Chapter Summaries

Joseph examined France’s failing industries and, seeking ways to raise money, devised a plan to turn Tuileries Palace into a major fashion marketplace. He left the story planning Paris Fashion Week for February and hoping it would bring Lyon’s textile industry new sales and orders.

• Joseph reviewed reports showing that French industries were struggling against British imports and worried about the money needed to address food and industrial problems.
• Joseph went out into Paris with Eman, noticed Tuileries Palace, and recalled City Hall’s request for funding for the autumn-winter fashion show.
• Joseph decided to rename the event Paris Fashion Week and use Tuileries Palace’s rooms as shops, hotel rooms, and exhibition space.
• Joseph planned to ask the Queen to promote Paris Fashion Week and seek endorsements from luxury merchants.
• Joseph planned to contact Lyon’s textile merchants and bring their unsold inventory to Paris, aiming to hold the event in February.

Joseph planned a Paris Fashion Week at the Tuileries Palace to boost Lyon’s textile industry, while also organizing discreet grain purchases and beginning to address Paris’s poor sanitation. The chapter left him arranging a police-led effort to improve the streets as his new projects took shape.

• Joseph drafted a Paris Fashion Week plan and assigned two assistants to prepare copies while he mapped out venues in the Tuileries Palace.
• Joseph recruited three trusted men to run six grain shops and secretly buy grain in small amounts, with each receiving an initial 300,000 livres.
• Joseph explained the Fashion Week venue plans to Viscount Varennes and the two assistant directors, including a runway, luxury shops, and hotel and dining services.
• After noticing a person relieving himself in the street and smelling excrement, Joseph summoned the Police Commissioner to discuss public toilets and cleaning up Paris.

Joseph arranged a Paris sanitation campaign and met Lamarck, who brought highly purified Tocopherol and reminded him about the promised medicine for deadly diseases. On the way to the Pharmaceutical Workshop, Lamarck suggested potatoes could survive hail damage, and Joseph realized they might help reduce France’s looming famine despite widespread fear of them.

• Joseph told Besançon to build public toilets and stone trash bins, funded by the treasury and maintained by the Daily Affairs Team, and proposed the “Beautiful Paris” campaign with police enforcement.
• Lamarck showed Joseph highly purified Tocopherol produced with the new Constant Temperature Room and asked about the promised medicine for terminal illnesses.
• Joseph agreed to explain how to make Penicillin at the Pharmaceutical Workshop and ordered Lamarck to keep the medicine secret while the Guard protected the workshop.
• On the carriage ride, Joseph asked Lamarck how to protect crops from hail, and Lamarck suggested planting potatoes because their underground harvest could survive some damage.
• Lamarck explained that rumors of poisoning and bad luck had made ordinary French people reject potatoes, while nobles ate them after Queen Marie Antoinette took an interest in them.

Joseph introduced Lamarck to the secret process for making Type 1 Antibiotic and explained that bacteria caused diseases, leaving Lamarck shaken by the possibility that established medicine was false. They began planning experiments to cultivate and extract Penicillin at the Pharmaceutical Workshop.

• Joseph asked Lamarck to document potato-growing knowledge and began preparations to make Penicillin under the secret name Type 1 Antibiotic.
• Joseph ordered Guard Captain Kexer to put the workshop guards in plain clothes to avoid drawing foreign spies' attention.
• Joseph inspected Lamarck's clean, well-equipped Pharmaceutical Workshop and confirmed it could support Penicillin production.
• Joseph explained that the antibiotic came from Penicillium and instructed Lamarck to cultivate mold and bacteria for testing.
• Lamarck questioned Joseph's claim that bacteria caused disease, and Joseph said the medicine's effects would demonstrate the connection.
• Joseph described filtering and purifying the culture liquid, and Lamarck asked what activated charcoal was.

Joseph gave Lamarck instructions for experimenting with Penicillin, then sought his help predicting a severe drought to persuade the government to prepare for potato cultivation. Two days later, Joseph pitched Fashion Week and a business center to Archbishop Brienne, who seemed distracted.

• Joseph described how to extract Penicillin, gave Lamarck 30,000 Livres for experiments, and urged him to test Penicillium strains for higher yields.
• Joseph asked Lamarck to write Archbishop Brienne a report warning of drought risk, and Lamarck agreed to phrase the possibility cautiously without making a false claim.
• Perna arrived to help her father with his laboratory work and offered to continue Joseph’s routine health examinations while he stayed in Paris.
• Two days later, Joseph presented Archbishop Brienne with plans for Paris Fashion Week and a business center at Tuileries Palace, projecting substantial revenues.

Joseph persuaded Archbishop Brienne to prepare a nationwide potato-planting program to reduce the danger of famine and Flour Riots. He promised to fund the shortfall, while the chapter left the campaign’s public persuasion efforts still to come.

• Brienne showed Joseph reports predicting severe drought and proposed preparing the army to suppress possible riots.
• Joseph argued that planting potatoes would provide a more reliable food supply than wheat and help prevent famine.
• Joseph proposed distributing potato seed to peasants for free, with repayment of two-thirds after harvest, and storing any unwanted supply as relief grain.
• Brienne estimated the program would cost five million livres, and Joseph promised to arrange a four-million-livre loan through the French Reserve Bank.
• Brienne began drafting the potato-promotion plan, while Joseph reassured him that publicity could persuade enough peasants to eat potatoes.

Joseph and Brienne secured Queen Mary’s approval for a nationwide Potato cultivation plan as France prepared for another drought. At Versailles, Joseph also saw Madam Lebrun’s unfinished painting portraying him as a recipient of divine grace and tried to delay its completion.

• Barnabe and fourteen other court chefs served free Spiral Potato Towers to wary Parisians, and hungry street children ate them eagerly.
• A newsboy sold the Paris Business Daily, whose new adventure story featured Popeye gaining strength whenever he ate Potatoes.
• Joseph and Brienne presented their Potato promotion plan to Queen Mary, who signed it after hearing how it could help prevent famine.
• Queen Mary welcomed Madam Lebrun and revealed her unfinished painting of Joseph beneath God, leaving Joseph embarrassed and asking the painter to refine it thoroughly.

Joseph asked Madam Lebrun to add potatoes to a version of The Last Supper, but she refused without church approval. After lunch with Queen Mary and Louis XVI, Joseph went to Notre-Dame de Paris to ask Archbishop Beaumont for help.

• Queen Mary had Madam Lebrun paint Joseph as a reference for Child of Divine Grace, and Joseph asked her to add potatoes to The Last Supper.
• Madam Lebrun warned that painting potatoes into the religious work could be considered blasphemy and require church approval.
• Queen Mary raised possible matches for Joseph, mentioning Princess Maria Amalia of the Two Sicilies and Maria Clementine of Tuscany.
• Louis XVI told Joseph that the first firearm prototype had been assembled, and Joseph arranged a test-fire for the following week.
• Joseph traveled to Notre-Dame de Paris, where Archbishop Beaumont and the clerics greeted him.
• Joseph asked Archbishop Beaumont for help with a small matter.

Joseph persuaded Archbishop Beaumont and the clergy to support potatoes by adding them to The Last Supper and offering subsidies for their promotion. As Paris began cautiously trying potato dishes, preparations for the Tuileries Palace restoration and Paris Fashion Week continued, and Joseph inspected a group of models.

• Joseph argued that potatoes could be added to The Last Supper and countered the clergy’s objections with biblical references and an appeal to the potato’s life-saving benefits.
• Joseph offered clergy monthly subsidies and local church rewards for promoting potatoes, and Beaumont agreed to their inclusion in the painting.
• A revised The Last Supper showing potatoes appeared in Paris shops and newspapers, and some poor citizens began trying free potato dishes.
• Flesselles directed hundreds of workers repairing the Tuileries Palace and building a fashion-show runway under a one-month deadline.
• Joseph examined a group of figures in the Tuileries Palace’s west wing as preparations for Paris Fashion Week proceeded.

Joseph trained the Fashion Week models in runway walking while Vergennes learned that Brienne had begun Anglo-French trade negotiations without him. Joseph then visited Mirabeau to ask for his help, but the chapter ended before he explained what he needed.

• Joseph demonstrated a catwalk to the female models and offered to double the pay of anyone who learned it well enough to become an instructor.
• Joseph corrected the male models’ feminine walk and had Viscount Kex demonstrate a proper stride for them to copy.
• The Fashion Week review supervisor watched the models rehearse and learned from Flesselles that Joseph had invented the runway show.
• Vergennes received the Duke of Orléans’s letter announcing that Brienne and Nicoé had begun Anglo-French trade negotiations, and he feared his political career was finished.
• Joseph visited Mirabeau’s villa and said he wanted the earl’s help with some matters.

Joseph asked Mirabeau to help raise funds to buy potatoes for planting and explained his plan to create an Industrial Development Zone in Nancy. He argued that coal, iron, and steam-engine technology would form the foundation of future industry, leaving Mirabeau to consider the stakes of France falling behind other countries.

• Joseph asked Mirabeau to help raise the money needed to purchase potatoes, and Mirabeau warned that government delays could jeopardize planting season.
• Joseph decided to travel to Lorraine to speed up the purchase and inspect Nancy as a possible site for an Industrial Development Zone.
• Joseph explained that the zone would support workshops with tax reductions, fewer official and Guild restrictions, and public facilities, which excited Mirabeau.
• Mirabeau questioned why Joseph would choose remote Nancy over Lyon, and Joseph argued that coal and iron were industry's roots.
• Joseph told Mirabeau that improved steam engines could transform textiles, manufacturing, and trade, and warned that France would suffer if another country mastered the technology first.

Joseph explained industrial chains, industrial cycles, and purchasing power to Earl Mirabeau, then turned to arranging potato purchases. The chapter left off the following day at noon as a new scene was beginning in Paris.

• Earl Mirabeau warned Joseph that France lagged behind Britain in Steam Engine technology, and Joseph said he would establish an Industrial Development Zone.
• Joseph explained how supporting industries formed an industrial chain and why a broad market and purchasing power were essential to industrial growth.
• Joseph said France needed to address the Potato matter before pursuing industrial development, and Mirabeau offered to arrange potatoes on credit through a grain-trading friend.
• Joseph thanked Mirabeau, and the scene shifted to the following day at noon in Paris.

Mirabeau’s salon speech inspired wealthy attendees to fund Joseph’s industrial and potato plans, while at the Paris Police Academy, Diboa showed Alexander the Crown Prince’s demanding training methods. Alexander learned that the academy’s best cadets were not destined to become police.

• Mirabeau presented Joseph’s ideas for French industrial development at Lady Able’s salon, winning the guests’ attention.
• Mirabeau mentioned the potato project’s funding shortage, and the guests pledged a total of 1.8 million livres and offered help buying and transporting potatoes.
• At the Paris Police Academy, Diboa explained to Alexander how shuttle runs, pull-ups, and armed cross-country runs improved the police officers’ fitness.
• Diboa told Alexander that Joseph had required the academy’s new training methods, and Alexander questioned why police cadets practiced Infantry Line formations.
• Diboa revealed that only the academy’s worst-performing cadets were assigned to become police, leaving Alexander to ask what happened to the others.

At the Paris Police Academy, Alexander Berthier saw how well the cadets were treated and met Crown Prince Joseph. Joseph learned that Berthier wanted to return to Paris and offered to recommend him for service in the Imperial Guards or the French Guard.

• Alexander and François Diboa went to the dining hall, where Alexander was astonished that officers and cadets ate the same generous meals.
• Diboa explained that the Crown Prince founded the Police Academy, funded it, and designed its training program.
• Joseph entered the dining hall, recognized Diboa, and met Major Berthier, whom Diboa introduced as the officer Joseph had once asked about.
• Joseph praised Berthier’s work at the Battle of Yorktown and learned that Berthier hoped to transfer from Soissons back to Paris.
• Joseph offered to recommend Berthier for a position in the Imperial Guards or the French Guard, and Berthier gratefully accepted the offer.

Bessonval discovered the Paris Police Academy’s artillery training ground while escorting the French Guard along the princess’s planned route. At the training exercise, Berthier saw the White Team defeat the Blue Team with a skirmisher charge, and Diboa began explaining the tactic.

• Bessonval halted the French Guard after hearing cannon fire and learned from scouting Hussars that the Paris Police Academy was conducting artillery training nearby.
• Bessonval ordered the troops to rest and went to observe the academy’s training exercise.
• Berthier watched the White Team advance in a scattered formation and criticized its lack of order, while Diboa told him to keep watching.
• The White Team charged through the Blue Team’s fire, fired at close range, then fell back as its Infantry Line advanced and delivered a coordinated volley.
• After the Blue Team was declared defeated, Diboa told Berthier that the tactic was called a Skirmisher Charge.

Joseph’s Police Academy resisted Baron Bessonval’s attempt to inspect its cannons, while Mirabeau’s merchants moved potatoes far faster than Lorraine’s officials could process Versailles’s orders. The chapter left the potato shipment ready to be inventoried and transported as the province’s paperwork continued to crawl forward.

• Joseph recalled Bessonval’s conduct during the Bastille storming and decided not to accommodate him when the commander came to the Police Academy.
• Friant told Bessonval that the academy’s cannons were for keeping public order and refused him entry without royal or Police Department authorization.
• When Bessonval’s guards moved to remove Friant, more than thirty Police Officers formed up and aimed their guns, forcing Bessonval and his men to leave.
• Marquis Latour received Versailles’s order to inventory and ship potatoes, then learned that Viscount Valin’s men had already bought more than a million pounds and gathered them at the docks.
• Latour issued documents to coordinate the shipment and report the changed orders, while Valin’s subordinate hurried the paperwork along with payments to minor clerks.
• The chapter contrasted Lorraine’s slow administrative chain with Mirabeau’s merchants, who had already secured potatoes, carts, and ships.

Joseph discovered that nobles were resisting potato cultivation to protect their land-tax privileges and mill revenues, so he planned to win Bordeaux’s support by offering a way to prevent wine from turning sour. He set out for Bordeaux with Perna and a large escort while continuing to send potatoes south.

• Joseph reviewed the provincial reports and found that few landowners, especially in the south, were willing to plant potatoes.
• Viscount Nacien told Joseph that noble estate owners demanded a Land Tax reduction and feared losing Mill Tax revenue if tenants grew potatoes.
• Joseph decided to travel to Bordeaux and use a solution to souring wine to persuade vineyards to plant potatoes, and he ordered that potato shipments continue.
• Joseph asked Baron de Breteuil to recommend Berthier to the Minister of War without exposing Berthier’s royal connections.
• The next morning, Joseph departed Paris for Bordeaux with Perna, Eman, Kexer, and more than sixty Guard cavalrymen, explaining red blood cells to Perna along the way.

Joseph taught Perna how double-blind experiments could test medical treatments, then his journey outside Paris was halted by rain and led him to a poor village. There he learned that Viscount Cobert barred tenant farmers from planting potatoes and that farmer Gaizika’s family struggled under heavy taxes.

• Joseph explained double-blind experiments to Perna, who proposed using them to test medicines and other factors affecting illness.
• Heavy rain stopped Joseph’s convoy on a poorly built road, and Kexer led it to a nearby village for shelter.
• Joseph accepted a meal from the farmer’s wife after seeing her disappointment when Kexer tried to refuse it.
• Joseph learned that Viscount Cobert prohibited his tenant farmers from planting potatoes despite the government’s offer.
• Gaizika told Joseph that his family farmed Cobert’s land and paid numerous rents and taxes, leaving barely enough for daily black bread.

Joseph tried to persuade Bordeaux’s Plantation Owners to grow potatoes without letting them use the Land Tax dispute as leverage. After the meeting and a ball, Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud approached him with a warning about his visit to Bordeaux.

• Joseph addressed the Plantation Owners and urged them to plant potatoes, while several nobles demanded a reduction or abolition of the Land Tax.
• Joseph refused to link the tax dispute to potato cultivation and asked the owners to consider his proposal before meeting again the next morning.
• Monsoreau hosted a banquet and ball after the meeting, and Joseph enjoyed Bordeaux wine while enduring the festivities.
• Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud introduced himself to Joseph and warned him that he should not have come to Bordeaux.

Joseph demonstrated a new winemaking method to Bordeaux’s plantation owners, and Baron Plutarch confirmed that it produced twelve barrels without a single failure. Joseph offered access to the technique through a brewing association in exchange for a fee, then left to enjoy roasted oysters with Perna as the nobles pledged to plant potatoes.

• Joseph and Eman prepared the grape mash and brewing water, then Joseph told the plantation owners to have their own brewers make the wine using high-temperature-treated containers and minimal contact with the ingredients.
• Joseph returned to fetch Perna, and Eman arranged a beach meal featuring garlic-roasted oysters while the wine was brewed.
• Baron Plutarch inspected and tasted the wine, confirming that all twelve barrels had succeeded and lacked the sourness of ordinary wine.
• Joseph proposed the France Brewing Technology Association, which would provide new techniques to members for a fee of three percent of each barrel's sale price.
• Venio pledged to plant ten hectares of potatoes, prompting other plantation owners to offer larger commitments, and Joseph praised those who had already acted as loyal to the king.
• Joseph spent his first vacation day on the beach with Perna, while the plantation owners discussed the technique's profits after seeing him off.