Chapter Summaries

Styler and Captain Delaunay used an elaborate corporate presentation to convince British officials that Lightning Coal Company had Europe’s leading gas-lighting technology. Mordaunt left persuaded that the company should win London’s Gas Lamp project, seeing political opportunity in leading it.

• Styler reported to Captain Delaunay that he had made progress with Mayor Mordaunt, who promised to discuss the project with MP Mordaunt.
• Baron Mordaunt and other members of Parliament, experts, and scholars visited Lightning Coal Company and were impressed by its grand slogans and disciplined staff.
• Styler demonstrated a polished but nonfunctional coal-distillation prototype and dazzled the visitors with technical claims, data, and promotional manuals.
• Styler showed the visitors models of other equipment and described the company’s development process and plans for the Gas Streetlight project.
• Mordaunt left convinced that Lightning Coal Company could transform London and imagined gaining political fame as the Father of London Streetlights.

Mordaunt chose Lightning Coal Company for London’s Gas Streetlight project, and Styler secured subcontractors while keeping control of the project’s key connections and tying up British firms. In India, Tipu Sultan offered Vijayanagara to Hyderabad during negotiations with the British representative.

• Mordaunt rejected Andrew Chemical Company and decided Lightning Coal Company was best suited to the Gas Streetlight project.
• Mordaunt and his faction backed Lightning Coal Company in Parliament, and London City Hall awarded it the project for 260,000 Pound Sterling.
• Styler invited the companies that had lost the bid to Paris and offered them subcontracting work.
• Styler signed agreements with British companies for much of the project while retaining control of the connections between its stages and requiring subcontractors to advance funds.
• Tipu Sultan told Hyderabad's prime minister that Mysore would relinquish Vijayanagara if the city belonged to Hyderabad.

England and Mysore signed a ceasefire after Tipu Sultan secured concessions for Hyderabad and Carnatic. In France, the Tax Farmers Guild tried to pressure Brienne over government finances, but the negotiations were canceled, leaving Viscount Brandt in alarm.

• Tipu Sultan rejected England's terms over Vijayanagara, and Sirley agreed to place territory north of Bellary under Hyderabad's temporary administration and allow other residents to relocate there.
• Tipu Sultan and Carnatic's envoy agreed that Carnatic would end its alliance with England and that Mysore would return Tiruchirappalli.
• England and Mysore signed a ceasefire agreement on October 2, with Mysore's strength largely intact despite territorial losses.
• Harper and the Tax Farmers Guild members planned to delay negotiations, expecting Brienne to accept their terms as the French government faced a cash shortage.
• Viscount Brandt arrived at Fuld's hunting grounds and announced that the Assistant Minister of Finance had canceled the Tax Farming Income negotiations.

Tax Farmer magnates investigated whether Brienne’s government had enough money to abolish tax farming, while London Mayor Herbert confronted Lightning Coal Industry over construction delays. The chapter ended with Fuld confirming that government accounts were receiving funds rapidly, putting the tax farmers’ position in jeopardy.

• Fuld, Harper, Charles, and Borolei discussed Brienne’s threat to end tax farming, and Harper tasked Fuld with finding out how much money the government had raised.
• Herbert demanded an explanation from Styler for delays to London’s gas streetlight project, and Styler blamed the chief technician’s disappearance.
• Styler returned to his office and continued deliberately delaying construction, relying on a series of planned mishaps and the contract’s protections against termination.
• Fuld told the Tax Farmer magnates that bank contacts had verified more than 100 million Francs had reached government accounts, with funds still arriving at a rate of 10 million Francs per week.

The Tax Farmers Guild planned to use its tax records to disrupt the French Government’s tax reforms and force it to grant them a share of tax revenues or collection rights. In Orléans, tax officials faced escalating violence, and a threat warned them to leave or suffer worse injuries.

• Mr. Hope and the tax-farming magnates rejected settling for government-loan interest and agreed to threaten to move their money abroad if the government abolished tax farming.
• Borolei urged the guild to show the French Government its strength, while Gordmide proposed withholding accurate tax records and supplying misleading ones to throw the new Tax Bureau into chaos.
• Mr. Hope approved Gordmide’s plan to gather tax documents under the Guild and use them to negotiate for tax-sharing or collection rights.
• Lemair learned that Vincent and his assistant had been beaten, following earlier attacks on François and Garcia and a threat demanding that the officials resign.
• A police officer found a note in Vincent’s pocket warning the tax officials to leave Orléans or face more severe violence.

Robespierre faced a growing wave of attacks on Tax Bureau staff, while Joseph arranged a scheme to make France’s finances appear far stronger than they were and weaken the Tax Farmers’ leverage. Robespierre then arrived at the Tuileries Palace to report the attacks to Joseph.

• Lemair tightened security after Tax Bureau personnel were attacked, but the police could not identify the professional assailants, and officials began resigning.
• Robespierre reviewed reports of attacks across France and, unable to provide guards, prepared a morale-boosting speech and went to seek funding from Joseph.
• Joseph approved a delay in transferring funds and instructed Matthew de Lefebvre to keep the operation secret and vet its handlers through the Intelligence Bureau.
• Joseph explained how he was repeatedly cycling fifty million Francs through banks and government accounts to create the appearance of abundant public funds and unsettle the Tax Farmers Guild.
• Eman brought Robespierre to Joseph, and Robespierre reported that attacks had killed two tax officials and injured dozens more.

Joseph refused to send guards to protect the Tax Bureau, instead urging Robespierre to arm and strengthen his tax officials while ordering Fouche to investigate the attacks. He then confronted Tax Farmer magnate Charles with evidence that his bank had financed the Southern Netherlands rebels.

• Joseph rejected Robespierre’s request for more guards and authorized the Tax Bureau to obtain pistols, sabers, and, if necessary, cannons.
• Robespierre returned to his office, discarded his prepared speech, and wrote a new one inspired by Joseph’s call to stand firm.
• Brienne told Joseph that Brandt had offered a higher tax-farming agreement, but Brienne had rejected it as instructed; Joseph ordered Fouche to investigate the forces behind the attacks on tax officials.
• Charles visited Joseph to ask about the Intelligence Bureau’s investigation and the sealing of his assets.
• Joseph accused Charles of financing the Southern Netherlands rebels and showed him records of loans and money transfers from Charles’s bank.

Joseph pressured Charles over evidence linking his banks to the Southern Netherlands rebels, and Charles offered a twelve-million-Franc loan to secure a faster investigation. In Reims, two tax officers were attacked, and the shorter officer shot both assailants dead.

• Joseph showed Charles documents connecting his banks to businesses that had aided the rebels and said the investigation could take months.
• Charles offered a low-interest loan of twelve million Francs to support tax reform in exchange for speeding up the investigation.
• Joseph agreed to ask Archbishop Brienne whether he needed the loan, and Charles hurried off to invite him.
• Two hooded attackers ambushed two tax officers as they left the Tax Bureau in Reims.
• The shorter tax officer shot both attackers and declared that the law allowed tax officers to shoot anyone who attacked them.

After Robespierre urged tax officials to answer attacks with force, Tax Bureau staff across France killed or arrested dozens of thugs and crushed the intimidation campaign. In Paris, Borolei regretted the losses among his men and asked whether Anrol and Ruzard had been arranged.

• Shawn Met shot two attackers and reminded Tall Tax Official of Robespierre’s call to defend the law with force.
• In Orleans, Lemair’s tax officials shot several thugs attacking the Tax Bureau and arrested those who surrendered.
• Tax officials elsewhere used bombs, arrests, and even requested a cannon to repel attacks, while the Picardy thugs surrendered before it was used.
• Borolei learned that thirty-seven of his men had been killed and more than seventy arrested, and his butler asked how to handle 620,000 Francs in compensation.
• Borolei told his butler to follow the usual rules and asked whether Anrol and Ruzard had been arranged.

Joseph used the Tax Bureau’s victory over attackers to build public support for tax reform and publicized Charles’s government loan and new role as a King's Fund custodial bank. As the Tax Farmers Guild turned against Charles, Joseph searched for a legal way to secure enough capital for France’s next-year budget.

• Joseph ordered Eman to publicize the Tax Bureau’s actions and the benefits of abolishing tax farming, then drafted commendations for Shawn Met, the Orleans Tax Bureau, and other officials.
• Joseph told Denico to arrange an interview presenting Charles as a supporter of tax reform and to report that Charles-Botton Bank had become a King's Fund custodial bank.
• Joseph calculated that France still needed at least 200 million Franc from former tax-farming revenues and considered using banking-industry rectification to delay capital leaving the country.
• Fuld told the Tax Farmers Guild magnates that Charles had sided with the government, and Baron Morell defended Charles by citing his alleged involvement in the Southern Netherlands rebels’ case.
• The Guild magnates dismissed Morell’s defense and mocked Charles, wrongly believing he had received fourteen percent interest on his 12 million Franc loan.

After Charles’s loan helped clear the investigation into Charles-Bouton Bank, the Tax Farmers Guild prepared to bargain over profitable tax concessions while smaller tax farmers searched for alternatives. Joseph’s Tax Reform Fund attracted 37 million Francs in subscriptions, and Corsica’s provincial Parliament election began.

• Fuld and Hope urged the Tax Farmers Guild to pool tax documents and seek the Salt, Liquor, Tobacco, and Market Taxes, assigning Charles’s documents to Mr. Lafayette.
• Small tax farmers, including Sylvie Fenot and his partners, worried that tax farming would end and debated where to invest their money.
• Eric brought Fenot’s group a notice announcing the government’s Tax Reform Fund, which offered ten-year Government Bond interest, possible dividends, and redemption after six months.
• Fenot and his partners hurried to subscribe, and the Tax Reform Fund sold 37 million Francs’ worth in Paris and nearby provinces within ten days.
• Corsica’s provincial Parliament election began with four powerful factions competing.

After election results weakened Oscar Pauli’s faction, Filippo learned that Pauli had been arrested for rape—a scandal planted by the French Intelligence Bureau and amplified by his political enemies. Shaken and disillusioned, Filippo walked back to Nonza Village as the planned arson mission still loomed.

• Election results gave the Pauli faction 35% of the vote, the Pro-France faction nearly 30%, the anti-Pauli faction 15%, and the Restorationist centrists nearly 20%.
• Outside Nonza, Agosta praised the discreetly placed tinder, and Cesari’s guards prepared to carry out the arson mission the following night.
• At an inn, Filippo attacked two merchants after hearing them insult Pauli, but they pointed him to newspaper reports describing Pauli’s arrest for assaulting Isabella and her aunt.
• Filippo read the report in The Times and rejected it as a lie, while the merchants told him the story had spread throughout the United Kingdom.
• The French Intelligence Bureau’s fabricated scandal reached Corsica, where Bartorio and anti-Pauli councilmen spread even more detailed coverage.
• Filippo, devastated by the reports in the Corsica Morning Post, walked until he found himself back at Nonza Village.

Filippo could not choose between exposing Paoli and preserving the Restoration Movement, so he jumped to his death. After the election reshaped Corsican politics, Bartorio allied with Earl Buttafuoco, and Parliament passed laws designed to destroy Paoli and his faction.

• Filippo refused to set Nonza Village ablaze and leaped from a hillside; villagers found his body the next day.
• The Paoli case damaged his faction in Corsica’s elections, where Bartorio’s Anti-Paoli Faction won 35 percent of the seats and Earl Buttafuoco’s Pro-France Faction won 33 percent.
• Earl Buttafuoco proposed that Bartorio join forces with the Pro-France Faction to pass laws against Paoli, and Bartorio agreed after consulting Girolamo.
• Girolamo became Speaker, and Corsican Parliament stripped Paoli of his citizenship, banned contact with him and sales of his writings, and confiscated his property.

Earl Buttafuoco persuaded the Paoli and Neutral Factions to support outlawing the National Guard in exchange for his opposition to a bill stripping them of parliamentary qualifications. Joseph ordered Napoleon to suppress the Guard and promote French control of Corsica, then met Gordmide, a British banker known as “The Lender,” who arrived with good news.

• Earl Buttafuoco offered to oppose the bill against the Paoli Faction if Giuseppe and Eliok supported outlawing the National Guard, and they agreed.
• Earl Buttafuoco assured Giuseppe and Eliok that he could secure enough votes to pass the National Guard ban.
• Joseph read the Corsican Governor’s report and ordered Napoleon Bonaparte to suppress the National Guard, with a promotion and command appointment promised afterward.
• Joseph reviewed the Tax Bureau’s preparations and worried that only 80 million Franc had been raised, while most Tax Farmers had not pledged allegiance.
• Fouche told Joseph that “The Lender” wanted to meet, and Joseph learned the man was Gordmide, a British banker who had good news.

Gordmide told Joseph that the Tax Farmers Guild planned to hide genuine tax records and submit false ones to obstruct the government Tax Bureau. After Joseph rejected Gordmide’s request to place friends in the Treasury, he used the information to seize the hidden records and launch arrests across France.

• Gordmide asked Joseph to arrange Treasury posts for his friends, but Joseph refused and offered other business opportunities instead.
• Gordmide revealed that the Tax Farmers planned to hide their tax documents and give false records to the government during the transfer to the Tax Bureau.
• Gordmide told Joseph that the documents were being stored at villas belonging to Viscount Ford in Antoine Town, and Joseph ordered him to wait until they were gathered.
• Five days later, Paris Police surrounded properties belonging to Fuld and his family while Intelligence Bureau agents searched them and found tax records filling more than ten carriages.
• The Paris Supreme Court issued over a hundred arrest warrants, and Intelligence Bureau agents and police arrested nearly every head of a Tax Farm Office for forging tax documents.

French authorities expanded the tax-document forgery investigation, while Brienne tried to make Tax Farmers Guild magnates buy government bonds to fund state projects. On a ship bound for Corsica, Napoleon prepared to use his troops to secure command of the Corsican Legion, disillusioned by Paoli’s alleged crimes.

• Police and Intelligence Bureau officials arrested Tax Farmers and seized their assets as confessions implicated more senior members in document forgery.
• Balo offered Brienne money to settle the case, but refused to buy 10 million Franc in Special Treasury Bonds.
• Baron Morel, Borolei, and Fuld also declined Brienne’s bond request, while Baron Pellier agreed to purchase 7 million Franc in bonds.
• Joseph told Brienne that he wanted to raise more money for canal and Wooden Railway projects and planned to increase pressure on the Tax Farmers.
• Napoleon sailed toward Corsica with two Artillery Companies and several hundred Infantry, intending to claim command of the Corsican Legion after losing faith in Paoli.

Napoleon decided that Corsican independence had served his own ambition and resolved to rise through the French military, while the National Guard struggled to survive after Parliament banned it. As Napoleon’s forces reached the Guard near Asco, he spotted an opportunity and reconsidered his attack plan.

• Napoleon concluded that the Restoration Organization had doomed Corsican independence and chose to pursue a higher position as acting commander of the Corsican Legion.
• The Asco Municipal Commissioner refused Cesari-Colonna Paoli’s request for supplies because Parliament had banned the National Guard.
• A Cavalryman reported that two thousand French soldiers were approaching, while the National Guard had dwindled to thirteen hundred men.
• Cesari ordered his officers to defeat the French and march south to Ajaccio to force Parliament to repeal the ban.
• Napoleon located the National Guard camp, learned that it was preparing defenses, and paused his artillery order after seeing an opportunity.

Napoleon defeated Cesari’s National Guard in Asco by laying siege until the starving citizens turned against them, then nearly eliminated Corsica’s separatist forces. In Paris, Joseph proposed auditing Tax Farmers’ accounts from the past ten years by inviting citizens to request tax reassessments and recruiting outside help.

• Napoleon deployed his forces around Asco and routed Cesari’s attack with artillery, Rangers, and grapeshot.
• Cesari retreated into Asco, where his soldiers seized food from residents during Napoleon’s month-long siege.
• Asco’s citizens set fire to the National Guard’s ammunition warehouse, then helped Napoleon’s army capture the city and destroy Cesari’s force.
• Napoleon brought food to Asco, won the citizens’ gratitude, and later destroyed two more National Guard units.
• Joseph told Robespierre and Fuerke to audit Tax Farmers’ accounts for the past ten years using citizens’ reassessment appeals and newspaper-published tax rules.
• Joseph offered to enlist Finance Department staff, the Accounting Guild, and university students to help Fuerke verify the accounts.

Joseph learned that the Queen might dismiss the Tax Farmers Guild’s forged-document case after the Count of Artois and the Queen’s lady-in-waiting intervened. He confronted his uncle and threatened his income and an investigation bureau to make him stop helping the tax farmers.

• Brienne told Joseph that the Queen considered a fine sufficient for the Tax Farmers Guild’s forged documents, after the Count of Artois pleaded its case and the Queen received a valuable diamond diadem.
• Joseph decided the Count of Artois could keep pressuring the Queen, so he went to confront him at his residence instead of visiting Petit Trianon.
• Joseph accused the Count of Artois of helping the tax farmers and warned that his interference could cost France hundreds of millions of Francs.
• Joseph threatened to dilute the Count of Artois’s bank and company shares and reduce his fund dividends and annuity if he continued supporting the guild.
• When the Count of Artois admitted he had promised Viscount Ford he would plead for him, Joseph threatened to send the Public Notary Investigation Bureau, and the count begged him not to.

Joseph forced the Count of Artois to abandon support for the Tax Farmers Guild, while the Guild mistakenly believed its bribery had ended the forged-documents case. After the Tax Bureau invited citizens to appeal past taxes, Hope urged the Guild to use its control of trade and Marseille Port to pressure the government into stopping the investigation.

• Joseph left the Count of Artois's residence confident in his growing power and influence.
• The Tax Farmers Guild magnates celebrated their belief that bribing the royal family would make the forged-documents case disappear.
• Fuld reported that the Guild suspected a traitor had revealed where its tax documents were hidden.
• The butler told the magnates that the Tax Bureau was inviting citizens to appeal past taxes, prompting crowds to gather at tax offices across Paris.
• Hope told Fuld to offer the Duke of Artois and Countess de Berninac greater benefits and to threaten a halt to caravan trade and Marseille Port.