Chapter Summaries

Joseph recruited Venio to promote potato cultivation in other French regions by offering wine, beer, and spirits producers access to new brewing techniques. As Joseph prepared to return to Paris, Monsoreau and Venio brought word that three plantation owners who had missed the meeting wanted another chance to plant potatoes.

• Joseph warned Bordeaux’s plantation owners against using patented brewing techniques without authorization, then left Arson Wine Cellar.
• Joseph asked Venio to promote potato cultivation in Burgundy, Provence, Brittany, and Normandy by offering the new brewing techniques.
• Joseph explained to Venio that lactic acid bacteria caused wine to sour and that heating brewing materials to sixty degrees for half an hour killed the bacteria.
• Monsoreau and Venio told Joseph that Viscount Joubert, Viscount Vienne, and Baron Chapelier wanted to plant potatoes on half their plantations.
• Joseph considered how to make the three plantation owners pay more for their late request.

Joseph persuaded Marat that their cooperation had helped deliver justice, then offered him a role in a new department investigating corruption and official misconduct. Marat initially accused Joseph of wanting a royal thug, but began to warm to the idea of serving the people.

• Marat confronted Joseph for deceiving him into helping bring down Grand Justice Weijinie, and Joseph argued that their actions had advanced justice.
• Joseph defended concealing his identity as the Crown Prince and persuaded Marat to judge him by whether ordinary people’s lives improved.
• Joseph explained that France needed an independent body to investigate corruption and said he wanted Marat to join its Fair Investigation Department.
• Marat accused Joseph of trying to make him a royal thug, and Joseph replied that he would be a thug for the people.

After Watt refused to join France’s steam-engine project, Joseph discovered that William Murdoch could provide comparable expertise and had several inventions of his own. Joseph appointed Murdoch general manager of the Royal French Machinery Company, giving France a new path to develop steam engines and gas lighting.

• DuPont told Joseph that Watt had refused his invitation, and Joseph accepted that France would need another way to build its steam-engine industry.
• Murdoch offered to help, claiming expertise in steam engines and patents for an oscillating engine and a steam gun.
• Murdoch explained that he had invented the planetary crank gear and developed a high-pressure steam-engine technology that Watt had kept from publication.
• Joseph recognized Murdoch as the inventor working on coal gas lighting and realized his potential for France’s projects.
• Joseph appointed Murdoch general manager of the Royal French Machinery Company.

After police searches failed to find the French Guard, Joseph focused on developing France’s steam technology and railways. Mr. Murdoch agreed to recruit a fellow inventor and Birmingham track-laying experts, while Baron Friant arrived with an urgent matter.

• Diboa ordered Antoine and Faustin to search for the French Guard, and Antoine later reported that shelling had killed an elderly couple and destroyed their farmhouse.
• Mr. Murdoch spent the night studying Joseph’s proposed steam-engine technologies but struggled to design the complex triple-expansion engine.
• Joseph urged Mr. Murdoch to develop the advanced designs gradually, and Mr. Murdoch recommended John Sander as a research assistant.
• Joseph offered Sander a monthly salary of 120 Livres, and Mr. Murdoch agreed to write to him.
• Mr. Murdoch suggested recruiting rail-laying experts from Birmingham, and Joseph told him to invite them to France.
• Eman informed Joseph that Baron Friant had arrived on urgent business.

Prosper received five days to investigate the military, while Bessonval discovered that Teodoro had arranged the farmhouse shelling and ordered him and his men to stay in camp. Disguised as a French Guard officer’s guest, Menard inspected the camp’s cannons and identified the one that matched evidence from the shelling site.

• Fouche gave Prosper five more days to uncover useful information about the military.
• Bessonval confronted Teodoro about shelling the farmhouse, then ordered him and his men to remain in camp and avoid outside contact.
• Tiru befriended Valentine Menard with an offer to visit the French Guard cannons, and Menard followed him into the camp in a uniform.
• Menard compared a replica shell and wheel-track rubbings from the crime scene against the camp’s cannons.
• Menard identified one cannon as the likely source of the shell that struck the farmhouse.

Joseph arranged the Two Sicilies Princess’s welcome while secretly using the preparations to lure the Blood Blade Gang into a trap. Kexer and Fouche’s operation captured the gang members, though the chapter ended amid the ambush and its violence.

• Queen Mary mistook Joseph’s eagerness to arrange Maria’s welcome for romantic interest, but Joseph reassured her that he would also welcome Clementine.
• Joseph planned decorations and route arrangements with the Lord Chamberlain, then returned to the Crown Prince’s Palace.
• Kexer inspected the road with Bessonval while three Royal Guards disguised themselves as painters and slipped away.
• Kexer’s men and Fouche lured surviving Blood Blade Gang members into position by inventing a story about a shipment of gold.
• Fouche arrived as the gang prepared to rob the supposed shipment, and Kexer’s forces sprang their trap, capturing bandits as gunfire erupted.

Princess Maria arrived near Paris and met Crown Prince Joseph, while Odorik and his men prepared to signal a planned robbery of a gold carriage. The chapter ended with Odorik spotting a familiar coachman in a white carriage through his telescope.

• Painters smuggled Odorik's men’s clothes and weapons into a guarded farmhouse without raising suspicion.
• Princess Maria arrived and met Joseph, then worried that he preferred his other potential bride, Clementine.
• Odorik knocked out the farmhouse guard, and Baldy killed him.
• Odorik armed his two underlings and told them to fire warning shots when the gold carriage came into view.
• Odorik spotted a white carriage driven by one of the Crown Prince’s men.

The Crown Prince’s convoy was attacked on the way to Versailles, and the news sent Queen Mary into a panic. Joseph returned alive with a heavily bandaged arm and pretended to sleep as the queen demanded an explanation from Bessonval and the others.

• Maria cried in her carriage over the attack, while Timothy tried to reassure her.
• A French Guard surgeon treated Joseph, and the guards reported that the two attackers had been killed.
• Bessonval ordered Joseph’s and Maria’s carriages back to Versailles under cavalry escort.
• Queen Mary fainted when she heard Joseph had been injured, then prepared to meet the returning convoy.
• Joseph arrived with his arm covered in blood and bandages, and Doctor Grusset assured the royal family that he was not in mortal danger.
• As Joseph pretended to sleep in his bedchamber, Queen Mary demanded to know why the attack had happened.

Queen Mary exiled General Bessonval to the Seychelles and ordered the French Guard investigated after the attack on the Crown Prince. The Flanders Brigade was summoned to Paris to replace them, while the Duke of Orléans paid Saint-Priest to protect the Guard’s officers from punishment.

• Queen Mary accepted that Bessonval could only be exiled under French law and designated the Seychelles as his destination.
• Queen Mary ordered the French Guard’s officers and soldiers confined to their barracks pending an investigation by Breteuil and Vermorel.
• Kexer, Mono, Brienne, and Breteuil supported replacing the French Guard in Paris with the Flanders Brigade, and Queen Mary approved the transfer.
• The Duke of Orléans paid Saint-Priest to influence the Gendarmerie and Military Tribunal in favor of the French Guard’s officers.
• Noble young ladies watched over the badly wounded Crown Prince at his palace.

After Joseph was injured in an attack, he turned public anger toward the French Guard and used a flood of accusations against its officers to undermine Bessonval. He invited Princess Maria to tour Paris once he recovered, while Perna wrestled with jealousy; four days later, reviews of several officers were still unresolved.

• Joseph arranged for noble girls to denounce the French Guard, and hundreds gathered outside the Minister of War's office demanding punishment.
• Dr. Lamarck and Perna examined Joseph and found his injuries stable, while Maria apologized for the attack and Joseph reassured her.
• Queen Mary snubbed Maria and ordered her to leave, but Joseph apologized and invited her to see Paris after he recovered.
• Four days later, General Astu reviewed documents accusing French Guard officers of past misconduct, and Breteuil delayed concluding their reviews.
• Breteuil's assistant delivered another stack of accusations, and a Gendarmerie officer proposed restoring the positions of officers whose reviews had been completed.

Joseph’s plan turned the French Guard’s review into a public scandal when evidence showed its artillerymen had shelled Axel’s home and framed the Paris Police Academy. As protests grew and the police gained public esteem, Berthier nervously waited outside the Crown Prince’s Palace, fearing blame for the Guard’s failure to protect the prince.

• Joseph supplied Marat with information about French Guard officers and prompted him to send his findings to the Minister of Justice, forcing the Gendarmerie to expand its investigation.
• Rumors of mass exile spread through the French Guard barracks, driving the officers to seek influential allies and alarming the Duke of Orléans and military aristocrats.
• General Astu learned that evidence implicated the French Guard in the shelling of Axel’s farmhouse and in framing the Paris Police Academy.
• The Gendarmerie arrested the gunners responsible for the attack, whose confessions implicated Major Teodoro of the French Guard Artillery.
• Over a hundred citizens protested outside the French Guard camp, while Parisians apologized to the Paris Police Academy and praised the police for aiding Axel’s family.
• Berthier waited nervously outside the Crown Prince’s Palace, worried that the Crown Prince would hold him responsible for the French Guard’s failure to provide protection.

Joseph recruited Berthier to help launch military reform by promoting him to infantry regiment colonel and sending him to negotiate with Minister of War Saint-Priest. Berthier began explaining that the Queen’s anger over the crown prince’s injury was driving the accusations against the French Guard, leaving his proposed strategy unfinished.

• Berthier praised Joseph’s military reform plan but warned that officers and military nobles would resist changes to promotions, recruitment, weapons procurement, and military posts.
• Joseph told Berthier that an opportunity had arisen to begin reform and promoted him to infantry regiment colonel.
• Saint-Priest met Berthier as protests and political pressure mounted over the French Guard and the attack on Joseph.
• Berthier told Saint-Priest that Queen Marie Antoinette’s anger over Joseph’s injury was behind the reports against Guard officers, then began pointing out that bought commissions made up a third of the army.

Berthier persuaded the Minister of War to let him command an elite regiment in exchange for helping calm the fallout from the attack on the Crown Prince. Joseph prepared to send him back to negotiate for more resources and considered how to keep the French Guard officers from being targeted further.

• Berthier proposed public punishments and a trial to restore confidence, then offered to persuade Joseph to forgive uninvolved French Guard members.
• Saint-Priest agreed to appoint Berthier lieutenant colonel and let him choose an elite regiment’s soldiers himself.
• Joseph regretted that Berthier had asked for too little and instructed him to renegotiate for more, with Major Diboa helping select suitable soldiers and gather supplies.
• Joseph planned to redirect Marat toward a new target and limit further conflict with the military nobility after securing the French Guard troops and removing Bessonval.

Joseph directed Marat to investigate former Finance Minister Necker, accusing him of using his office to benefit his own bank and burden France with debt. With Marat distracted from the French Guard investigation, Breteuil eased the officer reviews, allowing Berthier to take command of a regiment and secure a cavalry battalion post for Joseph’s younger brother.

• Joseph sent Necker’s financial archives to the Fair Investigation Department and persuaded Marat to investigate Necker’s banking dealings and loans.
• Marat left to investigate Necker after Joseph argued that Necker’s apparently balanced budgets concealed a growing burden of interest.
• Joseph asked Breteuil to be more lenient in reviewing French Guard officers, and Breteuil agreed.
• The reports against French Guard officers dwindled, and Saint-Priest promoted Berthier to lieutenant colonel and appointed him commander of the Third Infantry Regiment.
• Berthier requested a cavalry battalion post for Joseph’s younger brother, and Saint-Priest approved it.
• Berthier went to the French Guard barracks with Diboa and Odorik to select troops.

Joseph took control of an elite force formed from screened French Guard soldiers and introduced a promotion and pay system based on merit. The soldiers welcomed his promises, while the remaining former guards were left in the Marit Corps.

• Berthier completed the screening of the soldiers and officers, removing field-grade officers and men from the great nobility along with those deemed unfit.
• Joseph attended Teodoro and Kemu’s public trial, where they were sentenced to death, then assured the crowd that the rest of the French Guard was innocent.
• Joseph’s newspapers and the investigation shifted public blame onto Bessonval, Teodoro, and a few officers, while the French Guard was reorganized and renamed the Marit Corps.
• Berthier led more than 2,200 elite former guardsmen and Odorik’s cavalry battalion to the Mars Training Field, while Marquis Marit took command of the remaining troops.
• Joseph addressed the assembled soldiers, announced a merit-based promotion system and improved direct pay, and promised that they would become examples for the French army.

Joseph inspected the newly named Crown Prince Guard Legion, announced its regulations and benefits, and distributed the soldiers’ first pay. He then visited the Paris Police Academy and arranged a joint exercise, where the cadets’ sharp appearance, modern guns, and mounted police impressed the legion.

• Joseph named the new force the Crown Prince Guard Legion, set out its standards, and offered soldiers the option to return to their former units.
• Joseph announced military pay, pensions, retirement allowances, and family benefits, then watched as the legion’s soldiers received their first pay.
• Joseph visited the Paris Police Academy, learned enrollment had surged, and told Friant to let cadets choose between Combat Police and military service after graduation.
• Two days later, more than five hundred Paris Police Academy cadets arrived at the Mars Training Field for a joint exercise with the Crown Prince Guard Legion.
• The cadets’ crisp uniforms, Charleville 1776 Flintlock Guns, and mounted police surprised the legion’s officers and soldiers.

The Royal Guard Legion and the Police Academy competed in a joint exercise, where the police surprised the elite soldiers and the events ended in a two-to-two draw. Joseph then learned that potato planting had spread across several regions before receiving an urgent summons from the King.

• Berthier began the joint exercise, and the Police Officers outperformed the Royal Guard Legion in formation drills.
• The Royal Guard Legion won the shooting contest, but the Police Officers impressed the observers with their accuracy and speed.
• The Police Officers outran the Royal Guard Legion in the marching drill, while the soldiers won the live combat drill, leaving the overall score tied at two to two.
• Berthier announced that the Royal Guard Legion would train at the Paris Police Academy, and more than two thousand soldiers joined its student body.
• Varennes reported that potato planting had exceeded expectations in Bordeaux and spread across Burgundy, Brittany, Normandy, and other regions.
• A court official summoned Joseph to Versailles Palace on the King's orders, and a messenger delivered several sealed letters as Joseph prepared to leave.

Joseph reviewed reports on overseas Grain purchases and realized that France needed more money to buy and transport enough supplies before drought and hail disrupted harvests. He considered colonial expansion and ways to cut spending, then discovered that debt interest consumed over two hundred million Livres each year.

• Joseph read coded letters reporting that the White Gloves had bought nearly 70,000 Setiers of Grain, 10,000 Setiers of Corn, and more than 30,000 Setiers of Potato, and expected to acquire far more before July.
• Joseph learned that the White Gloves needed additional funds and a plan for moving Grain from Le Havre Port, while drought threatened to make transportation even more expensive.
• Joseph calculated that France lacked enough short-term revenue to cover Grain purchases and transport, and considered expanding into North Africa, especially Egypt, despite the risk of British intervention.
• Joseph set aside the colonial question and examined France's major expenses, discovering that annual interest payments on national debt exceeded two hundred million Livres.

Joseph reflected on France’s debt and inefficient tax system before joining Louis XVI in the Royal Workshop, where they unveiled a working Percussion Cap Gun. The chapter ended with Joseph proposing they test-fire it at a shooting range.

• Joseph considered how France’s debt payments and the Tax Farmer System drained the government’s finances.
• Joseph learned that Minister of Census Nicoé had been rebuked by Archbishop Brienne after struggling in negotiations with the British.
• Joseph encountered Abbot Talleyrand outside the Royal Workshop and recognized his future reputation as a skilled diplomat.
• Louis XVI showed Joseph two finished Percussion Cap Guns, developed with the Crown Prince.
• Joseph tested one gun with a Percussion Cap and confirmed that its firing mechanism worked.
• Joseph praised Louis XVI’s craftsmanship and suggested they test-fire the gun at a shooting range.

Joseph accompanied Louis XVI to the Police Academy, where the King tested the new Percussion Cap Gun and astonished the officers with his loading speed. The chapter left Major Diboa examining the gun after Louis XVI handed it to him.

• Joseph persuaded Louis XVI to ride in his carriage, learned that spring-suspended carriages were costly and unreliable, and saw an opportunity to develop a better suspension business.
• Louis XVI visited Joseph’s Police Academy and initially mistook the Berthier Regiment for police cadets.
• Louis XVI tried the Percussion Cap Gun at the shooting range and grazed a wooden target.
• Joseph challenged Major Diboa to race Louis XVI in loading and firing their guns, and Louis XVI finished only two seconds behind the experienced shooter.
• Major Diboa asked to inspect the Percussion Cap Gun, and Louis XVI handed him the gun and a Percussion Cap.