I kicked Danton's door open. It hit the wall with a crack like a pistol shot.
Danton groaned, rolling over in his cot. The room smelled of stale wine and sweat. He blinked at me, confused by the dawn light streaming in from the hallway.
"Get up," I said. "We're going to war."
Danton sat up, rubbing his face. "War? Who invaded?"
"No one," I said, throwing his coat at him. "We are invading Saint-Cloud. Napoleon is trapped."
Danton froze. The fog of alcohol cleared instantly.
"The raid failed?"
"It was a trap," I said, checking the load on my pistol. "Fersen was waiting. Napoleon is pinned down in the wine cellar. If we don't get him out, Fersen will execute him. And then he will have my wife, my son, and my best general."
Danton pulled on his boots. His face hardened.
"Saint-Cloud is a fortress," he grunted. "We can't take it with the Palace Guard."
"I know," I said. "That's why you're going to ring the tocsin."
Danton stopped. He looked at me.
The tocsin. The alarm bells of Paris. The sound that summoned the mob.
"You want to arm the sections?" Danton asked slowly. "You want to lead the Sans-Culottes? Louis, if you unleash them, you can't put them back in the bottle."
"I am done with bottles," I said. "I am done with politics. Fersen wants a fight? I'll bring him the whole damn city."
Danton grinned. It was a terrifying sight.
"Finally," he said. "The lion wakes up."
An hour later, Paris was screaming.
The bells of Notre Dame were ringing backward—the signal for emergency. Drums beat in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.
I rode out of the Tuileries gates on a white stallion.
I wasn't wearing my velvet coronation robes. I was wearing the blue uniform of the National Guard, stained with dust. Across my chest, I wore a massive Tricolor sash.
Behind me rode Danton, looking like a butcher on a warhorse.
And behind him... the People.
Ten thousand of them.
They didn't look like an army. They looked like a landslide. Men in dirty shirts armed with pikes. Women carrying kitchen knives tied to broom handles. Butchers with cleavers.
They looked up at me.
Usually, they looked at the King with suspicion. Today, they looked at me with hunger.
"Citizens!" I shouted, my voice cracking over the noise. "The Aristocrats at Saint-Cloud have stolen your Prince! They have kidnapped the Heir of France!"
A roar went up. Pure, primal rage.
"They think they can starve us!" I yelled. "They think they can take our children! Are we going to let them?"
"NO!" Ten thousand throats screamed.
"Then follow me!" I drew my sword. "To Saint-Cloud!"
I spurred my horse.
We marched west.
It wasn't a military maneuver. It was a migration. A river of steel and anger flowing down the road.
I rode at the front, my heart pounding against my ribs.
I looked at my hands. They were gripping the reins so tight my knuckles were white.
I was the King of France. And I was leading a peasant revolt against my own nobility. Against my own wife.
It was insane. It was suicidal.
It was the only move I had left.
We reached the village of Saint-Cloud just before noon.
The chateau sat on a hill overlooking the Seine. It was beautiful. Elegant spires, manicured gardens.
And black smoke pouring from the east wing.
"The cellar," Jean said, riding up beside me. "The vent is blocked. They're trying to smoke him out."
I looked at the chateau.
Through my telescope, I saw red coats on the walls. The Swiss Guard. Fersen's mercenaries. Professional soldiers.
They saw us coming. I saw officers pointing, running.
They expected a small force. They didn't expect a human wave.
"They're digging in," Danton growled. "We need to hit them before they set up the cannons."
"The front gate is a kill zone," I said, thinking like Napoleon. "They'll mow us down."
I scanned the perimeter.
"The kitchen," I said. "The raid team breached the kitchen door last night. It's the weak point."
I turned to Danton.
"Take your heavies," I ordered. "The brewers. The blacksmiths. Take the kitchen door. Smash it in."
"And you?"
"I'll draw their fire at the main gate," I said.
Danton nodded. He signaled to Santerre, the brewer. A group of massive men with sledgehammers broke off from the main group and circled toward the east wall.
I turned to the mob.
"Forward!" I screamed. "For the Dauphin!"
We charged.
It was chaos.
Musket fire erupted from the chateau walls. Smoke puffed white against the blue sky.
I heard the zip of bullets past my ear. A man next to me went down, screaming.
I didn't stop.
We reached the gate. The mob surged against the iron bars. They didn't have discipline, but they had weight. They pushed. They climbed.
Above the noise, I heard a crash from the east. Wood splintering.
Danton was in.
"Push!" I yelled.
The gate groaned. Then, with a screech of tearing metal, it gave way.
We poured into the courtyard.
The Swiss Guards retreated, firing as they went. But they were overwhelmed. You can't reload a musket when three men with pikes are sprinting at you.
I jumped off my horse.
"To the cellar!" I shouted.
I ran toward the smoke.
I kicked open the pantry door. It was a scene from hell.
Flour sacks had burst during the fight. The air was thick with white dust. Danton's men were fighting the Swiss in a cloud of fog. Sledgehammers against bayonets.
I pushed through.
"The cellar!" I coughed. "Where is the cellar?"
Jean pointed to a heavy oak door at the bottom of the stairs. It was barricaded from the inside with wine casks. Smoke was seeping through the cracks.
"Napoleon!" I hammered on the wood. "Open up! It's me!"
Silence.
Then, a muffled voice.
"Password?"
I laughed. He was still following protocol.
"Grapeshot!" I yelled.
The casks scraped against the stone. The door creaked open.
I stepped into the dark.
The air was unbreathable. Thick, oily smoke.
Napoleon was sitting on a barrel of cognac in the center of the room. He was holding a lit torch.
The bunghole of the barrel was open.
If the Swiss had breached the door, he would have dropped the torch. He would have blown the entire east wing of the chateau into orbit.
He looked terrible. His face was black with soot. His eyes were red and streaming. But he was alive.
He saw me. He blinked, as if he was hallucinating.
"You came back," he croaked.
"I tried to send a letter," I said, coughing. "But the post is slow."
Napoleon lowered the torch. He grinned. His teeth were startlingly white in his blackened face.
"I thought you would cut your losses," he said. "I am just a Captain."
"You are my Minister of War," I said, offering him a hand. "And I protect my assets."
He took my hand. His grip was weak, shaking.
"The Queen?" he asked.
"Upstairs," I said. "With Fersen."
"He knew," Napoleon whispered as I pulled him up. "He knew we were coming. He has spies in the Tuileries."
"We'll deal with that later," I said. "Can you walk?"
"Give me a rifle," Napoleon said, stumbling but staying upright. "And I can run."
We dragged him out of the cellar, into the fresh air of the courtyard.
The fighting had stopped.
The mob had surrounded the chateau. Thousands of them. They were chanting, banging their pikes on the cobblestones.
"COME OUT! COME OUT!"
I looked up at the main balcony.
The glass doors opened.
Count Axel von Fersen stepped out.
He looked impeccable. His blue uniform was pristine. His sword glittered in the sun.
He looked down at the sea of dirty, angry peasants. He curled his lip.
"Disperse!" he shouted. His voice carried over the courtyard. "Or the hostage dies!"
The crowd quieted.
Hostage?
Fersen reached back into the room.
He dragged a small figure out onto the balcony.
It wasn't the Queen.
It was a boy. Six years old. Wearing a velvet suit.
Louis-Charles. The Dauphin. My son.
He was crying. Terrified.
Fersen pulled a pistol from his belt.
He pressed the muzzle against the boy's temple.
"One step closer!" Fersen screamed. "And the Bourbon line ends here!"
The mob froze. A collective gasp went through ten thousand people.
They hated the King. They hated the Queen. But the Boy? The Boy was innocent. The Boy was the future.
I felt my blood turn to ice.
I looked at Fersen. He wasn't bluffing. I saw it in his eyes. He was a fanatic. He believed that if he couldn't save the monarchy, he would destroy it rather than let it fall to the Jacobins.
He wasn't a soldier anymore. He was a terrorist.
I looked at my son. He saw me.
"Papa!" he wailed.
The sound tore through me like a bayonet.
Napoleon limped up beside me. He had found a musket somewhere. He rested it on a garden statue to steady his aim.
"I can take the shot," Napoleon whispered. "At this range... eighty percent."
"And if he flinches?" I hissed.
"Then the boy dies."
I looked at the balcony.
If I surrendered, Fersen won. He would take the boy away. He would raise him to hate me. He would use him to start a civil war that would burn France for twenty years.
If I attacked, Fersen pulled the trigger.
There was no good move.
So I stopped playing chess.
I stepped forward. Out into the open.
I dropped my sword. I spread my arms.
"Look at me, Fersen!" I roared.
Fersen looked down. The gun didn't waver from my son's head.
"Shoot him!" I screamed.
The crowd gasped. Napoleon stiffened.
"Shoot the King of France's son!" I yelled, walking toward the balcony. "Do it! Do it in front of ten thousand Frenchmen! Do it in front of God!"
I pointed at the mob behind me.
"You think you can kill him and leave? If you pull that trigger, they won't just kill you. They will tear you apart! They will eat you alive! They will burn your name from history!"
I saw Fersen's hand tremble.
He expected me to beg. He expected me to negotiate.
He didn't expect me to dare him.
"DO IT!" I screamed, my voice raw.
Fersen hesitated. He looked at the mob. He saw the ocean of hate staring back at him.
He looked back at me.
For a split second, his focus shifted.
And in the glass reflection behind him, I saw movement.
A figure in black.
Running.
It wasn't a soldier.
It was a mother.