The Accountant Becomes Louis XVI to Save His Neck

Chapter 18: The King's Witness



Beaumarchais's satirical pamphlets were a triumph, the salons hosted by Marie Antoinette a masterclass in subtle persuasion. Side by side, they stopped the bleeding, introduced a counter-narrative into the public discourse. But Art knew it wasn't sufficient. Propaganda and soft power—these might sway opinions in the coffee houses, in the salons—but the war being waged in the stone courtroom of the Palais de la Cité, there, they were losing.

The trial was in its denouement. Procedure, under an able though unostentatious magistrate in Necker's employ, was faltering. They had presented evidence of the forgery, the account-books, the transfer of funds. It was all very good, though, when placed in the scale against the dynamite charge: the sworn testimony of a noble, the Baron de Clugny, who wept in indignation, alleging he had only obeyed a direct oral order from his dead king. It was a nobleman's honor versus a clerk's mathematics. In the French courts' cosmos, it was an essentially unbeatbable position.

Public opinion, after a fleeting intervention in behalf of Art, started flagging again. The Old Guard case, a straightforward one, consisted in condemnation. It advised you, in a few words, in a bare, concise summary, something you could recall. Art, with the calculating chill of a man who has witnessed a leading stock take a downward tailspin, recognized he had to bring a knockout. He could do something other than discredit the Baron's story. He had, positively, to establish he was a liar.

He and Necker were once again stuck in the King's study, back in crisis command mode. This time, however, they were not studiously working through financial statements. They were sifting through every available paper from the later years of Louis XV's reign: official court announcements, palace guard diaries, and, first and foremost, the personal agendas of the dead King, agendas du roi. For a small inconsistency, a weakness in the Baron's narrative.

"The verbal order is the key," growled Art, pacing back and forth in the room like a wild man. He could taste a familiar rage fermenting. "It's a perfect lie because it's ephemeral. There's no record in writing. How do you discredit a conversation that may or may not have taken place 'twixt a dead monarch and a deceitful baron? It's a man's word against a spirit's."

Necker, huddled over a heap of agendas for the year 1771, ran a finger down a page. "The Baron's evidence was positively clear-cut about the date, Your Majesty. He testified he received the order in a private audience at Versailles on the afternoon of October 12th."

"Because a specific date sounds more believable," grumbled Art. "He's no idiot."

"Perhaps not," responded Necker, his tone now strange. He pushed his spectacles up his face and leaned in over the book. "Your Majesty... this is... fascinating."

Art stopped in his tracks. "What's wrong?"

"The late King's schedule for October 12th, 1771," Necker stated, his voice trembling with suppressed excitement. "By virtue thereof, his Majesty Louis XV did not attend Versailles in the afternoon."

Art rushed to the desk, his heart pounding. He looked over Necker's shoulder. There, in the careful, cursive hand of a palace secretary, stood the note: "12 Octobre. Départ pour le pavillon de chasse de Rambouillet. Chasse au cerf." Departure for the hunting lodge at Rambouillet. Stag hunt.

Rambouillet. It had been a private royal palace, fifty kilometers southwest of Versailles. It required a whole day's journey in a carriage.

"He wasn't here," panted Art. "He could not have given the order."

It was a big break, a potential alibi for a ghost. But when initial exhilaration wore off, cold hard facts got in the way. "It's not enough," Art said, shaking his head. "Vergennes' lawyers will tear it up. They'll say the King went in secret. They'll say the secretary erred in the agenda. They'll say the Baron forgot the exact day. It's circumstantial. It's our paper against his sworn testimony. We don't have enough. We don't have a man. We don't have a witness."

He glanced down the page, his mind in a whirl. "Who was with my grandfather at Rambouillet on that day?"

Necker, in preparation for his reply, scanned an appropriate security register, detailing members of the entourage. "It was a modest, unofficial hunt, Majesty. With a short guest list." He recited a few names. The Duc de Choiseul, the Prince de Soubise. Art's spirits drooped. Choiseul was dead. Soubise was an unyielding Vergennes man and Old Guard stalwart. Neither were any good.

"That's it?" Art said, his hopes fading.

"Yes, for the noble guests," Necker said, reading through the page. "But there are others. Staff. Grooms, cooks, valets..." He halted. "And the head of the hunt itself. The Capitaine des Chasses. One Jean-Pierre Dubois—a common man, yet a royal servant for over forty years. From this note, he retired on a modest pension a couple of years since. He lives in a cottage on the fringe of the Versailles estate."

A commoner. A royal servant. A man who has no political bias, no resentment. A man who has no cause in the world to lie.

Art knew what he had to do. It was a wild risk, a defiance of every rule, but it was his last play.

Much later, after the court had retired, Art, in plain, bulky cloak, made his way out of the palace through a side gate. Only one, unostentatious guard in plain dress kept him company. They went through the dark, moonless streets of the town Versailles until they arrived at a small, compact cottage on the outskirts of the royal forests. Thin spiraling vapors issued from its chimney.

An older lady opened the door, looking scared with the evening visitors. Art, with his face buried in his hood, identified himself as working for the crown as an investigator and was there questioning her husband over his service with the King.

He was taken into a small, neatly-swept room with woodsmoke and beeswax smells. In a chair opposite the fire sat an elderly man with a weathered apple face and bright, firm blue eyes. Hunting trophies, souvenirs from a lifetime's service, were on the walls. This man was Jean-Pierre Dubois, the King's Head Huntsman.

Art sat facing him. He made no identification. He said he was a magistrate's clerk, dispatched to clarify a point in history for the court.

"Monsieur Dubois," began Art, his voice even and firm, belying the frenzied hope churning his gut. "We are trying to cross-check the movements of the dead King on a day many years ago. October 12th, 1771. It is said he went hunting at Rambouillet. Do you recall the day?"

The old huntsman's eyes went out of focus for a moment, going back in time. Then he nodded, his weathered face wrinkling in a slow grin. "Oh, that day. Yes, I do remember it well. It was a bad day for a hunt!" he chuckled. "A rainy morning, no wind. No possible way the dogs could maintain a scent. His Majesty in a foul mood the whole day. Complained about his hip, about the cook, about the wine. We barely got a good stag in sight all day."

Art's heart was pounding in his chest. "Was there ever a period during the day when the King exited the party? Perhaps went back for a few hours to Versailles?"

The old man sneered, offended by the very question. "Impossible! When the King went hunting, he was in my care. From the palace gates until we returned, he never was out of my eye nor the eye of my men. It is a matter of security, you know. Of honor. We left Versailles pre-dawn and returned well after midnight. He spent the entire day at Rambouillet, grumbling about the wet."

Art had his witness. He had his alibi. But when he gazed in the eyes of the proud old servant, the entire weight of his decision rested there. In order for him to gain this trial, he would be obligated to do the unthinkable. He would be obligated to put this everyday huntsman, this man of the people, on the witness stand in a court of kings. He would be obligated to ask the judges, the nobles, the entire kingdom of France, to accept the word of an old man with a good memory over the sacred, sworn oath of a Baron of the realm.

It was a risk that could save his crown. Or could bring down the very fabric of society his crown represented, in a definitive manner, a common man's truth over a nobleman's honor. As he thanked the old man and stepped out into the cold night air, he knew he had no choice. He had to take the risk.


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