In mid-May 1790, Paris celebrated Pentecost — the Feast of the Holy Spirit. As in previous years, it was a grand festival designed to display the splendour and dignity of the French capital. Yet to many Parisians, it felt like a dress rehearsal for the coming Festival of the Federation.

  From eight in the morning, the Rue Saint-Denis and the quays leading to Notre-Dame were choked with people. The crowd glittered in silks and colours, forming long, slow-moving lines that flowed from north to south like a living river of blossoms. Tulips, dahlias, wild lilies — every pot and bouquet was placed upon newly gilded carriages, turning the procession into a moving garden of delight.

  At the head of the parade sat its first lady guest, Madame Necker — gentle in temper and serene in beauty. That year, she replaced Queen Marie-Antoinette as the guest of honour. Once she had spent her own fortune to build a hospital for Parisians, entertained learned men with sumptuous dinners, and sustained the spirits of her exhausted husband, the Minister of Finance. Today, she finally received her reward.

  “Look at her — she’s like a queen!” cried Meldar, lifting the carriage curtain.

  Seated in an open carriage, Madame Necker — nearly fifty now — appeared calm and unflustered, serenely accepting the cheers that rose from the streets. She looked, André thought, as though she stood upon a foundation of diamond and rock, unshakable and eternal.

  “Yes,” André murmured with contempt, “a queen of a sinking float.”

  From July last year to now — ten months — Necker and his cabinet of financiers had seen every plan to balance the budget collapse. The national deficit had reached new heights. Two billion? Three? André no longer cared. He held no office that required him to concern himself with the kingdom’s accounts.

  Two days earlier, Camille Desmoulins had again mocked the Swiss minister in his newspaper, calling Necker “a fool dancing upon parchment in flames.” Yet ten months ago, that same Desmoulins had thundered with indignation over Necker’s dismissal by Louis XVI and had helped ignite a revolution at the Palais-Royal.

  History, André thought, was forever contradictory — and perpetually ironic.

  When Madame Necker’s carriage had passed, the prosecutor prepared to dismiss his young attendant. He handed Meldar a small envelope and instructed him to deliver it at once—

  “To the judge’s wife on the next float, isn’t it? The third one already? Another love poem?” the Polish boy grumbled, unwilling to leave his comfortable seat.

  “Out,” André snapped. “Walk home today — there’ll be no carriage coming for you.”

  Meldar only laughed. “The judge’s wife is generous enough. Five livres each time!” he said, patting his purse before hopping out of the carriage to weave through the parade.

  André checked his pocket watch: quarter past ten — close to the hour of his appointment. He rapped the front panel of the carriage impatiently, urging the driver to move. But for twenty minutes the man kept the carriage idling at a crossroads, wholly absorbed by the passing spectacle.

  Even after being pressed, the vehicle crawled forward like a tortoise.

  At last, the prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court stamped his foot and shouted, “If we are not at the Place de la Révolution within thirty minutes, I swear I’ll cancel every contract with your company!”

  The Place de la Révolution was the name Parisians now used for the former Place Louis XV — officially still the latter, until the Commune’s formal adoption of the new title in 1792 (and later renamed the Place de la Concorde). It lay at the heart of Paris, on the right bank of the Seine — the most famous square in France, ordered into being by Louis XV himself as a monument to royal authority. Construction had lasted twenty years, completed in 1775.

  Its Italian designer, Gabriel, had given the square an octagonal plan with sweeping vistas. To the east stood the Tuileries; to the west, the Champs-élysées; to the north, the H?tel de Crillon and the Ministry of the Navy; to the south, the Pont de la Concorde leading to the Palais-Bourbon. From here, one could gaze across the Tuileries Gardens and down over the silver ripples of the Seine.

  André’s carriage drew up beside the pavement. As he stepped down, he saw that the bronze statue of Louis XV still stood at the centre — and, oddly, he felt a faint sense of relief.

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  The Mediterranean Restaurant occupied the southern edge of the square near the river — a typical southern establishment serving dishes from Provence and the Mediterranean coast. Business had once been poor, patronised only by homesick southerners, until last October, when the Comte de Provence, the King’s brother, had begun dining there. Fame followed immediately.

  By eleven o’clock, the dining room was already three-quarters full. In one corner, Lieutenant Lefebvre and Sergeant Augereau sat at a small table. Neither had ordered food; only empty coffee cups remained before them as they exchanged lazy conversation.

  The proprietress watched them with irritation. Were it not for their royal guard uniforms, she might have thrown them out long ago.

  Augereau, blunt and boisterous, suddenly shouted: “Hey, Lefebvre! Look out the window — that fool, I’ve seen him before! Wait—yes! When I was on duty at the Luxembourg Palace, that ridiculous provincial lawyer was about to jump into the fountain until a kind young lady hauled him into her carriage.”

  Lefebvre looked, recognised the man, and muttered, “Indeed I do. That ridiculous lawyer you’re pointing at is the one I’m about to introduce to you — André Franck, the famed prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court. And Augereau, my friend, if you hope to retire with anything above a sergeant’s stripes, keep that mouth of yours shut.”

  Through Hoche, Lefebvre already knew that André was more than a mere prosecutor. He would soon command a mobile mounted police troop. Though nominally police, its horses and equipment would rival those of the German cavalry under the Marquis de Bouillé on the frontier. As for manpower, André had refused to draw from the police ranks, preferring to recruit unemployed herdsmen from the outskirts of Paris.

  A veteran of ten years’ service, Lefebvre understood the challenge. Shepherds might be born riders, but they were not soldiers. They obeyed a commander’s voice perhaps, but not his will; they needed a strong hand to forge them into disciplined cavalry.

  Thus, Lefebvre was convinced: André’s troop required a seasoned instructor. Hoche, though promising, lacked the authority; but Augereau, with sixteen years of soldiering across Europe and ample battle experience, was perfectly suited.

  The question remained: would the young prosecutor tolerate so unruly a man? Only two days earlier, Augereau had publicly insulted his commanding officer for the third time. Lefebvre’s mediation had spared him a court-martial, yet the sergeant had been expelled from the royal barracks.

  When André entered the Mediterranean Restaurant, the happiest person was perhaps not Lefebvre or Augereau but the landlady behind the counter.

  After greeting his old and new acquaintances, André summoned her and ordered lavishly: salted cod, baked eggs, beef stew, bacon, and mushroom cream soup, scallops au gratin, and Proven?al ratatouille, with a bottle of Bordeaux — since that year’s Champagne was poor.

  He ate heartily, head bent over the table, pausing only to compliment the hostess on her chef’s skill. When the plates were cleared and coffee served, he wiped his mouth with a clean napkin and began the real business of the day — an interview.

  “Lieutenant Lefebvre’s description convinces me that your record and ability suit the post of cavalry instructor,” André said to Augereau. “So I have only one question: when you refuse an order from your superior, should I send you to the gallows of a military court — or simply tax your father’s fruit stall for the thirty years of unpaid dues, plus a fine?”

  The air grew taut. Augereau’s face darkened with rage, fists clenched, eyes blazing. Lefebvre hurried to restrain him.

  André, unfazed, kept his composure and even smiled at the furious soldier. “Take care,” he said evenly. “You have one minute to consider.”

  Augereau drew a deep breath. “I swear,” he said through his teeth, “from this day forward I will never disobey your orders. As for others — I can’t promise.”

  With that, he felt strangely relieved. He knew the young prosecutor could indeed make good on such threats. Before true power, submission was no shame. In another history, Augereau would bow his head to a certain Corsican of small stature as well.

  André opened his portfolio, filled in a blank commission, and wrote Charles-Augereau, Sergeant. Handing it to him, he said, “Sergeant Augereau, as training and tactical instructor of the fiscal cavalry company, you will report to the police directorate tomorrow before eight o’clock.”

  The new instructor rose and saluted smartly. “Yes, sir!”

  André nodded. Remembering that the sergeant had once served under General Suvorov, he added, “If you have time, work with Second Lieutenant Hoche to refine the Suzdal Regiment Code — adapt it for our army.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  A few minutes later, Augereau took his leave, eager to pack his bags and bring the good news home to his family.

  “Thank you,” said Lefebvre gratefully. At least now he need not worry for his friend’s livelihood.

  “No need,” André replied evenly. “Augereau will make a fine instructor.”

  Everyone, André thought, has a soft spot. For the rash swordsman it was his family — his parents, his Greek wife Gabrielle Georgis, their children. To care deeply for one’s family was, in André’s eyes, always a virtue.

  Yet the conversation that followed ended their meeting on a sour note. André flatly refused Lefebvre’s invitation to present himself at the Tuileries before King Louis XVI.

  Before paying the bill, André gave the lieutenant his solemn reply — using a phrase that mocked the Bourbon monarchy and severed all ties with the royal court.

  “Louis Capet may be a good man,” he said, “but he is no king — not even a competent one. When danger comes, a king must be the first to mount his horse, the first to raise his sword, not shriek like a woman in panic. If I were you, I’d leave the royal guard at once.”

  Throughout the Revolution, as titular ruler of France, Louis XVI would prove a nullity — weaker even than a tyrant. The latter, at least, has the courage to strike back at his conspirators and, if he must die, to die with grandeur.