The Palais-Royal smelled of expensive perfume, stale wine, and fear.
We moved through the arcades like a wrecking ball. My grenadiers didn't ask for permission; they smashed doors, overturned gambling tables, and shoved screaming patrons out of the way.
This was Philippe's sanctuary. A "company town" where the police weren't allowed and the King's law didn't apply.
Until today.
Napoleon led the way, his sword drawn. He moved with the terrifying focus of a predator. He knew exactly where he was going.
We reached the double doors of the Duke's private apartments. They were guarded by four men in blue livery. They looked tough—ex-soldiers, mercenaries.
They leveled their muskets.
"Halt!" one shouted. "One more step and we fire!"
Napoleon didn't halt. He didn't even slow down.
"Grenadiers!" he barked. "Fix bayonets!"
The sound of two hundred blades sliding onto muskets echoed in the marble hallway. Shing-clack.
The mercenaries looked at the wall of steel coming toward them. They looked at the short officer with the dead eyes.
They dropped their muskets.
"Wise," Napoleon muttered as he walked past them.
He kicked the double doors. The lock splintered. The doors flew open.
We burst into the salon.
It was a scene of decadent luxury. Sunlight streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating silk tapestries and gilded furniture. A breakfast table was set with silver and crystal.
Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, was sitting at the head of the table.
He was peeling a boiled egg.
Sitting next to him was a famous actress from the Comédie-Française. Across from him were two radical deputies from the Assembly.
They all froze. The actress dropped her toast.
Philippe didn't drop his egg. He looked up, annoyed.
"Do you mind?" he drawled. "We are eating."
He looked at me, standing behind the wall of soldiers. He smiled, that same arrogant, condescending smile he had worn in my office.
"Louis," he said. "Come to apologize? Or did you just come to beg for a loan?"
"Get up, Philippe," I said. My voice was low.
Philippe chuckled. He wiped his hands on a linen napkin.
"You can't be serious," he said, standing up slowly. "You're breaking into my home? With soldiers? This is a violation of the Constitution. I have parliamentary immunity."
He turned to the deputies at the table.
"You see this, gentlemen? The Tyrant shows his true face. He violates the sanctity of a Representative's home!"
The deputies looked terrified. They shrank back in their chairs.
Philippe turned back to me. He puffed out his chest. He really believed his own hype. He thought his blood and his title and his "revolutionary" credentials made him untouchable.
"Get out," Philippe ordered. "Before I have you impeached."
He reached for the ceremonial sword hanging on the back of his chair.
"Captain," I said.
Napoleon moved.
He didn't fence. He didn't duel.
He stepped inside Philippe's reach. He brought the heavy brass pommel of his pistol down in a vicious arc.
CRACK.
It hit Philippe square in the face.
The Duke's head snapped back. Blood sprayed from his nose. He crumpled to the floor like a sack of wet laundry.
The actress screamed.
Philippe groaned, clutching his face. Blood poured through his fingers, staining his pristine white cravat.
"Immunity revoked," Napoleon said, standing over him.
I walked forward. I stood over my cousin.
He looked up at me with watering eyes. The arrogance was gone. Replaced by shock. He couldn't process it. Princes didn't get pistol-whipped.
"You... you can't..." he spluttered, choking on blood.
"I just did," I said.
I turned to the grenadiers.
"Arrest him. And the deputies. If they move, shoot them."
I looked at the room.
"Toss it," I ordered.
"Sire?" the Sergeant asked.
"Tear it apart," I said. "Every drawer. Every safe. Every book. I want paper. I want his ledgers. I want to know where the money went."
The soldiers went to work.
It was a beautiful destruction. They ripped paintings off the walls. They smashed Chinese vases to check for false bottoms. They dumped drawers onto the Persian rugs.
It wasn't looting. It was an audit.
Philippe watched from the floor, moaning as a soldier zip-tied his hands behind his back.
"You'll regret this," he hissed. "Danton... Danton will eat you alive."
"Let's see," I said.
I walked over to his desk. It was a massive mahogany piece, fit for a king.
I pulled open the center drawer. Locked.
"Jean!"
Jean appeared with his tools. He picked the lock in three seconds.
I pulled the drawer open.
It was empty.
My heart skipped a beat.
"He cleaned it," Jean whispered.
I looked at Philippe. He was grinning through his bloody teeth.
"Did you think I was stupid, cousin?" he wheezed. "I burned the books this morning. You have nothing. No proof. Just an illegal arrest."
I felt a cold sweat break out.
If I didn't find the proof, this was a coup. I would be branded a tyrant without cause. Robespierre would turn on me. The Assembly would impeach me.
"Keep looking!" I shouted to the soldiers. "Check the floorboards! Check the fireplace!"
They searched. They found love letters. They found gambling debts. They found pornographic etchings.
But no bribery ledger.
Philippe laughed. A wet, gurgling sound.
"Checkmate, Louis."
I stared at the desk.
I closed my eyes. I tried to think like him. Like a corporate fraudster.
Where do you hide the second set of books?
Not in the safe. Too obvious. Not in the fireplace. Too risky.
You hide it in plain sight.
I looked around the room.
The library shelves were lined with leather-bound volumes. Voltaire. Rousseau.
I walked over to the shelves.
"Jean," I said. "Check the spines."
Jean started pulling books. Nothing.
I looked at the breakfast table. The silver coffee pot. The crystal jam jar.
And a small, black book sitting next to the butter dish.
It looked like a prayer book. Or a diary.
It was sitting right there. He had been reading it while he ate his egg.
I walked over to the table.
Philippe stopped laughing. His eyes went wide. He struggled against the soldier holding him.
"No!" he shouted. "That's private! That's my personal journal!"
I picked it up.
It was heavy. Bound in black calfskin.
I opened it.
It wasn't a journal.
It was a spreadsheet. Hand-drawn columns. Dates. Names. Amounts.
July 12 - 5,000 Livres - Desmoulins (Press).
July 14 - 2,000 Livres - Santerre (Brewery).
July 20 - 10,000 Livres - Danton (Silence).
I felt a surge of triumph so intense it almost made me dizzy.
It was all here. The payroll of the Revolution. He had bought the journalists. He had bought the mob leaders. He had bought the silence of the great patriot Georges Danton.
This wasn't just a ledger. It was a nuclear weapon.
I held the book up.
"Is this your journal, Philippe?" I asked. "You seem to have very expensive thoughts."
Philippe slumped. His face went gray beneath the blood.
"You can't use that," he whispered. "If you release that... you destroy the Assembly. You destroy the credibility of the entire Revolution. You'll start a civil war."
"Maybe," I said. I tucked the book into my coat pocket. "Or maybe I just found the leverage to stop one."
I turned to Napoleon.
"We're done here."
"The prisoner?" Napoleon asked, nudging Philippe with his boot.
"Take him to the Conciergerie," I said. "Solitary confinement. No visitors. Especially not Danton."
"And if Danton tries to free him?"
I patted the pocket with the ledger.
"He won't," I said. "Danton works for me now."
We marched out of the Palais-Royal.
The sun was high and bright. The crowd outside the gates had grown. They were silent, watching the soldiers drag the Duke—bloodied and bound—into a carriage.
They looked at me.
They didn't cheer. But they didn't boo.
They looked at me with fear.
I walked back to the Tuileries. I felt the black book burning against my chest.
I had survived the riot. I had survived the raid. I had the leverage to control the Assembly.
But as I entered the palace, the victory felt cold.
I walked up the grand staircase. I didn't go to my office.
I went to the nursery.
I needed to see them. I needed to tell Marie that I had won. That the threat was gone. That I had the proof to clear our names.
I reached the nursery door.
I tried the handle.
Locked.
I knocked. Gently.
"Marie?" I called. "It's done. I have the proof. Philippe is in chains."
Silence.
"Marie, please. Open the door."
Nothing.
I leaned my forehead against the wood.
"I did it for you," I whispered. "I became the monster so you wouldn't have to be the victim."
From the other side of the door, I heard a sound.
It was the sound of a heavy trunk being dragged across the floor.
She wasn't opening the door. She was barricading it.
She was terrified of me.
I stepped back.
Napoleon was waiting at the end of the hall. He had watched the whole thing. He didn't look sympathetic. He looked impatient.
"What are your orders, Majesty?" he asked.
I looked at the locked door. Then I touched the black ledger in my pocket.
I had lost my wife. I had lost my general. I had lost my honor.
But I had the names.
"Keep the prisoners alive, Captain," I said, my voice hollow. "I'm going to make a deal with the Devil."
"And the Queen?"
"Leave her," I said, turning away. "The Queen is safe. That's all that matters."
I walked down the hall, the sound of my boots echoing in the empty palace.
I was the master of Paris. And I had never been more alone.