Chapter Summaries

Joseph left Madame de Sambelange after realizing she was trying to seduce him, while the Duke of Chartres took his place and later bragged about his performance. Joseph then met Madame Villar to discuss Lieutenant Davout and the future of the Villar Family, leaving her determined to act.

• Joseph questioned Madame de Sambelange about the secret, rejected her advances, and left her room.
• The Duke of Chartres entered Madame de Sambelange's room, mistook her welcome for an invitation, and later left boasting that he had spent forty-four minutes with her.
• Joseph met Madame Villar in a lounge and told her he had ties to the Davout family.
• Joseph discussed Lieutenant Davout and the future of the Villar Family with Madame Villar, who left having made up her mind.

Madame Villar announced that Emily would marry André Davout, whose new alliance was intended to restore the Villars family’s standing and influence in the Moulins Infantry Regiment. Meanwhile, Joseph launched his Police Intelligence Division by assigning Fouche its first investigations.

• Madame Villar announced at her ball that Emily would hold an engagement ceremony with André Davout in three days, shocking the guests and Roger.
• Emily’s mother explained that the Crown Prince valued André, promised him a path to noble rank, and would support him in reclaiming the Villars family’s land and influence from Noailles.
• The Crown Prince lent André fifty thousand Livres and tasked him with restoring Emily’s inheritance and using the Moulins Infantry Regiment to build an elite army.
• Roger interrupted the ball in distress, but Madame Villar sent him away, while André ignored him.
• Fouche presented Joseph with a roster of 176 recruits and said the Police Intelligence Division was ready to operate.
• Joseph ordered Fouche to investigate whether anyone else had backed Guizot’s alleged scheme to cause chaos in the Saint-Antoine District and attack a police station.

Joseph investigated the banks’ threat to halt government loans and worked to expand the authority of France’s intelligence services by bargaining with Robert. Meanwhile, Hartley received London’s instructions to win Joseph over to Britain and encourage his hostility toward Prussia.

• Joseph told Fouche to investigate why Lavier Bank and Laborde Bank had threatened to stop lending, pointing to the Duke of Orléans’s earlier actions as a clue.
• Fouche said the Police Intelligence Division needed access to some Royal Police powers, including authority over the postal service, and Joseph agreed to seek it while stressing the need to build intelligence networks.
• Joseph told Robert that the Royal Police should become independent of the Police Department, enticing him with the prospect of a higher-ranking intelligence service.
• Robert agreed that the Police Department and Royal Police could cooperate and share certain privileges, and Joseph toasted him as the future Minister of Intelligence.
• Hartley deciphered London’s instructions to assess Joseph’s attitude toward Britain, win him over if possible, and increase his hostility toward Prussia.

Hartley assigned subordinates to pursue British interests in France, while Joseph attended a Paris academic conference and warned French scholars about England’s technological lead. There, Joseph met industrialist Pierre DuPont and discussed the damaging effects of the Eden Treaty, leaving the treaty’s consequences under discussion.

• Hartley decided to investigate the French Crown Prince’s political leanings further and sent his subordinates to handle the matters in London’s secret letter.
• Lagrange invited Joseph to a Mathematical Society conference, and Joseph agreed to attend after his teacher personally asked him.
• At Madame Josna’s salon, Joseph listened as scholars presented mathematical ideas before the discussion shifted to attacks on Protestantism and England.
• When a young scholar asked Joseph to support his condemnation of English science, Joseph cited Newton and other British scholars and warned that English steam and textile technologies threatened France.
• Pierre DuPont introduced himself to Joseph and explained that the Eden Treaty had stalled trade negotiations and harmed French industry.
• Joseph agreed that the Eden Treaty had been signed inappropriately and had disastrous effects on France’s industries.

Joseph promised DuPont he would seek to resume trade negotiations with England, then unknowingly gave a British agent the impression that he admired England. Meanwhile, the Duke of Orléans prepared to use his control of Paris's press to undermine Brienne's campaign for the Tax Law.

• Joseph told DuPont he would raise the stalled trade negotiations at the Cabinet Meeting and work to resume them.
• A young man from Birmingham spoke with Joseph in English, and Joseph praised England while privately criticizing it.
• The young man reported his conversation to Hartley, who concluded Joseph was pro-English and sent a letter to Versailles before heading to the Royal Palace.
• The Duke of Orléans read newspapers explaining Brienne's Tax Law campaign and decided to use his control of Paris's publishing industry to counter it.

The British Ambassador, Hartley, enlisted the Duke of Orléans to publish fabricated scandals about the Prussian royal family in exchange for help with Orléans’s British investments. On his way back from the Police Academy, Joseph discovered newspapers attacking his tax reform bill and realized the High Court’s reviewers were allowing the criticism through.

• Hartley asked the Duke of Orléans to publish invented stories linking Prussian nobles to Queen Mary and Princess Therese, and Orléans agreed in return for help advancing his investment review.
• The Duke of Orléans sent letters to newspapers he controlled, including instructions to publish Hartley’s stories.
• Joseph continued studying military subjects at the Police Academy and shared advanced military theories with its instructors.
• Joseph read newspaper headlines misrepresenting the tax reform bill and blaming the royal family for arbitrary taxation.
• Joseph suspected the High Court’s news reviewers had allowed the attacks because the court opposed the tax reform.

Joseph discovered that the press was uniformly attacking the new Tax Law while tabloids and pamphlets spread rumors about Queen Mary and Princess Therese. At Count Robert’s office, Therese demanded stronger punishment for the rumor-mongers, but Robert explained that the courts could not readily convict them because their articles used insinuations rather than direct insults.

• Joseph read newspapers attacking the Tax Law and noticed that Jean-Paul Marat’s explanations were the only articles supporting it.
• Joseph decided that the newspaper offices opposing the royal family needed to face the force of royal power, unaware that publications were also spreading rumors about Queen Mary and Princess Therese.
• At the Paris News, Jean-Paul Marat confronted editor-in-chief Mr. Darmanin after the Press Guild blocked his article detailing the Tax Law.
• The next morning, Joseph arrived at Count Robert’s office and found Marie Therese furious over rumors about her and Queen Mary.
• Count Robert told Therese that his agents had confiscated printing plates, fined several papers, and arrested the editor of the Happy Man, but the courts might not punish publications that relied on insinuation.

Joseph realized that force could not solve the royal family’s public-opinion problem, so he planned to win readers with a publication of his own. After reviewing Paris’s newspaper listings, he selected the Paris Business Daily as a starting point.

• Count Robert warned Therese that shutting down newspapers without court support would provoke public backlash, and explained why the Secret Police lacked evidence to arrest most rumor-makers.
• Therese apologized to Count Robert for losing her temper, then left with her cat, while Joseph recognized that the noble factions wanted the royal family to use force against the press.
• Joseph told Dati to assure Therese that he would make the rumors disappear and have their creators apologize, then decided to build influence through his own publication.
• Joseph ordered Eman to gather information on Parisian newspaper offices and printing workshops.
• Eman brought Joseph records on fifty-seven newspaper offices, and Joseph chose the small-circulation Paris Business Daily.

Joseph acquired the Paris Business Daily Newspaper Office from Denico for 170,000 Livre and arranged incentives and upgrades to turn it into a base for his newspaper ambitions. He ordered stone plates for lithographic printing and began preparing a new publication, News and Pictures, while seeking a nearby paper supplier.

• Joseph inspected the Paris Business Daily printing workshop and offered Denico 170,000 Livre for the Newspaper Office.
• Denico accepted the offer, and Joseph arranged to pay him a salary and profit bonus while raising pay for managers and skilled craftsmen.
• Joseph ordered forty polished white stone slabs and asked Denico to send three experienced engraving craftsmen to Versailles Palace to learn lithographic printing.
• Joseph instructed Denico to hire more staff, stock up on ink and paper, and design a new newspaper called News and Pictures.
• Denico told Joseph that Saint-Antoine Town produced half of the paper used in Paris.

Joseph abandoned his plan to invest in a paper mill after finding cheap papermaking too costly, then taught three craftsmen lithographic printing in Louis XVI’s workshop. The craftsmen witnessed how quickly it could produce a print and recognized that it surpassed their existing methods.

• Joseph inspected Saint-Antoine Town’s paper mills, but the owners were unwilling to risk money on experimental papermaking.
• Joseph decided to postpone cheap paper production because buying Reveillon’s workshop and funding trials would consume most of his remaining fortune.
• Joseph brought three Paris Business Daily plate-making craftsmen and stone slabs to Louis XVI’s workshop and had them sign confidentiality agreements.
• Joseph demonstrated lithographic printing by preparing a stone plate with ink and nitric acid, then printing the words “Salute to His Majesty the King.”
• The craftsmen marveled at the speed of Joseph’s method and explained how much longer their traditional copper-plate process took.

Joseph oversaw the first lithographic printing tests, recruited Louis XVI to modify a press, and hired four famous writers to turn his story ideas into works. He began dictating a tale called Refining the Firmament to Saint-Pierre and started a second story for Viscount Barré.

• The three plate-making craftsmen tested lithographic printing successfully, then discussed improving the ink and explained that the old presses needed modification.
• Louis XVI offered to help modify a printing press, and Joseph proposed naming the new press the King Printing Press.
• After rejecting his clerk’s stiff manuscript, Joseph asked Eman to find writers, and Eman brought him Beaumarchais, Viscount Saint-Pierre, Barré, and another literary master.
• Joseph hired the four writers to develop his stories and told Saint-Pierre about Hunter Xiao, whose talent declined after he put on a ring and whose fiancée Elizabeth challenged him to an alchemy contest.
• Joseph named Saint-Pierre’s story Refining the Firmament and began assigning Barré a story about Claisse, who woke beside a notebook bearing the sentence, “Everyone will die, including me...”

Joseph assigned famous writers stories inspired by novels from his previous life, then launched the Paris Business Daily and News and Pictures with serialized fiction and coverage of the new Tax Law. The newspapers debuted at low prices with plans for street sales, and their stories quickly attracted readers in Paris.

• Joseph told Barre the story of a woman who survived a gunshot wound and discovered divine powers, then assigned Phil Li's story to another writer and promised Beaumarchais a tale called Ladies, Please Stop.
• Joseph received four short manuscripts and urged Beaumarchais and the other writers to produce more; they recruited assistants so they could finish the stories and hear what happened next.
• Joseph sent the manuscripts to Denico, who prepared the Paris Business Daily and the newly licensed News and Pictures with serialized novels and extensive coverage of the new Tax Law.
• Denico warned Joseph that selling both daily newspapers for 3 livres a month would cause losses and doubted that street sales would work, but Joseph upheld the low price and instructed him to recruit newsboys.
• A newsboy sold a two-sou newspaper in Paris by calling out the plot of a serialized story, and a curious passerby bought it and became so absorbed that he walked into a tree.

Joseph’s newspapers and serialized stories sold out across Paris, shifting public opinion in favor of the Tax Law as he prepared to use Pamphlets for a broader campaign. At Versailles, he learned that Therese was taking Salicin and undergoing regular bloodletting despite symptoms suggesting anemia, and told her to dismiss her doctor.

• Readers across Paris snapped up the Paris Business Daily and News and Pictures, and Denico ordered 2,000 additional copies after both papers’ 8,000-copy runs sold out.
• Articles about the Tax Law prompted Parisians to criticize the nobility and the High Court, weakening the Duke of Orléans’s campaign against the law.
• Joseph planned to publish weekly Pamphlets with seven days’ worth of chapters to reach readers who could not afford newspapers.
• At the Versailles ball, Therese told Joseph she felt dizzy, weak, and short of breath, and that Dr. Baptiste had recommended she recuperate at Château de Meudon.
• Joseph learned Therese was taking several medicines and undergoing bloodletting twice a month, then advised her to dismiss her doctor.

Joseph planned medicine for Therese’s anemia and agreed to meet with the British Ambassador. At the Royal Workshop, Louis XVI demonstrated his improved printing press, and Joseph persuaded him to try building a new rifle.

• Joseph warned Therese to stop bloodletting and promised to send her medicine made with Tocopherol and Ferrous Sulfate.
• Joseph accepted a theater ticket from Madame Eric and agreed to meet Mr. Hartley, the British Ambassador.
• Louis XVI showed Joseph his lithographic press with an automatic paper feeder that printed several sheets in quick succession.
• Joseph sent the plate-making craftsmen and Monsieur Florent to the Paris Business Daily Newspaper Office to improve its presses.
• Joseph proposed that Louis XVI help develop a rifle from his design, and the King eagerly agreed.

Joseph explained a Percussion Cap Gun to Louis XVI, who eagerly took on developing it, while Joseph considered production and secrecy. Four days later, Joseph arrived at the Comédie-Française to find a huge crowd gathered for the stage adaptation of "Refining the Firmament."

• Joseph explained how a Copper Percussion Cap could safely hold Fulminate of Mercury and ignite a gun’s propellant.
• Louis XVI understood the proposed gun’s design and agreed to develop it with Joseph in the Royal Workshop.
• Joseph considered patent protection and mass production of the new weapon, including its Fulminate of Mercury supply.
• Joseph learned that "Refining the Firmament" would open at the Comédie-Française only four days after he had heard of its adaptation.
• Joseph spent the next few days discussing Ferrous Sulfate processing with Lamarck, arranging sales for Paris Angel Company’s oral liquid, and checking Louis XVI’s progress.
• Joseph arrived at the Comédie-Française and found a dense crowd gathered outside.

Joseph met British Ambassador David Hartley privately at the theater, where Hartley tried to secure a treaty limiting warship construction. Joseph redirected the discussion toward renegotiating the Eden Treaty and proposed a staged tariff plan that appeared to offer Britain major advantages.

• Joseph watched a play in his private box before admitting British Ambassador David Hartley for a private meeting.
• Hartley praised Joseph and proposed that Britain and France sign a treaty limiting annual warship construction, with a much lower limit for France.
• Joseph rejected Hartley’s direction and raised the Eden Treaty, arguing that its tariffs made British goods too expensive for French consumers.
• Joseph proposed halving tariffs on industrial goods and having Britain lower its tariffs on French products as well.
• Joseph suggested temporarily raising tariffs on French industrial goods to 25 percent, then reducing them to 5 percent over seven years to quiet opposition at home.

Joseph negotiated lower British tariffs for French wine, beer, spirits, and luxury goods in exchange for industrial concessions, while Hartley hoped the agreement would strengthen his own political prospects. At the next Cabinet Meeting, Joseph identified the Duke of Orléans as the force behind the plots against him, and Brienne faced calls to be replaced as Minister of Finance.

• Joseph secured Hartley's promise to propose lower British tariffs on French alcoholic beverages and luxury goods, and the two toasted renewed Anglo-French trade.
• Hartley left the performance believing a trade agreement would eventually be signed and calculating that his efforts could help him become Prime Minister.
• Joseph read Fouche's report linking Guizot's conspiracy against him and efforts to delay a government loan to the Duke of Orléans.
• At the Cabinet Meeting, Count Sumiyar attacked Brienne over the rejected Tax Law and urged Queen Mary to replace him as Minister of Finance.
• Vergennes supported Count Sumiyar's proposal and blamed Brienne for France's worsening finances.

The Duke of Orléans and his allies urged Queen Mary to remove Brienne and appoint Necker as Minister of Finance, citing Brienne’s financial failures and alleged conflict with the banks. Joseph defended Brienne by claiming the Tax Law had a plan already underway and would pass the High Court within two months, leaving Brienne surprised but aware that Joseph was helping him.

• Sumiyar told Queen Mary that more than a dozen influential nobles wanted Brienne to resign.
• The Duke of Orléans blamed Brienne for the banking industry’s dissatisfaction and warned that a boycott could threaten government bond repayments.
• The Duke of Orléans, Vergennes, and Sumiyar urged Queen Mary to appoint Necker as Minister of Finance, and she considered replacing Brienne.
• Joseph realized the Duke of Orléans was trying to install Necker and decided to defend Brienne and oppose the appointment.
• Joseph told Queen Mary that Brienne’s Tax Law plan was already being implemented and would pass the High Court within two months.
• Brienne was bewildered by Joseph’s claim but realized that the Crown Prince was helping him.

Joseph helped Brienne retain responsibility for France’s finances for two more months, betting the Duke of Orléans that Brienne could get the Tax Law registered by the High Court. After the meeting, Joseph began directing the campaign against the great noble bloc.

• Brienne vowed to secure the Tax Law within two months or be exiled to Corsica, and Joseph backed his promise.
• Joseph argued that Necker could not pass the Tax Law, persuading Queen Mary to keep Brienne in charge of financial affairs for two months.
• Joseph bet the Duke of Orléans that Brienne would get the Tax Law registered, with both agreeing to donate a year of their annual stipend if they lost.
• Joseph briefed Brienne on his plans, then headed to Paris to personally direct the fight against the great noble bloc.

Joseph and Brienne worked to secure Cabinet support for Brienne’s financial resolution by bargaining with Count Monod and Count Nicoé. Nicoé promised his vote in exchange for the chance to lead trade negotiations with the United Kingdom, leaving Joseph confident that Brienne would keep his post.

• Brienne promised Count Monod help securing an inheritance for his illegitimate son, and Monod pledged to support Brienne’s resolution.
• Mono explained that Count Nicoé’s vote would be crucial because the Duke of Orléans was also trying to win him over.
• Joseph offered Nicoé the chance to coordinate renewed trade negotiations with the United Kingdom and suggested the role could lead to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs.
• Nicoé agreed to vote for Brienne and resolved to prevent him from stepping down as Minister of Finance.