You offended the Crown Prince and still think you can run? (End-of-month plea for

monthly tickets! Another update tonight!)

Mirabeau strode into the Crown Prince's study, handed his hat to Eman, then bowed to Joseph. "Your Highness, from yesterday until half an hour ago, a total of forty-one people wrote to Her Majesty the Queen or sought an audience directly to express their opposition to the proposal to abolish noble privileges."

As he spoke, he handed over a list. "Most of them are highly influential great nobles."

Joseph took the list and smiled, gesturing toward a nearby chair. "Please, have a seat."

He glanced over the paper and nodded. "Yes, much as I expected. Most of them are those people from the Assembly of Notables. That makes dealing with them convenient."

Those fellows from the Assembly of Notables had played no small part behind the grain crisis in the southern provinces, and Joseph certainly had not forgotten them.

After dealing with the military earlier, he had deliberately refrained from implicating anyone else so that they would lower their guard.

The Duke of Mouchy, who had submitted that document signed by more than twenty generals to force the Queen's hand, had even openly emerged over the past two days to rally the nobles against the abolition of their privileges, acting as though he had nothing whatsoever to fear.

Indeed, his name was the first on Mirabeau's list.

Speaking of which, Louis XVI and the Queen had spoiled these nobles into developing this bad habit. They always assumed that as long as their prestige was high enough and enough people took part, the royal house would do nothing to them.

So this time, they thought things would be just as they had been before: once the military bowed its head and submitted to the royal house, "peripheral" participants like themselves would be fine.

In fact, Joseph