Chapter Summaries

In 1787, Crown Prince Louis Joseph took a university-level mathematics examination under Lagrange while planning how to save France and himself from the coming Revolution. He impressed Lagrange with his answers, especially a proof that revealed mathematical knowledge far ahead of its time, and continued on to the final questions.

• Louis Joseph recalled his modern life and considered the debt, famine, political unrest, and foreign threats facing France.
• Louis Joseph finished the first page of Lagrange’s examination with answers that astonished the mathematician.
• Lagrange replaced the remaining test with five questions, and Louis Joseph quickly solved the first two.
• Louis Joseph wrote a proof of Rolle’s Theorem for differentiable functions, prompting Lagrange to ask how he had discovered it.
• Louis Joseph realized his proof was historically premature, took back the paper, and turned to the final two questions.

After proving his mathematical ability, Joseph told Queen Mary he had completed his university studies and asked to take part in governing France. She agreed to let him gain experience in finance, but only at the Paris Tax Bureau, leaving Joseph to settle for the position of Assistant Minister of Finance.

• Joseph proved his ability to Lagrange, who rushed back to the university to pursue an idea inspired by Joseph's work.
• Joseph learned that Queen Mary was in her Tea Room and hurried there despite his lingering pneumonia.
• Joseph told Queen Mary he had passed the university's mathematics examination, and her clerk revealed that he had completed more than ten courses.
• Joseph asked to participate in government affairs and proposed becoming Minister of Finance, but Queen Mary suggested he start at the Paris Tax Bureau.
• Joseph asked to be Assistant Minister of Finance, the deputy position overseeing France's financial affairs.

Joseph persuaded Queen Mary to let him begin government work at Paris City Hall, despite the Duke of Orléans’s objections. As he traveled to Paris, he learned that City Hall controlled the police and began planning reforms to improve public safety.

• The Duke of Orléans urged Queen Mary to keep Joseph out of government, but Joseph insisted he was ready to serve and challenged the Duke’s interference.
• Queen Mary assigned Joseph to a post at City Hall, postponing his request to work in finance, and resumed the Cabinet Meeting’s tax reform discussion.
• After the meeting, Joseph tried to seek Louis XVI’s support but learned the King was occupied in the Locksmith Workshop, so he ordered Eman to prepare a carriage for Paris.
• Joseph sent his large entourage back, rode in an ordinary carriage, and studied materials about Paris City Hall during the journey.
• Joseph discovered that the Paris Police fell under City Hall and began considering police reforms as the carriage entered the city amid a foul stench.

Crown Prince Joseph visited Paris City Hall and heard officials dismiss plans to reform the police. When a woman demanded justice for her dead fiancé, Joseph challenged the suicide ruling and suggested that a dentist could have killed him.

• Joseph saw the filth and disorder of Paris on his way to City Hall.
• Le Verber and Flesselles welcomed Joseph and invited him to a banquet, where they tried to dissuade him from involvement in police administration.
• A woman outside City Hall insisted that Viscount Lenotre had been murdered rather than having killed himself by swallowing a sword.
• Guizot explained that Lenotre's death had been ruled a suicide despite there being no note or known signs of despair.
• Joseph argued that someone who knew how to treat teeth could have made Lenotre open his mouth and killed him with his own sword.

Joseph’s deductions helped solve Lenotre’s murder, but his attempt to join the Police Department remained blocked. The Duke of Orléans arranged to make Joseph Police Commissioner of the crime-ridden Saint-Antoine District, planning to use its dangers and press coverage to damage his reputation.

• Guizot reported that Lenotre’s servant had taken money to conceal a dentist’s visit, and Cesar found that the British dentist had sought revenge for his brother’s death before Cesar killed him during pursuit.
• Joseph learned that Lenotre’s fiancée, Estelle, had died by suicide and left her estate to him and the Police Bureau.
• Joseph considered asking the Queen to place him in the Police Department after Flesselles and the mayor resisted his involvement.
• The Duke of Orléans learned that Joseph wanted to enter police administration and ordered Le Verber to appoint him Police Commissioner of the Saint-Antoine District.
• The Duke instructed Paris News and Citizen Daily to publicize crime and policing failures in the district to undermine Joseph and Queen Mary.

Joseph accepted the post of Police Commissioner for Saint-Antoine District and arrived to take charge of its neglected police station. After reviewing the district’s crime and personnel records, he realized its law enforcement was severely understaffed and ineffective.

• Le Verber persuaded Flesselles to support Joseph becoming a Police Commissioner, and Joseph accepted the position in Saint-Antoine District.
• Joseph traveled through Saint-Antoine with Guizot and saw widespread poverty, extortion, gang violence, and an absence of police.
• Guizot introduced Joseph as the new Police Commissioner, and Bonneau and the station’s inspectors welcomed him.
• Joseph dismissed the crowd of officers and asked Bonneau to bring him records about the district, its cases, and its personnel.
• Joseph found that the district had recorded hundreds of crimes in a month, while most of its 181 officers had bought their posts and civilian Patrols lacked authority to arrest anyone.

Joseph reorganized the Saint-Antoine District police force, incorporating civilian patrols, setting ranks and salaries, and introducing performance evaluations. The reorganization began, and new complaint boxes and security booths appeared across the district.

• Joseph learned that police officers had gone four months without full pay and drafted a plan to reform the force.
• Joseph ordered Bonneau to gather the district’s police officers and civilian patrol members, and had 20,000 livres brought from his estate.
• Joseph announced that civilian patrol members could join the police, established ranked positions and salaries, and introduced monthly performance evaluations and bonuses or wage deductions.
• Joseph ordered the force to complete its reorganization and evaluation within ten days, and his guards began forming groups of officers.
• Two days later, residents saw complaint boxes at street entrances and security booths being built in crowded areas.

Le Verber and Guizot plotted to undermine Joseph’s police reforms by stirring fears about funding and the police-post trade, but Guizot failed to deter Joseph. Joseph then received a loving letter and treats from Louis XVI and Queen Mary, leaving him touched by his family’s care.

• Le Verber told Frua that he had spread word about Joseph’s reforms and planned to cut City Hall funding to pressure Guizot and the police force into resisting them.
• Guizot warned Joseph that the new recruits needed months of training and lacked equipment, but Joseph said he could train them in about ten days and handle the equipment himself.
• Guizot left determined to remove Joseph from the police system and restore the old arrangements.
• Louis XVI’s attendant delivered the king’s letter and Queen Mary’s cakes and sweets to Joseph at the Saint-Antoine District Police Station.
• Joseph read Louis XVI’s affectionate letter and felt warmed by his family’s concern, hoping to live safely and happily with them.

Joseph’s newly trained police force officially took over security in Saint-Antoine District, where officers used Joseph’s anti-riot tactics to confront the Viper Gang. The gang tried to flee after losing the fight, but backup police blocked their escape.

• Joseph’s force of more than two hundred rookie patrol officers completed its training and began patrolling Saint-Antoine District.
• Quillian and three other police officers confronted the Viper Gang as its members beat a man over unpaid protection money.
• Quillian blew his whistle and ordered the gang under arrest, and the officers used wooden waist forks and spears to hold them back and injure several attackers.
• The red-haired gang leader ordered a retreat after the police formation stopped his men from reaching the officers.
• Four police officers arrived from a nearby post and blocked the fleeing gang with their waist forks.

Joseph’s police reforms brought order and public support to the Saint-Antoine District, but the Duke of Orléans and Police Commissioner Guizot plotted to undermine them by unleashing the gangs. The chapter ended as violence escalated and police were called to confront the Black Sheep Gang.

• Quillian and the police arrested Viper Gang members, and officers across Saint-Antoine District drove down crime as residents rallied behind them.
• The Duke of Orléans, angered that Joseph’s reforms had boosted his reputation, sent Le Verber a letter urging him to disrupt the royal family’s plans.
• Guizot paid Similien to incite the Horse Gang and Black Sheep Gang to create chaos in Saint-Antoine District.
• After a series of killings and injuries, Magoney told Joseph that two people had been killed and a shoe shop burned on White Iris Street.
• Alden returned with progress on the White Iris Street case, then an officer reported that the Black Sheep Gang was attacking passersby on Misandra Street.

Joseph responded to a surge of crime in the Saint-Antoine District and a mass leave request by deploying Crown Prince Guards to support the police. The next morning, the Black Sheep Gang learned that Royal Guards had killed three of its members and were patrolling the streets.

• Joseph ordered longer patrols and doubled performance pay after violent crimes increased in the Saint-Antoine District.
• Nearly a hundred police personnel, led by Bonneau, requested leave, so Joseph sent Eman to verify their reasons and threatened to dismiss anyone who had lied.
• Joseph used Louis XVI’s letter to persuade Viscount Kex to send ninety Crown Prince Guards to help maintain order, while keeping fifteen Guards at the police station.
• Black Sheep Gang leaders celebrated the profits they had made committing crimes for Similien and planned to pursue a twenty-thousand-Livre reward.
• The next morning, the Black Sheep Gang learned that Royal Guards had killed three of its members and were patrolling almost every street.

The Crown Prince Guards’ brutal crackdown temporarily silenced the gangs in Saint-Antoine District, while Joseph’s investigation uncovered a scheme to fund the unrest. A bank record linked former Police Commissioner Similien to Paris Police Commissioner Viscount Guizot, revealing a possible mastermind behind the gangs’ sponsor.

• The Crown Prince Guards shot gang members who resisted arrest, causing the Horse Gang and Black Sheep Gang to suspend their crimes.
• Alden told Joseph that captured gang members had been paid one thousand livres for each job.
• The Guards captured Valian, and Magoney brought Joseph the Black Sheep Gang leader’s confession naming Raymond as the gangs’ sponsor.
• A clerk identified Raymond as Similien’s cousin, and Joseph suspected someone else had financed the scheme.
• Joseph inspected Similien’s account at Havre Bank and learned that Viscount Guizot had paid for the thirty-thousand-livre bill of exchange.

Joseph arranged a covert operation to obtain proof of Guizot’s involvement in a plot against the Saint-Antoine District police station. Guizot agreed to pay gangsters to kill officers and burn the station, then Antoine revealed the gangsters were Secret Police agents and arrested him.

• Joseph refused to arrest Guizot without evidence and sent a letter to Queen Mary to set his plan in motion.
• At four in the morning, Joseph explained the plan to Herman and Antoine, and Antoine agreed to carry it out.
• Valian and a disguised gaunt man intercepted Guizot’s carriage and claimed they could carry out a paid job for him.
• Guizot agreed to pay twenty thousand livres for the gang to kill ten police officers and burn down the Saint-Antoine District Police Station.
• The gaunt man revealed himself as Antoine, accused Guizot of conspiring against the police and the Crown Prince, and arrested him.

Joseph’s police force arrested Guizot and dismantled criminal gangs across the Saint-Antoine District, earning public praise and a Cabinet commendation. As Joseph traveled to Versailles to report to the King and Queen, he planned to use his success to seek the post of Assistant Minister of Finance.

• Ambroise de Hermann, Alden, and a police officer helped expose Guizot’s crimes and arrest him, while Alden later found Guizot’s notebook of gang intelligence and bribes.
• Joseph used the notebook to coordinate police and his Guard in a two-day crackdown that filled the district’s cells and sent other criminals to the Bastille.
• Marat interviewed residents and arrested criminals, heard widespread praise for the new police force, and prepared an article about Joseph’s successful reform.
• Joseph received a letter of commendation from the Cabinet summoning him to Versailles, and he planned to ask the Queen to make him Assistant Minister of Finance.
• Joseph read Guizot’s confession and learned that Guizot had funded the unrest in retaliation for reforms that threatened profits from selling police positions.

Joseph considered creating a loyal intelligence agency to protect his reforms, but worried that he lacked the political capital and manpower to establish one without provoking opposition. When Count Monod approached him about Guizot, Joseph used the evidence against the former police commissioner to secure Monod’s support for his bid to become assistant to the Minister of Finance.

• Joseph decided that France needed a professional intelligence network and command center, but worried that a new secret organization would draw hostility.
• Joseph’s carriage stopped when Count Monod, the Minister of the Interior, came to greet him, and Eman suggested Monod wanted to discuss Guizot.
• Monod gave Joseph a gem-encrusted Shamshir and tried to distance himself from Guizot, whom he had once recommended and promoted.
• Joseph showed Monod Guizot’s confession describing the attack on the Saint-Antoine District Police Station, where Joseph had been present.
• Monod feared being implicated and asked Joseph to explain the circumstances to the Queen, and Joseph said they could discuss it in a few days.
• Monod promised to support Joseph’s appointment as assistant to the Minister of Finance at the next Cabinet Meeting and to seek Bishop Brienne’s backing.

Joseph returned to Versailles Palace to a grand welcome from King Louis and Queen Mary, where the young noblewomen competed for his attention. Guard Captain Kexer stopped their staged fainting spells, leaving Joseph free to greet his parents.

• Joseph persuaded Mono to consult him about choosing the next Paris Police Commissioner and assured him that Guizot's crimes had nothing to do with him.
• Joseph arrived at Versailles Palace, where nobles and honor guards celebrated his return and told him the King and Queen were welcoming him.
• As Joseph approached his parents, Alisa fainted into his arms, and other noblewomen soon copied her to get close to him.
• Kexer lifted the two women from Joseph's arms and ordered the guards to help the others, prompting the noblewomen to stand up at once.

Joseph returned to Versailles, where Queen Mary discovered his fever and Dr. Lasenne diagnosed worsening pneumonia. Joseph stopped Lasenne from bleeding him and ordered him to prepare a fever-reducing medicine from willow bark, but after waking he was examined by Dr. Lamark and Perna, who found his temperature had risen to 38.6 degrees.

• Queen Mary welcomed Joseph back to Versailles and discovered that he had a fever.
• Dr. Lasenne diagnosed Joseph with worsening pneumonia and proposed bloodletting, but Joseph threatened him with a scimitar until he agreed not to bleed him.
• Joseph instructed Lasenne to prepare Salicin from willow bark and asked him to keep the refusal of bloodletting from his parents.
• Joseph fell asleep, then woke to find Dr. Lamark and Perna examining him.
• Perna measured Joseph's temperature at 38.6 degrees.

Joseph took salicin made from willow bark and recovered from his fever within thirty-seven minutes, astonishing Lamarck and persuading him to investigate the medicine. Two days later, Joseph attended a Cabinet Meeting, where Mono thanked him for helping settle Guizot’s disposition and praised his police reforms.

• Joseph challenged Lamarck’s bloodletting treatment and wagered that his salicin would break the fever within an hour.
• Joseph took the salicin, and Lamarck measured his temperature at 36.8 degrees Celsius less than forty minutes later.
• Lamarck asked to produce and study the willow-bark medicine, then left with Lasenne while Perna watched Joseph.
• Two days later, Joseph arrived at the Cabinet Meeting, and Mono thanked him for ensuring the decree about Guizot did not mention inciting riots.
• Mono praised Joseph’s police reform and called on the ministers to congratulate him.

Joseph was appointed Assistant Minister of Finance, with authority over government loans, bond repayments, and organizing Tax Law provisions while Brienne retained control of other financial decisions. As the Cabinet debated budget cuts, Joseph opposed reducing the navy by one battleship and instead called for suspending all battleship construction.

• Mono reminded Queen Mary that Joseph had been promised the Assistant Minister of Finance position, and Archbishop Brienne supported the appointment while demanding control over broader financial policy.
• The Duke of Orléans argued that Joseph should handle the Assistant Minister's routine duties, while secretly planning to engineer a government debt default by blocking loans before six million livres in bonds came due.
• Queen Mary appointed Joseph Assistant Minister of Finance and assigned him loans, bond repayments, and the organization of Tax Law provisions, subject to Brienne's approval on other matters.
• Brienne proposed further spending cuts, including canceling one battleship and two second-rate ships, and Queen Mary announced a one-million-livre reduction in royal household spending.
• Marquis de Castries protested the proposed naval cuts, but Joseph said all current battleship construction plans should be put on hold.

Joseph argued that France should stop competing with Britain by building large numbers of sailing warships and instead preserve funds, then urged Queen Mary to increase aid to the Dutch Patriot Party to contain Prussia. The chapter ended with Queen Mary acknowledging his reasons but doubting the Patriots could withstand the Prussian army.

• Joseph told Castries that France could never match Britain’s shipbuilding and argued that the fleet should focus on escorting merchant ships rather than expanding with old-fashioned warships.
• Queen Mary approved Brienne’s proposal to cut one battleship and two Second-rate Ships and ordered Castries to review other shipbuilding for waste.
• Brienne proposed ending France’s monthly 250,000 Livre aid to the Dutch Patriot Party after Prussian forces defeated it.
• Joseph argued that France should increase aid and consider sending troops, citing the Netherlands’ strategic position, commerce, and value as a way to tie down Prussian forces.
• Brienne objected that France could not afford more aid, and Joseph suggested using part of the money saved from naval cuts.
• Queen Mary said Joseph’s reasoning was sound but questioned whether additional aid could help the Patriot Party resist the Prussian army.