A failed harvest.
In the 21st century, that meant a bad quarter for agricultural stocks. In the 18th, it meant only one thing: mass starvation. And mass starvation meant mobs with pitchforks.
The abstract numbers in my ledgers—the debt, the deficit—suddenly had a terrifyingly real face. It was the face of a hungry child. A desperate father. An angry, starving mob.
I called an emergency session of the Royal Council. The room was filled with the highest-ranking nobles and clergy in the kingdom, men in silks and robes whose soft hands hadn't done a day's real work in their lives. They smelled of perfume and pomposity.
I laid out the stark, brutal facts. The harvest reports. The projected grain shortages. The looming threat of famine in the country's most populous regions.
Their response was a masterclass in aristocratic incompetence.
One minister, the ancient Duc de Richelieu, suggested we order a national day of prayer. "God will provide, Your Majesty," he declared, as if that solved the problem.
Another, a bishop whose ruby ring was probably worth more than a farmer's entire village, argued that the famine was clearly God's punishment for the people's sins.
The sheer, mind-numbing frustration was a physical force. I felt like a modern CEO trying to explain supply chain logistics to a board of superstitious medieval warlords.
Then came the proposal from the Secretary of War. "We must raise the taille tax immediately," he announced, his voice booming. "The peasants must pay their share for the emergency grain we will be forced to import."
I stared at him, my disbelief turning to a cold, hard rage. "They have no grain," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "Which means they have no money. You are trying to draw blood from a stone. A starving stone."
But the worst came from an old Duke whose name I didn't even know. He leaned forward, a conspiratorial glint in his watery eyes. "Perhaps, Your Majesty," he said in a low, reedy voice, "a thinning of the peasant population might be a blessing in disguise. A smaller populace is easier to feed, and less prone to… unrest."
He was talking about letting my people starve to death as a matter of fiscal policy.
My hand, which had been resting on a quill pen, clenched. The delicate wood and feather snapped in two with a sharp crack, splattering black ink across the pristine report in front of me.
Every eye in the room turned to me. The broken quill lay on the page, its sharp, splintered end pointing towards the Duke like an accusation.
I had my answer. I couldn't work with these people. They weren't just corrupt; they were catastrophically, suicidally incompetent. They were the architects of their own destruction.
To save France, I would have to work around them. And that, in itself, was an act of revolution.
I dismissed the council, their useless advice still ringing in my ears. I locked myself in my study with maps, shipping manifests, and every ledger Calonne could find on the royal grain reserves.
Marie refused to leave my side. She sat in a chair near the fire, a silent, supportive presence. She didn't offer advice, but she watched me, her eyes a mixture of awe and fear, as if she were seeing a completely different species of man at work.
For me, this was familiar territory. The raw, chaotic energy of a crisis. This wasn't a kingdom on the brink of famine. This was a massive, multinational corporation on the brink of a catastrophic supply chain failure. And I was the crisis manager.
For hours, I worked. Calonne, my terrified but loyal finance minister, scurried back and forth, fetching documents. I scribbled calculations. I drew lines on a map of France, connecting rivers, canals, and roads. I was creating a national food distribution network from scratch.
"But Sire," Calonne stammered, pointing a trembling finger at one of my notes. "The royal grain stores at Metz and Strasbourg... they are for the army! They are the emergency reserve in case of war!"
"What's the point of having an army to defend the nation if there's no nation left to defend?" I shot back, not even looking up from the map. "We're releasing the grain reserves. All of them. Effective immediately."
Marie spoke up from her chair, her voice quiet but firm. "The nobles will be furious. Their own granaries are full to bursting. They will see this as an insult."
"Good," I said, a grim smile touching my lips. "Let them be furious."
I wasn't just going to distribute the King's grain. That was a stop-gap. A band-aid on a gaping wound. I needed to fundamentally change the system.
I looked at Calonne. "Prepare a new decree. We are instituting a one-time 'Famine Relief Tithe.'"
Calonne looked like he was about to have a heart attack. "A tithe, Your Majesty? On whom?"
"On everyone who has been exempt from taxes for the last five hundred years," I said, my voice ringing with a purpose I hadn't felt before. "The nobility. And the Church."
I wasn't just trying to prevent disaster anymore. I was trying to build something better. Something fairer. And if I had to declare war on the two most powerful institutions in the kingdom to do it, so be it.
Word of my plan—seizing royal grain reserves and, far more horrifyingly, proposing a direct tax on the First and Second Estates—leaked out of the council and spread through the court like a plague.
My brother, Provence, the clever snake, seized his opportunity.
He convened a secret meeting in one of the palace's private chapels. The attendees were a who's who of the old guard. The most powerful, conservative dukes whose families had bled France dry for centuries. And with them, the Archbishop of Paris himself, his face a thunderous mask of pious outrage.
The two most privileged classes in France, united by a common fear. They saw me not as their king, but as a radical, a revolutionary, a threat to their entire way of life.
Provence stood before them, not as a prince, but as the self-proclaimed defender of tradition, God, and France.
"The King asks the Church to render unto Caesar what is God's!" the Archbishop declared, his voice booming in the sacred space. "This is blasphemy! The Church's wealth is the wealth of the Almighty!"
"He asks us to pay for the bread of peasants!" a Duke spat, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "He is setting the rabble against us! It is an attack on the very structure of our society!"
Provence raised a hand for silence, his face a mask of solemn concern. "My brother is... unwell," he said, his voice dripping with false sympathy. "His grief over our brother Artois's disgrace has clearly unbalanced his mind. These 'reforms' are a danger to the sacred order of France."
He let his words hang in the air before continuing. "For the good of the kingdom, for the glory of God, he must be... guided. Persuaded to see reason." He looked around the room, meeting the eyes of every man there. "By any means necessary."
In the dim chapel light, the Archbishop's jewel-encrusted crucifix, resting on the table, glinted next to a Duke's fine leather riding glove. It was a symbol of a new, unholy alliance. The alliance of the Cross and the Sword. And it was aimed directly at my heart.
My plan was sound. My logistics were perfect. But it all required one thing I didn't have: money. Releasing the grain reserves was one thing, but buying more from abroad, paying for transport, funding the entire operation—it would cost a fortune up front. A fortune the treasury simply did not have.
I sat at my desk that night, staring at the massive budget shortfall, the weight of a starving nation on my shoulders. I was at my lowest point. I had the solution, but I didn't have the means.
The door to my study opened quietly. It was Marie.
She walked to my desk, her face pale but determined in the candlelight. She had clearly seen the final numbers. She understood the problem.
She placed a heavy, velvet-lined wooden box on my desk and opened it.
I stared, stunned into silence. Inside, nestled on beds of silk, was a dazzling, blinding collection of jewelry. Necklaces, tiaras, brooches, earrings—a king's ransom in diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires. It was her personal collection, gifts from half the monarchs of Europe. Her pride and joy.
"Marie..." I whispered, my voice thick. "What is this?"
"It's just gold and stones," she said, her voice quiet but steady. She looked me straight in the eye. "Our people are starving. They can't eat diamonds."
She reached into the box and lifted out the most magnificent piece: a massive, flawless diamond necklace, a river of light so brilliant it hurt to look at. Historically, a necklace just like it would have been the centerpiece of the scandal that destroyed her reputation.
Now, she held it out to me. "Melt it down," she said. "All of it. Use it to buy grain from Spain, from America, wherever you can find it. Just... feed our people."
History called her 'Madame Déficit.' They called her selfish, frivolous, a foreign whore who cared nothing for France.
They were so, so wrong.
In this moment, holding out her fortune to save her adopted country, she was more of a queen than any of her Bourbon ancestors. She was saving her people. She was saving me.
The next day, the first of the army's grain wagons, paid for by the Queen's gold, rolled out of the palace courtyard. They were heading for Paris. It was a small victory, a single drop of rain in a vast desert, but it was a real one.
Marie and I stood on a balcony, watching them go. A sense of shared purpose, of partnership, flowed between us. We were a team.
Below us, a messenger on a lathered horse galloped into the courtyard, his horse's hooves clattering on the cobblestones. He carried the official standard of the Parlement of Paris, the highest court of justice in the kingdom.
He handed a scroll to Captain De La Tour. The Captain unrolled it, his eyes scanning the formal script. His face went pale.
He looked up at us, his expression grim. He ran up the stairs to the balcony. "Your Majesty," he said, his voice heavy with dread. "The Parlement has issued a formal remonstrance."
I stared at him, a cold knot tightening in my stomach.
"They have declared your new tax on the nobility and the Church illegal," he said. "They have refused to register the decree."
I had just declared war on my family, the nobility, and the church. Now, it seemed, I was at war with my own laws.