The Accountant Becomes Louis XVI to Save His Neck

Art's two-pronged strategy—diplomatic feint abroad and stage diversion at home—had indeed calmed down the frenzy of the crisis. He had bought time, but he knew very well that it was a short respite only. The response to his ultimatum was from London, and it was exactly what he had been expecting: a flash of British hubris. They agreed, in principle, to a Joint Commission of Inquiry, a condescending gesture towards diplomacy. They refused point-blank to approve punishment for the captain of the British frigate, condemning his act as a "justified and proportional response to suspected smuggling activities in a volatile region."

The letter was a diplomatic slap across the face, and it added a new frenzy to Versailles' war hawks. Vergennes, with his position reinforced by the inflexibility of the British, was apoplectic.

"This is an outrage! An insult added to an injury!" he thundered at a council meeting. "They admit their guilt in taking a commission, but they will not provide us with justice! They spit in our eye! Your Majesty, there can be no more words. I demand our ambassador be immediately recalled from London and theirs from Paris. We must sever all diplomatic relations. It is the next step to a formal act of war!"

The council chamber erupted into agreement. Art felt his precarious gains slipping into loss. Public "strategic patience" would not suffice as a countermeasure to an outright, public insult. He was cornered with his back against the wall as war drums beat a rumbling tempo. Logic would not prevail. Diplomacy would not move. He was out of moves.

He spent the evening in his study, underthe weight of what was inevitable. He could imagine his future unfolding before him: a declared war, a fiscal disaster of a drain on the treasury, debt spinning out of control, bread riot, revolution, and the chill hard rustle of the guillotine.

The doors of his study swung gently ajar. It was Marie Antoinette. She had seen his despondency on his face during the council meeting, felt once again the renewed tension in the palace. She came to him, not as a Queen, but as his wife, his companion.

"It's their pride, Louis," she stated kindly, sitting down in the chair in front of him. She'd been following the crisis step for step, her politicial instinct developed with each day. "You can't counter their pride with your argument. That's akin to stalling a charging bull with a piece of paper. You have to provide them with a new type of pride to contend with. A greater honor."

"And what honor is there more than to uphold the flag of France?" he asked, his voice fatigued.

"Le destin de la France," she declared, a strange, shining glint in her eyes. "The survival of the dynasty. Our son."

And she did formulate a strategy. It was not a strategy of war-making or of economics. It was a strategy of pure, unadulterated court spectacle, a piece of tough politics so personally audacious and so flat-out feminine that no man of his council would ever have dreamed of it.

"We will publish the christening plans of the Dauphin," she announced, her voice with a new twinkle. "But it will not be a simple religious function. We will make it the biggest national event of a century that this kingdom will ever have celebrated. We will call it a 'Celebration of the Future of France.'"

She leaned in, her plans forming. "I myself shall pen, with my own hand, letters to the spouses of the finest nobles—those who plague me the most—Madame de Vergennes, the Duchesse de Rohan, all of them. I shall not invite them to a politcal conference. I shall invite them to help organize a 'Godmother's Council' to aid me in making plans for my child's baptism. I shall solicit their advice on tapestries, on music, on ceremonial garb."

Art knew its genius immediately. It would set the war hawks against a dead end. How would their husbands raise a war that would bankrupt the kingdom when their mothers were determined to have the successful christening of the heir? Not to wish to celebrate with her, not to celebrate her future King, would be a crime of high solemnity, verging on treason. It would ostracize them outright.

"And you, Louis," she continued, her eyes flashing with strategic brilliance, "you shall seize this moment to create a new honor, one that shall cause them all to lick their lips. You shall create a proclamation of a new chivalric order. The 'Order of the Dauphin.' It shall be the most exclusive order of France, awarded only to those nobles who prove exemplary devotion to the future of the realm. And its first investiture ceremony shall be at your christening."

She had given them a new trophy to covet. She was channeling their aggressive, warrior pride into a new direction of social success and home victory. No more would they be concerned with humiliation in the Caribbean but with glittering futures in the royal bassinet. It was brilliance.

The next day at court was loaded with electricity. Vergennes, who thought he had the King cornered, stood to call for a rupture of diplomatic relations formally. He was mid-rant when Art intervened with a hand up, silencing him.

"Minister," Art's voice was low and quiet, banishing the air of rage. "We pay attention to your concern over France's honor. However, on this day, we must look aside from recent insults towards a great tomorrow."

Then he made his big announcement. He spoke of his soon-to-be-born heir, his son, the Dauphin of France. He announced the creation of his elite Godmother's Council, to be headed personally by the Queen herself. He noted the spark of surprise and of calculation in nobles' eyes when they realized that their spouses were about to be brought into the sphere of influence of the Queen. Then he announced his creation of his new, elite Order of the Dauphin, a reward which would become literally the very height of royal favor.

Finally, in an act of pure political genius, he turned to his stunned foreign minister. "And Monsieur de Vergennes," he announced with a benevolent smile, "as my oldest and most respected diplomat, I am personally entrusting you with assuming control of diplomatic invitations for this monumental event. We must be represented with each of the mighty courts of Europe. It will be a Herculean undertaking, worthy of your vast capacities."

He had done it. He had buried his deadliest enemy in high-sounding but thoroughly quiet office. Vergennes was caught. He could not stir up passion for war and simultaneously organize the largest state fete of the year. The martial steam of the war-party was entirely deflated. The court, which a moment earlier would have been on the point of insisting on war, was a-whirl with joy at the new government, the social politics of the council, the very theatrics of it all. Art and his Queen had seized possession of the tale with a blow.

A wonderful peace settled over Art that evening. He sat with Marie in her bedrooms, examining architectural blueprints for a recently restored imperial nursery. For an instant, they were not a queen and a king who were stumbling about in a storm, but an expecting couple, united and optimistic. Together they stood against the storm and deflected it. Together, they had emerged victorious.

The quiet moment was shattered by a gentle rap on the door. It was the Queen's chief physician, Dr. Lassonne. He was an old, solemn man whose face was ordinarily a mask of quiet professionalism. Tonight, his features were lined with a deep and unsettling worry.

He bowed low. "Your Majesties," he began, his tone grave. "Excuse the interruption. I've just come from my customary tour of Her Majesty."

"Is everything well, Doctor?" Marie Antoinette inquired, her voice quivering a little.

The physician hesitated, his eyes glancing down for a second before he fixed eyes with the King. "Your Majesty, I would not wish to upset you. But there are... some challenges. Your Majesty's health is more delicate than we wished. Stresses of recent months... they have taken their toll on her." He took a deep breath. "I must, with utmost necessity, advise that Your Majesty not only withdraw from all social as well as public events. She should make certain that she is in a place of complete uninterrupted repose."

The words fell into the quiet room like stones into a deep well. That political instrument which Marie had used so wonderfully, those salons and councils and appearances before the crowds, had been paid for in a terrible, hidden cost. The Queen's health, and the vulnerable life of an heir whose future they'd still been desperately fighting to secure minutes before, was immediately, horrifically, in danger.

The HUD, having been blissfully silent, burst with a new, destructive alert, a calamity more great than any hostility or political challenge.

NEW CRISIS DETECTED: Royal Succession - UNCERTAIN.

Marie Antoinette Health Status: (DETERIORATING).

Heir's Survival Probability: 60% and FALLING.