André and young Watt and their party disembarked near the still-unfinished Pont de la Concorde, whose roadway was being built from the ruins of the Bastille. From there, they changed to a carriage and drove northwest. After passing through the Place Louis XV (now the Place de la Concorde) and travelling for about ten minutes, they came in sight of a four-storey apartment building with a red-painted fa?ade on the Avenue des Champs-élysées: the embassy of the Kingdom of Great Britain in France. It was a splendid stone mansion, with spacious balconies and large rooms.

  After their invitation cards had been checked, a secretary of the embassy, wearing a wig with a small queue, received André and young Watt and conducted them up to the second floor, into a small drawing room. The room was clearly unofficial in nature. Round in shape and decorated in a revival style, it was a compact but carefully arranged space: furniture and exhibits in the Renaissance style, several Rococo chairs and benches scattered around a circular table, a marble fireplace with a mantel, a decorative mirror, branched candlesticks, and a gilded bronze clock—all together creating a characteristically French atmosphere of elegance. If it had not been for the secretary’s pure London accent, André might have doubted whether he was really standing inside the British embassy.

  As soon as he entered, André cast a casual glance around. Five or six people had already gathered in the small drawing room, almost all of them known to him: the British minister Earl Gower with his permanent professional smile; the Duc d’Orléans, whose “Mediterranean” bald patch never went away; and the “citizen of the world” Thomas Paine, whose beard and sideburns had not been trimmed for a long time. Fox, the Member of Parliament who constantly sang in opposition to King George III, was the protector in Britain of this same “citizen of the world.”

  There was also a man and a woman whom André had never seen before. The man was stout and heavy-bellied. There was no need to think twice: this had to be the British MP Fox. Light him a large cigar, and he would be indistinguishable from a future Prime Minister Churchill. Standing constantly at Paine’s side was an unknown, beautiful lady, wearing only an extremely simple white plain-weave muslin dress, without a single ornament on her person. The British engineer accompanying André was familiar with the stranger’s identity.

  James Watt murmured by way of introduction, “Her name is Mary Wollstonecraft, a notorious feminist. She used to be on very good terms with Mr Fox and is now rumoured to be Thomas Paine’s secret lover.” In strait-laced, conservative Britain, the term “married lover” was anything but complimentary, and young Watt found such behaviour deeply repugnant.

  “Oh.” André nodded and paid no further attention to the pretty lady. In his former and his present life alike, he considered feminists to be a very, very troublesome kind of creature. His own principle had always been to treat them with a smile and keep his distance.

  At the moment, the others were sitting together in high spirits, discussing some exciting topic, so no one noticed the new arrivals until the secretary came up to Mr Fox and Minister Earl Gower and began making introductions.

  “Ha, young James! I am truly delighted to see you in Paris. When you get back to Birmingham, be sure to give Mr Watt my regards.” Fox at once snatched the host’s lines. As for André, standing beside him, the MP seemed to have forgotten him completely. There was no need to guess: the fat Englishman had clearly been egged on by his good friend with the Mediterranean hairline and was trying to make Deputy Prosecutor André, who had “betrayed” the Duc d’Orléans, look ridiculous in public.

  Seeing this, Minister Earl Gower looked at André with an apologetic expression, silently cursing his “old chief” and preparing to get up and smooth things over. Fortunately, the guest was broad-minded and tactful enough to step aside of his own accord. He took a glass of Burgundy from a passing footman, found a chair, sat down and tasted his wine at leisure, openly showing his contempt for the Duc’s clumsy attempt at a prank.

  The English writer Mary, who was known for her bold behaviour, seemed tempted to come over and exchange a few flirtatious remarks with the handsome Frenchman. But Thomas Paine discreetly stopped her—not out of jealousy, but because both English writers depended in Paris on the generous patronage of the Duc d’Orléans, who was sitting on the sofa opposite. There was no need to offend such a powerful local benefactor merely for the sake of teasing a minor provincial power-broker.

  The subject of conversation among the assembled guests was a string of anecdotes appropriate to high society and diplomatic receptions. In eighteenth-century Western Europe, the most hated state was the Ottoman Empire, even though France had long been its ally; the most despised was the Russian Empire, which had just replaced the barbarous Kingdom of Prussia in that role.

  The Duc d’Orléans openly mocked the Russian language, saying that it “possesses none of the rich nuances of French, the splendour of Spanish, the liveliness of English, the power of German, or the softness of Italian. It has entirely lost the variety of Greek and Latin and the concise vigour of their descriptive power…” In short, Russian was, in his view, the ugliest and most incomprehensible language in all Europe.

  Fox, for his part, commented on the two “great” monarchs of the Romanov dynasty, Peter I, now deceased, and Catherine II, still on the throne. The British MP described the former as a cruel and violent warmonger, obstinate and arbitrary, who had simply enjoyed a stroke of good luck in gaining access to the Baltic Sea. As for the latter, the Tsarina currently reigning over Russia, the fat Comte portrayed her as a shameless libertine. In Catherine II’s day, promotion for Russian generals and courtiers supposedly depended on first satisfying the Empress’s bodily desires.

  Setting aside political standpoints and personal prejudice, André had to admit that the Duc d’Orléans and Mr Fox made an entertaining double act. As for André himself, in both his previous and present lives, he had no fondness for Russia, just as Thomas Paine, an unwavering opponent of feudal absolutism, had once written of the Russians: “Scratch a Russian, and you will find a barbarous Tartar underneath.”

  Yet from the standpoint of France’s current national interests, Russia was in fact an invisible natural ally (with the Ottoman Empire as a practical ally), in line with the military principle of allying with distant powers and attacking those nearby. The contradictions among Russia, Prussia, and Austria over the partition of Poland would greatly weaken the future strength of the anti-French coalitions in Europe.

  For the moment, however, French resentment towards Russia arose mainly from the aggressive ambitions of Saint Petersburg and Berlin in carving up Poland, and from the fact that the Ottoman ally had recently suffered heavy defeats at Russian hands. In Britain, meanwhile, both court and Parliament were highly alarmed by Catherine II’s announcement of an alliance with Denmark, which would allow the Russian Baltic fleet founded by Peter the Great to sail freely into the North Atlantic and seriously threaten Britain’s maritime interests and domestic security.

  All of this geopolitical thinking flickered only briefly through André’s mind. Franco-Russian relations had no immediate relevance for him, whereas the benefits of friendly ties between Britain and France were close at hand. Although Mr Fox continued to snub him, André, proud and headstrong as he was, could still swallow his anger and sit quietly to one side. There was nothing for it: the British held the keys to the world’s technological truths. Playing harmless and simple-minded for now was merely preparation for slapping them hard in the future.

  The Duc d’Orléans, however, seemed unable to tolerate André’s relaxed composure. In a break in the conversation, he started shouting across to the deputy prosecutor of the Marne, who was sitting quietly on a bench.

  “Oh, the silent God-Favoured one! Why don’t you tell us a little story as well, to cheer us up? Just no poetry, if you please.” The others nodded in agreement and turned their attention towards André.

  André took no offence. He kept the smile on his face while a famous anecdote from his previous life came to mind. Then, in a rich, resonant voice, he began:

  “Five years ago, when I was an assistant lecturer at the University of Reims, there was a Russian student named Pushkin who came to consult me. He said that, at the Empress Catherine II’s instigation, the Imperial Academy of Letters in Russia had decided to hold a competition for the ‘shortest literary tale.’ The entries had to ‘touch upon weighty themes such as the individual, the state, power, religion, sex and morality.’ Whoever wrote the winning piece, regardless of rank, status, appearance, or reputation, would receive a substantial reward; if the winner was a prisoner, he could even be granted a full pardon.

  “Pushkin himself was a Russian nobleman who had been exiled, and he was desperate to seize this opportunity for a pardon and return to Russia. So I suggested an idea to him, and he followed my advice. A year later, when the competition of the Imperial Academy had concluded, the judges unanimously agreed that Pushkin’s tale deserved a special prize. And so the Russian did indeed return home as he had wished.”

  “And what was this prizewinning piece?” Fox could not contain himself. Though he knew André was deliberately leading up to a punchline, he could not resist asking at once.

  With complete seriousness, André replied, “The full text of the special-prize tale ran as follows: ‘My God, the Empress is pregnant—who did it?’” Catherine II might have been notorious in her lifetime as Europe’s most licentious sovereign, but she was, after all, already in her sixties and physically incapable of conceiving under the medical conditions of the day.

  “Ha ha ha!” Fox burst into loud laughter, and the other men, once they caught the point, could not hold back their own. Only Mary frowned slightly. Guided by her keen feminine intuition, she felt that André’s joke was somewhat far-fetched—not really aimed at the current Empress of Russia at all but at someone else… and she dared not complete the thought.

  When the laughter had died down, the British MP walked over to André and patted the young man’s arm with his hairy hand. “I very much like your joke,” he said. “At least where Russia is concerned, it seems we are of one mind.”

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  Fox waved to a footman standing in the corner, and two glasses of champagne were brought over. With great cordiality, he handed one glass to André. The two men raised their glasses and drained them in a single draught, sweeping away their earlier unpleasantness.

  Fox then came to the point. Lowering his voice, he said, “Just now I heard young James mention that the United Investment Company wishes to procure a batch of scarce materials in London. I believe the Fox Trading Company may be able to assist.”

  The “scarce materials” were steel ingots, saltpetre, and sulphur. Although Britain no longer officially prohibited the export of these goods to France, ordinary merchants still dared not enter the dangerous business of dealing in war materials. The Fox Trading Company, however, clearly did not consider itself bound by such scruples. André understood at once and nodded. Representatives from both sides would soon be appointed to handle the matter. In fact, that phrase had originally been passed to the British MP through young Watt on André’s instructions.

  As soon as Mr Fox had taken his leave, the English lady writer tried to move closer, but André quietly turned away and stepped forward to greet the new arrival—the Constitutionalists leader Antoine Barnave.

  André quoted the late Mirabeau’s remarks on Barnave’s character: “He gives off an air of charm in a very quiet way, and beneath that cold exterior he hides a burning heart.” In July 1789, when many deputies in the Estates-General had been thrown into alarm and dismay by the brutal acts committed by the sans-culottes against the governor of Paris and others, this young deputy had leapt to his feet. His speech had instantly stripped the tragic meaning from that bloody event.

  On the rostrum, Barnave had cried, “What of it, gentlemen? It is only through bloodshed that we can be purified!” With this single line he had glorified the massacre as an act of just struggle and prevented the United Estates-General from turning wholesale towards reaction. Both the right-wing deputies and the royal court shuddered at the mention of his fierce name.

  “You have just turned away a pretty lady’s advances. That is not the proper conduct of a Parisian gentleman,” Barnave joked after exchanging a light embrace with André.

  “Heh. A British version of Olympe de Gouges, that is all. I know your charms are more than sufficient for you to win glory for France,” André retorted at once, egging him on to taste the forbidden fruit.

  At the mention of Olympe de Gouges, the self-styled handsome and debonair Barnave fell silent. Throughout Paris, aside from a few exceptions such as Marquis de Condorcet and Thomas Paine, no man was willing to tangle with feminists. Even André, who genuinely admired these heroines, would never have risked such trouble.

  Half a year earlier, André’s relations with the three leaders of the Constitutionalists—Barnave and his colleagues—had been nothing special. He had been closer to the Lafayette wing of the Constitutionalists. But politicians were accustomed to talking more about interests than about feelings. Once André began sharing with them many of the gains he had stripped from the Church in Reims, the noble Constitutionalists started praising the deputy prosecutor of the Marne both openly and behind the scenes. In addition, André needed the Barnave faction to step up military support for the colony of Saint-Domingue.

  At the start of the year, reports from Saint-Cyr and others had said that the spread of Vodou among the slaves in Saint-Domingue had become unstoppable. Counting the National Guard, the colonial army was fewer than ten thousand strong and could never hope to suppress a slave rising involving more than a million black people. Meanwhile, in Paris, the “Society of the Friends of the Blacks,” led by Condorcet, Brissot, and others, was constantly dragging its feet at home, forcing the Constituent Assembly several times to reject requests from the colonial assemblies to strengthen their military establishments.

  Fortunately, André had succeeded in persuading the three leading Constitutionalists—Barnave, Dupor,t and the Lameth brothers—and, in alliance with Lafayette and Bailly, had pushed the Constituent Assembly to authorise the colonial assemblies to admit large numbers of mixed-race men into the colonial forces and to expand the National Guard in Saint-Domingue from three battalions to five.

  In practice, André made it clear to Saint-Cyr and to Luchon, the colonial justice official, that they were free to conscript all white males and mixed-race males over fifteen in Cap Fran?ais into the colonial National Guard for training. There was no need to bother about the establishment limits set by the Constituent Assembly. As for the shortage of weapons and ammunition, André promised to arrange for a portion to be transferred from the mainland; the rest could be purchased from the United States and from neighbouring Spanish or British colonies.

  On the question of raising funds for these measures, Luchon, together with the colonial governor, took a tough line. They not only withheld tax revenues that ought to have been remitted to France, but also ordered that every white or mixed-race male who refused military service should pay an exemption fee of between six thousand and ten thousand livres.

  At Saint-Cyr’s request—his colonial rank being Colonel, though the home government recognised him only as a Captain—André also sent reinforcements from the Champagne Composite Regiment to Saint-Domingue: more than a hundred infantry, cavalry and artillery instructors, three priests capable of performing surgery, thirty-two cannon, eight thousand Model 1777 improved flintlock muskets and a large quantity of ammunition and medical supplies. All expenses, of course, were borne by the colonial government in Cap Fran?ais, with the joint commercial bank acting as financial guarantor.

  While André and Barnave were deep in conversation, he noticed Lafayette and Bailly, that old partnership, entering the drawing room. Fox and the British minister went forward together to welcome the distinguished guests.

  Barnave gave a snort when he saw this, clearly displeased by the British tendency to show such obvious favouritism. Although he belonged, like Lafayette, to the noble wing of the Constitutionalists, Barnave and his circle did not trust Lafayette’s character at all. In the Assembly, they constantly attacked the reputation of the “hero of the American War,” claiming that Lafayette dreamed of becoming a French “Cromwell.”

  Barnave drew André aside and asked quietly, “Have you heard about the situation in Lyon recently?”

  “Lyon?” André laughed inwardly. Of course, he knew what had happened there; it was a result he had been eagerly awaiting. The pit he had dug six months earlier had finally found someone to fall into it.

  After André resigned as the prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court, the ruling Constitutionalists nobles haggled among themselves over successors. In the end, Lameth the younger, Charles Malo Fran?ois Lameth, secured this weighty post. With the support of his elder brother, Théodore Lameth, he built up a large office for the prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court, employing eight assistant prosecutors and even copying his predecessor by establishing a tax cavalry detachment of more than fifty men.

  At the beginning of this year, Lameth the younger decided, after careful consideration, to choose Lyon—France’s second city in both industry and trade and the most important centre for cotton and silk on the Continent—as the first target of national tax enforcement.

  The Constitutionalists nobles’ “first shot,” however, went wildly astray. Lameth the younger and his assistants travelled south to Lyon in January. In three months of tax enforcement, they collected a mere two hundred thousand livres, but they aroused an uproar of public indignation in France’s second city. Two assistant prosecutors who were especially hated by the people were seized by the citizens of Lyon and beaten in public, and only narrowly escaped being hanged from streetlamps.

  Lameth the younger called upon the local National Guard to cooperate, but the Lyon City Hall flatly refused. The municipal authorities warned the Paris prosecutor that no armed force, including the cavalry detachment, would be permitted to operate within the city. Not only that, the commercial and industrial circles of Lyon, organised by the municipal officers, entrusted the director of commerce, Jean Roland, and his wife with a petition to the Constituent Assembly protesting against the abuses committed in Lyon by the prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court and his subordinates.

  “I have heard that you are on good terms with the Rolands,” Barnave said. “I hope you can persuade Jean Roland to drop his charges against Charles in the Assembly.” At the pleading of Théodore Lameth, Barnave had come to André in an attempt to rescue Lameth the younger’s political career. It seemed the Constitutionalists nobles already regretted having taken over the “hot potato” of the prosecutor’s office. They had failed to get so much as a chicken out of Lyon but had made an awful mess of feathers and filth.

  André sighed and shook his head. “My friend, this is no longer a matter for the Rolands alone. Brissot, Buzot, and Condorcet are all loudly championing the cause of righteous Lyon in the Commune and in the press. If I step in now, I will make an enemy of France’s second city. That is a price not worth paying.”

  Barnave clenched his teeth. “Very well. If you can resolve the conflict between Lyon and Paris, I will persuade my friends to restore you to the post of prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court.”

  Once a price had been named, bargaining naturally followed. Barnave’s current offer was too modest, and André was not inclined to accept it. “I have little interest in returning to the prosecutor’s post at the Special Fiscal Court,” he replied. “However, the outgoing director-general of the Paris police, Legoff, very much wishes to become governor of the département of the Ardennes. I know you, Duport, and the Lameth brothers have many friends on the General Council of the Ardennes Commune.”

  “Done,” Barnave agreed without a moment’s hesitation. Perhaps because the other man had been so quick to accept, André felt that he ought to have asked for more. As for the office of tax inspector, he had no desire for it at all. Marseille, Toulouse, Lyon, and Strasbourg—each of these cities was a volcanic crater best left untouched. Once Paris imposed a centralised dictatorship, every one of these proud cities would suffer an annihilating disaster.

  After seeing Barnave off, André went over to greet the real power-holders among the Constitutionalists in Paris. Mayor Bailly, taciturn as ever, gave André a brief nod and went back to discussing his astronomical works with the two British writers.

  Lafayette’s face was pale, and he looked exhausted. The troubles at the Tuileries had deprived him of sleep for days; he was constantly afraid that the sans-culottes would cause fresh disturbances near the palace the moment he lay down. His resignation as commander-in-chief of the National Guard had been rejected, and the ultra-left newspapers had branded him “coward” and “deserter,” leaving him seething with anger and with nowhere to vent it.

  André had wanted to speak at greater length with Lafayette, but a footman was already inviting the guests to move to the dining room.

  The party entered a richly yet tastefully decorated dining room, at the centre of which stood a long table. Unlike the drawing room, with its French atmosphere, everything on the table came from Britain: the snow-white napkins, the gleaming silverware, the fine bone china, and the crystal glasses and decanters.

  As soon as he sat down, André noticed the comforting warmth and appetising aromas drifting in from the kitchen: the smell of several different meats and the bouquet of various wines. But when the deputy prosecutor realised that the guest seated opposite him was that troublesome English woman writer, his mood soured at once.

  From the first course of thick soup onwards, the room outside the dining hall fell silent. Within the dining room, apart from the low conversation between host and guests, there was not a sound: no clatter of plates being changed, no tinkling of silverware being taken from the sideboard and set on the table. The elderly butler in his powdered wig did not need to whisper orders; he directed the servants with his eyes alone.

  For more than ten minutes, the guests felt utterly at ease, almost unaware of the presence of the household staff. And so it was: only a butler of the strictest English school—standing quietly to one side in a dark tailcoat, with immaculate white shirt and gloves, every movement elegant and precise—could command a team of servants to such flawless effect.

  Note:

  Vodou is a syncretic Afro-Caribbean religion and spiritual tradition, rooted in West African beliefs and reshaped in colonial Saint-Domingue through the blending of African rites with Catholic elements.