The carriage ride to the Manège was a funeral procession for my soul.
The streets of Paris were eerily quiet. No cheering crowds. No angry mobs. Just silence.
People lined the Rue Saint-Honoré, watching the royal carriage pass. Their faces were unreadable. They weren't looking at a King. They were looking at a suspect.
Is he a traitor? Is he a spy?
I sat alone in the velvet interior. Marie had refused to come. She was back at the Tuileries, probably praying for my soul—or my failure.
I clutched the speech in my hand. I had written it myself at 4:00 AM. No advisors. No ministers. Just me and the hard, cold logic of survival.
The carriage jolted to a stop.
We were at the Riding Hall. The temporary home of the National Assembly.
I stepped out.
The air was thick with tension. A low murmur rippled through the crowd gathered at the gates.
And there, leaning against a stone pillar like a gargoyle in a dirty coat, was Georges Danton.
He checked his pocket watch. He looked at me. He didn't bow. He just nodded once.
Time's up.
I walked past him. I didn't acknowledge him. If I looked at him, I might punch him, and that wasn't in the script.
I entered the hall.
It was a cavernous, poorly lit space that smelled of horse manure and unwashed bodies. The deputies were already seated.
The Right side of the hall—the Royalists, the aristocrats, the men who had dined at my table—cheered weakly as I entered. "Vive le Roi!" It sounded like a question.
The Left side—the Jacobins, the radicals—was silent. They hissed softly, like a pit of snakes waking up.
I climbed the steps to the podium.
I felt small. The "Imposter Syndrome" that had plagued me since day one came roaring back. I wasn't Louis XVI. I was Alex Miller, a fraud in a wig, about to deliver a keynote speech that would bankrupt my moral standing.
I gripped the wooden lectern. My knuckles were white.
"Gentlemen of the Assembly," I began. My voice echoed in the vast hall.
"I stand before you today not just as your King, but as a citizen of a nation under siege."
I looked at the Right. I saw the faces of men I knew. The Duc de la Rochefoucauld. The Marquis de Condorcet. Men who believed in honor and lineage.
I was about to gut them.
"We face two enemies," I said, my voice gaining strength. "The enemy without—the foreign armies gathering at our borders. And the enemy within."
A murmur went through the hall.
"There are those who have fled this country," I continued. "Those who have taken their wealth, their titles, and their influence across the Rhine. They sit in Coblenz and Turin, plotting to invade their own homeland."
I paused. I looked directly at the Royalist benches.
"They call themselves refugees. I call them deserters."
The hall erupted.
"Shame!" a deputy on the Right shouted, jumping to his feet. "They are escaping the guillotine!"
"They are escaping their duty!" I roared back, slamming my fist on the podium.
The sound silenced the room.
"They are draining the lifeblood of our economy," I said, channeling every ounce of corporate ruthlessness I possessed. "They have taken the capital. They have paralyzed the markets. They are short-selling France!"
I picked up the decree I had drafted.
"Therefore, I propose the following measures. Effective immediately."
I read the list. It was a liquidation plan.
"One: All French citizens currently abroad are ordered to return within one month. Failure to do so will result in the loss of their citizenship."
"Tyranny!" someone screamed.
"Two," I continued, louder. "The property of any citizen who does not return—their lands, their chateaus, their bonds—will be seized by the State. These assets will be used to back the Assignat currency."
The Left started to cheer. Robespierre was leaning forward, his glasses catching the light, a thin smile on his lips. He liked the efficiency of it.
"Three," I said. This was the killer. The one that would sever the cord forever.
"The Princes of the Blood—specifically, the Comte d'Artois and the Prince de Condé—are hereby declared enemies of the Fatherland. If they do not disband their armies by November, they will be sentenced to death in absentia."
Pandemonium.
The Right side of the hall exploded. Men were standing on benches, shaking their fists.
"Judas!" a voice rang out. Clear. Hateful.
I looked. It was the old Duc de Brissac. Captain of my own Swiss Guard. A man who had sworn to die for me.
"You are eating your own blood!" he screamed, tears streaming down his face. "You are a monster!"
I felt a stab of pain in my chest. But I didn't flinch. I couldn't.
I looked at the Left. At Danton. At the men who wanted to kill me.
They were clapping. Not politely. ferociously.
I had given them what they wanted. I had legitimized their envy. I had sanctioned the theft of the aristocracy.
"The Nation is the only family that matters!" I shouted over the noise.
"I call for the vote!"
The President of the Assembly, a nervous man named Bailly, banged his gavel.
"The motion is on the floor! All in favor?"
The Left rose as one. A sea of hands.
The Center—the timid, the undecided—looked at the angry Jacobins, then at me. They saw the King was leading the charge. They stood up too.
The vote was a landslide.
The decree passed.
I stepped down from the podium. My legs felt like lead.
I walked down the center aisle.
As I passed the Royalist benches, the silence was deafening. They didn't shout anymore. They just stared.
The Duc de Brissac stepped into the aisle. He blocked my path.
He looked at me with eyes full of broken glass.
He didn't bow. He didn't speak.
He turned his head and spat on the floor, inches from my polished shoe.
Then he turned his back.
I walked past him. I walked past Danton, who gave me a smirk and a mock salute.
I walked out into the sunlight.
I climbed into the carriage. The door slammed shut.
"Back to the Palace, Sire?" the driver asked.
"Yes," I whispered.
I leaned back against the cushions. I was shaking uncontrollably now. The adrenaline crash hit me like a physical blow.
I had done it. I had survived the deadline. Danton couldn't touch me now. I was the Patriot King who had seized the nobles' land.
But I had destroyed the only people who actually loved the monarchy. I was a general who had just shot his own officers to please the enemy soldiers.
The carriage didn't move.
"Driver?" I called out.
The door opened.
It wasn't the driver.
Philippe d'Orléans leaned in. He was standing on the street step, his face framed by the window.
He looked furious. His "Regent" plan was dead. But he looked something else too.
Amused.
"Bold strategy, cousin," he said. His voice was a hiss.
"You wanted me to abdicate," I said, my voice trembling. "I declined."
"You didn't just decline," Philippe said. "You declared war on your own class. You seized my estates too, Louis. Did you realize that? I have property in Switzerland."
"Collateral damage," I said.
Philippe laughed. It was a cold, dry sound.
"You bought yourself a month," he said. "Maybe two. But look around you."
He gestured to the empty street.
"The Right hates you. They will never forgive this. The Left? They used you today. But tomorrow? They will ask for more. And you have nothing left to give."
He leaned closer.
"You are alone, Louis. Completely, utterly alone. Who watches your back now? The butcher? The lawyer? The spy?"
"Get off my carriage," I said.
Philippe stepped down. He slammed the door.
"Enjoy the silence, King of Nothing," he called out.
The carriage lurched forward.
I closed my eyes. He was right. I had cut the anchor to save the ship, but now I was drifting in a hurricane without a map.
We arrived at the Tuileries.
I didn't go to Marie. I couldn't face her yet.
I went to the Solar.
I sat at my desk. It was piled with paperwork. Decrees to sign. Death warrants for the economy.
But on top of the pile, there was a single letter.
It wasn't on fine parchment. It was on rough, military-grade paper.
It had a seal I didn't recognize. A smudge of wax.
I picked it up.
It was from the Ministry of War. A request for a promotion.
To His Majesty, King Louis XVI,
Regarding the commission of artillery placement in the Southern Command...
It was boring. Routine. I almost threw it away.
Then I saw the signature at the bottom. The handwriting was jagged, aggressive, impatient.
Lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte.
I froze.
I stared at the name.
Napoleon.
He was here. He was in the army. He was a Lieutenant. A nobody.
My mind raced.
I had no generals. The aristocrats were fleeing or hated me. Lafayette was too soft.
But here... here was a weapon.
A weapon that didn't care about lineage. A weapon that cared about winning.
Philippe said I was alone. He said I had no one to watch my back.
I picked up my quill. I dipped it in the ink.
I didn't sign the rejection pile.
I wrote a note in the margin of the Lieutenant's letter.
Grant the commission. Summon to Paris immediately.
I signed it: Louis.
I looked at the signature.
I had sold my soul to survive the day. But as the ink dried on the name Bonaparte, I realized I might have just bought the only thing that could save me from the war to come.
I might have just hired the Devil to kill the demons.