It was a ten-mile funeral procession for a monarchy that wasn't quite dead yet.
The journey from Versailles to Paris usually took two hours. Today, it took six. We moved at the pace of a slow walk, trapped in a river of mud and humanity. The market women surrounded us, a chaotic honor guard that felt more like a jailer's escort.
The rain drummed relentlessly on the roof of the carriage. Inside, the air was stifling. Marie sat opposite me, rigid as a statue, the Dauphin asleep fitfully on her lap. She stared straight ahead, refusing to look out the windows where faces pressed against the glass, jeering, laughing, staring.
"Open the window," I said quietly.
Marie's eyes snapped to mine. "Are you mad?"
"If we hide, we look afraid," I said. "If we look afraid, we look like prey. Open it."
I reached over and lowered the glass on my side. Cold, wet air rushed in, carrying the smell of unwashed bodies and wet earth. I forced a smile onto my face. I waved.
The reaction was immediate. "Vive le Roi!" a woman shouted, thrusting a bottle of wine towards me. "Here's to the Baker!"
"Smile," I hissed to Marie. "Please."
She hesitated, terror warring with duty. Then, with an agonizing effort, she lowered her window. She turned to the crowd and offered a frozen, terrifyingly polite smile.
"Long live the Baker's Wife!" someone screamed. It was a cheer, but it was stripped of all reverence. To them, we weren't divinely appointed rulers. We were public servants who had been derelict in our duties and were now being dragged back to the office.
Then I saw the pikes.
It wasn't just weapons. Ahead of our carriage, marching proudly in the vanguard, two women carried long poles. Stuck on the end of each was a loaf of bread. It was a grotesque parody of the heads on pikes from the Bastille.
"We are bringing the Baker, the Baker's Wife, and the Baker's Boy!" they chanted, a rhythmic, stomping roar.
The nickname chilled me to the bone. It reduced me. It stripped away the crown, the scepter, the history. I was just a man who was supposed to provide bread. And if I failed? I looked at the loaves on the pikes. They could easily be replaced with something else.
I realized then that the power dynamic had totally flipped. I wasn't leading this procession. I was the prize. I was the golden calf being dragged home to the village.
We entered Paris at dusk. The streets were packed. It seemed like the entire population of the city had turned out to watch the show. They hung from windows, climbed lampposts, crowded the rooftops.
They weren't angry like the mob at the Bastille. They were curious. Intense. Possessive. They stared at the carriage with a hunger that made my skin crawl.
The convoy ground to a halt in front of the Tuileries Palace.
I stepped out of the carriage into the mud. I looked up at my new home.
The Tuileries had been abandoned by the royal family for a hundred years. It loomed over us, dark, dusty, and ominous. Many of the windows were broken, gaping like missing teeth. The stone was stained with soot. It didn't look like a palace. It looked like a haunted house.
Mayor Bailly was waiting for me at the steps. He looked terrified, clutching the heavy iron keys to the city as if they were hot coals.
"Your Majesty," he stammered, bowing low. "Paris... Paris has conquered its King."
He tried to make it sound poetic, a reuniting of monarch and people. But in the gray twilight, it sounded exactly like what it was: a surrender.
He handed me the keys. They were cold and heavy. "Thank you, Mayor," I said, my voice flat. "I am glad to be... home."
We walked inside.
It was a disaster. The great halls were stripped bare. Dust sheets covered what little furniture remained. The air smelled of mildew and neglect. There was no food prepared. No fires lit. It was cold, dark, and echoing.
The courtiers who had been forced to come with us stood around in their muddy finery, looking shell-shocked. Servants ran around frantically with candles, trying to chase away the gloom.
My brother Provence strode in, shaking the rain from his cloak. He looked around the dark, cavernous entry hall with a sneer of pure disgust.
"This is a stable," he spat, kicking a pile of dust. "We are expected to live here? It's a hovel. I demand better quarters."
Something inside me snapped. The stress, the fear, the six hours of smiling at the mob—it all boiled over.
I grabbed him by the sodden collar of his coat and slammed him against the nearest wall. The courtiers gasped. Provence's eyes went wide.
"It's a bunker," I snarled, my face inches from his. "You are alive. You have a roof. Get used to it."
I shoved him away. He stumbled, straightening his coat, looking at me with a new, wary respect. I was done with pleasantries. This was survival mode.
"Clear the rooms!" I shouted to the servants. "Get fires going! I don't care about dust! Just get heat!"
I walked up the grand staircase, my boots leaving muddy prints on the marble. I needed to see. I needed to know the perimeter.
I found a balcony that overlooked the main square in front of the palace. I threw open the doors and stepped out.
A roar went up from below.
The square was a sea of torches. Tens of thousands of people were packed into the space, waiting. Watching. When they saw me, they cheered. "Vive le Roi!"
But the cheer was different here. It was enclosing.
I looked down at the faces illuminated by the firelight. I saw Lafayette, riding his white horse, frantically trying to keep his National Guard in a protective line. I saw Fournier, standing in the front row, his arms crossed, watching me with a proprietary air. I saw Robespierre, a shadow near the gates, observing the experiment.
I was trapped. I was in the dead center of the city, surrounded by a million people who loved me today, but who had proven they could kill me tomorrow if the bread ran out or the rumors turned dark.
The balcony door opened behind me. Marie stepped out. She had composed herself, but I could feel the tremor in her arm as she took mine.
She looked down at the sea of fire and faces. She heard the roar of the crowd, a sound that vibrated in the very stones of the palace.
"Wave," I whispered. "Show them we are with them."
She raised a hand, offering a small, regal wave. The crowd cheered louder, a deafening wall of sound.
I put my arm around her waist, pulling her close, both for the crowd's benefit and my own.
"We are safe here," I lied. "We are among our people."
She looked at me, then back out at the dark, noisy, suffocating city. The torches reflected in her eyes, making them look like they were burning.
"No," she whispered, her voice swallowed by the wind. "We are not safe."
As she spoke, the heavy iron gates of the Tuileries courtyard slammed shut below us. The sound was a final, echoing boom that cut through the cheers like a gunshot.
"We are just the first prisoners," she said, "of the new France."