I had just bought an army, but I was terrifyingly aware I might have just lost a city.
The agent's words—They've taken the Bastille—were an ice pick to the base of my skull. It wasn't a planned, strategic move. It was a spontaneous combustion of fear and rage, a wildfire I had accidentally started with the spark of a rumor.
My victory on the field felt hollow, pathetic. I had stopped a controlled demolition by the aristocracy only to seemingly trigger an uncontrolled earthquake from the people.
The ride back to the palace was a blur. The newly loyal soldiers cheered as I passed, raising their muskets in salute. They saw a king who paid his bills. They didn't see the panicked accountant frantically trying to calculate the astronomical cost of this new crisis.
Ministers and courtiers met me in the main courtyard, their faces plastered with relieved, sycophantic smiles. They started to babble about my genius, my courage. They were bowing too low. Their praise was thick with fear.
I pushed past them without a word, my boots echoing in the grand hall. I didn't want praise. I needed data. I needed a plan.
I strode directly to my private chambers, needing a single moment of silence to think.
Marie was there. She had been watching from the window. The second I closed the door behind me, she rushed forward, her carefully maintained composure crumbling. Her eyes weren't on my face; they were scanning every inch of me, searching for injury.
Her hand, cool and trembling slightly, came up to my cheek, her fingers brushing away a streak of grime from the field. Then her thumb found it—a tiny, stinging cut on my jaw where a shard of metal from the Baron's sword must have nicked me. I hadn't even felt it.
Her composure broke completely. A tiny, sharp intake of breath.
"This is what victory looks like?" she whispered, her voice rough, her thumb gently tracing the line of blood. "Blood and dust?"
I covered her hand with my own, pressing it against my face. The simple human contact was an anchor in the storm threatening to tear my mind apart.
"This is what surviving looks like," I said, my voice hoarse with exhaustion. "For now."
We stood there for a long moment, the sounds of the celebrating palace muffled by the heavy doors. An island of quiet, shared understanding in the heart of a hurricane. It couldn't last.
I straightened up, the exhaustion replaced by a cold, hard resolve. "I need to get back to the council."
She nodded, her own fear locked back down behind a mask of regal strength. "Go. I will be here."
When I re-entered the council chamber, the atmosphere had transformed. The panic was gone, replaced by a dangerous, triumphant energy. The ministers who had been ready to flee an hour ago now looked at me with a new, profound fear. I wasn't just their king. I was the man who had faced down an army and made it dissolve.
"A masterstroke, Your Majesty!" the Minister of War declared. "You have secured the loyalty of the army and crushed the traitors!"
I walked to the head of the table and slammed my hands down. The boom echoed in the suddenly silent room.
"You are celebrating a victory while the capital city is on fire," I snarled, my voice cutting through their sycophantic chatter. "Paris is out of control. While we were dealing with one fire, another has started. One we can't buy our way out of."
I fixed them with a glare. "They have taken the Bastille."
The color drained from their faces. The Bastille wasn't just a prison; it was the ultimate symbol of royal authority, a fortress that had stood for centuries. For it to fall to a mob… it was unthinkable.
Just as the panic began to set in again, a nervous aide scurried into the room and whispered in my ear.
My blood ran cold.
"Where," I asked the room at large, my voice dangerously quiet, "is my brother, the Comte de Provence?"
The ministers looked at each other, confused. No one knew. He hadn't been seen since I gave the order to pay the soldiers. He wasn't hiding. He wasn't fleeing.
I knew, with the horrible certainty of a chess player seeing a checkmate three moves away, exactly where he was.
Provence was a snake. The direct assault had failed, so now he was slithering into the garden to use his poison.
He had gone to the National Assembly.
He was going to get ahead of the narrative. He would spin the entire story, twisting my victory into a terrifying act of tyranny. He would paint me as a dangerous demagogue who bribed an army to become his personal guard and deliberately incited the Parisian mob to seize power.
He was going to use the chaos I had unleashed to turn my only allies—the Assembly—against me.
"He's trying to frame me as the threat," I growled, turning on my heel. "He's trying to politically assassinate me."
I strode out of the room, my mind racing. "Ready my horse! Now!"
As I moved through the palace halls, pulling on my riding gloves, I saw Jean. He was watching me, his expression anxious. I pulled him into an alcove.
"I need you to get a message to our friend," I said, my voice low and urgent. "Mr. Robespierre. In the Assembly."
I didn't have time to write. I had to give him a weapon he could use immediately. A weapon of words.
"Tell him this, and only this," I instructed Jean, looking him dead in the eye. "Memorize it. The Snake is in the garden, telling lies to divide the Nation from its King."
Jean's eyes widened. He understood the code.
"The King is coming to prove his partnership," I continued. "Tell the People to be ready to judge with their own eyes."
It was pure, uncut manipulation. It framed Provence as a deceitful monster, reinforced my alliance with the common man, and, most importantly, it flattered Robespierre's titanic ego. It made him and his faction the arbiters of truth, the judges of the coming confrontation. A role he would leap at.
Jean nodded once, a grim understanding on his face, and vanished.
I practically ran to the courtyard, vaulting onto the horse they brought me. I galloped out of the palace grounds, alone, racing towards the Hall of Mirrors.
When I arrived, I didn't bother with ceremony. I threw my reins to a stunned guard and strode towards the doors of the assembly hall. The room was a buzzing hive of confusion and anger.
Just as I feared, my brother was at the podium. He wasn't shouting. He was speaking with a deep, sorrowful passion, his voice dripping with false concern. He was magnificent. He was a viper.
"...and so I ask you, honored representatives of the Nation!" Provence's voice rang out, capturing the attention of every man in the room. "Is this the act of a partner? Or the act of a master? To buy the loyalty of soldiers with gold, to unleash the fury of the Parisian mob for his own ends… I tell you, he does not seek a constitution! He seeks a crown of absolute power, forged in fear and gold!"
I could see it working. The delegates were shifting in their seats, their faces a mixture of doubt and fear. The trust I had earned in the tennis court was eroding with every word he spoke.
I didn't wait to be announced.
I pushed open the grand doors and strode into the hall. The sound of my riding boots on the marble floor echoed like gunshots.
Every head turned. A wave of gasps rippled through the room.
Provence stopped mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open, his face a perfect picture of theatrical shock.
I ignored the empty, gilded throne set up for me at the head of the room. I ignored my brother at the podium. I walked directly onto the main floor and stopped, standing shoulder to shoulder with the black-clad, astonished delegates of the Third Estate. I had abandoned my royal station. I had come to stand among them, as their equal.
The hall was utterly, profoundly silent. You could hear a man breathe. Provence stared at me, speechless, his trap sprung and his prey standing right beside him.
From the back of the hall, a single, sharp, authoritative voice cut through the stunned silence. It was Robespierre, his eyes burning with a righteous fire.
"The King has come to join his people! Let him speak!"