I didn't need a scepter; I needed a flashlight and a loaded pistol.
The first morning in the Tuileries Palace was a wake-up call in the harshest sense. The sun streaming through the broken shutters illuminated dust motes dancing in the air and the grime of a century of neglect. We were the Royal Family of France, camping in what amounted to a squatter's mansion.
But the dirt wasn't the problem. The problem was the doors.
I wandered the halls at dawn, a half-eaten roll in one hand and a lantern in the other. None of the locks worked. Half the keys were missing. I found side entrances propped open with bricks. I passed servants I didn't recognize—men and women who didn't wear the royal livery—wandering freely through the corridors, carrying bundles of linens or silver.
The palace wasn't a fortress. It was a public thoroughfare.
I reached the corridor leading to the Dauphin's makeshift nursery. It was quiet, shadowed. But as I turned the corner, I saw him.
A man was kneeling by the door, his ear pressed against the wood. He wore the rough, sooty clothes of a chimney sweep, his cap pulled low.
My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs. My son was in there.
"You!" I shouted, my voice echoing in the empty hall.
The man flinched violently, scrambling to his feet. He looked at me, panic flaring in his eyes. "Your Majesty! I... I was just checking the flue!"
"The flue is on the roof," I snapped, dropping the lantern. I reached into my coat and drew the heavy pistol I had started carrying since the move. I leveled it at his chest.
"Show me your hands."
He hesitated.
"Show me!"
He held them out, trembling. They were stained with soot, yes. But underneath the grime, the skin was smooth. Uncalloused. These weren't the hands of a man who hauled bricks and scraped creosote for a living. They were the hands of a clerk. Or a spy.
"I asked for a sweep," I said, my voice low and dangerous. "I got a listener."
He bolted.
He didn't run away from me; he lunged for the side passage.
I didn't shoot. A gunshot would panic the entire palace. I didn't call the guards; they were too far away.
I threw myself at him.
It was a messy, undignified tackle. We crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs and dust. He was younger, faster, but I was fueled by the terrifying, primal rage of a father defending his cub. I slammed his head against the floorboards. Once. Twice.
He went limp, groaning.
I knelt on his chest, panting, my pistol pressed against his forehead. "Who sent you?" I snarled. "Give me a name, or I swear I will paint this floor with your brains."
"Orléans!" he shrieked, his defiance breaking instantly. "The Duc d'Orléans! He pays for reports! On the boy! On the Queen! Please!"
I pistol-whipped him, knocking him cold.
Jean and De La Tour appeared a moment later, running down the hall, swords drawn. They stared at their King, disheveled, covered in dust, kneeling over an unconscious man.
"Take him," I ordered, standing up and straightening my coat. "And then get everyone else. Everyone."
"Sir?" De La Tour asked.
"The staff," I said, wiping a smear of blood from my lip. "I want every single servant, cook, valet, and footman in the main hall in twenty minutes. We are cleaning house."
An hour later, the Grand Vestibule was packed with three hundred terrified employees. They whispered nervously, looking at the line of grim-faced National Guardsmen standing along the walls.
I stood on the grand staircase, looking down at them. I didn't look like a benevolent monarch. I looked like an auditor who had just discovered a massive embezzlement scheme.
"This house is under new management," I announced, my voice booming in the silence.
"For generations, serving the King has been a right of birth, or a position bought with gold," I continued. "That ends today."
I pointed to the doors. "I am firing you. All of you."
A gasp went through the crowd. Cries of protest erupted. "My grandfather served the King!" "I paid five thousand livres for this post!"
"Silence!" I roared.
"The Crown is bankrupt," I said, blunt and brutal. "And I will not pay for parasites. I will not pay for spies."
I looked at the faces in the crowd. "However, I need a staff. So here is the offer. You can leave now, with one month's severance pay. No questions asked."
I paused. "Or, you can re-apply for your job. Right now. But know this: The new contract is not with the King. It is with the Nation. It comes with a background check. It comes with a lower salary. And the penalty for leaking information, for theft, or for treason, is no longer dismissal."
I let the silence stretch. "It is death."
I watched them. I saw the glances exchanged. The fear. The calculation.
Slowly, a movement began. A valet in a silk coat turned and walked towards the severance table. Then a chambermaid. Then a page.
Within ten minutes, half the room had emptied. The spies, the thieves, the lazy aristocrats collecting a paycheck—they all took the money and ran.
The half that remained stood their ground. They were terrified, yes. But they stayed. They were either loyal, or desperate. Either way, I could work with them.
"Jean," I said. "Start the interviews."
Next, I turned to the building itself.
"Fournier!" I yelled.
The butcher appeared, looking out of place and delighted among the marble statues. "Your Majesty?"
"I want this place sealed," I ordered. "I want every side entrance boarded up. I want the secret tunnels bricked over. I want iron bars on the ground-floor windows."
Fournier grinned. "You want a prison."
"I want a bank vault," I corrected. "Because my family is the gold."
For the rest of the day, the palace sounded like a construction site. Hammers banged, saws rasped. Fournier's men, rough Parisians with pikes and hammers, tore through the delicate architecture of the old monarchy. They nailed heavy planks over the ornate garden doors. They dragged furniture to block hallways.
Marie found me in the library, watching men install a heavy iron grate over the window. She looked pale.
"Louis," she whispered, grabbing my arm. "Look at this. You are turning our home into a jail. Bars on the windows? Soldiers in the halls?"
"It is necessary," I said, though my own heart ached at the sight.
"It sends a message that we are afraid," she argued. "That we are prisoners."
"We are prisoners, Marie," I snapped, the stress fraying my temper. "Until we control this city, we are guests who can be executed at any moment. I am just making sure they have to work for it."
A commotion at the main gates cut her off. Shouting. The sound of horses.
I ran to the window. It wasn't a mob. It was Lafayette. He was on his white horse, arguing furiously with Fournier's guards.
I went down to the courtyard. Lafayette saw me and practically leaped from his horse.
"Your Majesty!" he shouted, his face red with indignation. "What is this? You are bricking up the Tuileries? You are barring the windows?"
"I am securing the perimeter," I said calmly.
"You are creating a fortress in the middle of Paris!" Lafayette yelled, waving his hands. "The people are watching! They think you are preparing for a siege! They think you are planning to turn the guns on the city! You are destroying all the goodwill we built!"
"I am protecting my children from assassins!" I shouted back. "I found a spy outside my son's door this morning, Lafayette! Where were your patrols then?"
He opened his mouth to retort, stung by the accusation.
CRASH.
The sound of shattering glass exploded from the floor above us. A scream—a woman's scream—pierced the air.
Marie.
I didn't think. I ran. I took the stairs two at a time, my lungs burning, Lafayette and his men pounding behind me.
I burst into the nursery.
Marie was clutching the Dauphin, crouching in the corner. The governess was sobbing.
On the floor, amidst a spray of broken glass from the window I hadn't barred yet, lay a rock. It was the size of a fist. Wrapped around it was a piece of rough paper.
I walked over to it, my boots crunching on the glass. I picked it up. My hands were shaking.
I unfolded the paper.
It wasn't a threatening note. It wasn't a scrawl of obscenities.
It was a drawing. Detailed. Precise. Inked with an architect's care.
It showed a tall, wooden frame. An angled, heavy blade suspended at the top. A basket waiting below.
A guillotine.
I stared at it, my blood turning to ice. The machine hadn't been invented yet. Not in this timeline. Not for another year at least.
Someone else knew the future.