I stood at the Barrière de l'Étoile, the western gate of Paris.
The wind was cold, biting through my wool coat. Beside me, Napoleon watched the road through a brass telescope.
We weren't watching an invading army. We were watching our own army leave.
A line of carriages stretched down the dusty road, heading west toward the lush forests of Saint-Cloud. They were filled with officers. Men in blue coats with white facings. Men with "De" in their names.
"That's Colonel d'Aboville," Napoleon muttered, tracking a carriage. "Best artillery theoretician in the academy. Gone."
He shifted the telescope.
"Major Rochambeau. Veteran of America. Gone."
He lowered the glass and spat on the ground.
"I have plenty of bayonets, Sire. I can fill the ranks with butchers and bakers. But I have no one to tell them where to march. The brain is detaching from the body."
I watched the exodus. It was a corporate brain drain on a national scale. The "talent" was walking out the door to join the competition.
Ten miles away, at the Chateau of Saint-Cloud, my wife and Count Fersen were building a rival court. A "White France" to oppose my "Red Paris."
Every officer who crossed that line wasn't just a defector. He was an enemy combatant.
"Can we stop them?" I asked.
"I can set up a checkpoint," Napoleon said, his hand drifting to his sword. "I can shoot the horses. I can arrest them for desertion."
"If we start shooting officers, the army will mutiny," I said. "We need a scalpel, not a hammer."
"Then we will lose," Napoleon said bluntly. "In two weeks, Fersen will have a professional staff. I will have a mob with muskets. When they march on Paris, we will die bravely, but we will die."
I looked at the retreating carriages. They were loaded with trunks. Uniforms. Wine.
They were moving to a new headquarters. But headquarters need logistics. They need payroll. They need supplies.
I wasn't a General. I couldn't out-maneuver Fersen on a battlefield.
But I was an Accountant. And I knew how to strangle a startup.
"Let them go," I said.
Napoleon looked at me like I was mad. "Sire?"
"Let the men go," I said, turning back toward my carriage. "But keep their wallets."
The Triumvirate met in the War Room an hour later.
Me. Danton. Napoleon.
The map of France was on the table. Someone—Danton, probably—had stabbed a knife into the spot marked Saint-Cloud.
"Burn it," Danton growled. He was pacing like a caged bear. "One night march. We surround the chateau. We torch the roof. We drag the Austrian Whore and her boyfriend back in chains."
"My children are under that roof," I said coldly.
"Your children are hostages!" Danton shouted. "Fersen is using them as human shields! If we don't act, he'll use the Dauphin to rally the provinces. 'Fight for the Boy King against the Usurper Louis!'"
"We are not burning the chateau," I said.
"Then what?" Napoleon asked. "A siege? We don't have the heavy guns to breach the walls."
"We don't need guns," I said. "We need a blockade."
I pulled a ledger from my coat. It wasn't the Black Ledger. It was the Royal Treasury report.
"Saint-Cloud is expensive," I said. "It costs fifty thousand livres a week to run. The Swiss Guard needs to be paid. The officers need wine. The horses need hay."
I looked at Danton.
"Who controls the Treasury, Minister?"
Danton blinked. "We do. You seized it yesterday."
"Exactly," I said. "I am freezing the accounts. Effective immediately. Every officer who left Paris today? Their salary is zero. Their pension is zero. Their bank accounts are locked."
I turned to Napoleon.
"Captain, set up your checkpoints on the western road. But don't stop the men. Stop the wagons."
"The wagons?"
"Food. Wine. Coal. Hay. Luxury goods," I listed them off. "Nothing goes into Saint-Cloud. I want a total embargo. If they want to build an army, let them do it on empty stomachs."
Danton grinned. It was a cruel, ugly expression.
"You want to starve them out."
"I want to bankrupt them," I said. "Soldiers fight for honor, but they march for money. If Fersen can't pay them, his army dissolves."
"And the Queen?" Napoleon asked softly.
I flinched.
"The Queen," I said, my voice tight, "will realize that Fersen cannot provide for her. When the candles run out and the larder is empty... she will come home."
It was a lie. I knew Marie. She was stubborn. She would eat stale bread before she admitted I was right.
But it was better than Danton's plan. Better than fire.
"Do it," I ordered.
I went to the Royal Treasury myself.
The head banker, Monsieur Necker, looked like he was having a stroke. He was a man of rules, of ledgers, of propriety.
"Sire, you cannot simply... freeze the assets of the nobility," Necker stammered, wiping sweat from his bald head. "It is illegal. It violates the charter of the bank!"
"The charter is suspended," I said, standing over his desk. "This is war, Necker. Economic war."
"But the confidence in the market..."
"The market will survive," I snapped. "The monarchy might not."
I slammed a list of names on his desk. The list of every officer who had defected.
"Flag these accounts. If anyone tries to withdraw a single sou, arrest them."
Necker looked at the list. He looked at me. He saw the pistol in my belt.
He nodded.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
I walked out.
I felt dirty. This wasn't heroic. This was petty. This was a messy divorce played out with national assets.
I returned to the Tuileries.
I went to the nursery. It was empty. The silence was deafening.
I saw a wooden horse in the corner. The Dauphin's favorite. In the rush to leave, they had left it behind.
I picked it up.
I missed them. It was a physical ache in my chest.
I called Jean.
"Pack a wagon," I said.
"Sire?"
"Supplies," I said. "Fresh milk. Oranges. Chocolate. The toys from the nursery. And clean linens."
"But the embargo..."
"The embargo applies to Fersen," I said. "Not to my son."
I sat down at my desk and wrote a letter.
Marie,
The political situation is volatile. I cannot leave Paris. But please, do not let Fersen use the children as pawns. Come back. We can negotiate. I can protect you.
You are safer here than with the ghosts of the old regime.
Love, Louis.
I sealed it.
"Send it under a flag of truce," I told Jean. "Make sure it gets to her hands. Not Fersen's."
I waited.
The sun went down. The palace grew dark.
I stood by the window, watching the western road.
Four hours later, the wagon returned.
I ran down to the courtyard.
The driver looked terrified. He jumped down and bowed.
"Well?" I asked. "Did she read it?"
The driver didn't speak. He walked to the back of the wagon and threw open the tarp.
I stared.
The crates of milk and oranges were smashed. The chocolate was poured over the linens, ruining them. The wooden horse—my son's horse—was broken in half, its head severed.
It was a message. Violent. Personal.
"Did she say anything?" I whispered.
"She didn't come out, Sire," the driver said. "Count Fersen met us at the gate."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out my letter.
It was unopened. The wax seal was unbroken.
But someone—Fersen—had scrawled a note on the envelope in aggressive, slashing ink.
The Queen of France does not accept charity from her jailer. Send no more spies, or we will send back heads.
I took the letter.
I looked at the broken toy horse.
Fersen.
He wasn't just protecting her. He was isolating her. He was controlling the information. He had smashed the supplies to make sure she stayed angry, to make sure she stayed dependent on him.
He was turning my wife into a weapon against me.
Jean ran into the courtyard. He was holding a sheaf of papers. He looked pale.
"Sire," Jean gasped. "You need to see this."
"Not now, Jean."
"You need to see it," Jean insisted. "They aren't just sending back wagons. They're printing."
He handed me a pamphlet. The ink was still wet.
I looked at the title.
THE DECLARATION OF THE MOTHER.
To the People of France:
My husband, the King, has been taken captive by the Jacobin wolves. He is no longer master of his own mind. He has turned his cannons on his people and his back on his God.
I, Marie Antoinette, have taken the Heir to safety. I call upon all true Frenchmen to rally to Saint-Cloud, to liberate the King from his madness and restore the sanctity of the Crown.
I read it twice.
It was brilliant.
It didn't attack the monarchy. It attacked me. It painted me as a victim of Danton and Napoleon, a puppet who needed saving.
It gave every Royalist, every Catholic, every conservative in France permission to rebel against me in the name of... saving me.
"The people are reading this in the cafes," Jean said. "They're crying, Sire. They say the Queen is a hero."
I crushed the pamphlet in my hand.
The blockade hadn't worked. Starvation hadn't worked.
I had tried to be a CEO. I had tried to use leverage.
But Fersen didn't care about leverage. He wanted a war.
And now, thanks to this pamphlet, he had an army.
"Get Danton," I said, my voice shaking with rage. "And get the map."
"We are attacking?" Jean asked.
"No," I said, looking at the broken horse. "We are going to steal them back."