A drawing can be more dangerous than a bomb if it shows you a future that shouldn't exist.
I stared at the sketch in my hand, the paper crinkling under my white-knuckled grip. The angled blade. The simple, brutal efficiency of the mechanism. It was unmistakably a guillotine.
But it was 1789. The machine was just an idea in a doctor's notebook, a theoretical discussion in the Assembly about "humane" execution. It wasn't a symbol of terror yet. It wasn't the icon of the revolution.
So why was it wrapped around a rock in my son's nursery?
Was there another traveler? Someone from the future who knew exactly what this machine would become and was taunting me with my own destiny? Or was history just bleeding through, inevitable and unstoppable?
"What is it?" Lafayette asked, stepping over the broken glass to peer at the paper. His face scrunched in confusion. "A... carpentry diagram?"
I looked at him. He didn't know. No one knew.
"It's a threat," I said, my voice hollow. "A very specific one."
I realized then that it didn't matter if it was a time traveler or just Dr. Guillotin's leaked prototype. The message was the same: We are building the machine that will kill you.
I crumpled the paper in my fist. Fear, cold and paralyzing, tried to take hold. I fought it down. If I let myself be terrified, I was dead. I had to think like a strategist.
"They want me to cower," I said, more to myself than to Lafayette. "They want me to bar the windows, lock the doors, and hide in the dark until they come to drag me out."
I looked up at the Marquis. He was still staring at the boarded-up windows, his earlier anger about my "fortress" warring with his concern for my safety.
"You were right, Lafayette," I said abruptly.
He blinked. "Your Majesty?"
"If we hide, we look guilty," I said, pacing the room. "If we build a fortress, we look like we're preparing for war. We need to do the opposite."
"The opposite?"
"We don't hide," I said, turning to him with a manic energy. "We go out. Today. Now."
"Go out?" Lafayette looked horrified. "Your Majesty, someone just threw a rock through your window! The streets are not safe!"
"Not the streets," I said. "The gardens. The Tuileries Gardens. They are open to the public, aren't they?"
"Yes, but—"
"Then we will go for a walk," I declared. "Open the gates. No heavy guard. No muskets. Just a family taking a stroll in their garden."
"It's suicide," Lafayette whispered.
"It's public relations," I corrected. "And it's the only shield I have left."
Twenty minutes later, the heavy iron gates of the palace swung open.
A hush fell over the crowd that had gathered outside the fences. They had been shouting insults, watching the "prison." Now, they watched in stunned silence as a small group walked out.
I walked in front, wearing a simple coat with the Tricolore cockade. Marie walked beside me. She was pale, terrified, but her head was high, her hand gripping mine so hard her nails dug into my palm. The children walked ahead of us, looking around with wide, innocent eyes.
We didn't have a phalanx of Swiss Guards. We had Lafayette and two of his officers walking ten paces behind us. We were exposed. Vulnerable.
We stepped onto the gravel path of the public gardens.
The air was thick with tension. Hundreds of Parisians—workers, shopkeepers, agitators—stopped what they were doing. They stared. Some scowled. Some reached for stones.
I forced myself to look relaxed. I pointed out a statue to my daughter. I nodded politely to a washerwoman staring at me with her mouth open.
"Keep walking," I whispered to Marie. "Don't look at the ground. Look at them."
We reached the central fountain. A group of rough-looking men were sitting on the edge, smoking pipes. They stopped talking as we approached. One of them stood up, his hand going to the knife at his belt.
Lafayette tensed behind me, his hand drifting to his sword.
I didn't stop. I didn't speed up.
Suddenly, a small boy, no older than five, broke away from his mother in the crowd. He ran right into the path of the Dauphin.
The crowd gasped. The mother screamed, "No!"
My son stopped. He looked at the boy, who was staring at the Prince's fine clothes with dirt-smudged curiosity.
The Dauphin reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small, painted wooden soldier. He held it out.
"For you," my son said, his voice piping and clear in the silence.
The boy took it, his eyes going wide. He smiled.
A collective exhale went through the crowd. The tension didn't just break; it shattered. A woman wiped a tear. A man chuckled.
"Look at the little one," someone murmured. "He's just a boy."
"They're just a family," another said.
The men at the fountain sat back down. The hand moved away from the knife.
We weren't tyrants in a fortress anymore. We were a father, a mother, and their children. It was a masterstroke.
I felt my legs turning to jelly. The adrenaline was crashing.
"Let's sit," I said, pointing to a stone bench near a grove of chestnut trees.
Marie sat, pulling the children close. I sat on the edge, taking a deep breath of the cool air.
"Mind if I join you, Citizen King?" a voice asked.
I looked up. A man was standing there. He was dressed in a sombre black coat, with a crisp white cravat. He had a kind, intelligent face, but his eyes were clinical, detached.
I recognized him from the Assembly.
"Dr. Guillotin," I said, keeping my voice steady. "Please."
He sat down next to me, leaving a respectful distance. He watched the children playing near the fountain.
"A pleasant day for a walk," he said politely.
"A bit breezy," I replied. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the crumpled drawing of the machine. I smoothed it out on my knee.
"Is this yours, Doctor?" I asked quietly.
Guillotin looked down. He didn't flinch. He didn't deny it. He nodded slowly.
"A prototype," he said, his voice full of professional pride. "A mechanism for painless execution. Gravity and a sharp blade. Instantaneous. Humane. Equal for the noble and the peasant alike."
He looked up at me, his eyes earnest. "I designed it to end suffering, Your Majesty. The current methods—the wheel, the hanging—they are barbaric. I wanted to bring enlightenment even to death."
"Someone threw it through my son's window wrapped around a rock," I said.
Guillotin sighed, a sound of genuine regret. "I am sorry. My study was broken into last week. Several sketches were stolen."
He looked at me, and for a moment, the physician's mask slipped. "I designed it to be a mercy, Your Majesty. Not a threat. But... ideas have a way of escaping their creators. Once a machine is built in the mind, it is very hard to stop it from being built in the world."
He stood up and bowed. "Enjoy your walk, Citizen."
He walked away, a good man who had paved the road to hell with good intentions.
We returned to the palace safely. The mood in the streets had shifted. The "Walk of the Citizen King" was already being whispered about as a triumph.
But as we entered the main hall, the momentary victory evaporated.
Jean was waiting for me. His face was grave. He held a ledger in his hands—one of the books we had seized during the purge of the household staff.
"Your Majesty," he said, leading me into a side room. "We found something."
He opened the book. It was a record of petty cash payments. Small sums, paid out over the last month.
"We traced the recipients," Jean said. "They aren't spies. They're agitators. Professional rioters. The men who start the chants. The men who throw the first stones."
"Orléans?" I asked, expecting the usual suspect.
"No," Jean said. "Look at the signature authorizing the funds."
I looked. It wasn't Orléans. It wasn't a radical Jacobin.
It was a signature I knew as well as my own. Elegant, looping, aristocratic.
Louis Stanislas Xavier.
My brother. The Comte de Provence.
"He's paying them," Jean whispered, his voice full of disbelief. "From inside the palace. He's paying the mob to attack us. He paid the man who threw the rock."
I stared at the signature. The realization hit me like a physical blow.
I hadn't locked up a snake. I had locked up the puppeteer.
"He's running the mob from his cell," I whispered. "He's burning down his own house just to bury me in the ashes."