My own ally.
The snake I had unleashed was now coiled at my feet, and his question was pure venom: Was I a king, or was I a tyrant?
The chamber erupted. Orléans's public challenge was a brilliant, treacherous, magnificent move. He had just thrown a grenade into the middle of my victory parade. He was publicly positioning himself as the champion of the law against my royal overreach, playing to both the outraged nobles and the nervous reformists at the same time. He was making himself the center of the story.
A flash of white-hot betrayal ripped through me. I had trusted him. Relied on him.
It was followed by a cold, instant calculation. I looked at his face, at that theatrical, challenging smile. He wasn't trying to stop me. He was testing me. He was raising the stakes, forcing me to justify my power not just to the bewigged judges in this room, but to the entire nation.
The bastard was giving me a bigger stage.
I didn't get angry. I met his gaze across the crowded room. And I gave him a slow, almost imperceptible nod. A silent acknowledgment. Game on.
Then I turned back to the stunned, murmuring assembly.
My voice, when I spoke, was calm and clear, silencing the room once more. "An excellent question, cousin." I looked past the hostile faces of the nobles, past the ancient, stone walls of the chamber, as if I were addressing the unseen people of Paris themselves. "One that deserves an answer."
"You ask by what authority I act," I continued, my voice gaining strength. "My authority comes not from ancient scrolls or dusty traditions that favor the rich and starve the poor. It comes from my sacred duty, my only duty, to protect the people of France from dying in the streets."
He had wanted a debate about the law? Fine. Let's talk about a higher law: survival.
I stepped away from the dais, away from the throne, walking down into the center of the room until I was standing among them. I was no longer a king looking down on his subjects. I was a man in the middle of a crisis.
"I have read the reports," I said, my voice raw with an emotion that was not feigned. "I have seen the numbers. And they tell a story that none of you in your warm robes and fine houses want to hear. They tell of a harvest that has failed. Of bakeries with no flour. Of mothers with no milk for their children."
I let the brutal images hang in the air. "While we sit here, debating protocol, people are beginning to starve. My people. Our people."
I looked over at the bench where the highest clergy sat, their faces impassive. "The Church has granaries full enough to feed a city. The great noble houses have reserves to last them a decade." I swept my arm around the room. "And you... you dare to lecture me on the law?"
My voice rose, filled with a righteous anger that was entirely my own. "You stand here and talk of 'tradition' while children shiver with hunger in the streets! You speak of the 'privileges' of the nobility while the only privilege the common man asks for is the right to feed his family!"
I turned and pointed a finger directly at the First President, d'Aligre. "Your law has failed them! Your traditions have failed them! Your privileges are killing them!"
The room was utterly, deathly silent. No one had ever spoken to the Parlement of Paris like this. No king in living memory had ever been so blunt, so raw, so... common.
"You ask for my authority?" My voice dropped to a low, intense growl. "I was given this crown by God. And I believe God will judge me not on how well I protected your bank accounts, but on how well I protected his children." I took a deep breath, ready for the final blow. "If I must break a thousand of your laws to save one of their lives, then I will do it! And I will answer to God for it, not to you!"
The last words echoed in the vast, silent chamber.
And then, something incredible happened.
From the back of the room, from the benches where the junior clerks and scribes sat, came a sound. A single pair of hands, clapping. It was a young man, a face I didn't recognize, his eyes shining with tears.
Then another joined him. And another. It wasn't loud. It wasn't a roar. It was a soft, spreading wave of applause from the forgotten men in the room, the ones without titles or powdered wigs. It was the sound of a crack forming in the ancient walls of the Ancien Régime.
The speech, the gamble, the raw, emotional truth of it all—it had worked. It had completely demolished their dry, legalistic arguments. The mood in the room had shifted from hostile to grudgingly, shockingly, awestruck.
I walked back to the dais, my legs feeling strangely weak. I looked down at the First President. The old man was pale, shaken. His authority was shattered. His arguments were dust.
I didn't need to say another word.
He picked up the heavy, ornate quill. His hand was steady now. With a decisive, scratching sound that seemed to echo in the silent hall, he signed his name in the registry book. He had registered the King's decree into law.
One by one, like dominoes falling, the other judges followed suit.
I looked across the room at Orléans. He met my gaze, and a slow, genuine smile of admiration spread across his face. He gave me a slight, formal bow. It was a concession. A salute from one player to another.
I hadn't won because I was the King. I had won because, for five minutes, I was the only one in the room telling the truth.
That night, back at Versailles, the victory felt immense but strangely hollow. I was exhausted, drained to the bone. The adrenaline had worn off, leaving behind a deep, aching weariness.
I sat alone in my study, the tax decree lying on my desk, now the official law of the land. It was a monumental achievement. But it was just the beginning.
The door opened quietly. It was Marie. She wasn't carrying congratulations or celebrating our triumph. She was carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and two glasses. She moved with a quiet understanding that was more comforting than any words could have been.
She sat in the chair opposite my desk and poured two glasses. She didn't speak. She just waited.
Finally, I looked up from the papers, the stress of the day, of the past few weeks, evident in every line on my face. She pushed a wine glass gently across the polished wood towards me.
"It's not enough," I said, my voice rough with exhaustion. "This tax, the grain shipments... it's a patch. A temporary fix on a ruptured dam." I leaned forward, resting my head in my hands. "The whole system is rotten, from the foundations up. It's designed to fail."
I felt a gentle touch on my hand. I looked up. She had leaned across the desk, her expression soft and serious. "Then," she said, her voice a quiet promise, "we will build a new one."
I looked at her, at the strength and certainty in her eyes, and a small, tired smile touched my lips. "'We'?"
She met my gaze, and her own smile was small but certain. "You didn't think you were going to do it alone, did you, Louis?"
And in that moment, she wasn't just my ally. She wasn't just my wife. She was my partner. The only person in this entire, insane world who I could truly, completely trust. I knew, with an absolute certainty, that I couldn't do this without her.
There was a sudden, sharp knock on the study door.
It opened to reveal Captain De La Tour. He looked grim. "Your Majesty, a message from Paris. It arrived by special courier."
He handed me a single, sealed note. I recognized the wax seal. It was the crest of the Duc d'Orléans.
I broke the seal and unfolded the paper. The message was short. Cryptic. And it made the blood in my veins run cold.
"Cousin," it read. "Your speech today won you more than a tax. The reform clubs are calling you 'the People's King.' They are also calling for a new national assembly, an Estates-General, to write a constitution and limit the power of the monarchy forever."
The note ended with a chilling, final sentence.
"Be careful what you wish for. You wanted a revolution? You've got one."
I looked up from the note, the full, terrible weight of what I had just done crashing down on me. I had won the battle with the Parlement. But in doing so, I had appealed to a new, higher power—the will of the people. And I had just handed them the justification to seize control for themselves.
In my desperate, frantic attempt to save the monarchy, I may have just accidentally lit the fuse for the French Revolution.