damaged and truncated condition. I am looking at the original document this instant. It is written in India Ink and in Münchausen’s customary king-sized script. The foolscap paper is unlined and yellowed, with writing on both sides. The manuscript is dated London, January 1771, A.D. 

The question will arise as to how this elusive manuscript—which contains the last chapter of the Tales—found its way into my hands, while eluding the grasp of so many others who were better qualified to evaluate it. You have a perfect right to wonder about such things. I am not prepared at this time to address the issue. 

The current owner, who is a private collector living on Lake Zurich, is publicity shy. That is where I was allowed to view and copy the document. As to its discovery, provenance, and exact location, I can say no more. Such details in any event are of little consequence—except to bibliophiles specializing in rare books and to professors of German and English literature. I would be pleased to give a fuller account to these gentlemen in due course upon receipt of proper credentials and a convincing need-to-know explanation. 

One final word. Most scholars of Münchauseniana, in particular the so-called Edinburgh School, have suggested that the Baron’s well-documented absent-mindedness provides the best explanation why the “lost” tale did not see the light of day during Münchausen’s lifetime. Such scholars have speculated that the author simply forgot to deliver the manuscript to his publisher, a man named Smith who had a printing shop at Oxford in the 1770’ s. 

But there are equally compelling reasons for thinking that friends of Münchausen and the aforementioned Mr. Smith made a case against publication. Having studied the document, I can attest that its contents are disturbing. In particular, the predictions set forth may have been judged too upsetting for public consumption back in the 18th Century. Suppression of this final chapter may, indeed, have been the prudent thing to do. 

It would not be the first time in history that unpleasant or unwelcome discoveries were quashed. That was then. This is now. I am sure we all agree that we are lucky, very lucky indeed, to be living in the Twenty-First Century—an enlightened era where all ideas and points of view are free to be presented and examined unmolested. The Baron will take it from here… 

AN ENCOUNTER UPON THE CONTINENT OF CHEESE  

by 

Baron Karl Friedrich Hieronymus von Münchausen 

As stated in an earlier chapter, the Cheese Continent is located approximately (recall that I have lost my compass) somewhere in the vast region of the south South Seas. The continent is about the size of Europe, excluding Russia and England. The Captain of my trading vessel and the crew and their lone passenger (myself) spent nearly a month navigating the milky rivers and inlets of the strange land before coming upon a lake, also of milk, which was about the size of Lake Constance. 

It was here that a large whale, also white, surfaced unexpectedly and swallowed our ship whole and intact. We were then transported safely inside the behemoth via what must have been a subterranean passage out of the Cheese Continent and to the Caspian Sea in Central Asia. Of these events I have already written at considerable length. 

In this last chapter I want to relate an unusual episode that occurred a few days prior to the discovery of the aforementioned lake. I heretofore reported the existence of eighteen rivers of milk and ten of red wine within the Continent of Cheese. That report may not have been accurate. My explorations were abbreviated due to occasional outbreaks of drunkenness among the crew. It took only a few such disturbances to convince the Captain, conservative by nature, that the wine rivers ought to be avoided whenever possible. 

But it came to pass that we found ourselves in a situation where the only route available was a wine river. Complicating matters, the ship was running low on provisions. The Captain was distraught. I put forward a solution. I suggested that we take the wine river and halt for a picnic along its banks. The Captain demurred, but came around to seeing the merits of the proposal. He assembled the crew on deck and, after delivering a stern lecture, we set sail down an uncharted wine river. 

Soon the ship was anchored in midstream and the lifeboats lowered. The crew was delighted. We rowed ashore and the impromptu picnic got underway. We dipped our cups into the river for wine and ate the ground under our feet. 

During the repast my mind drifted, as is my habit, in other directions. Sightseeing and peregrinations are my consuming interests. I remember saying to myself, “I must take a closer look at this fantastic continent. Perhaps there is more to it than cheese, wine and milk.” In less than an hour, with an endless supply of red wine at their disposal, my shipmates, including the Captain, had became preoccupied in singing bawdy sailor ballads. And so I was able to slip away unnoticed. 

Very shortly I came upon some bewildering curiosities about which I can only reiterate... [Large ink stain blots out a paragraph or two here.--ed.] ... Wandering further inland, I sighted a clearing in the forest. Curiously, the ground was no longer composed of cheese. Presently I came upon a typical lush green sward, as one might find in the Appenzell region of Switzerland. On the other side of which, I noticed a charming cottage in the Rumanian style. 

A reddish smoke floated from its chimney and hung over the immediate area. I espied a signpost, exactly like that on many an Irish country tavern, hanging from the front gate. The sign had been carefully painted in dark green letters over a white background. Madame Para-ma-Hamsa, Fortune Teller and Holy Woman, knows all. Inquire within. 

This seemed like a good opportunity. I proceeded to the front door of the cottage. I was about to knock when it flew open, bringing me face to face with a handsome, middle-aged lady of serene demeanor. She was speechless. She could have traded places with those high-caste Indian fortune tellers you find encamped along the Thames outside London during the summer months. Presently she smiled broadly, as if divining my good intentions. 

I said, “ Madame, permit me to introduce myself. I am Baron Friedrich Münchausen of Bodenwerder in Hanover.” She responded, “Mais oui, certainment, je sais et je vous attend. Entrez, mon Baron!” Without further ado, I was waived across the threshold. 

I adjusted to my new surroundings without difficulty. After some preliminary small talk, I was offered a split of champagne, crackers and caviar. They were delicious. I settled back into an overstuffed ottoman and awaited in keen expectation for Madame Para-ma-Hamsa’s advice, insights and forecasts. 

She was in no hurry. I stayed quiet as she collected her thoughts. She sat in a rocking chair, swaying gently, with a hand over her forehead. She gazed into the depths of the red smoke in the fireplace. At length she turned back toward me, pursed her lips and said, “Cher Baron, you have journeyed far to learn the truth. You will be rewarded. Your future will proceed along the same tract as your past. It will be filled with adventure, unbelievable exploits and the occasional misfortune. I wish to tell you now about other events, unrelated to your own solitary fate. I speak of matters affecting the lives of unborn millions.” 

Such a rapid summary of my future was not what I had expected. However, I did not complain. I was her guest and a foreigner. I nodded my head to signalize approval. Presently, the seeress turned again toward the fire and sat still, as if dreaming upon some distant horizon. Soon she commenced her narration, speaking in a detached, unemotional tone and almost without a pause. She seemed to be describing a vision in which all the details were there, but she could not relate everything she saw. Such was my impression. 

Before reporting what Madame said, I want to make it perfectly clear that I find it very hard to believe one word of what Madame Para-ma-Hamsa predicts. In my judgment, the predictions are too far-fetched. This does not mean, however, that I am not open-minded enough to entertain the possibility, however remote, that some of her forecasts might come to pass in one form or another. Anything is possible. I am well along in years and shall never know. You who are among posterity must decide.

—THE PREDICTIONS—

Madame Hamsa began in a general way by stating that Europe was heading toward dangerous, degrading and disgraceful times. She singled out the Kingdom of France, La Belle France, saying that the country was just around the corner from a severe internal convulsion, which would take the form of pandemonium and regicide. The Kingdom is doomed, the Bourbon dynasty destined for oblivion, and all this before the end of the present century. 

“It will be most advisable,” she continued, “that the aristocracy of France and anyone supporting the King maintain an open, flexible schedule—ready to flee the country at the drop of a hat. Their lives might depend upon it. As an extra precaution, all valuables should be sent ahead posthaste to the Huguenot banks of Zurich and Geneva. 

“In approximately one hundred and fifty years, I foresee that the entire framework of Europe’s ruling aristocracy, including her Royal families, will drop from power completely. Kings will not become extinct, exactly, but they will lose authority to act. They will no longer count in the scales of history. They will be regarded as nullities.” 

At this point I interjected the obvious question as to who was going to lead Europe in the absence of Nobles and Kings. Madame replied, “The politicians will do it.” I sat back to digest and ponder what I had just heard, and then asked, “Yes, but who above them?” Without hesitation, Madame responded, “No one!" 

"The age of the politician is rapidly approaching. Elected officials everywhere will gain ascendancy by promising peace on earth and freedom from everything. These mountebanks will at the same time actively be promoting just the opposite, which is to say, more laws and senseless wars. 

“In this new era of enlightenment, politicians will proclaim every precious nonsense that any fool wanted to hear or was gullible enough to believe. In addition, they will take themselves and their fatuous schemes far too seriously. 

“Thanks to the orchestration of public affairs under their direction, the human comedy will progress apace from chaos to a universal nervous breakdown. At the same time, license and lunacy will be paraded under the banners of liberty and wisdom…” 

[Irregular ink stain blots out a few sentences here.--ed.] 

“... From the outset of the aforementioned troubles in France and well into the following century and beyond, mankind will become obsessed with any number of social stratagems and, consequently, agog with politics. Although based exclusively upon overheated speculation, certain theories for the betterment of humanity will gain credence and respectability among those considered advanced thinkers of the day. 

“The central error of these speculative theories will be the a priori assumption that Man in his natural state of goodness requires solely material gratification and that a comprehensive legal framework can rationally be devised to satisfy this craving. 

“Because the assumption is false, all the myriad deductions flowing from it will be nonsense. That will not deter the political leaders of the future from translating many of these erroneous ideas into laws and decrees. This development will constitute a wholesale negation of all previous known schools of thought, going back to the ancient Romans, Greeks and Egyptians. 

“By the second half of the Nineteenth Century, the process of intellectual fog and fraud will have run on so long and so far that by then the only ideas for the advancement of mankind which educated, thinking people will be taking for granted will be those ideas which are erroneous. The cock-sure exponents of these ideas, to be called ideologies, will remain blind to their self-inflicted imbecility, and drunk on a dream called knowledge. 

“The rare philosopher or lonely poet in the 19th Century who dares raise his voice in opposition will be regarded either as a lunatic and social reprobate or as someone with a demented sense of humor not in keeping with the times. If he should continue to ask embarrassing questions and hold up to ridicule the prevailing absurdities, rumors would quickly be spread far and wide that he is suffering from an incurable variety of syphilitic or alcoholic disease. Alas, in a number of instances such rumors will approximate the truth.” 

Madame Para-ma-Hamsa next volunteered that quite soon the English settlements in the New World would, due to a series of misunderstandings and machinations, stage a full-scale revolt against the Crown. 

“Thanks to the decisive help of the French King, this revolt will in due course succeed—much to the astonishment of both sides. Afterwards, the New World revolutionaries will spend a number of years debating what to do next. In the end they will decide to set up a Republic, proclaiming that it is modeled upon those of antiquity. 

“But unlike prior successful experiments of this kind, most notably La Serenissima, the Venetian Republic, the chief article of faith of the new republic, embodied in a declaration of principles, will be the concept of non-distinction between one individual and the next, everybody being reassured in writing of his universal equality. 

“The legal framework of the new nation will be its written constitution, a masterpiece of do’s and dont’s, to be ignored or extended, as future circumstances dictate, and behind which, as a mask of legality, humanity will function for a short time in relative tranquility and freedom. However, this will be but a brief calm before the storm. 

“Hardly before the ink is dry on the lofty document, the free Americans citizens now under its protection will busily set about doing what they always had been intent on doing in the first place, prior to their revolt against England. That is, to running around in circles, expanding their existing territory, all in the hope of striking it rich quick. This hope constituted the alpha and the omega of their national dream…” 

[Minor ink stain.--ed.] 

“... Thanks to their remarkable energy, these upstart English colonialists will unite and prosper, and then expand westward in the direction of the Pacific Ocean, while destroying many of the native inhabitants of the American continent in their way. 

“The forward progress of this new Republic will undergo a profound crisis, however, in less than three generations from its founding. At that stage of its development, a pack of misguided politicians, lawyers and businessmen in the northern half of the country will arrive at the conclusion that it is their destiny and duty to dominate their fellow citizens in the southern half. This presumption will lead to a fratricidal and extravagant war, resulting in a slaughter on a par with that of the native inhabitants.

“The war will end when the losing side in the south has been pillaged, burned, subjugated and occupied. The vanquished will have desired little more than to be left alone in peace and tranquility, and to exercise self-determination—basic principles enshrined in the pre-existing constitution of the Republic. The victors in the north will proclaim the mutilated outcome a triumph for freedom, and charge straight ahead without looking back. 

“The reorganized Republic will now exist in name only, since its original constitution will have been effectively torn to bits and discarded. In the century following this civil conflict, the reinvigorated nation, now free of restraints, will push ahead in all precincts of human endeavor. Eventually, it will rival and then clearly surpass England, its mother country, in power and prestige.” 

Need I interject here, dear reader, that I was dumbfounded. How could mighty Britannia sink so low that it would be outshined by one of its upstart colonies? The seeress paid no attention to my astonishment. She was serene as before. I poured a flute of champagne to steady my nerves. 

She went on to say, as an afterthought, that although the energetic New Worlders would go a long way in terms of material success, still at the end of the day the country will degenerate into an enormous, chaotic free-for-all, bearing little resemblance to the lofty dream of its founding fathers… 

[An entire page is missing from the manuscript here.--ed.] 

“... At some distant point in the century after next, this erstwhile American province of England, a daughter of Europe, will twice be invited or pushed, pulled or kicked or coaxed, into undertaking a full-scale, military invasion of the European continent. 

“These wars will be instigated by an ever-vigilant, prognathous carnivore whose mascot will be a deaf and blind, truculent bulldog. When the first invasion comes to pass, it will signal the beginning of the end for both parties—the Americans as well as the Europeans.” 

When I inquired as to a specific reason for these invasions, Madame Para-ma-Hamsa responded with three words: “Trade, jealousy and treason.” I had no idea how to follow up that response. We sat motionless and in silence for some time, as the flames crackled in the fireplace. 

When she broke the silence it was to state that just prior to the American armed expeditions into Europe, the so-called ideologies, which she had mentioned earlier and which had germinated during the bloody upheavals in La Belle France, would coalesce and come to fruition. But not in France or Europe. In Russia. 

“This, the crowning achievement of Man’s infatuation with politics and self-delusion, will take the form of an organized criminal conspiracy, resulting in mass murder and a final outburst of regicide. 

“Subsequently, in the immediate aftermath of the first American invasion of Europe, and in reaction to its consequences and the grotesque developments in Russia, there will arise within Europe an intellectual counter-movement. It will constitute a hodgepodge of authoritative ideas, inspired by the one-man crusade that had brought order to France, replacing the chaos created when the Bourbons were destroyed. 

“The new movement will attempt to resurrect the lifestyle of the ancient Greco-Roman world. Its outlook will remain mystical, regenerative, and often irrational. In action, it will amount to a spontaneous revolt of Europeans against the malaise in which they find themselves. It will be led by paladins of the ancient way, and will succeed spectacularly for a short period of time, before being smashed and suppressed by an armed alliance of the established and originally-prevailing forces from outside Europe…” 

[Yet another ink stain.--ed.] 

Returning to the topic of the American invasions of the Continent, Madame Para-ma-Hamsa predicted that the second one would be larger and more calamitous than the first. I asked why this would be so. 

“It will be more catastrophic because it will be coordinated with an ursine onslaught from the east, from the steppes of Asia, launched by a newly-emerged race of barbarians. The resultant pincer operation will carve up Europe like an overripe watermelon into two distinct halves, thereby causing a significant hiatus in Europe’s role as the driving center of the civilized world.” 

I asked why the leaders of Europe would allow such a disaster to occur. Madame said it was beyond their power to prevent, but gave no details. She did indicate, however, that the second American invasion of Europe will be directly contingent upon an aerial bombardment of a Pacific island—thousand of miles in the middle of nowhere—by the Empire of Japan. 

“For reasons not entirely clear, the attack upon this American possession will be promoted and actually instigated not by the Emperor of Japan, but by the President of the United States, assisted by a circle of traitors advising him. 

“This selfsame President will be inordinately proud of himself, but for no legitimate reason. His crowning accomplishment will be deceiving his fellow citizens into thinking that he is not an unconscionable impostor. 

“His most noteworthy talent, achieved through hours of practice in front of a mirror, will be that of making funny faces before large gatherings. His secret motto will be: Why tell the truth when a lie will do?... It will be a credo he will live by throughout his Presidency.” 

[Final ink stain.--ed.] 

“... Also during this epoch, well along in the century after next, another English-speaking statesman will gain an amazing reputation among certain misinformed and ignorant people. He will be only slightly less vain than his American counterpart. As a member of Parliament and of various Cabinets, he will waste most of his inebriated life scheming with the destinies of other nations. It will afford him little time to take stock of himself, or to look after the most basic wants of his countrymen. 

“While acting in his official capacity as a Minister of the Crown, this grandiloquent gentleman will require the consumption of one pint of brandy and two tall glasses of Scotch whiskey before making any important decision. In public, he will often be seen chewing a clownish, outsized cigar. When called upon by his confused colleagues in Parliament to justify his irresponsible and bellicose policies, the right honorable gentleman will assume the most extreme and the unnatural rectitude, before bellowing a mendacious concoction of bombast. 

“As regards his fellow countrymen, they will be at a loss to make sense of the man’s antics for most of his adult life. But then the day will arrive, during his declining years, when he will succeed beyond his wildest dreams. By taking advantage of people’s patriotism and by lying his head off, he will enthrone England in its own insular ignorance and lead it into a state of hate-filled hysteria and yet another unnecessary war… 

[Champagne and caviar smudges here.--ed.] 

“... I should like to further predict that the entire existence of this remarkable English politician will be passed in a world of cant and circumstance, and that his public career will be taken up in an endless, noisy quest for a menace of any kind, real or imagined, to smash. His public life will terminate on a high albeit tragic note when—to keep from being bored and to make himself the center of attention—he will demand that England plunge headfirst into a ruinous war on five fronts. 

“At this point, having been elevated to the Prime Ministership, he will exhaust and bankrupt the island Kingdom, destroy its vast empire, while obliterating most of the European continent in the process.” 

It was somewhere along in here that I lost track of what Madame was saying. These misfortunes were predestined to overtake humanity in a bizarre era far removed from my own. I fidgeted and began to worry that the Captain and crew had completed their picnic and sailed away without me. 

My hostess must have divined my concern. Her voice trailed off, she presently came out of her trance and appeared fatigued, as if just arriving from a long journey. I picked myself up from the ottoman and thanked her sincerely for her revelations, and placed a Venetian Florin in her hand. She bowed and pointed at the red smoke in the fireplace. “The color of the future,” were her parting words. 

Once outside, I surveyed the scene. Nothing had changed, and it seemed to me that nothing ever would. I ran across the meadow, through the forest, down a road, and up to the banks of the wine river. The ship was still at anchor, offshore. The lifeboats were gone. I jumped into the wine river and swam for it. 

I climbed up the side of the ship and found the crew, snoring contentedly, sprawled over the deck. I proceeded below to my first-class cabin, changed into a bathrobe, sat at my desk and filled several pages of my journal, carefully recording the amazing story you have just read. I then opened a bottle of Guinness, and slept the sleep of the saved. 

Yours very truly, MUNCHAUSEN, London, January, 1771