As André’s voice fell, the hall of the Cordeliers Club descended into a sudden, suffocating silence.

  Then—clap, clap, clap!—a crisp volley of applause broke out from Desmoulins’s corner, quickly joined by cheers and handclaps that spread through the room like fire catching tinder. The circle of journalists, writers, and lawyers—the intellectuals of the club—stepped forward to stand by André’s side.

  “ ‘I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it!’ ” cried Buffard.

  “I’ll print that in the Paris Revolutionary Gazette!”

  “ ‘Only fools mistake shameless violence for strength!’ ” added Fréron.

  “ ‘In the clamour of violence, the voice of law becomes too faint to hear.’ That one too—excellent!” declared Séchelles.

  Enraged, Hébert and his companions started toward André, but Legendre, Desmoulins, and their friends moved first, stepping in to block their path. From the corner, Hoche also advanced—fists clenched, face grim, standing protectively before André like a loyal bodyguard. Laclos followed at once; Brune hesitated for a moment, but seeing where the crowd’s loyalty now lay, wisely chose to join the winning side.

  Three against nine—and among the nine stood three trained soldiers. It was a battle Hébert could not win. Weighing the odds, he and his two followers backed toward the door, muttering curses. At the threshold, Hébert turned, his face twisted with spite.

  “You’ll see. I’ll be back.”

  His threat was drowned in a storm of jeers and laughter.

  The victors burst into renewed celebration, crowding around André, patting his shoulders and back, congratulating him as though he were a Roman orator triumphant in the Forum.

  From the sidelines, however, Laclos watched quietly, replaying every word and gesture of André’s intervention in his mind.

  “Excellent,” thought the Duc d'Orléans’s agent.

  He knew, as did everyone in the room, why André had come—and under whose authority. But apart from Legendre and the young soldier Hoche, none of them truly supported him. They had merely ignored him—until now.

  By striking first against the universally despised Hébert faction, André had made himself the civilized man’s champion, drawing the lawyers and writers to his side. When he provoked the brutes to aggression, he forced the soldiers to step forward in his defence. It was a masterstroke of instinctive politics—and Laclos knew talent when he saw it. He decided the Duke would want this man in his orbit.

  But first, he needed to learn how ambitious André truly was.

  “Speak, André,” said Desmoulins, stepping forward. “Tell us your plan. We’ll cooperate in every way. Danton himself ordered it.”

  He deliberately omitted Marat’s name. Around them, Fabre, Fréron, Séchelles, Legendre, Hoche, Brune, and Laclos all nodded. They were—or would soon become—Danton’s moderates, the future “Indulgents.”

  Time pressed; André did not waste it on false modesty. He mounted the platform and laid out his plan in full.

  “First,” he began, “I need every Paris newspaper to focus tomorrow on the trial of April 17th—Fabre’s paper, Brissot’s, Fréron’s, Tallien’s, and Camille’s among them. Add to these the journals of Father Fauchet and of Louvet. Make sure their reporters attend the hearing.”

  “Hold on,” said Desmoulins. “Fauchet and Louvet are not our allies—one praises constitutional monarchy, the other wants the old regime back. The Cordeliers stand for a republic.”

  André nodded. “Exactly. I want everyone to hear of the trial—even those who despise Babeuf. Let them slander if they must; attention is what matters most.”

  When Desmoulins had no further objections, André turned to Fréron and Legendre.

  “Second,” he continued, “prepare thirty purses, each filled with 50 livres. Any journalist who attends the hearing and writes in defence of justice—Fréron, you’ll see he gets a purse. The same bonus for each bailiff and clerk who cooperates.”

  The room chuckled. None objected. In Paris, paid journalism was hardly scandalous. They were merely surprised by how thorough André’s arrangements were.

  He drew a folded document from his case.

  “Third,” he said, “I need a letter—written under the seal of a lycée, preferably the Collège Louis-le-Grand—addressed to Mayor Bailly, asking him to clarify an astronomical matter. The draft is here.”

  Laclos raised his hand. “Leave it to me. I can see it reaches his desk within three days—signature and all.”

  As a professional forger and spy, he was the right man for the job.

  André produced a second document.

  “Fourth,” he said, “print 1,000 copies of this peace petition. Starting tomorrow, our members will distribute them in all forty-eight districts—in squares, at markets, parks, cafés, and club doors, on the drill fields of the National Guard. We’ll tell the people: on the 17th, they’ll witness a public hearing—live, for all of Paris.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Brune took the order. Desmoulins would handle the printing; Hoche would recruit quick runners with loud voices to relay updates during the trial.

  Then André went on:

  “Fifth,” he said calmly, “through Marat’s connections I’ve secured Billaud-Varenne, member of the General Council of the Commune. He will denounce the tax-farmers before the Constituent Assembly and invite sympathetic deputies—Robespierre, Prieur, and others—to attend the trial. But we need new evidence against those tax-farmers. Fabre—you’ve written novels and plays. This should be easy for you.”

  It was a polite way to say “forge something convincing.” Fabre hesitated. “Someone must believe it.”

  “Ask Jacques-Louis David to sign it,” suggested Séchelles.

  “Oh, that ugly painter with the tumour on his lip?” Fabre frowned, then recalled the man.

  Séchelles laughed. “Yes, the same. He taught painting to Madame Lavoisier for three years. At a recent salon he even wrote her a love poem—and was humiliated before everyone. He’s still seething with resentment. Mention her name, and he’ll gladly ruin Lavoisier and his father-in-law.”

  Fréron shook his head. “A painter’s testimony won’t carry weight.”

  Laclos slipped André a note. It read: “Fourcroy, Member of the Academy.”

  Lavoisier’s colleague—jealous, petty, vindictive. He praised Lavoisier in public but loathed his genius in private. André sighed, passed the note to Buffard, and said nothing.

  “By the way,” said Séchelles, “perhaps Fabre might also include something against the Dupont family. Someone would be most grateful.”

  André nodded without hesitation. Party loyalty demanded it—and the Duponts would soon be in America anyway.

  “Next,” André said, “Legendre, gather a group of men once imprisoned by the Chatelet—peasants jailed for resisting taxes, preferably. Before the trial, have them demonstrate outside the court with banners. If the bailiffs order them away, they must not fight—only protest. If any thugs attack them, they’ll swear those thugs were hirelings of the tax-farmers. Fred, find a few rough-looking fellows and make sure they learn their new names.”

  “Understood,” said Legendre. “But what about the swallowtails?”—the city police.

  “I’ve already spoken to them,” André replied. “As long as we keep the peace, they’ll look the other way. If anyone harasses our petitioners, the police will help—discreetly.”

  André had already arranged it with the Chief of Police, Pierre, who promised protection.

  “Lastly,” André said, “I wish to invite Ma?tre Séchelles to join me at the defence table on the 17th.”

  “An honour!” Séchelles answered without hesitation—quite forgetting that only weeks earlier he had refused the same offer from Marat. André’s flawless strategy had impressed him completely. The trial’s verdict no longer mattered; what mattered was fame—to have one’s name echo across Paris beside André’s.

  “Hébert’s men may cause trouble,” warned Desmoulins.

  “They won’t,” André said confidently. “No one can obstruct justice—absolutely no one.”

  “Still,” murmured Fréron, “they are Marat’s loyal fanatics. The Friend of the People may be displeased when he returns.”

  André shrugged. “Then let him be. We are all equals, comrades in revolution—not slaves to any self-made prophet.”

  In truth, André was already planning to replace Marat at the club. If Danton would only lend his support, the coup would be complete.

  Legendre, ever practical, raised the final problem. “André, to carry out your plan, we’ll need funds—serious funds. At least 8,000 livres.”

  “Tonight you’ll have 10,000,” André said casually, noticing Laclos signal with a jingle of his purse.

  The meeting broke up soon after. Each man left to begin his part in the scheme.

  André caught up with the gloomy Hoche, patted him on the back, and smiled.

  “You’ve now seen politics at its dirtiest. We call ourselves disciples of Rousseau—we quote The Social Contract and The Origins of Inequality like scripture—but in truth, politics serves only interest, never justice. Don’t waste your mind on politics. Read military works instead—Vauban’s Treatise on Fortifications, Essay on Siegecraft, and the memoirs of the Duc de Luxembourg. Be a soldier—pure and simple. That’s your calling.”

  “Will there really be a battlefield, sir? Will there be foreign armies?”

  “Not now,” André replied. “But there will be.”

  “Who? The Prussians, the Dutch, the Austrians, the Spaniards, the Russians—the English?”

  André laughed softly. “Ah, only God knows.”

  When Hébert stalked out of the club, his face dark with rage, he was already plotting. He would contact Chaumette of the Lombards District, send Simon and Ronson to Saint-Antoine to find the butcher Maillard, and reach out to Jacques Roux—the mad priest of Gravilliers—to rally them all against André’s “peaceful movement.”

  But before any of them reached home, they were surrounded by waiting policemen. Batons, pistols, and sabres flashed; the three men were dragged into a prison wagon bound for the outskirts of Paris.

  When the carriage rolled away, a stern voice called from behind a tree:

  “You can come out now.”

  A timid boy stepped from the shadows—Meldar—and approached the officer in black uniform.

  “Good evening, Inspector Javert,” he whispered.

  The inspector held out his hand. “You have it?”

  Meldar nodded, placing a small folded note into his palm. Javert grunted, and the boy fled like a deer granted mercy from the lion’s jaws.

  Javert unfolded the note. It read:

  ‘Your intuition was correct. The murderer is connected to the maid Marissa of the Comte’s estate. Come to 156 Rue Saint-Jacques after the trial on the 17th. I will show you proof.’

  “Always his games,” Javert muttered, crumpling the paper—then swallowed it whole.

  The inspector who prided himself on incorruptible law could not afford any trace of private dealings. Months ago, when he was still Sergeant Javert, André had helped him solve several celebrated cases. In March, the thirty-one-year-old officer was promoted to inspector—reward for those successes.

  There is no such thing as a free lunch. André’s aid had never been charity; it was investment. Now that he handled the Babeuf affair, Javert was the one expected to repay the debt—first by scaring Marat out of France, then by arresting Hébert and his cohorts on charges of inciting violence, and finally by ensuring police protection for the “peaceful movement.”

  The last was a legitimate duty; the first two were an abuse of power. Yet Javert had tolerated them—the accused were, after all, known agitators. And he himself needed André’s help for another unsolved case.

  André, for his part, would have preferred to ship all these troublemakers to Saint-Domingue or Hispaniola. But for now, he borrowed Danton’s prestige and Marat’s name to issue commands at the club, while hiding behind the authority of the Palais de Justice. In truth, he had little power of his own.

  Even the purest man can resist money and temptation—but not power. André savoured the taste of command that night at the Cordeliers rostrum. He could already picture himself one day entering the National Assembly—one among the 745 sovereigns of the new republic.

  As for the coming storm two years hence—he chose not to remember.

  Power is a delicious poison. Once tasted, no one ever refuses it again.