André unfolded the dispatch.

  It was signed not by the Governor of Haute-Vienne, but by the Provincial Commune Committee—unsurprising, for the leading officials of the southern provinces were still away on their journeys home.

  The document requested that any Commandant receiving this order should assist Captain Jourdain in suppressing a band of marauders who had been terrorising the countryside.

  “Jourdain?” André murmured. “That name sounds familiar.”

  He needed no reflection to recall who it was.

  Born in Limoges, Jourdain had once been an apprentice to a silk merchant from Lyon. He enlisted in 1776, fought as a volunteer in the American War of Independence, returned to France in 1783, and turned briefly to commerce. In 1784 he married. When the Revolution began, he joined the National Guard, and from then his career had advanced swiftly—from local Captain to Lieutenant Colonel within a year.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Franck,” Jourdain began, “I’ve just received intelligence: a gang of roughly ten men—mostly discharged or expelled sailors—led by a former noble named Allemand. He once served at the Brest naval base.

  They’re said to be planning another raid along the border between Haute-Vienne and Dordogne—two hours from now. The target is Marquis de Fontenay… pardon, Citizen Fontenay.”

  At that last correction, the Captain gave an awkward smile, aware that the young Lieutenant Colonel from revolutionary Paris might frown at such aristocratic slips of the tongue.

  Jourdain had first planned to muster the town’s National Guard, but the miserable performance of the local militia had convinced him otherwise.

  Then came reports that a troop of armed horsemen from another province had taken over the roadside inn. Curious and desperate, he dragged the town’s magistrate, Lussac, along to investigate. Only upon arrival did he realise these rough-looking riders were no common soldiers, but a well-equipped Parisian cavalry unit—and their commander, a Lieutenant Colonel, was barely thirty.

  Now he found himself in a dilemma: proud Parisians were unpredictable allies. Would they deign to assist a provincial Captain?

  André, for his part, preferred to hear the opinions of his own officers. The dispatch passed between Sénarmont and Hoche for inspection.

  As they read, André ignored the two provincial officials, instead holding out two pieces of honeyed bread to tempt the magistrate’s son. The boy lunged forward, snatching them greedily and devouring them in a heartbeat.

  Laughter rippled through the hall.

  “Gentlemen,” André said lightly, waving a hand. “Be at ease.”

  He spoke like a host indulging guests, not a commander receiving orders. The very notion that a provincial Captain might “request cooperation” from a Parisian officer was absurd.

  Even after the fall of the old hierarchy, Parisians still viewed all provincials as peasants.

  As for the Marquis de Fontenay, André had never heard of him—just another name among the petty nobles who vanished with the old court.

  While Jourdain’s irritation grew visible, André pretended not to notice. Such was the natural hauteur of the capital toward the provinces.

  The magistrate, obedient and nervous, sat quietly in a corner with his son.

  At Hoche’s signal, a soldier brought them food—bread with honey, a bowl of meat stew, and a bottle of wine.

  “I apologise, sir,” Jourdain said at last, rising to salute again. “I let my temper get the better of me.”

  He took the seat offered beside Hoche; his anger had vanished entirely.

  “Eat first,” André said, gesturing at the table.

  Jourdain obeyed readily, gulping down wine and tearing at bread.

  André approved silently. In another age, this man would be a Marshal of France—flexible in pride, pragmatic in ambition.

  Even so, André had no wish yet to recruit him.

  Hoche was a comrade and saviour, a bond forged in blood.

  Augereau and Saint-Cyr owed him gratitude and advancement; Sénarmont was an equal in intellect and purpose.

  Brune, however, he despised—a man incapable of loyalty. Danton’s later fate, André thought, would prove that.

  As for Jourdain, money could win cooperation, not devotion. Courage and loyalty remained priceless.

  When the meal ended, André spoke quietly to Sénarmont and Hoche, then rose with authority.

  “Second Lieutenant Hoche—you will take two men and accompany Captain Jourdain and Magistrate Lussac. Reconnoitre the area and report any sign of the bandits. The cavalry squadron will depart in thirty minutes.”

  Before leaving, Lussac urged his son to return home, but the boy—Joseph—stamped his foot and insisted on joining the soldiers.

  André laughed aloud and promised to guarantee the boy’s safety.

  By the time the inn filled again with chatter, André had already learned the child’s full name: Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac.

  The discovery startled him. This timid boy would one day stand alongside Lavoisier—one of France’s greatest chemists, a physicist of genius.

  Gay-Lussac had been born in Saint-Léonard, Haute-Vienne. His father, once a magistrate, had lost re-election the previous year and moved his family to this small frontier town. With income halved and another child on the way, the family could no longer afford school fees, and Joseph had been forced to withdraw from his studies.

  When André casually asked about his dreams, the boy replied that he wished to become a soldier like him—brave, commanding, splendid in uniform.

  André nearly choked on his wine. He ruffled the boy’s hair and said firmly:

  “No, Joseph. You’ll return to school. If your father agrees, I’ll sponsor you to study in Paris—at the Collège Louis-le-Grand. From there, you may go on to the Sorbonne.”

  Since his rupture with the Académie des Sciences, André no longer expected that august institution to assist his plans for scientific progress. But his chance encounter with the impoverished Fourier had changed his strategy.

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  If he could not rely on the Academy, he would build his own circle—gathering the hidden talents of France, the young “demons of science” still unrecognised by the world.

  His secret notebook already contained a list:

  the fifteen-year-old Ampère in Lyon, struggling to educate himself;

  the nine-year-old Poisson in Loiret, whose curiosity marked him for greatness.

  Before leaving Paris, André had met Ampère’s father by chance at the Rh?ne headquarters of the allied clubs. He had urged him to send the boy to the Collège Louis-le-Grand, offering to pay what he could. The elder Ampère had gratefully agreed.

  As for little Poisson, André merely noted his name and arranged to have him quietly watched.

  And now, meeting Gay-Lussac felt like fortune’s reward.

  André resolved that once back in Paris, he would press for the founding of two new institutions—the école Polytechnique and the école Normale Supérieure.

  Rather than gathering geniuses one by one, he would forge the furnace in which they could be made.

  Toward dusk, the day’s heat at last began to fade.

  From horseback, Allemand scanned the road ahead.

  The village of Collery lay divided by two tracks, both muddy, both winding past crumbling cottages and hedges of vine and thorn.

  Since the band’s arrival, every villager had been locked indoors under threat of death.

  The sun was sinking. The target had not appeared.

  If night fell, their control of the place would dissolve.

  Frowning, Allemand summoned his scout again.

  “I swear,” the scout said, “I saw the Marquis de Fontenay and his young wife at noon in Oradour—boarding their fine four-wheeled carriage. Their next stop is Chalus.”

  Allemand said nothing. His unease deepened.

  Six months earlier, he had been stripped of his rank as Lieutenant at the Brest naval base, accused of sympathising with the Paris mobs and plotting mutiny.

  The charges had been false.

  He had praised the National Assembly, yes, but never rebellion.

  His true crime had been honesty—he had written to the Ministry of the Navy, exposing corruption so rampant that ordinary sailors had gone unpaid for months.

  For that, he had been tried and dismissed, spared the gallows only because his men had petitioned for mercy.

  Now, exiled and penniless, he and his comrades—former sailors like himself—had turned to banditry.

  They robbed for money, not blood. Their victims were always rich merchants and corrupt officials; they even shared spoils with the poor.

  Today’s mark was the Marquis de Fontenay, returning from Limoges to Bordeaux. His wife’s jewels alone were worth 250,000 livres—enough to buy a half-new privateer and return to sea.

  One last raid, Allemand thought, and they could become corsairs again—free men, redeemed by battle.

  “Get ready, gentlemen!” he shouted, raising his tricorne. “We are thieves, yes—but thieves with manners!

  First charge, blank round; strike with the flat of your blades. No harm to the Marquis or the lady—we frighten, not kill.”

  His twelve riders laughed, masked their faces, and galloped toward the left-hand road.

  Moments later, as their hoofbeats faded, Second Lieutenant Hoche and his men emerged from the woods to the right, following at a measured pace.

  Ten minutes later, near a stone bridge, Allemand’s gang spotted their target: a fine open carriage, two guards, one driver.

  “Quickly!” he cried, firing a warning shot into the sky.

  The coachman panicked, drove toward the riverbank, and bogged the wheels in mud.

  The guards spurred their horses and fled.

  Allemand approached—and froze.

  The carriage was silent. Inside, no movement, no cry.

  “Dummies!” he roared. “We’ve been tricked!”

  But it was too late.

  From behind, twenty blue-coated cavalrymen swept down the road. Ahead, across the bridge, came twenty more.

  In minutes, the bandits were surrounded—pressed into a shrinking circle, pistols raised but courage failing.

  There was nowhere to flee: torrent on one side, swamp on the other.

  “Throw down your arms!” André’s voice carried above the thunder of hooves.

  Allemand sighed, dropped his sabre and pistol, and dismounted. His men followed suit.

  The prisoners were escorted back to the inn amid cheers and song.

  But once there, Captain Jourdain and Lieutenant Colonel André clashed bitterly over jurisdiction.

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant Colonel,” said Jourdain stiffly, “but I must detain them here until Limoges sends escort. They are to be tried locally—not in Bordeaux.”

  To him, the captives meant reward, honour, perhaps promotion.

  André saw them differently.

  He had heard from Lussac the truth of their fall—men who robbed the rich, spared the poor, and shed no blood.

  He pitied them.

  In Bordeaux, with Judge Duranthon’s lenient hand, he might even redeem them.

  He revealed his true title to Lussac: the prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court, travelling south on official business.

  He proposed that the prisoners be sent to Bordeaux, offering, as compensation, to sponsor young Joseph’s full education in Paris—tuition, board, and all.

  The magistrate hesitated only briefly. To send his son to the Collège Louis-le-Grand had long been his dream.

  Now the chance stood before him, tangible and guaranteed by a Parisian prosecutor.

  He cleared his throat and spoke with solemnity:

  “Captain Jourdain, as magistrate and chief of police, I find Lieutenant Colonel Franck’s proposal most suitable.

  Our town is too small to guard such men.

  Moreover, by law, the victim—the Marquis de Fontenay—resides in Bordeaux. Therefore, trial there is proper.”

  Defeated, Jourdain’s face darkened. He turned to leave, but André nodded toward Augereau.

  The sergeant stepped forward with a grin. “Captain, surely you’ll stay one more night—we’re holding a banquet to celebrate the victory.”

  Jourdain stayed—by persuasion or otherwise.

  Only the next morning, when André’s entire unit boarded the merchant barge moored on the River Isle, was the furious Captain Jourdain finally released from his “guest quarters.”

  The River Isle, broadest tributary of the Dordogne, was serene and fair—its waters threading through wooded valleys, fertile fields, and limestone cliffs, past hamlets and chateaux bathed in evening light.

  France’s rivers, tamed by nature and canal, had always been gentle maidens.

  The vessel awaiting them, The Braggart, was a Dutch-built two-masted merchant ship—flat-bottomed, square-sterned, perfect for inland waterways.

  Two years earlier, Marquis de Fontenay had bought it from a bankrupt Rotterdam trader, refitted it for wine transport, and now used it as a temporary passenger ship.

  On board were the Marquis and Marquise de Fontenay, the Parisian Lieutenant Colonel Franck and his cavalry squadron—and the captured bandits bound for Bordeaux.

  Note:

  Collège Louis-le-Grand: A prestigious Parisian secondary school long known for producing France’s political and intellectual elite.

  Sorbonne: The historic University of Paris, synonymous with higher learning in France.

  école Polytechnique: France’s elite engineering and scientific “grande école,” founded during the Revolution to train top technical officers and administrators.

  école Normale Supérieure: An elite “grande école” created to train future professors and scholars, later famed for producing leading French intellectuals.

  River Isle (Isle): A river in southwestern France, the Dordogne’s largest tributary, flowing through the Périgord region toward Bordeaux.