Chapter Summaries

Joseph outlined plans for bearer government bonds and improved assistance for discharged soldiers, then refused to receive the Pope during France’s victory parade. In Stuttgart, the Imperial Parliament prepared to choose Hanover’s successor, and Kobzl agreed to support the Count of Weimar.

• Joseph explained to Gaudin how France could issue bearer bonds and weaken confidence in United Kingdom bonds after its defeat.
• Joseph told Berthier to reduce some soldiers’ severance pay while arranging factory jobs, skills training, public-service careers, and tax benefits for discharged soldiers.
• Archbishop Beaumont told Joseph that the Pope had arrived in Paris, but Joseph declined to meet him and asked that he remain at Notre-Dame de Paris.
• Joseph learned that Archbishop Muzarelli was expected to reach Paris the day after tomorrow and then asked Beaumont to repeat what he had said.
• Kobzl arrived in Stuttgart for the Imperial Parliament and learned that the vote would choose an heir for the vanished Prince-Elector of Hanover.
• After hearing that Archbishop Karl favored the Count of Weimar, Kobzl agreed with Salzburg’s Foreign Minister to support Weimar.

Kobzl failed to secure the Prince-Electors’ support for the Emperor’s preferred electoral succession and faced demands to recognize the Stuttgart Declaration, forcing Vienna to consider costly diplomatic bribes. Meanwhile, Lucas von Scheller used the government’s taxes and bribery plans to stir public anger in Vienna and promote France’s Declaration of Human Rights.

• Kobzl argued that Weimar should inherit Hanover’s electoral qualification, but only Bohemia supported the proposal while five electors backed Brandenburg’s Duke of Hesse.
• Kobzl invoked the Compromise Procedure, then faced another five-to-one vote demanding that the Emperor recognize the Stuttgart Declaration; he postponed both decisions for half a month.
• Kobzl returned to his residence and sought a way to break the deadlock, while Franz II and his senior ministers approved his request for 1.2 million Florins and noble titles to secure the electors’ cooperation.
• Lucas von Scheller denounced the Emperor’s new taxes and alleged diplomatic bribes to passersby in Vienna, then distributed pamphlets promoting the French Crown Prince’s Declaration of Human Rights.

Lucas joined the Stilz Society in Vienna and helped distribute liberal ideas, while the Austrian ministers debated suppressing the movement. In Paris, Joseph learned that crowds were celebrating a new demobilization and pension decree.

• Lucas moved to Vienna, joined the Stilz Society, and used speeches to spread the Declaration of Human Rights.
• Lucas and a middle-aged speaker escaped a police sweep and reached the ironworks workshop, where Lucas helped print booklets in the hidden basement.
• The narration revealed that the French Security Bureau funded the Stilz Society and other liberal groups to weaken Austria from within.
• At Schönbrunn Palace, Metternich urged Franz II to expand the Secret Police and impose stricter censorship and assembly controls.
• After Paris’s weeklong victory celebrations ended, crowds gathered to celebrate the Demobilization and Pension Decree, and Joseph asked Mirabeau what was happening.

Joseph learned that French factory orders had surged as war-damaged European countries imported French goods, but British textiles still held a cost advantage because of cheaper transport. He pushed for a Lyon–Paris railway and sought a way to finance it quickly, then saw the World Cup draw ceremony as a chance to publicize the investment.

• Mirabeau reported that ordinary discharged soldiers were receiving generous severance pay and job recommendations, while factory orders had risen about 25 percent since September.
• Mirabeau explained that French goods were outcompeting British goods in most markets, but British textiles remained 10 to 13 percent cheaper because of lower transport costs.
• Mirabeau proposed raising German tariffs on British goods, but Joseph rejected trade restrictions as an inadequate solution.
• Joseph called for a Lyon–Paris railway to cut transport costs, but Mirabeau warned that the line would require at least seventy million francs.
• Joseph demanded that financing be publicized so construction could start within three months, and Eman reminded him that he would soon preside over the World Cup draw ceremony.
• Joseph realized the World Cup, with European and American countries competing, could help publicize the railway financing.

Joseph and Charles traveled to the World Cup draw ceremony, discussing France’s industrial growth and Charles’s new company along the way. Charles presided over the draw and placed Poland, Prussia, Mecklenburg, and Würzburg in the same group, prompting tense looks from the Polish delegation toward Prussia.

• Joseph invited Charles to join him at the World Cup draw ceremony after learning that his lessons had ended early.
• At the tram station, Joseph discovered that factory owners were recruiting discharged soldiers and explained to Charles why France should expand production and create new industries.
• Charles described his Iroquois Curios Company, and Joseph praised his business idea before mentioning industries such as batteries and electricity.
• Joseph and Charles arrived at the Tuileries Palace, where Charles conducted the draw ceremony while Joseph left him to handle the proceedings.
• Charles drew Poland, Prussia, Mecklenburg, and Würzburg into Central and Eastern Europe Division Group One, and Poland’s Count Potocki and team captain glared at the Prussian representative.

Joseph and Louis XVI celebrated the successful Steam Forging Machine, which could produce Iron Rail far more efficiently than existing methods. The next morning, Director Cano praised the project rewards but told Joseph that the Engineering Design Institute faced a severe funding shortage.

• Joseph returned to Versailles and learned that Louis XVI was waiting for him at the Engineering Design Institute.
• Louis XVI unveiled the reliable Steam Forging Machine and credited a skilled machinist and the project technicians for its success.
• Joseph rewarded the technicians and asked Louis XVI to demonstrate the machine by forging Iron Rail.
• Louis XVI and Joseph worked through the night, producing Iron Rail and other parts with the machine.
• The next morning, Cano showed Joseph the project team's reward plan and raised the institute's broader shortage of funds.

Joseph met with the Engineering Design Institute and the industry and transport officials to discuss canceled research projects, then inspected several impractical inventions. The chapter left him recognizing that the institute should end its waste-compressing project and that Paris needed a sewage system instead.

• Joseph told Cano that research funding would receive top priority after the World Cup, then objected to the Ministry of Industry canceling a third of the institute's projects.
• Mirabeau defended the cancellations and showed Joseph the institute's steam-powered Walking Boat, whose mechanical legs struggled with balance and consumed too much coal.
• Joseph heard about an Automatic Player that used punched paper to play a flute, and Mirabeau dismissed its music as intolerable.
• Joseph inspected the City Sanitation Compressor, which squeezed excrement into hard boards and separated out liquid, and concluded that Paris needed a complete urban sewage system instead.

Joseph discovered that Schramm’s manure-compressing machine could be repurposed as a steam-powered oil press, creating the prospect of a major French industry. The chapter left Joseph considering church reform and the Pope as leverage to change France’s scientific education system.

• Schramm demonstrated his City Sanitation Compressor to Joseph, producing a hard cake from manure and leaving Joseph nearly overwhelmed by the stench.
• Joseph recognized that the machine could press oil from peanuts or soybeans and ordered Schramm to develop an improved machine called an Oil Press.
• Joseph explained the potential benefits of steam-powered oil pressing, and Schramm promised to assemble a new machine within half a month.
• Schramm and Cano drew up a plan for a steam-powered oil pressing system, while Mirabeau regretted that the invention had nearly been discarded.
• Joseph reassured Mirabeau, then considered reforming the church and using the Pope as leverage to change France’s scientific education system.

Joseph visited the French Academy of Sciences, where Kulen and Volt demonstrated a powerful stacked battery. He showed them that an electric current deflected a compass needle, taught them the basics of electromagnetism, and left them with experiments to pursue before arranging to meet Lavoisier and visit Notre-Dame de Paris the next day.

• Joseph met with Mirabeau, Tressaguet, and others to plan a Steam Forging Machine factory and expanded iron rail production.
• Joseph arrived at the French Academy of Sciences, where Kulen and Volt demonstrated a stacked battery that electrolyzed water.
• Joseph explained that the bubbles were hydrogen and oxygen, then examined the battery's silver and zinc plates and sulfuric acid solution.
• Joseph connected a coil of silver wire to the battery and showed Kulen and Volt that the current deflected a compass needle.
• Joseph taught Kulen and Volt the basics of electromagnetism and instructed them to experiment with copper wire and nonconductive insulation.
• Joseph told Eman to arrange a meeting with Lavoisier and a visit to Notre-Dame de Paris, where he planned to speak casually with the Pope.

Joseph negotiated with Pius VI to secure French influence over church appointments and establish a powerful committee to review clerics. He left Notre-Dame de Paris confident that France’s church reform was halfway complete.

• Joseph met Lavoisier, who left with instructions to develop Vulcanized Rubber by mixing sulfur with rubber and heating it.
• Joseph visited Notre-Dame de Paris, where Pius VI confirmed the Holy See’s appointments of Archbishop Opstern and Archbishop Franz Egon and its rebuke of Archbishop Maximilian.
• Joseph praised Archbishop Muzarelli’s actions and threatened to support him as the next Pope unless Pius VI agreed to his demands.
• Joseph secured three Cardinal Archbishops and one million Florin in aid for North America, along with a clerical review committee headquartered in Avignon whose leaders he would nominate.
• Pius VI agreed to Joseph’s terms, and Joseph left Notre-Dame de Paris smiling and invited the Pope to attend the upcoming World Cup Football matches.

Joseph used the upcoming Paris Youth Math Competition to plan a nationwide Kindergarten system and enlist public support for it. He began organizing childcare preparations while pressuring the Oratory to produce strong competitors, and the chapter left the church facing a challenge with less than a month to prepare.

• Alexandra showed Joseph her speech for the Paris Youth Math Competition, and they checked records showing that Church School students had ranked no higher than twenty-ninth and thirty-seventh in the previous competitions.
• Joseph decided to use the competition and public pressure over childcare to weaken the Church Schools’ position and make the church establish Kindergartens.
• Joseph instructed Viscount Dibisson and Baron Denico to build support for nationwide Kindergartens, prepare a childcare manual, and train experienced women to care for children in Paris.
• At Alexandra’s education-and-industry salon, Joseph urged Archbishop Boissy to train Oratory students for the Math Competition despite the short deadline.

Joseph persuaded the Church leaders to establish kindergartens, but the archbishops planned to delay the costly project. As Boissy worried about the Math Competition, Aceri heard of a gifted child who might help him place in the top three.

• Joseph told the archbishops to open kindergartens in Paris and eventually throughout France, arguing they would benefit workers, factory output, and children.
• After Joseph left, Beaumont gathered the archbishops, who agreed to stall the project and limit its initial funding.
• Boissy asked the archbishops if they could arrange a third-place finish in the Math Competition, but none would help him cheat.
• A priest told Aceri that Angelique was exceptionally talented at mathematics and could place in the top three if he entered the competition.
• Aceri asked where Angelique was, considering the chance to earn Boissy's favor.

Father Bonnet secretly arranged for Angelique to enter the Church School, while Archbishop Beaumont found himself pressured by newspapers and public enthusiasm to deliver nationwide public childcare. Joseph’s campaign left the church facing mounting expectations it had not intended to meet.

• Archbishop Boissy praised Angelique’s perfect mathematics test and agreed to pay his family, enroll him at the Church School, and offer a further reward if he placed in the Math Competition.
• Father Bonnet sent the Intelligence Bureau a coded message identifying Angelique as the scorpion placed in the pillowcase.
• Archbishop Beaumont learned that newspapers were presenting the church’s childcare discussions as a promise to establish Kindergartens across France.
• Denico defended Paris Business Daily’s reporting and refused Archbishop Beaumont’s request to suspend coverage, saying the articles’ projections were clearly labeled as analysis.
• Newspapers continued publicizing Kindergartens, igniting discussion among French housewives as Joseph’s plan put pressure on the church to fulfill its apparent promise.

Michel Broad and Sylvia arrived in Paris at Walsh’s invitation to attend the World Cup, and Walsh showed them the city’s modern transport and construction. They rode a Steam Tram toward Walsh’s home as Broad saw Paris’s new sewage system being built.

• Mrs. Broad admired Paris after she and Michel Broad arrived at Saint-Bernard Port, while Broad grumbled about France.
• Walsh welcomed the Broads and invited them to stay in Paris, reminding Broad that he had once lent Walsh money.
• Walsh took the Broads and their servants to a Steam Tram station, where a Queue Party youth bought their tickets.
• The Broads rode the Steam Tram toward Walsh’s residence near Tuileries Palace, impressed by its speed and comfort.
• Broad saw workers using a Steam Crane to bury ceramic pipes, and Walsh explained that the pipes would form Paris’s new sewage system.

The Broad family toured Paris with Walsh, marveling at its planned tap-water system, elegant Royal Garden residences, rapid construction of the Triumphal Arch, and attractions such as Sasha Zoo. By the end of the day, Mrs. Broad was considering moving to Paris, while Broad discovered that the restaurant Walsh chose was far more luxurious than he had expected.

• Mrs. Walsh and Walsh explained Paris's planned tap-water system to Broad, who was astonished by its convenience and engineering.
• The Steam Tram brought the Broad family to Royal Garden, where Mrs. Broad admired the orderly streets and villas and learned their high prices from Mrs. Walsh.
• Walsh took the family past the Triumphal Arch, where Broad marveled at its rapid construction using Steam Cranes and transport tracks.
• Walsh led the family through Sasha Zoo, and Mrs. Broad wished they had brought her four-year-old child, Ernst, as she considered settling in Paris.
• Walsh took Broad and his wife to a luxurious restaurant, where Broad was surprised by its opulent decor and extensive menu.

Walsh treated Broad and their wives to Paris’s Elegant Life Street, where the group sampled its restaurants, beauty services, hair treatments, and massages. The next morning, Broad finally asked Walsh for a loan to rescue his family business.

• Walsh took Broad to Versailles Palace for an expensive meal, then led him to Elegant Life Street for leisure activities.
• Broad received an Oriental Face Wash, a fire haircut, a shampoo, and a full-body massage while the two women visited beauty and nail salons.
• The group spent more than 300 Francs on the street, which Joseph had developed into a major Paris leisure destination that generated tax revenue and attracted visitors.
• The next morning, Broad told Walsh about his family business’s troubles and asked to borrow 7,000 Pound Sterling, or 5,000 if necessary, offering 8% interest.

Walsh refused to lend Broad money to keep his Rotterdam port business afloat, warning that English trade faced growing risks. He urged Broad to sell his Rotterdam assets and consider moving to Marseille or investing in a railway, leaving Broad weighing the venture’s risks against its government-backed guarantee.

• Walsh refused Broad’s request for a loan, explaining that English trade could suffer from political restrictions and competition from French goods.
• Walsh advised Broad to sell his Rotterdam assets and offered to help him establish a port business in Marseille.
• Walsh described how trains could transform transport and commerce, then explained that he planned to invest in the Lille-Mons Railway.
• Broad learned the railway would cost about 10.5 million francs and that Walsh had already raised 7.2 million, but hesitated over joining the risky investment.
• Walsh reassured Broad that the government guaranteed a minimum 4.5 percent yield on railway investments.

Broad traveled from Paris to Reims for the World Cup, where the Netherlands Team drew with the Flanders Team in a violent match; impressed by the railway journey, he agreed to invest in a railway company. Meanwhile, France urged German states and Denmark to sell their British Bonds, and Talleyrand secured Denmark's agreement by promising a Steam Engine repair factory if the bonds remained stable.

• Broad learned that the Netherlands Team's match was in Reims, traveled there by train with Walsh, and agreed to invest 33,000 Pound Sterling in a railway company.
• The Netherlands Team and the Flanders Team played an eighty-minute match that ended in a 1–1 draw after multiple brawls, injuries, and red and yellow cards.
• Württemberg officials, impressed by the railways' ability to carry crowds, began drafting a railway project, while letters about railway construction went to German and Italian governments.
• Talleyrand persuaded Count of Nassau Frederick William to announce the sale of Nassau's British Bonds and offered French Government Bonds as an alternative.
• Talleyrand promised Regent Frederick a Steam Engine repair factory in Kiel if British Bonds remained stable, and Frederick welcomed the offer.

Talleyrand persuaded Denmark to detain Russian merchant ships, helping France’s financial war against the United Kingdom by restricting its raw-material supplies. In North America, Louisiana’s envoys pressured the United States to accept strict limits on trade with Britain.

• Talleyrand offered to secure a Steam Engine repair plant in Kiel if Frederick helped France contain Russia, and Frederick agreed to detain Russian merchant ships in the Oresund Strait for a month.
• Talleyrand planned to use the disruption of Russian exports to deprive the United Kingdom of essential raw materials and increase its production costs and prices.
• Pickering objected to Louisiana’s interruption of United States trade with the United Kingdom, while Lucien Bonaparte threatened to have Napoleon’s troops supervise the ports.
• Dexter challenged the French, but Pickering urged restraint and acknowledged the danger of fighting Napoleon’s forces.
• Baron Larmotte imposed annual limits on United States exports to the United Kingdom, banned wheat sales, and ordered a crackdown on sugar smuggling.

Pickering and Hamilton negotiated an armistice with Lamerte, while Larmotte encouraged Hamilton to turn American expansion north toward Canada. The Franco-American Treaty of Pittsburgh was signed, and Henry Pierce began working at England’s Coal Tar research agency.

• Lamerte set the final terms: unrestricted timber and bitumen exports, limits on cotton exports to England, a ban on wheat sales to England, and reporting requirements for cane sugar dealings.
• Larmotte told Hamilton that the United States could pay its war reparations by attacking Canada and promised French and allied support, with the United States receiving territory east of Lake Superior if it won.
• The Franco-American Treaty of Pittsburgh was signed, and President Adams sent a secret envoy to Paris.
• Henry Pierce, dismissed from Chatham Shipyard after the steamship failure and corruption scandals, worked as deputy director of England’s Fuel Management Committee.