In André’s former life, two of the world’s three largest water companies—Suez and Veolia—were French. It was proof enough of how seriously France had long treated the management of urban water.

  Founded in 1777, the Paris Waterworks Company had, for thirteen years, supplied this great city with its clean and vital water.

  By the late eighteenth century, the physicians who had begun to shake off the darkness of medieval ignorance regarded three things as panaceas for nearly all diseases: bloodletting, tincture of opium, and clean drinking water.

  The first was nonsense, the second debatable, but the third—drinking clean water—was nothing short of revolutionary.

  The company’s pipelines served mainly the western districts of Paris, home to the city’s new bourgeois elite: the Champs-élysées, the Rue de Rivoli, and the Place Vend?me. Soon, doctors were startled to find that residents in these areas suffered far less frequently from cholera than those in the rest of Paris.

  Yet when the Paris Waterworks Company tried to expand its supply network to the remaining forty-five districts, it met fierce and unexpected resistance. The owners of more than one hundred natural springs—the so-called well merchants—joined forces with the legions of water carriers who feared ruin. They swore to oppose every new canal the company planned to build. Politicians, whether out of interest or ideology, soon joined the chorus, exerting heavy pressure upon the Périer brothers.

  In truth, the financial storm against the Périers came two days earlier than Ouvrard’s prediction.

  On May 28, the entire Paris securities market went into panic selling of the company’s bonds. A two-year note with a face value of 10 livres dropped to less than 2 by the afternoon’s close.

  Unless the City Hall publicly denied, before the following Monday, the rumour that it intended to revoke the company’s charter and cancel its annual subsidies for canal construction, the bonds of this enterprise—which had brought health to Paris—would soon be worth no more than scraps of paper.

  In later generations, the Boulogne Forest on the right bank of the Seine and the Vincennes Forest to the southeast came to be called the “lungs” of Paris, its twin sources of oxygen. Since the reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV, Boulogne Forest had been alive with fine horses, well-dressed gentlemen, and flamboyant ladies—hoofbeats ringing through the trees, perfume hanging in the air—a natural salon of the aristocracy, where more than one amorous adventure had been born.

  On May 29, the weather was perfect for an outing: clear skies, mild air.

  André, accompanied by Hoche, set out by carriage for Boulogne Forest. Before leaving, he invited Fourier to join them; the young mathematician, preferring solitude, had been planning to stay home reading. Only when André promised to show him “the grandeur of steam power” did he reluctantly agree.

  Inside the jolting carriage, Fourier remained absorbed in his book—strictly speaking, a scientific journal.

  As one of the privileges of being André’s private tutor, he held a letter of recommendation that allowed him, for a 5-livre annual fee, to borrow freely from the Library of the Académie des Sciences. It was a joy he had never known in his provincial youth. The housekeeper, Anna, often complained that the soups she made for him went untouched; the young scholar preferred to spend his days in the library with a crust of bread.

  In 1790, there was still no bridge connecting the left bank of the Seine directly to Boulogne Forest. One had to make a detour across the Pont Neuf on the ?le de la Cité, then crawl westward through the congested riverfront boulevards, passing six districts—a journey of at least an hour and a half.

  After the carriage rolled past the manicured gardens of the Tuileries, André grew bored and, glancing at Fourier’s journal, noticed the bold headline: An Introduction to Descriptive Geometry by Monge. Whatever boast he had planned about his “knowledge of future science” died in his throat. He lowered his head in surrender and turned instead to Hoche.

  “How is the cavalry squadron coming along?” asked André. Since the day of the recruits’ selection at the garrison near the Jardin des Plantes, the prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court had not once visited the training ground. Hoche, apart from his monthly coursework at the Military School, had overseen almost everything himself.

  “All goes well,” Hoche replied, closing a small notebook—Augereau’s manual for the squadron, adapted from the Suzdal Regiment Code. “Men, horses, provisions, equipment—everything in order.”

  When speaking of Augereau’s performance as instructor, Hoche used a single word: excellent.

  Wherever he went, Augereau was immaculately dressed. His curled hair powdered white, a long braid down his back, gleaming high boots—an odd spectacle among his rough recruits. Yet none mocked him. On the contrary, the former herdsmen who filled the ranks admired his coarse voice, his strength, and his skill with the sword.

  To them, he was a “Prussian giant” drilling them with merciless precision, forging discipline as if they were guardsmen of Frederick the Great. Even Chief Commissioner LeGoff, visiting the camp, had publicly praised Augereau’s work and hinted at a promotion.

  “The only flaw,” Hoche added after a pause, “is that he tends to boast before the recruits once drills are over.” He gave André a careful look—less to denounce Augereau than to protect him.

  As André’s most trusted aide, Hoche understood his superior’s temperament well: the prosecutor trusted few men easily. Javert and Augereau had both been won over through a mix of threat and persuasion. But Hoche, through discretion and warmth, had earned genuine confidence. To him, André was not merely a superior—he was an elder brother and a shield. Fourier, bent over his geometry, seemed to occupy the same gentle orbit.

  When the dense woods came into view, they had reached Boulogne Forest. The carriage did not drive into that famous haunt of clandestine lovers but turned along a gravel path skirting the Seine.

  Twenty minutes later, it halted before the gates of the Paris Waterworks Company.

  Before they even stepped down, the men were struck by a deafening roar.

  Towering above the riverbank stood a colossal structure more than ten yards high—a three-storey mass of iron and brick. It was a Watt-type steam engine, though, of course, a pirated version by the Périer brothers. From 1777 onward, James Watt and his partner’s lawyers had repeatedly protested to the French patent office against this theft, until a compromise was reached in 1783: the brothers paid a fee for limited production rights.

  Driven by steam from its boilers, the enormous waterwheel—fitted with three blades and twenty-four semicircular buckets—turned with a slow, rhythmic crash. Each cycle lifted hundreds of gallons of river water into an artificial canal that fed one of three man-made reservoirs in Boulogne Forest. Once a lake was filled, the flow was diverted to the next, and so on.

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  After twenty-four to forty-eight hours, the water, left to settle naturally and treated with alum powder, was pumped by a smaller engine into a thirty-yard-high water tower, then carried through Roman-style aqueducts to thousands of homes in western Paris.

  From the replication of Watt’s engine to the digging of reservoirs, the construction of waterwheels, aqueducts, and workshops—all demanded vast expense. Wages for engineers and labourers, patent fees, and daily maintenance: none came cheap. Without the City Hall’s annual subsidies, the company could never have survived on its modest water tariffs.

  The thunder of machinery soon dulled André’s curiosity. He turned toward the warehouse and office buildings while Hoche went ahead to negotiate their visit. Fourier, meanwhile, was radiant with excitement. Ignoring the workers’ warnings, he ran directly beneath the engine’s foundation, craning his neck like a pilgrim before an altar. Only when the smoke and heat from the boiler’s vent hit his face did he retreat, coughing.

  “Cough—cough—cough!”

  Blackened and breathless, Fourier exclaimed to André:

  “This is a separate condenser engine, at least ten years old. Though it uses the ‘sun-and-planet’ crank system, it lacks the parallel linkage that balances the dual cylinders, which limits its efficiency. If they applied the new British indicator to measure cylinder pressure, the heat efficiency could rise by 150 to 200 percent!”

  Separate condenser, planetary gears, parallel linkages, dual cylinders—André stared blankly at the barrage of words. He was about to attempt a learned reply when applause sounded behind them.

  “Well said!” came a scholar’s voice. “So the young man studies steam engines, too?”

  Fourier blushed. “Only by chance, monsieur—I’ve read a few English journals.”

  Behind the scholar stood a short, balding man of business—Charles Périer, elder of the two brothers and chief engineer of the company. His brother, Louis Périer, managed the commercial affairs.

  Charles, indifferent to business formalities, immediately took Fourier by the arm. “Come,” he said, “you must see our workshop,” and marched off without even greeting André.

  Louis, left behind, offered an embarrassed apology. André only smiled and waved it away, following him instead to the reception room.

  The company’s offices occupied part of a vast warehouse—roughly the size of a modern basketball court. Rusted parts lay strewn across the floor; only a handful of labourers remained. Repeated setbacks, failing bonds, and dried-up capital had sent half the workforce home.

  The reception room was humble: portraits of the Périer brothers, a landscape of the company’s founding days, worn Italian leather sofas, and a table cluttered with yellowed documents. André leafed through a few—sober, not boastful.

  When Louis offered him a glass of red wine, André took a sip and judged it ordinary. The brothers’ hardships were plain enough: their canals blocked, their bonds collapsing.

  “Monsieur Franck, we’re grateful for your visit,” Louis said bluntly. “How much are you prepared to invest?”

  André did not answer directly. “As I understand, your company’s troubles are not merely financial. If nothing is done, by Monday your two-year bonds will be worthless. And when the Securities Oversight Committee meets that evening, they’ll strike you from the exchange entirely.”

  Louis scowled but stayed silent; he wanted to hear everything.

  Though André was not yet a celebrity like Mirabeau, Lafayette, or Bailly, the title prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court carried weight. The Périers would know that an investor bearing such a rank was not to be dismissed.

  “So, before we discuss money,” André continued, “we must solve two problems. First, I’ll see that your contract with the City Hall is renewed. Second, we must silence the opposition from the well merchants so the clean-water project can proceed into the city centre. Third—”

  “Forgive me, Monsieur Franck,” Louis interrupted sharply, “but I will not surrender control of the company.”

  André smiled, unoffended. “You misunderstand me.”

  In truth, the Paris Waterworks Company held little allure for him. Its decrepit Watt engines, its seventeenth-century British turbines, its crude water systems scarcely better than those of ancient Rome—these were relics. In 1788, the firm of Boulton and Watt in Britain had produced over 200 steam engines in a single year; in thirteen years, the Périer brothers had built only sixty-three, most of them unreliable.

  By 1790, British engineers were already experimenting with fifth-generation engines for steamships—though naval lobbies had delayed their adoption. France’s best efforts, represented by the Périers, remained primitive imitations.

  With Anglo-French relations now improved, André could simply purchase a genuine Watt engine from England—no embargoes, no quotas.

  “I’m interested not in your company, but in your engineers,” he said. “By next year, my agents will buy the latest Watt engines in Britain and attempt to mount them on merchant vessels. To succeed, I’ll need seasoned French craftsmen to work alongside the British specialists.”

  At this, Louis exhaled with relief. Steamships had been dreamed of for twenty years, but none had yet sailed the great rivers. He, too, had wished to abandon the unprofitable factory and turn it into a repair shop. Only his brother’s pride had stopped him.

  Their discussion soon led to a verbal agreement: if André helped rescue the company and expand its operations into central Paris, the brothers would separate their engine factory from the Waterworks by year’s end, forming a new company. The Périers would retain thirty percent of the shares; André would hold the remaining seventy percent.

  Charles would serve as chief engineer and director, bringing his staff of one hundred skilled workmen. André, meanwhile, would appoint a general manager of his own choosing.

  Charles approved, on one condition: he wished to travel to Britain himself to study the new high-pressure engines.

  “Watt’s machines are reliable,” he said, echoing his new friend Fourier, “but their pressure is too low for propulsion. For ships, we must adopt—and improve—the new high-pressure design.” He also proposed taking Fourier with him to England, which André readily agreed to.

  When Hoche quietly led Fourier and Charles out of the room, André leaned closer to Louis Périer.

  He assured him that City Hall would remain silent for two weeks—neither renewing subsidies nor cancelling contracts. Then, lowering his voice, he explained his true intention: to turn the bond crisis itself into profit.

  “My broker will begin buying your two-year bonds tomorrow morning,” he said. “At the same time, I’ll persuade the Securities Committee to delay its vote for a week. When the panic passes, both the bonds and the committee will become irrelevant.”

  He handed Louis a folder. “This,” he said, “is the key to saving your company.”

  A week earlier, André had asked Fourier to compile data at the Academy’s library—a table recording the five major cholera outbreaks in Paris between 1780 and 1789. Using this, André had drawn a city map marking each death with a cross. The pattern was unmistakable: the highest mortality clustered around the old wells.

  Combined with the near absence of cholera in the western districts supplied by the company, it proved that the city’s well water was the source of contagion.

  “All you must do,” André said, “is publish this report in every newspaper, side by side with the data from the western districts. After that, no one will dare to oppose your canals.”

  The statistical method was real enough—but André had borrowed it from the future. Nearly sixty years later, in 1854, the English physician John Snow would map cholera deaths in London and trace the epidemic to a single contaminated pump on Broad Street, creating the first modern epidemiological study.

  André was, in effect, using Snow’s yet-to-exist discovery to fight the well merchants with irrefutable evidence, persuading the Parisians that only clean water could protect them from disease.

  He kept other ideas to himself: washing linen, boiling water, and hygiene. Those would wait for another day—after he obtained a microscope from England, one made by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek.