The Accountant Becomes Louis XVI to Save His Neck

The first few months of the war were a tense, grinding stalemate. Beaumarchais's Liberty Bond campaign, conducted with theatrical élan, was a remarkable and hitherto unheard-of success. Millions of livres poured into the treasury from a thousand various quarters—the saved life savings of merchants, the modest warehouses of shopkeepers, even the modest contributions of patriotic artisans. It was a flow of silver, but the war was a storming sea of costs, and the money was devoured virtually as soon as it came in.

The war at sea, where ultimately the decision would be made, had lapsed into a series of indecisive skirmishes. The navy of France, reinforced with the new frigates Louis had ordered, fought gallantly. They were gallantly commanded and venturesome, but they were still outnumbered against the vast might of the Royal Navy. The British did not deliver a knockout blow, and the French did not break the blockade of strategic ports. The nation sighed in concert and hoped for a triumph that did not materialize.

It was in this national moment of worried suspense that the focus of the kingdom shifted from the Atlantic warfields to the velvet-draped bedchamber of the Queen. After a long and carefully managed term of pregnancy, Marie Antoinette went into labor.

The court of Versailles was a bubble of hoped-for expectancy. Tensions, war alarms, all seemed to recede. To beget an heir, and the first male heir to the crown in a lifetime, was a thought that ranked above all others. Louis did not leave his wife's bedside throughout the long and painful vigil. This was a different vigil than the first one. Terror was not present, and in its stead was intense, nerve-wrenching hope of a father to be. He held her hand, whispered words of encouragement, and shared with her a bond more substantial and deeper than any alliance, any treaty.

After all but one of a day and a night's toil, the guns of the Invalids in Paris thundered out a deafening twenty-one-gun salute, announcing to the city the tidings. There was born a baby boy. Louis Joseph Xavier François, Dauphin of France, was born.

The tide of national exhilaration that swept through the nation was considerable, a release from tight war-related tensions. France was not a kingdom in extremis but a family toasting to a nativity.

Louis stood in a nursery window and looked down through curtains at the little, sleeping form in the cradle. He was a father. He had a boy. That abstract, political goal of "securing the dynasty" was no longer existing, consumed in that moment by the strong, primal, and overwhelming feeling of that little, helpless child. This was what he'd been fighting for. This was the future he'd been working to secure. Everything—fear of guillotine, weight of the ledgers, strain of war—went into the background in that moment, subsumed in a simple, overwhelming love for his boy.

Beaumarchais, opportunist that he was, did not miss the national moment of triumph either. A second campaign was in full swing in no time. Posters appeared throughout France, this time with the cherubic, idealized face of the baby prince. It went like this: "Pour votre Prince et votre Patrie! For Your Prince and Your Country! Buy The Dauphin's Bond!"

The response of the people was overwhelming. The war having become personal through the birth of the heir, the people previously unwilling to voluntarily contribute their savings to the abstractions of the state did so to the baby prince. It was a contribution to the Dauphin, an investment in his future. The treasury that was habitually running toward depleted status swelled full with the addition of new money. The heir's birth in a very concrete manner had individually financed the war's coming, decisive phase.

At the same time, one of Louis's long-term projects was reaching maturity. There arrived a dispatch from the naval shipbuilding yards at Brest. Necker produced it in his own person, his face wrethed with unwilling admiration.

"Your Majesty," said the finance minister, "you will be pleased to learn that the sea trials of the latest class of warship have been successfully completed. Results are... remarkable."

Months earlier, Louis, based on his layman's experience with naval history in his former life, had summoned France's finest shipwrights. They were exorted to experiment with a new, expensive, and largely unpromising technology: ship-of-the-line hulls with copper sheathing. He explained, in simple terms, how a copper-plated hull would prevent weeds and barnacles from adhering to wooden ships, a process known as fouling. An unfouled hull meant lower drag, this meant more speed and maneuverability. It also meant that a ship would be able to remain at sea for an utterly long period of time without needing to be careened and scraped, a huge logistics advantage.

The navy traditionalists were skeptical, but the King's mind was made up. The first of these new-style warships, christened Le Dauphin Royal after the young prince, had recently completed its trials and returned from sea. It was, the report concluded, a good two knots faster than any British ship in the fleet. It was a jump in technology, a game-changer.

Louis was in his war room, and he felt a newfound strength within him. Everything was finally going his way. In one hand, he carried the Dauphin's Bond, a fresh shot of millions of livres. In the other hand, he carried the plans of the Dauphin Royal, a weapon that did not exist in the enemy arsenal. He no longer lacked either the finances to wage a war of standstills and skirmishes nor the technology to end all that and break through to a genuinely bold bet.

He summoned his War Cabinet—Vergennes, Necker, Lafayette, and his top admiral. He unfurled a grand map of the Caribbean, with its many islands scattered across the blue paper like gems.

"Gentlemen," he stated with a tone that carried a newfound and definitive confidence. "We've been fighting a war of attrition. That ends today."

He pointed to a large island in the center of the map with a pointed index finger. It was the British West Indies' hub, the residence to a massive portion of their wealth, the pride of their empire: Jamaica.

"Minister de Vergennes always wanted a war for glory. Minister Necker always wanted a war that paid for itself. I think it is time we gave each of them what they want."

He looked at his admiral. "You will concentrate the fleet at Martinique. You will bring the Dauphin Royal and all other ships that are copper-sheathed that we have. Your task is no longer to raid British sea communications. Your task is to seize their single greatest overseas asset. You will make a full-scale attack from the sea and from the land against Jamaica."

A stunned silence fell upon the room. It was a phenomenally bold, high-risk strategy. No raid, but a conquest. An all-for-nothing roll of the dice that would win the war with a single gargantuan campaign, but might lose the war with a single stroke.

Lafayette's eyes lit up with the prospect of so spectacular a battle. Vergennes looked aghast, and subsequently impressed in admiration with the boldness of the maneuver. Necker was merely terrified.

The HUD, naturally, produced the cold, hard probabilities, flashing in Louis's mind like a last warning sign.

NEW CAMPAIGN INITIATED: The Jamaica Gambit.

Projected Cost: 80 million livres.

Chance of Success: 40%.

Potential Gain (if successful): Cripples British economy via loss of sugar trade. Massive boost to French treasury from captured assets. Potential to force Britain to the negotiating table.

Potential Loss (if fails): French Caribbean fleet destroyed. American cause lost. British naval supremacy absolute.

INTERNAL REVOLUTION RISK (if fails): +70%.

Louis looked at the horrid odds, and then back at the map. He thought about his child, sleeping peacefully in his cradle. The time for caution was over. Everything had to be risked to create a world that was safe for his heir.

"Make it so" he commanded.