A revolution can survive a massacre, but it cannot survive a missed meal.
I stood in the royal granary, a vast, vaulted stone building that should have been piled high with sacks of flour and grain. It was silent. Echoing. And terrifyingly empty.
The convoy of twenty wagons that had just arrived sat in the loading bay. They were covered in mud, the horses exhausted. But the beds of the wagons were bare, save for a few scattered kernels of wheat.
"Tell me," I said, my voice echoing in the empty space.
The convoy master, a terrified man wringing his cap in his hands, stepped forward. "We... we were sabotaged, Your Majesty. Two days ride from Paris. The axles... they snapped. All of them. At the same time."
He swallowed hard. "We had to dump the grain to fix them. To lighten the load. Or we would have been stuck on the road forever."
I walked over to the nearest wagon. I didn't look at the empty bed. I knelt down and looked at the heavy wooden axle. It had snapped clean through.
I ran my finger over the break. It wasn't jagged. It was smooth. Too smooth.
I looked closer. There were faint, rhythmic marks in the wood. Saw marks. Someone had cut halfway through the axle, covered it with mud, and let the weight of the grain and the rough road do the rest.
This wasn't an accident. It wasn't a peasant raid. It was professional sabotage.
I stood up, wiping the grease from my hands. The realization hit me like a physical blow. My brother Artois and the émigrés weren't just waiting for an army. They were starving Paris. They were weaponizing hunger to force a surrender.
"Get the merchants," I ordered De La Tour. "The biggest grain traders in the city. Bring them to my office. Now."
An hour later, five men sat nervously in my private study. These were the men who controlled the food supply of Paris. They were wealthy, powerful, and currently sweating through their silk coats.
They were hoarding. I knew it. They were sitting on what little grain remained, waiting for the panic to drive prices through the roof. They were betting on starvation.
I didn't sit behind my desk. I sat on the edge of it, looking down at them. I put on my best "Accountant" mask—cold, detached, inevitable.
"Gentlemen," I began, my voice conversational. "We have a supply chain issue. The convoy from the north has been... delayed."
They exchanged glances. They knew. They probably celebrated it.
"The city has three days of food left," I continued. "After that, the price of bread will triple. And then, people will start to starve."
One of the merchants, a fat man named Monsieur Grandet, cleared his throat. "A terrible tragedy, Your Majesty. The market is... volatile. We simply cannot afford to sell our stock at the current fixed rates. We would be ruined."
"I understand," I said, nodding sympathetically. "You are protecting your margins. It's good business."
Grandet relaxed slightly. "Exactly, Your Majesty. You understand."
"However," I said, my voice dropping a register. "I have a counter-proposal."
I leaned forward. "Release your entire reserve stock today. At the fixed, affordable price set by the Assembly."
"Impossible!" Grandet spluttered. "We would lose a fortune!"
"If you do," I continued, ignoring him, "the Crown guarantees your losses. I will write you a promissory note for the difference, plus five percent interest. You will make a profit."
"The Crown has no money," another merchant sneered. "Your promissory notes are worthless."
I smiled. It was a thin, dangerous smile.
"That is the carrot," I said softly. "Now, here is the stick."
I stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the courtyard where Fournier's National Guard was drilling.
"If you do not open your warehouses by noon," I said, not turning around, "I will declare a state of emergency. I will authorize Quartermaster Fournier to conduct a 'compliance audit' of your properties."
I turned back to face them. "Do you know Fournier? He used to be a butcher. He is very thorough. I cannot promise that he will find your grain. But I can promise that if he has to look for it, he will not leave your warehouses standing. Or your houses."
The blood drained from Grandet's face. They had all heard the stories of the Bastille. They knew who Fournier was.
"This is blackmail," Grandet whispered.
"This is a hostile takeover," I corrected. "Sign the agreement. Feed the city. Or I let the auditor in."
Grandet's hand shook as he picked up the quill. One by one, they signed. The immediate crisis was patched. Paris would eat for another week.
But as they scurried out, clutching their promissory notes, the weight of what I had done crashed down on me. I had promised money I didn't have. Millions of livres. I had to pay the merchants. I had to pay the National Guard. I had to buy grain from abroad to replace the sabotaged convoy.
The treasury was empty. The tax system had just been burned by the peasants. The nobles had fled with their gold.
I sat at my desk, staring at the national ledger. It was a sea of red ink. I needed liquid assets, and I needed them immediately.
My eyes scanned the columns of data, searching for anything I hadn't touched. Land. Buildings. Gold.
My finger stopped on a single line item. It was massive. It was untouched.
The Catholic Church.
They owned ten percent of the land in France. Their cathedrals were filled with gold plate, silver chalices, jeweled reliquaries. They collected tithes from every peasant in the kingdom. They were the wealthiest corporation in Europe.
I felt a chill go down my spine. This was the nuclear option. It would alienate the Pope. It would enrage the devout peasantry I had just pacified. It was dangerous.
But it was the only way to stay solvent.
"Get me Talleyrand," I told the guard at the door.
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the Bishop of Autun, arrived twenty minutes later. He limped into the room, his clubfoot dragging slightly on the carpet. He was a man of the cloth who believed in power, not God. He was cynical, brilliant, and utterly pragmatic.
"Your Majesty," he said, bowing smoothly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"My dear Bishop," I said, gesturing to a chair. "The Church saves souls. Now, it must save the state."
Talleyrand raised an eyebrow. "That sounds expensive."
"I need liquidity," I said bluntly. "I am going to nationalize Church property."
Talleyrand froze. For the first time, his mask of amused detachment slipped. "Nationalize? You mean seize? Everything?"
"We will take the land," I explained, my mind racing. "We will use it as collateral to back a new currency. Paper money. Assignats. We will sell the land to the people to pay off the national debt."
"It is sacrilege, Your Majesty," Talleyrand said slowly. "It is theft on a biblical scale. The Vatican will declare you an enemy of God. You will cause a schism that will tear this country apart."
"The country is already tearing apart," I snapped. "If I don't pay the army, if I don't buy grain, there won't be a country left to excommunicate."
I looked him in the eye. "You are a man of the world, Talleyrand. You know the numbers. Is there another way?"
Talleyrand looked at me for a long, silent moment. He saw the desperation in my eyes, and the cold calculation. A slow, reptilian smile spread across his face.
"No," he admitted. "There isn't."
He stood up. "I will draft the proposal for the Assembly by morning. If we are going to rob God, let us at least do it legally."
As Talleyrand limped out to draft the death warrant of the Church's power, the door opened again.
It was De La Tour. He wasn't carrying a report. He was holding a sealed, oilskin diplomatic pouch. It was battered and stained with travel dust.
The secret messenger. He had returned from Vienna.
The room seemed to shrink to the size of that pouch. This was it. This letter determined if I faced a war on two fronts. It determined if Leopold had believed my audit, or if his armies were already marching.
"Give it to me," I whispered.
My hands were shaking as I broke the heavy imperial seal. I unfolded the parchment.
I read the first paragraph. My Dear Brother Louis...
My breath caught. He accepted it. He believed the evidence about Artois and the poison. He was horrified. He agreed to hold off the invasion.
A wave of relief so profound it almost knocked me over washed through me. I had bought us time.
Then I read the next paragraph.
However...
My stomach dropped.
I will not march on Paris. But my spies tell me disturbing things. They say you are a prisoner of the mob in all but name. They say you are trapped in Versailles, cut off from your people, ruling by decree.
I read the final lines, and the blood drained from my face.
You must prove you are free. You must prove you are the King of the French, not the King of Versailles. Bring the Royal Family to Paris. Take up residence in the Tuileries Palace. Live among your people. If you remain hiding behind the walls of Versailles, I will assume you are a captive, and I will invade to free my sister.
I stared at the page, the letters swimming before my eyes.
I had solved the money problem. I had stopped the immediate war. But Leopold had just demanded the one thing Marie feared more than death itself.
He was forcing us to leave the safety of Versailles. He was forcing us to move directly into the heart of the revolutionary beast.