According to the traditional way of estimating readership, one long-term newspaper subscription is assumed to reach six adult readers, while each street sale counts for half that. On this basis, Le Figaro was now reaching around 20,000 educated Parisians every day, and by the end of the year that figure was expected to climb to between 60,000 and 70,000. In 1791, Paris had a population of 600,000, of whom roughly 30%—about 180,000 people—could be regarded as intellectuals. In other words, by year’s end Le Figaro was on track to exert a direct influence on one-third of the city’s educated class.

  “Not bad,” André said absentmindedly by way of praise. Inwardly, however, he was far from satisfied. As André being André, he wanted Le Figaro to reach more than 80% of all Parisian intellectuals before the real crisis arrived, so that he could freely wield this immensely powerful weapon of public opinion. After all, in 1791 Paris had more than 500 newspapers and journals, and even at a normal level of operation there were at least one hundred active titles.

  The Jewish director, adept at reading people’s expressions, immediately grew tense. It was obvious that his employer was not content with the current pace of Le Figaro’s growth. In fact, however, if one ranked the Parisian press by circulation and influence, the paper—less than four months old—had already secured a place among the top ten.

  André drummed his fingers rhythmically on the desk. After a moment’s thought, he said, “If we bring Mirabeau’s The Courrier de Provence under Le Figaro’s umbrella, could you expand our reach to 80% of the reading public in Paris by May next year?”

  “Absolutely,” Director Deyo replied without a moment’s hesitation.

  Although the twice-weekly The Courrier de Provence did not have a particularly large print run, what the Jewish director valued was its excellent editorial staff, its numerous professional reporters, and its extensive social network.

  The Courrier de Provence was one of the political assets Mirabeau had left to André. The condition for taking it over, of course, was that he would assume responsibility for its massive debt of one hundred thousand livres and arrange proper positions for its editors, reporters, and other staff.

  André also confided a secret to Deyo: in a mechanical laboratory in Reims, English and French engineers were jointly developing a device that would revolutionise the newspaper trade—a rotary press.

  In 1791, European printing still relied on the wooden or metal relief presses devised (and improved) by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany. These vertical, screw-driven hand presses were simple in construction and had been in use for more than 300 years. During that time, a French technician named Badius had made major improvements to Gutenberg’s design: he added sliding rails, metal rods, and hollow tubes, which enhanced print quality and increased efficiency.

  Even so, the results remained unsatisfactory. Two years earlier, when Danton and his comrades needed to rally Parisian women to march on Versailles and “demand bread” from Louis XVI and his Austrian queen, it had taken them five full days to typeset and print 10,000 broadsheets, which were then posted across the city overnight. At present, for Le Figaro and every other Paris paper, the biggest bottlenecks were the slow pace of hand typesetting and the low speed of the vertical screw presses.

  On the typesetting side, a little-known British engineer had invented (or improved) a “piano-type” composing machine that increased productivity to more than three times that of traditional hand-setting.

  On the printing side, André had poured money into a joint team of British and French engineers to create an entirely new kind of press: the rotary press. In this machine, the printing plate was fixed to the curved surface of a horizontal cylinder acting as a cast-iron bed. As the cylinder turned, it printed a page with each revolution. To further increase speed, the plate cylinder could also be set vertically, and up to eight smaller impression cylinders could be arranged around it, so that the rotary press could reach a maximum output of 5,000 sheets per hour—about thirty times the efficiency of the old vertical screw presses.

  Of course, this new rotary press still required human power. The next goal was to move on to steam-driven presses…

  After hearing Deyo’s assurances, André nodded in satisfaction. They chatted idly for a bit, then he rose and took his leave.

  In reality, the resources that André had poured into Le Figaro were extremely generous—not only money, contacts, technology, and supplies, but also layers of protection. One of the main reasons the Irish toughs who roamed Parisian streets did not dare molest Le Figaro was that Police Prefect Legoff and Chief Javert of the Paris Police were both secretly shielding the paper.

  Even so, the powers of the Chief of Police were considered too great. To guard against abuses, the Constituent Assembly had ordered Paris City Hall to change the Chief’s term from two years to one and to forbid reappointment. As a result, Prefect Legoff would automatically leave office in mid-May 1791. On the joint advice of Judge and Madame Vinault and André, he decided to return to his native Ardennes and stand in late June for the province’s highest administrative office.

  As for Javert, he had already been promoted one rank and transferred to headquarters to head the Criminal Investigation Bureau. This bureau was responsible for solving major cases in Paris and its surrounding areas. The title sounded grand enough, but its powers were limited: it could not open cases on its own initiative, and could only investigate when a local precinct reported a major crime or when the Prefect issued a special order. In addition, the bureau’s work was highly specialised and structurally capped; there was a very clear ceiling on promotion.

  This, however, was the most that Prefect Legoff could do for his “cheap brother-in-law” before leaving office. André had long hoped that Chief Javert could become the head of a local police district, giving him direct control over law and order—and public sentiment—in a given neighbourhood; or that he could command a special mobile unit, serving as a hidden military force within the city.

  “There is no difficulty at all in forcing him into some post you specify,” Legoff had said earlier, “but once the new Prefect arrives, you know perfectly well that Monsieur Javert’s position will be extremely precarious.”

  In the former residence of Judge Vinault, now André Franck’s villa, the Paris Police Prefect was chatting at his ease with the house’s current owner. Legoff still looked full of life. A glass of champagne in his left hand, a thick cigar in his right, he showed not the slightest trace of regret at the thought of losing one of the most powerful government posts in Greater Paris.

  André took a cash cheque for fifty thousand livres from his chequebook and slid it over to him with a smile. “All right, you’ve convinced me. But I still want to secure a post as head of the Police Academy for Javert.”

  The rule that “every new ruler brings in his own men” applied everywhere. The post at the Criminal Investigation Bureau would surely be coveted by others. André had to leave his trusted Chief Javert an extra escape route, and the directorship of the Police Academy—an upgrade of the Paris Police Training Centre—was the ideal choice. It was a position high in status but low in real power, unlikely to attract the jealousy of the new big-shots.

  “In addition,” André went on, drawing a sheet of paper from his breast pocket and handing it to the Prefect, “here is a list of just over thirty names. Before you roll down from that splendid chair of yours at headquarters, use your authority to promote these people to posts as officers or inspectors and scatter them across the various police precincts of Paris.”

  Legoff glanced down the list, frowned, took a deep pull on his cigar, and said with a pained look, “It can be done, but there are too many names. I’ll need operating funds—at least another fifty thousand livres.”

  André burst out laughing. “I have already bought you an estate outside Charleville-Mézières, the capital of the Ardennes, worth one hundred thousand livres at current prices.”

  Legoff had never doubted his brother-in-law’s credit. He folded the promotion list carefully away, then asked André about conditions in the Ardennes, his next place of retirement. On paper, the Chief of the Paris Police seemed to occupy a position of great authority, but in practice he was buffeted from all sides. The National Assembly, the Tuileries, the Palais de Justice, Paris City Hall—every major institution exercised some measure of administrative “oversight” over the Police Prefecture. Day after day, the supposedly fearsome Prefect had to endure criticism and abuse from all directions, with nowhere to vent his frustration.

  “Don’t worry,” André said. “In Charleville-Mézières your sister has already made all the arrangements on Judge Vinault’s behalf. Once you complete the supplementary election formalities, you will enter the Ardennes departmental council as an alternate member. If everything goes as expected, by June the leading officials of the departmental administration in the Ardennes and the city government of Charleville-Mézières will resign one after another. By then I shall have the honour of addressing you as Governor of the Ardennes—or perhaps ‘Citizen Governor’ would be more appropriate. And please don’t forget our original gentleman’s agreement.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Under that agreement, once Legoff became governor of the Ardennes (which lay directly north of the Marne), he would be obliged to bring the Champagne Composite Regiment into the province on the pretext of fighting bandits, with the Ardennes paying the associated military costs. Second, the deputy command of the provincial militia would be reserved for an officer appointed by André—namely, Colonel Brice, formerly commander of the Reims militia and now promoted.

  Later in their conversation, André briefed Legoff on Mirabeau’s condition. “Now we can be sure that Comte de Mirabeau will not live another twenty-four hours. He may not even see tomorrow’s sun. I know perfectly well that your men at the Prefecture privately worship him as a kind of patron saint of liars and cheats. There is nothing wrong with that. A man who inspires no jealousy is usually good for nothing. But once Mirabeau is dead, the Tuileries will lose a shrewd adviser. Under the encouragement of certain plotters, those foolish courtiers will make unforgivable mistakes and drag their King and Queen down into the abyss.”

  Here André leaned forward slightly, his expression growing solemn. “When that time comes, Paris will be plunged into another wave of turmoil. I have already foreseen the result: the prestige of the Bourbon court and the power of the old nobility will be further weakened, and finally driven from the political stage altogether. The vacuum they leave will be filled by the Constitutionalists—Lafayette, Duport, the Lameth brothers. But I do not believe in Lafayette’s capacity to govern. That is why I have chosen to withdraw to Reims, far from Paris, to build up my own strength there. When the new Legislative Assembly is elected, I will return to Paris and rejoin this magnificent political game.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of burning yourself, playing with fire like that?” Legoff asked, half in warning. Unlike the ambitious André, the jaded Prefect was ready to abandon the capital’s battlefield of fame and profit, retire to the Ardennes, and enjoy the leisurely life of a wealthy man.

  “I am The God-Favoured. My eyes can see through every veil and discern the truths of this world, Monsieur Prefect,” André replied with lofty pride.

  Because Deputy Prieur had been sent to the Austrian Netherlands by the Constituent Assembly several days earlier, André postponed his appearance at the Jacobin Club until the evening of his return to Paris.

  At that night’s meeting, he stayed close to Robespierre, firmly supporting the left-wing deputy’s various proposals: freedom of the press, protection of unrestricted speech, open opposition to slavery, civil rights for mixed-race people in the colonies, abolition of the death penalty, and more.

  At the end of the session, Robespierre confided to André that he would the next day put a motion to the Constituent Assembly: once the new Legislative Assembly was installed in September, the sitting deputies of the Constituent Assembly would be barred from standing for re-election; all seats would have to be ceded to newcomers.

  Sure enough, the following day Robespierre took the rostrum in the Assembly and spoke for more than two hours. With the support of the Jacobin Club and loud acclaim from the public in the galleries, his motion won the votes it needed and passed into law. Only later would Robespierre begin to regret the consequences of what he had done that day.

  …

  Although André had assumed Mirabeau would not live to see Saturday, 2 April, in fact the dying man still felt the warmth of that morning’s sun from his bed. He struggled up, left his mattress, opened the window, and addressed the crowd that kept vigil outside his residence. It was the last speech of his life.

  “My dear friends,” Mirabeau cried, “soon I shall be dead. Tell me that you will not abandon me… Tell me you will not leave me to endure pointless suffering alone. I wish only to enjoy the company of those I love, undisturbed by anyone.”

  Shortly after nine o’clock, the ailing lion of France lay down on his bed once more and, reluctant though he was, closed his eyes. This witty, shrewd, politically brilliant yet rough-natured giant thus came to the end of his life.

  At 9:11 a.m. on 2 April 1791, Doctor Cabanis certified Comte de Mirabeau’s death and entered it in the records.

  Over the next three days, it seemed as if the whole of Paris mourned the fallen lion. The Constituent Assembly was plunged into grief; bewildered deputies kept turning instinctively to Mirabeau’s empty seat. A pall of sorrow hung over the streets. Sworn clergy from the Jacobin Club mounted platforms above silent crowds and chanted funeral masses for the dead man’s soul.

  At the call of the Cordeliers Club and its chairman Danton, large numbers of sans-culottes also came to pay their respects outside the Comte’s mansion. Danton, Legendre, and others ordered those “coarse-souled” sans-culottes to seal off Rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin, forcing passing coachmen to turn aside on pain of having their reins cut and their horses turned loose. Under the protection of the sans-culottes, André returned to Mirabeau’s apartments with Chief Javert and a team of detectives. They scoured the place from top to bottom, even checking the hollow spaces inside the walls. The documents and files they seized were too sensitive to keep in Paris; all were quietly shipped to the Gendarmerie Headquarters in Reims.

  On the afternoon of 4 April, the third day of mourning, Paris City Hall—acting on behalf of all sectors of society—held a solemn state funeral for Mirabeau. The procession stretched for two leagues (about eight kilometres), with an estimated 100,000 people taking part. Every rooftop along the route was packed with onlookers. Even the windowsills, lampposts, and branches of the roadside trees were crowded with people.

  Lafayette’s 30,000-strong National Guard lined both sides of the streets in full arms to maintain order. Deputies of the Constituent Assembly, members of the Jacobin Club and other societies, ministers of the Crown, senior municipal officials, and notable figures of Parisian society—including André, Chief Provincial Prosecutor of the Marne—took their places in the long procession.

  At some point a stranger squeezed in beside André. One glance at the broad-brimmed black hat was enough to recognise Bouillé, his hat brim pulled low over his face. After exchanging a few brief words with André in a low voice, the Marquis turned away with a grim expression and vanished into the surging crowd.

  “What did you talk about?” George Danton shouldered his way through the throng a moment later to ask.

  With a look of disdain, André replied, “Our arrogant Marquis offered me five hundred thousand livres to open the checkpoints in Reims and the Marne to his German Legion. I told him straight that only five hundred thousand gold Louis would be worth my consideration.”

  Danton barely managed to keep from laughing. “No wonder Hébert and Simon say André is a scoundrel—greedier and more shameless than I am. Clearly Bouillé and the émigrés at Koblenz are getting anxious.”

  André added, “I hear the King’s aunts are making ready to flee ahead of the others to the Kingdom of Sardinia in Italy.”

  According to Javert’s report, the royal stables at the Chateau de Bellevue had fully harnessed horses ready day and night. Servants had loaded trunks to bursting and stacked them at the rear of the carriages, so that whenever their noble passengers appeared, they could set off at once. To smooth their journey, the royal ladies had even deigned to visit the offices of Paris City Hall in person and apply for travel passports to Rome and safe-conduct passes.

  Danton, who was well-informed, had already heard the rumours. “Yes. Marat and I plan to have them stopped en route so that the local National Guard can escort them back to Paris for safekeeping.”

  “They are merely a few confused old virgins,” André replied after a moment’s thought. “Let the sans-culottes give them a fright and leave it at that. There is no need to pick a premature fight with the nobles in the Constituent Assembly. And rest assured, the story Hébert is spreading about the Dauphin fleeing with them is pure fantasy.”

  On the very night André returned to Paris, the right-wing leader Cazalès secretly visited the Chief Provincial Prosecutor’s villa on the ?le Saint-Louis with a request: he asked André to rein in Danton, Marat, and the other leftists and stop them from persecuting these “innocent women”. Hébert had even concocted a story that the royal ladies were taking France’s most precious jewels—and the young Dauphin—abroad.

  André agreed readily. This had nothing to do with humanitarian sentiment; he simply wanted Cazalès and Berthier to owe him a favour.

  When Danton heard of this ill-timed compromise, he was taken aback for a moment and shot André a sidelong look. Then he nodded, shoved his hands into his pockets, and held his tongue.

  As the golden light of evening bathed the city, the funeral procession reached the Church of Sainte-Geneviève. To the sound of muffled drums and ceremonial gunfire, part of Mirabeau’s remains were laid to rest in the newly completed Panthéon, making him its first great resident. André knew, however, that within a mere year Mirabeau would also become the first tenant to be driven out of the Panthéon.

  As the ceremony neared its end, the British ambassador to France, Lord Mornington, sidled up to André and raised his hat in greeting. The elderly English gentleman, his head crowned with a silver wig, was clearly acting on instructions from the Cabinet in London to keep a close eye on the man behind the company that had submitted a “one-million-pound procurement list”.

  “Oh? You wish me to attend a reception at the embassy next Tuesday?”

  André was puzzled at first by the ambassador’s personal invitation, but Lord Mornington’s explanation set his mind at ease. The Tory Prime Minister, Pitt the Younger, had agreed that the Whig leader Fox should visit post-revolutionary Paris in a private capacity to conduct unofficial talks with French deputies and “friends of Britain”. André was not yet a member of the Assembly, but his unrestrained attacks on the American rebels in countless public speeches had earned him a place on the embassy’s list of “friendly” figures.

  After brief consideration, André accepted the invitation with pleasure.

  …

  On 6 April, while Parisians were still lost in mourning for Mirabeau, several women of the Bourbon family quietly slipped out of the Chateau de Bellevue. Travelling in five long-distance coaches, they headed towards the south-east of France. Their destination was Rome, where they hoped to find refuge with the Queen of Sardinia, Marie Clotilde Xavière—their niece; daughter of the Dauphin Louis-Ferdinand; sister to Louis XVI; and elder sister of élisabeth de Bourbon.

  Even with the legal passports and safe-conduct passes issued by Paris City Hall, the little convoy was stopped in a small town called Moret by the local public prosecutor and mayor, who ordered that the coaches be detained. Protestants serving in the National Guard brandished their bayonets and forced the Catholic women and children out of the carriages, herding them into an abandoned barn for collective “accommodation”.

  Note:

  Sorry, I made a mistake. I wrote Dupont de Nemours in previous chapters, but I actually mean Duport. They are two different people. I have corrected previous chapters as well. I apologize for the confusion.