Chapter Summaries

Henry Pierce and Nathan discovered that foreign governments were rapidly selling British Government Bonds, fueling fears about Britain’s ability to repay its debt. Pitt the Younger tried to support the market with government-backed purchases, but the sell-off expanded and began affecting bank rates.

• Nathan told Henry Pierce rumors that Britain might be unable to repay its Government Bonds after Austria and Prussia failed to repay British loans.
• Henry Pierce and Nathan found Nassau’s discounted bond sale in The Times, then traveled to London after further sales by Bavaria and Barings Bank appeared in the news.
• Pierce and Nathan saw Hesse sell 300,000 Pound Sterling of bonds and heard the Bank of England insist that repayment was secure.
• After the Genoa United Credit Rating Company downgraded British Government Bonds and Bavaria announced another sale, Pitt the Younger ordered brokers to buy sell orders with Treasury funding.
• Over the next month, eighteen German States sold nearly 2.2 million Pound Sterling in British Bonds, leaving 700,000 Pound Sterling without buyers and pushing required yields above 10.6%.
• Pitt the Younger drafted a proposal to issue one million Pound Sterling in Paper Money, while bond-rate fluctuations began spreading to bank deposit and lending rates.

Wilberforce advised Pitt the Younger to raise Government Bond interest rates to counter French financial pressure, stabilize prices, and secure funds for government projects. Pitt accepted the proposal and described plans to improve Britain’s finances through trade and colonial exports.

• Pitt the Younger told Wilberforce that large purchases of Government Bonds had failed to stop the selling trend, which he linked to French attacks on British finances.
• Wilberforce advised raising Government Bond interest rates, arguing that higher bank rates would attract deposits and help curb inflation.
• Wilberforce explained that lower domestic prices could boost exports and that a loan agreement with the Bank of England could fund major projects and naval construction.
• Pitt the Younger agreed that raising rates could ease the government’s funding problems and thanked Wilberforce for his advice.
• Pitt the Younger described plans to expand the opium trade and increase exports of seal pelts, Whale Oil, and wool from Australia.

Joseph reviewed the pressure France’s bond-selling campaign had put on British Government Bonds, then rejected Gaudin’s proposal to suspend the Financial War after Britain sharply raised interest rates. He explained that stagflation could make high interest rates and inflation rise together, leaving France poised to intensify its attack.

• Joseph read Security Bureau reports showing German States selling British Bonds and the British bond discount rate rising to 2.1%.
• Lavalette told Joseph that Britain had raised Government Bond interest rates to 12.6%, and Gaudin warned that continuing the plan could cause losses and damage France’s rating agencies.
• Joseph insisted that France intensify the Financial War because Britain’s rate hike created an opportunity to drive inflation higher.
• Lavalette and Gaudin argued that high interest rates could not coexist with inflation, citing accepted economic theory.
• Joseph introduced stagflation and explained how high rates could raise production costs, weaken purchasing power, reduce production, and worsen inflation.

Joseph advanced France’s Financial War by planning to drive up British food prices and inflation, while coordinating measures to protect North African farmers and block Britain’s grain supply. After ordering further preparations tied to Poland and Bayei, he reunited with Alexandra, who showed him her gown for their wedding celebrations planned for next year.

• Joseph told Gaudin and Lavalette to accelerate the plan to raise British inflation, while keeping subsidies available for North African farmers.
• Gaudin reported that North African wheat shipments were being redirected to Northern Italy and German territories, and that cities in Northern Italy and the Papal States had begun buying wheat.
• Joseph learned that Russian prisoners of war were near Poznan and that Bayei had reached Warsaw, then anticipated Poland’s help in closing Britain’s wheat import routes.
• Joseph ordered Lavalette and Gaudin to prepare a response plan for an additional step in the Financial War once Bayei returned.
• Alexandra showed Joseph her gown for their wedding ball, and Joseph recalled that their formal wedding celebrations were planned for early the following year.

Alexandra and Charles held their final fencing match, which Charles won until Alexandra pulled a Pistol and claimed victory. Joseph then discussed the siege of Gibraltar and the arrival of Russian prisoners in Warsaw, among whom he had selected men for a secret purpose.

• Alexandra told Charles she would stop practicing fencing after her formal wedding, then faced him in a final bout refereed by Baron Perrese.
• Charles used the Rotating Strike to disarm Alexandra and win the sword fight, but she pointed a Pistol at him and declared herself the victor.
• Berthier delivered a report that General Talavera wanted General Junot to join an assault on Gibraltar, and Joseph ordered continued pressure while allowing some British transports to supply the fortress.
• Joseph asked about 4,300 Russian prisoners nearing Warsaw and learned they had passed Reva the previous day.
• Joseph revealed that nearly three hundred prisoners were his true targets, including men loyal to Paul I and liberal officers selected to help save Russia.

Bayei delivered France’s captured Austrian supplies and Russian prisoners to Poland, strengthening its ability to fight Russia. When Polish officials asked for a loan, he offered a long-term agreement to purchase Polish exports instead, leaving them to consider France’s proposal.

• Bayei told Stanisław II that France would leave Poland the captured supplies, including guns, cannons, and other military equipment.
• Bayei announced that 4,300 Russian prisoners, including five generals, were being sent to Warsaw so Poland could exchange them for captured Polish soldiers.
• Kościuszko thanked the French Crown Prince for helping recover the Polish prisoners.
• Count Potocki and Kołłątaj asked Bayei for a loan of twelve million francs, offering mine and salt-tax revenue as collateral.
• Bayei refused to provide a loan and proposed that France buy Polish exports under a long-term supply and price agreement.

Poland signed a five-year supply agreement with France and reached a prisoner exchange with Russia. Meanwhile, Viscount Olivier recruited returned Russian POWs, including Chaddov, to help expose the Tsar who had murdered Emperor Paul.

• Bayei explained how France’s advance payments and long-term prices would benefit Poland, and Stanisław II approved submitting the proposal to Parliament.
• Poland signed the Danzig Long-term Supply and Price Agreement, agreeing not to sell wheat to the United Kingdom for two years and to raise timber prices.
• Szczęsny Potocki reached an exchange agreement in Minsk in which 4,300 Russian POWs were exchanged for 7,000 Polish soldiers.
• Chaddov recalled his time in France and resolved to expose the current Tsar for murdering Emperor Paul.
• Viscount Olivier gave Chaddov an ironware shop to manage and provided operating funds to seven POWs recently returned from France.

Viscount Olivier prepared to leave Russia after selling much of his Donbas holdings to powerful nobles and securing future opportunities in Westphalia. In Saint Petersburg, Chaddov’s Avengers began spreading the truth about Paul I’s assassination, while Kishchenko urged Russian officers to oppose the emperor and showed them a French Declaration of Human Rights.

• Viscount Olivier finalized the sale of a 20% stake in his Donbas coal mine and ironworks to Nikola Rumyantsev and planned to return to Western Europe.
• Joseph had directed Olivier to settle his Russian affairs and move his operations to Westphalia, where his company would receive priority mining rights.
• Chaddov gathered former prisoners in a Saint Petersburg warehouse and described Alexander’s role in Paul I’s assassination.
• Chaddov organized the men into a network that would recruit trusted former comrades and distribute leaflets about the assassination.
• Kishchenko told Russian officers that France’s principles and prosperity had made Russia’s defeat inevitable, then showed them a Declaration of Human Rights booklet.

Kishchenko spread the Declaration of Human Rights among young Russian officers, while Alexander I struggled to fund military preparations and received news of Ottoman and Persian forces massing against Russia. The chapter left Russia facing unrest at home and a new threat on its southern frontier.

• Kishchenko urged young officers to embrace reform, and they secretly read his Declaration of Human Rights rather than reporting him.
• Kishchenko's study groups spread through Saint Petersburg, attracting nearly a hundred Radical Liberal officers and alarming the Old Nobles' prospects for control.
• Alexander I ordered Vasilyev to fund the Sestroretsk Arsenal and the Polish garrison, but Vasilyev warned that the treasury could not cover the expenses.
• Arakcheyev proposed transferring two army corps to Poland so Kutuzov could occupy Warsaw.
• Vyazmitinov informed Alexander I that an Ottoman army was gathering in southern Azerbaijan and Mirza's forces were near Zanjan.
• Ali Shah joined the Ottoman-led Anti-Russian Alliance after learning that Russia's main forces were tied down in the west.

France Team won the World Cup final against Milan Team, and Joseph celebrated the tournament’s success and profits. Afterward, Minister Tressaguet asked Joseph which foreign railway route France should build first, but the available funds could not cover every option.

• France Team defeated Milan Team 5:0, and Joseph presented the Hercules Cup to the champions.
• Charles announced the tournament awards, while Broad discovered he had won forty Francs by betting on the Golden Shovel Award.
• Joseph returned to Versailles Palace, where Tressaguet presented applications for French railway projects abroad.
• Tressaguet described four proposed routes and the investments offered by foreign states, then said the Treasury could provide twenty-three million Francs.
• Joseph realized the budget could fund only one route and was insufficient for the farthest East Line.

Joseph shifted France’s railway strategy from controlling foreign lines to selling railway technology, services, and equipment, then received news of a major offensive against Russia. Poland’s forces had retaken Brest and were preparing to attack, while Persian and Ottoman armies advanced toward Russian positions.

• Joseph reviewed railway funding and learned that Oberholzer had requested French support for a line to Bern, offering four million francs.
• Tressaguet mentioned that Milanese nobles could raise tens of millions of francs, prompting Joseph to offer them all the shares in the Nice-to-Milan railway.
• Joseph ordered Tressaguet to present France’s complete railway technology and technical support at the Karlsruhe World Expo and expand the French Railway Company’s construction teams.
• Joseph summoned Mirabeau and the French Railway Company executives to plan a full-set railway solution that could generate revenue from patents, rails, trains, and construction services.
• Berthier reported that two Polish Army Groups and an Infantry Division had retaken Brest and that Marshal Kościuszko planned to attack the Russian Army at Pinsk in five days.
• Berthier reported that Ali Shah’s Persian corps was attacking Zanjan and that a seventy-thousand-strong Ottoman army was marching toward Tabriz, putting Russia under a western and southern pincer attack.

Joseph’s efforts to supply Poland and disrupt Russia’s trade routes drove up British food and commodity prices, undermining Government Bond sales and spreading inflation. Pitt the Younger struggled to find new supplies and pressure Denmark as British households and banks felt the mounting strain.

• Berthier reported that Denmark was shipping French military supplies to Danzig for Poland, while the Persian and Ottoman campaigns kept Russia under pressure.
• Pitt the Younger learned that Britain had sold only 850,000 Pound Sterling in Government Bonds as investors speculated on food and households feared rising prices.
• Pitt the Younger blamed French efforts to redirect Algiers’s and Poland’s grain exports and decided to arrange bulk grain purchases from Russia.
• Earl James Harris reported that Denmark had restricted Russian ships in the Oresund Strait, and Pitt the Younger sent Lord Hawkesbury to Copenhagen with a naval task force.
• After Denmark refused to back down, Joseph’s agents bought scarce British commodities, fueling panic, rising prices, and declining deposits at Sir Watkin’s bank.

Gaudin explained how France’s trade restrictions and tea purchases were meant to weaken Britain through inflation, while Bayei accepted the expected losses as worthwhile. At a Paris youth math competition, Church School student Angelique Ferrini won first place but froze when he realized he had brought calculation notes instead of his prepared speech.

• Bayei signed an order for government trade channels to buy tea above market price, with the price rising each week.
• Gaudin explained to Bayei how France’s measures would cause inflation and stagflation in Britain and erode the pound’s purchasing power.
• Leroy announced the math competition results, with Angelique Ferrini of the Oratory’s Church School taking first place.
• Alexandra awarded medals and certificates to the top three and invited Angelique to give his acceptance speech.
• Angelique discovered that he had brought calculation scratch paper instead of his speech and could not begin speaking.

Alexandra exposed Angelique as a New Primary School student hired by Archbishop Boissy to compete under a false name, and the scandal sparked public scrutiny of the church’s schools and childcare program. As investigators turned toward the church’s finances, reporter Landry revealed that a welfare institute exploited and confined its residents while the church profited from their labor.

• Alexandra questioned Angelique about his schooling, and he admitted that he had studied at Gilda District New Primary School before Archbishop Boissy paid him to take the competition under a false name.
• Newspapers publicized the fraud and criticized the church’s outdated schools and stalled public childcare program, prompting protests and a report to the Public Notary Investigation Bureau.
• Marat led the bureau’s investigation into the church’s finances after Joseph’s clerk reported the matter.
• Landry returned to City News after escaping the Bruaixi District Welfare Institute and told his friend how residents were confined, poorly fed, punished, and forced to work.
• Landry’s article compared the institute’s modest care costs with residents’ labor earnings and alleged that the church had pocketed the difference.

Marat’s investigation uncovered widespread corruption in Saint-Germain-des-Prés Abbey and other church institutions, while Joseph’s officials helped him overcome resistance. As the scandal spread and crowds demanded access to Welfare Institute accounts, France’s senior Clerics debated how to stop the investigation and were warned not to underestimate the Crown Prince.

• Marat entered Saint-Germain-des-Prés Abbey after the Police and a street troupe dispersed the crowd, and he learned Joseph had arranged support for the operation.
• A young cleric secretly gave Marat a note, helping him uncover nearly 50,000 Francs missing from renovation funds and evidence of 180,000 Francs in altered Tithe records.
• After reading City News the next day, Marat ordered Leona and five others to investigate the Welfare Institute accounts.
• Within a week, the Fair Investigation Bureau had investigated eleven abbeys and several Clerics’ residences, uncovering more than a hundred corruption cases as crowds protested outside Welfare Institutes.
• Senior Clerics met at Notre-Dame de Paris to discuss condemning Marat and removing Roland and Dibison, but Archbishop Beaumont warned them against provoking the Crown Prince.

The church leaders admitted corruption and proposed restitution and reforms, but Joseph and Alexandra confronted them over their poor schools and failure to build childcare centers. Joseph left them facing the possibility that someone else would take over those responsibilities.

• Archbishop Beaumont and the other clerics offered to punish corrupt officials, repay embezzled funds, cooperate with an audit, and fund welfare institutes.
• Alexandra entered and mocked Archbishop Boissy over the Oratory’s attempt to buy success in the Math Competition.
• Joseph reminded Boissy that the Oratory had failed to win the top three places and that its schools cost more while producing worse results than the New Primary Schools.
• Joseph criticized the archbishops for building only two Kindergartens despite his earlier emphasis on Public Childcare.
• Joseph suggested that the church might no longer be capable of managing the new education system and that someone else should take over.

Joseph transferred education and public charity from Church control to the state, establishing a new ministry and a relief office led by Alexandra. The chapter ended with former Church School clerics facing assessments under the reformed public school system.

• Joseph announced that the new Ministry of Science and Education would take over education, including universities and the French Academy of Sciences, and Beaumont agreed to the transfer.
• Joseph placed public charity under the Ministry of Civil Affairs and appointed Alexandra to lead a Public Relief Office overseeing Welfare Institutes.
• The church leaders left Versailles relieved that they had shed responsibility for Public Childcare, unaware that Joseph had further plans for reform.
• France established the Ministry of Science and Education, appointed Monge as minister and Viscount Dibisson as vice minister, and converted the New Primary Schools into public schools.
• Langlois and Lemay discussed the new ministry's assessment of former Church School teachers, which would determine their assignments and pay.

Teacher assessments and government reforms transformed the former Church School in Angers into a public school, giving Lemay a senior post and its teachers the chance to become civil servants. Meanwhile, Joseph's government expanded public kindergartens across France, further removing the church from control of education.

• Langlois learned he had earned a B+ assessment, while Lemay received the top A+ and was appointed academic affairs supervisor after Father Pacan's weaker assessment was noted.
• Lemay resolved to teach the students well after learning the public school would receive expansion funding from the government.
• The teachers received their full, increased salaries, and Father Bétain told them they could become civil servants by leaving the Catholic School Brotherhood.
• Lemay and his colleagues chose civil-service status, and tens of thousands of former Church School monks followed, prompting education-focused orders to dissolve.
• Joseph's Ministry of Science and Education established public kindergartens across France, often renting space in village churches and hiring local housewives as teachers.

Alexandra announced the creation of the Public Relief Office and new orphanages, aid homes, and shelters across France, presenting them as the country’s practice of natural rights and civilization. As she left to oversee a charity fundraiser, Armand Bizot predicted that the reforms would attract wealthy and learned foreigners to France.

• Alexandra addressed the crowd outside Alexandra Bakery and announced that the Crown Prince would replace welfare institutes nationwide with the Public Relief Office, which she would oversee.
• Alexandra explained that orphanages would care for children under fourteen and described the protections established by the Adoption Law.
• Alexandra said aid homes would support elderly people without family care and disabled people, while shelters would provide temporary work and training for people in difficulty.
• Alexandra declared that the new institutions would be open to public visits and called their work a practice of natural rights and a sign of civilization.
• Baron Gagnon criticized the cost of relief, but Armand Bizot argued that the reforms would make France a symbol of progress and draw foreign investors and residents.
• Alexandra left for Versailles Palace to preside over a large charity fundraiser.

Alexandra’s charity fundraiser raised more than 670,000 Francs for Paris orphanages and awarded the Countess of Artois the title of “The Most Benevolent.” After Roland delivered figures showing that the church’s Tithe revenues were poorly accounted for, Joseph moved to press for church reform through Robespierre.

• Alexandra presented orphaned children and described the New Paris District Orphanage at a Versailles fundraiser, where nobles donated more than 670,000 Francs.
• Alexandra named the Countess of Artois the year’s “The Most Benevolent” for donating 40,000 Francs and announced that three consecutive awards would earn the Pope’s title of “The Cloak Sharer.”
• Joseph read a newspaper report about the fundraiser the next morning and expected the Countess of Artois to spend heavily to win again.
• Roland gave Joseph a report estimating nationwide Tithe revenues at 120 million Francs and listing 87 million Francs in expenditures, leaving 17 million Francs unexplained.
• Joseph ordered Roland to discuss raising the matter with Robespierre and to make as much noise as possible.