Not only that, to keep discipline of thought within the ranks, André strictly forbade any soldier from taking part in factional disputes; offenders were to be flogged and dismissed from service. Unlike the contemporary French Army, where corruption was rife and pay long in arrears, the Champagne Composite Regiment had always issued pay, allowances, and stipends on time and in full. Its relatively fair promotion system allowed many sons of commoners to rise—by ability and merit rather than birth and station—to NCO posts and even platoon- and company-grade commissions. In the cavalry troop, Lieutenant Hoche; in the infantry battalion, Second Lieutenant Augereau, and Sergeant Saint-Cyr were the best examples.

  Therefore, in André’s camp, pay could not be delayed; even if it meant reaching into his own pocket (a figure of speech—if it came to that, the battle was already lost), morale must not be shaken. As for privateering, André did not mind being the “deep-pocketed fool.” To him, he could not afford a navy in the near term, but he could put a few hulls to sea to harass the enemy. In the present diplomatic climate the major European powers—Britain, Spain, Austria, Prussia, and the rest—still maintained at least a veneer of good relations with the Kingdom of France, and disputes remained confined to sharp words in chancelleries. Thus when “Le Renard” preyed on Russian merchantmen in the Caribbean, the North Atlantic, the North Sea, and the Baltic, it did so without pressure.

  To eighteenth-century Europeans, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the eastern border of Europe; Russia stood outside Europe. From Peter the Great onwards, Russia’s rulers strained to learn the industrial arts of the European powers, yet in Western eyes Russia remained a wild realm founded by the descendants of Viking pirates (the Slavs) mingled with local savages. Plundering the not-so-wealthy Russian merchant ships did not harm France’s relations with the other powers; indeed, it even won the quiet sympathy of Sweden, the losing side in the Seventh Russo-Swedish War.

  Under the law of privateering, the French state took 20% of captured prize value; the privateer’s owner received 30% of the remainder; the balance went to the crew. Since André bankrolled the privateer, he was entitled to that 30%; after deducting the half he had promised to Allemand, André actually received 15%. That was not the end of it. Of the government’s 20%, André could later divert half on various pretexts; thus the 25% was the portion he had earmarked for himself.

  Beyond raiding Russian ships, André’s orders to Allemand encouraged him to expand the business of privateering—muddy the commercial lanes of the Baltic, recruit sailors boldly, and train reserve captains. André promised that next year and the year after he would allocate at least five cruisers to Allemand to serve as privateers. This, plainly, posed no difficulty to André. A year hence, as large numbers of naval officers (nobles) fled abroad, over 80% of French naval vessels would lack captains, lying idle in harbor to molder and rot.

  The scene returns to the camp at Macau. Lieutenant Petiet, after a brief pause, continued explaining supply expenses to his commander, hoping to cut needless waste.

  “...This month’s spending on barracks hygiene and personal washing has already exceeded the total cost of flour and vegetables. So I propose reducing soap by 50% and American potash by 30%.”

  American potash, containing about 30% soda, was used to launder sheets and uniforms. Soap, obviously, was for the daily washing of officers and men and was a mandatory measure in camp. Because the raw potash had to be imported in quantity from the United States and Latin America, soap prices in France remained persistently high.

  Fortunately, Bordeaux was a major seaport with no shortage of imported goods; and as the Bordeaux Customs remained in André’s hands, the Champagne Composite Regiment never suffered shortages of American potash or soap, and obtained them at arguably the lowest prices in France. Even so, the quartermaster balked at his colonel’s “off-the-cuff decision,” asking to reduce procurement.

  “No.” André refused, unequivocally.

  Having lived two lives, André knew the importance of enforcing collective and personal hygiene in camp; calling it a key to victory was no exaggeration. Never mind buying soap and potash—André had even contemplated manufacturing synthetic soda ash.

  The most profitable product in the eighteenth century was neither the high-tech steam engine nor banking derivatives, but textile printing and dyeing. As for André’s present road to wealth, it lay in using power to strip church assets; it had nothing to do with making things.

  For the next 100-plus years, in Manchester, in Lyon, even in the Far East, any factory that printed a white cotton or pure silk cloth with bright, multicolored patterns could multiply its price by 10—sometimes dozens of times. Soda ash became the crucial raw material in this process. Hence the price of potash, the chief ingredient in soap-making, shot up a hundredfold.

  Months earlier in Paris, during a casual chat with Say, André heard that a French physician named Nicolas Leblanc had invented an artificial process for making soda ash and had successfully registered a patent at the Paris patent office. This year, Leblanc was seeking a bold investor in Paris. By the time André learned of it, it was too late. In June 1790, the Duc d’Orléans reached a fair agreement with Dr. Leblanc and invested 100,000 livres in his soda-ash works.

  At that time, the Duc d’Orléans was a behemoth André could not afford to provoke. He settled for the second best: he instructed Javert to plant men in Leblanc’s works and steal the detailed steps of the artificial soda process when an opportunity arose. As for patents—within two or three years they would be worthless. The Republic’s new laws would declare void any patent rights that hindered the founding of factories.

  Back in the Bordeaux camp, the money that had to be spent would still be spent—gritted teeth and all. Weighing costs and gains, André waved the standing quartermaster to a seat opposite, took up his goose-quill, and began noting the next measures on a blank memorandum.

  “First, when you return, have the regimental accountant revise the budgets for the Champagne Composite Regiment and the privateer ‘Le Renard’ that you previously submitted to me. Raise everything to the current French maximum standard and then add a further 50%, and submit them to Comte de Tour du Pin, Minister of War, and to President Prieur of the National Constituent Assembly.

  “Second, in my name write to Chairman Perrier of the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce and have him table a funding motion at tomorrow’s executive session to advance 500,000 livres of the 1791 wine excise to cover the regiment’s expenses. Apart from filling the fiscal hole caused by the privateer, the remaining 150,000 livres are to be used for the Champagne Regiment’s pay in the last two months of this year. As for next year—when we return to Paris or reach the Marne, we’ll address it then.”

  Eager as André was to stamp the Champagne Composite Regiment with his private mark, there was no question that the costs of feeding this gold-eating beast were to be borne by the state. As for the 500,000 livres—roughly half a year’s wine excise that Bordeaux owed the treasury.

  Lieutenant Petiet quickly drafted his commander’s decisions and handed them to André. Once signed and sealed, they went out as final orders.

  No sooner had the quartermaster left than Lussac, who doubled as private secretary and orderly, pushed open the door. “Monsieur André, two officers from out of town are waiting in the reception room for an audience. One is David Hendrik Chassé, a Lieutenant; the other is Alexandre Macdonald, a Second Lieutenant. They say they came on the recommendation of Judge Vinault to seek you out at the Bordeaux camp.”

  At that, André knew who they were. Without looking up, he continued reviewing the papers and told Lussac, “Inform Captain Moncey to interview the two officers.”

  A few days earlier, a letter that Judge Vinault—penned by his wife at his bedside—had sent to André did indeed recommend two officers: Lieutenant Chassé and Second Lieutenant Macdonald of the northern Dillon Infantry Regiment. The letter included their résumés, which broadly fit André’s requirements.

  David Hendrik Chassé, born 1765 in Gelderland, the Netherlands, was the son of a major in the Münster Regiment. His ancestors were French, who had removed to the Netherlands during the Wars of Religion. In 1775, Chassé entered the Dutch Royal United Army as a cadet; in 1781, he was commissioned Lieutenant; in 1787, he was promoted Captain. In that year, the Patriots (the popular party) rose against the Prince of Orange. Fired by patriotic ardor, the Dutch Captain Chassé took the Patriots’ side without hesitation.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  With Prussia’s armed intervention, the Patriots were quickly defeated, and many fled abroad. Captain Chassé was expelled from the Dutch army; he changed nationality and entered the Dillon Regiment stationed in French Flanders (now southern Belgium). Because the Dutch army had revoked his captaincy, in French service only his previous rank of Lieutenant was recognized.

  As for Alexandre Macdonald, he too was born in 1765, at Sedan, Judge Vinault’s native region. His father, a Scotsman, had supported the “Bonnie Prince Charlie” in a bid for the British throne and, after the failure of that rising, came to France; thus, Macdonald had Scottish blood. His parents wished him to become a priest; he had other ideas and chose the army. After a short stint in an Irish regiment, he moved to the Netherlands. In 1786, he joined the Dillon Regiment, rose to Second Lieutenant the next year, and was posted in French Flanders.

  Their decision to head south to André owed something to Judge Vinault’s guidance, but more to the common condition along France’s frontiers: long-arrears in pay and corruption at the top, lax equipment, crumbling morale, and, with the constant seep of “free thought,” a drastic weakening of fighting spirit.

  During the Nancy mutiny, three frontier field regiments—backed by Jacobin agitators and 5,000 civic guards—could not withstand even a single not-particularly-fierce attack by the troops of the Marquis de Bouillé, arriving by forced march; they were routed. At the same time, André realized that the Marquis de Bouillé’s troops represented the highest fighting power of the old French Army then extant. The reason was simple: pay issued on time and in full, and absolute refusal to let any ideological current undermine discipline.

  In truth, the bad habit of arbitrarily docking pay had shown itself in the Seven Years’ War under Louis XV. At the Battle of Minden, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick led a motley army of Germans, Hanoverians, and Scots—some 40,000 strong—to a decisive victory over the 60,000 first-rate troops commanded by Marshal de Broglie and the Marquis de Contades, with only light losses to himself.

  Yet three months earlier, on the western front, the Prussian main force had suffered repeated defeats at French hands, and Hanover and other states had fallen. The trouble was that after victory the French soldiers received none of the rewards promised by the King, and morale collapsed. Worse, in a fit of folly to cut costs, Louis XV ordered the Quartermaster-General to pay the troops with wig-oil in lieu of money. This absurd episode, at once laughable and infuriating, was memorialized by the sardonic Prussians in the soldiers’ song “Hail to King Friedrich.”

  At first, André was somewhat wary of the Dutch Lieutenant, doubting his loyalty; without Judge Vinault’s strong recommendation, Chassé might never have entered André’s camp. Second Lieutenant Macdonald, by contrast, interested André greatly; a loyal, big-hearted future Marshal of the Empire accorded with André’s moral compass. Even so, he resolved to have their prospective direct superior, Captain Moncey, conduct the interview.

  Twenty minutes later, Captain Moncey came straight to André’s office with the results. The commander said excitedly: “Whether Lieutenant Chassé or Second Lieutenant Macdonald, both are experienced veteran... In my view they can each command a company—2nd and 3rd Company.” Under the ordinary French establishment an infantry battalion should have five companies (in 1790 volunteer battalions sometimes had eight or even ten). Each company numbered anywhere from eighty to one hundred men, depending on combat strength. For now, for his own reasons, André planned to keep only three heavily over-strength companies in the battalion.

  Moncey’s praise was not entirely disinterested: two company commands under him had been vacant nearly a week, delaying the battalion’s readiness and leaving the Major anxious. With capable officers in hand and respectable résumés to match, he was naturally delighted.

  André, still buried in paperwork, remained calm. Inwardly he thought that a Napoleonic Marshal would hardly be of poor quality; and Chassé, arriving alongside him, would likely be no worse. Even with Captain Moncey’s endorsement, André would not issue commissions on the spot. He merely instructed the infantry Major before him:

  “The usual procedure—get them into training kit and send them down to Second Lieutenant Augereau’s recruit depot for a spell.”

  He paused, remembering something, found a paper in the stack he had just signed, and passed it to Captain Moncey: “Also, I have two unfortunates conscripted by force and just delivered to the depot by the gendarmerie. Find time to see whether they can be groomed as candidate NCOs or junior subalterns.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Anything else?” André noticed Captain Moncey lingering for two minutes, hesitating as if something were left unsaid.

  “Yes. My wife hoped to invite the Colonel and our comrades in arms to a luncheon this Sunday afternoon at the Charlotte estate,” the Captain said, haltingly.

  Moncey’s wife, Charlotte Prospère Remillet, was from Bordeaux. They had married in April this year, not yet six months ago. Since the Champagne Composite Regiment was to march to the Marne for garrison duty after October, the pregnant Charlotte would have to wait until after she gave birth next year to be reunited with her husband.

  On hearing this, André gladly accepted his subordinate’s invitation, but added that he could not stay long at table—Lussac had already packed the Colonel’s schedule tight in the run-up to the regiment’s northward departure.

  “However,” André continued, “as a belated wedding present, I’ll have Butler Renault send ten cases of Lafite to the Charlotte estate.”

  When Moncey had his answer and withdrew, André returned to the pending files.

  Two hours later, a sheaf of papers from his desk had been dispatched by the orderly. Feeling some fatigue, André rubbed his brow, scrubbed his face with his hands, and rang the small bell on the table. Waiting outside, Lussac put down his book and stepped in.

  “Any other appointments this morning?” André asked.

  “Only the medical officer, Percy. His slot is 11:30 this morning, about ten minutes from now,” Lussac replied. He had already set the Lieutenant-Colonel’s schedule.

  “Tell the medical officer to meet me in the officers’ mess at one o’clock,” André said, signaling the lad to help him into the Lieutenant-Colonel’s uniform and pull on his boots.

  At 36, Percy was the son of a military surgeon. He had studied in Paris and later joined the Berry Cavalry Regiment as an assistant surgeon. After several years he left the service, returned to Paris to marry and have children, and worked in his father’s private clinic. Since old Percy was Judge Vinault’s personal doctor and friend, and since the judge learned that, even out of uniform, Percy yearned for army life, he strongly recommended his friend’s son to come to Bordeaux to serve as a medical officer in the Champagne Composite Regiment.

  This recommendation pleased André from the heart; no commander spurns an extra surgeon in camp. After a brief, cordial interview, the regiment’s commander confirmed this excellent medical officer and decided on the spot to confer upon Percy the rank of Lieutenant.

  In the days that followed, Percy followed the young colonel’s instructions and drafted the “Sanitary Regulations for the Champagne Composite Regiment.” Writing this forward-looking code left him with many puzzles, and he often came to consult André—usually around lunch. Today, it was said, Percy would introduce a friend from the Paris medical faculty as a surgeon.

  …

  Just before they entered the Macau camp, the twenty-year-old Suchet and the thirty-two-year-old Masséna exchanged a helpless look. Ten days earlier, neither had imagined they would wind up “eating army rations” in the Champagne Composite Regiment.

  Suddenly, the tall, powerfully built Suchet ignored the white-crested gendarmes beside him, sprang at Masséna, seized him by the throat, and roared, “Damn you, you Italian swine—you’ve ruined me!” If the two gendarmes had not dragged him off, Masséna would have been strangled to death before the camp gate.

  Suchet had lived in Lyon; his father was a wealthy silk manufacturer. A comfortable household gave him a fine education, and he showed strong talent for organization and inquiry at a young age. At seventeen, he began learning the family business at his father’s side. Absent a mishap, he would one day inherit the works. All that changed with Masséna’s arrival.

  But for that smuggler Masséna’s coaxing, Suchet would still be enjoying his life as a gilded youth in Lyon, instead of borrowing a large sum from his father “for trade,” heading south with Masséna to hire a Marseilles coaster, and running Turkish coffee (mostly from Egypt or Ethiopia) to Bordeaux—only to be seized by the Bordeaux customs anti-smuggling squad and then tricked into the camp.

  Unlike the tall, polished Suchet, the Nice-born André Masséna—bearded, unkempt, coarse-featured—was the very picture of a rough Italian. From poverty, he went to sea at thirteen as a ship’s steward. Four years later, he enlisted in the Royal Italian Regiment and served fourteen long years. In 1789, after marrying a surgeon’s daughter, he left the colors as a Sergeant. He had a family to feed and turned to smuggling. A man of wide experience, he disdained petty jobs; in Lyon, he met Suchet, a rich youth eager to prove himself, and took him on as a partner.

  Their luck was poor. The Marseilles skipper they hired denounced them to Customs the moment he reached Bordeaux. As a matter of course, a self-reporting master avoided punishment and drew a reward. At first, the Bordeaux Customs simply intended to levy the unpaid duty and impose a heavy fine. Once the case abstract reached the office of the prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court, everything changed.

  Seeing two future luminaries of the Empire plunge straight into his palm, André had no intention of letting them go. In short order, under arrangements by the gendarmerie, Masséna and Suchet, after three days in custody, found themselves signing—half in a daze—applications to “volunteer” for the Champagne Composite Regiment. In exchange, the Customs would collect only the normal duty on the smuggled coffee and waive further penalties.

  To Masséna, an ex-soldier, this was no great burden, and the regiment’s terms were good. Learning that he had left service as a Sergeant, he was promised an immediate sergeant’s stripe upon arrival in camp. The rich youth Suchet, on discovering that the regiment’s commander was none other than the dreaded André Franck, the “devil prosecutor,” swallowed his resentment and accepted reality. In his mind, all the blame fell upon the instigator Masséna.