Even if André were to hear Robespierre’s appraisal of him, he would neither be startled nor fly into an embarrassed rage. Ever since Robespierre returned to Paris from Arras, the relationship between the two men had already become cordial only in appearance. With his “cheat” in hand, André understood all too well Robespierre’s flaw—his lack of tolerance—and had never intended to restore the revolutionary camaraderie of 1790. This was merely an exchange of interests.

  His reason for helping Robespierre escape the Jacobin Club’s crisis was simple: before leaving Paris, André wanted to create trouble for Brissot and his friends. Recently, Brissot and his circle had seen their power swell too rapidly within the Legislative Assembly and the cabinet government. Worse still—far harder to endure—Minister of the Interior Roland actually sought to cut the financial subsidy to the Paris Police Academy, and had begun to “rectify” the internal affairs of the Paris Police Bureau.

  To André, that was going too far. For more than three years, he had worked by every means to cultivate loyal men inside the Paris police—placing his own people, planting ears, and building a network. As part of a compromise with the Constitutionalists, André had relinquished most mid- and upper-level posts, including the office of Chief of the Paris Police Bureau, keeping only Captain Javert’s control over the Paris Police Academy (a two-year course of study, also admitting accelerated provincial programs), and the reality that, among the more than 1,000 rank-and-file police officers (patrolmen) along both banks of the Seine, more than half belonged to his own side. To soothe hearts and to keep the police (relatively) honest and efficient, André even paid out of his own pocket each year, subsidizing the “tailcoats”—the ordinary Parisians’ non-hostile nickname for patrolmen—by more than 600,000 livres.

  It was precisely because André indirectly controlled the Paris Police Bureau and several of its subordinate precincts (including the mounted police and the Police Academy) that this habitually cautious man dared to travel every day through filthy Paris streets rife with violence, bringing with him only two Spanish attendants (including the coachman). That, too, was what made the anti-André forces afraid.

  By André’s own advice in 1791 to the Legislative Assembly and Paris City Hall, the ratio of police to residents in Paris should be no lower than 1:500. After 1792, Paris’s actual population had already reached as many as 700,000 (though the political slogan still insisted on 600,000), and so the total number of police rose to more than 1,400. In addition, the Paris Police Academy maintained more than 500 cadets year-round, more than half of them trained on behalf of the provinces.

  Now, by pulling Robespierre back from the edge of a political cliff, André was ensuring that this L’Incorruptible could continue to clash, entangle, and bleed with Brissot’s faction. For the sake of balancing forces between factions, André watched—indeed, even indulged—the fact that the Cordeliers Club under Danton and Marat had quietly formed an alliance with Robespierre’s camp.

  André’s hidden knife against Brissot’s faction also had an economic motive. The southern provinces—those of the “Marat-Roland” sphere—were accustomed to excluding bulk commodities from the northern “Germanic” provinces. Along the Mediterranean coast in particular, where Protestant Huguenot (that is, Calvinist) influence ran rampant, they imposed tariffs and man-made non-tariff barriers, openly and covertly, against northern goods in which the United Investment Company held a strong competitive edge: cotton textiles, canned foods, cigarettes, medicines, malted milk, and milk powder.

  The simplest and most effective way to smash such barriers was war. It was like what the Robespierre faction did in 1793 in another world—among other things, destroying Lyon, slaughtering Marseille three times over, and bathing Toulouse in blood. Of course, André could also send men to do such filthy, bloody work, but he cherished his own reputation with unusual care. He neither wished to stain himself with the people’s blood nor to be branded a butcher by history, and so a scapegoat had to do the labor.

  In the month before André left Paris—on April 25—the guillotine, as an instrument of execution, truly began operating in Paris. The first unfortunate man to mount it was an utterly vicious highway robber. The execution took place on the square before the Ville H?tel (the site of Paris City Hall). At the time, both the Legislative Assembly and Paris City Hall agreed that the guillotine was a democratic and scientific method of capital punishment.

  In 1791, Dr. Joseph-Ignace GuillotinTobias Schmidt

  This February, Dr. Guillotin submitted a budget to Paris City Hall for the guillotine project totaling 5,200 livres. It included the constructed steps; spare blades; bearings and a copper groove; the iron falling weight that held the blade; ropes and transmission mechanisms; construction labor; and various incidental losses. Dr. Guillotin promised, however, that once production matured, the total cost of a single guillotine would drop to around 2,000 livres.

  On the day he learned that the guillotine had officially begun operation, André even went with lively interest to the City Hall square to watch the highwayman’s execution. The executioners swiftly surrounded the criminal and bound him onto a plank; then they slid the plank forward, slowly, clamping the head into a metal groove from which it could not move; then the chief executioner, Sanson, pulled the mechanism, and the suspended blade fell in a flash—soon there came a soft ; the head dropped into a wicker basket, and the ground was spattered with blood.

  Just as Dr. Guillotin had declared in the Assembly hall: “With this machine, I can make your head disappear in an instant, and you will suffer not the slightest pain.” The crowd roared with laughter; André, with his foresight, felt a chill down his spine.

  Spectators marveled: “This thing is incredible—so fast it’s hard to believe.” Yet some busybody below claimed he could not see clearly whether the condemned was truly dead. So, after obtaining the supervising officer’s consent, the executioners took the dripping head from the wicker basket and slowly displayed it to the crowd, turning toward each direction of the square.

  At first there was a gasp—people almost dared not look. But soon the spectators became calm again, gazing at that expressionless dead face with an oddly satisfied air; not a few men, and even strong women, lifted their children high overhead so that those unknowing little ones could see more clearly…

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  From that day—April 25—after Paris officially adopted the guillotine as the sole instrument of execution, until mid-to-late August, before Danton and Robespierre established the so-called Revolutionary Tribunal, only twenty-eight people in the greater Paris area went to the guillotine and did not return. It must be added that all twenty-eight were proven ordinary criminals who deserved their fate. They passed through three stages of trial involving criminal judges, the public prosecutor, a jury, and defense counsel—and there was not a single political prisoner among them.

  …

  On the morning of May 28, a dust-covered four-wheeled carriage, escorted closely by a large detachment of cuirassiers, rolled slowly yet resolutely toward Brussels, several kilometers to the north. It was an ordinary-looking enclosed coach, painted in the black lacquer customary for long journeys, bearing no noble coat of arms and no marks of identity.

  Along the way, Netherlandish farmers in the fields and merchants on the road halted or stepped aside, cautiously removing their black broad-brimmed hats and tall hats in a show of respect. They knew the man inside must be someone of high rank—one only had to look at the cavalry pressed around the coach: tall horses, bright armor, and swaggering bearing. Beneath their saddles lay whole bearskins. They wore new white uniforms embroidered with gold thread, and on their shining helmets were beautiful peacock plumes.

  Very well—there was no need to look further. These soldiers belonged to the Austrian court’s royal guard. As for the unseen passenger within the carriage, he was at least a noble of the Holy Roman Empire. Some passersby dared to guess that the great man inside might even be a prince, a Grand-Duc, or some other lofty thing.

  Before long, an attendant officer rode forward from the front, reined in beside the carriage window, and reported to his superior within: they were now less than 5 kilometers from Brussels—did he wish to stop briefly to rest and adjust his appearance before entering the city?

  From inside came the voice of a not-yet-old man: “Captain, continue forward. We are already late.” The Captain saluted at once and wheeled his horse away.

  Through the clean window, one could glimpse a fair-haired, handsome soldier inside. He appeared to be about twenty years old, with a pale forehead and neat temples. His stern expression carried a trace of melancholy. In his hands was a military map of the Netherlands; it seemed he had been studying it in the carriage, which was why the four-wheeled coach did not travel quickly. The rank insignia on his shoulder epaulettes already showed that the carriage’s owner was a young officer of remarkable early success—a General.

  Without doubt, this young Austrian General belonged to the august House of Habsburg: the third son of the late Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, and the younger brother of the reigning Emperor Francis II—Carl Ludwig Johann Joseph Laurentius von ?sterreich

  From birth, Archduke Charles of Austria suffered torment from illness—epilepsy, a “famous disease” said to be a curse laid by God. For this reason, when Emperor Leopold considered the Archduke’s future, he once hoped to place him in the Church. Later, however, Archduke Charles of Austria was adopted by his childless aunt, Marie Christine, and her husband Albert of Saxe–Teschen (that is, Duc de Teschen), and his fate changed accordingly.

  This kindly couple brought the young Archduke Charles of Austria to the Austrian Netherlands (present-day Belgium). There he experienced the Brabant Revolution of 1790 and the outbreak of the European Revolutionary War in 1792. It was also in this period that Archduke Charles of Austria began his military career.

  As a member of the Habsburg royal house, Archduke Charles of Austria, once commissioned, ought to have possessed the right to participate in organizing and directing operations. In reality, he did not. As commander-in-chief in the Austrian Netherlands, the fifty-five-year-old Field Marshal of Saxe-Coburg flatly refused the young royal’s request to take the field, stationing the cuirassier regiment under Colonel Charles (in the royal guard establishment) far from the Austro-French front, in the deep rear at Brussels. In the end, only under the insistence of the Governor of the Austrian Netherlands, Duc de Teschen, were Colonel Charles and his cuirassiers dispatched to the southern front, where they served at last under the division of General Josef Alvinczy.

  Before the war began, thanks to secret assistance from the Tuileries, France’s invasion plan had already become known to the Austrian command. Yet from native caution, and from the unfavorable balance of numbers (30,000 Austrian troops against 100,000 from two French armies), Field Marshal of Saxe-Coburg chose to hold the rearward cities and fight a long defensive counteroffensive. In April, the Austrian main forces withdrew from the Austro-French frontier to the line of Ghent, Brussels, and Namur, leaving at the front only General Josef Alvinczy’s division and several local militia-like units.

  Who could have expected that the French “opening performance” would be so utterly feeble? In the ambush at Tournai several weeks earlier, the royal cuirassiers commanded by Colonel Archduke Charles of Austria, working in concert with a detachment of Hungarian hussars, shattered a French infantry brigade with ease—while, on a neighboring field less than 3 kilometers away, a French cavalry brigade actually watched without lifting a hand, and fled first. Had General Josef Alvinczy not repeatedly emphasized before the battle, “No pursuit across the border,” the French brigade’s loss would not have been merely 2,500, but the entire brigade—4,200 men.

  After the Tournai ambush, Archduke Charles of Austria quickly received a commendation from headquarters and was promoted from Colonel to Brigadier General. Yet the young General Charles of Austria was not satisfied with these honors. He thirsted for battle—he longed for an even more brilliant victory; he longed to ride at the head of a charge, the first to burst through the gates of Paris, and to rescue his poor aunt (Queen Marie) and his innocent uncle (Louis XVI) from the hands of shameless mobs.

  Perhaps French quality was so poor that the Austrian cavalry, losing only a little more than ten men (half of them injured by falls from their horses), could win so splendid a victory. Perhaps the many French noble officers who had defected to the Austrian Netherlands egged him on. Perhaps… In any case, the young Habsburg prince decided to write to Field Marshal of Saxe-Coburg in Brussels, urging a change to the earlier defensive strategy—so that Austria might instead go on the offensive and carry the flames of war into France’s borders.

  But Field Marshal of Saxe-Coburg soon refused General Charles of Austria’s request. He wrote to rebuke the meddlesome young man, and instructed General Josef Alvinczy to keep a strict watch over this noble Habsburg prince. For the Austrian commander had just received orders from Vienna: to move the Bohemian corps stationed near Brussels in secret to the border region between the Bishopric of Liège and the Duchy of Luxembourg (nowadays' Luxembourg).

  For the King of Prussia had formally declared war on France on May 21, and had ordered the French diplomatic envoy to leave Prussian territory within seventy-two hours. Under the military alliance agreement reached between Austria and Prussia last August, the Prussian and Austrian Empires would join with certain German princely states participating in the war, and in mid-to-late June assemble a German expeditionary army—vast in number and terrifying in fighting power.

  Guided by the émigré detachment (led by French nobles), this expeditionary force would invade France in strength, crush French resistance completely, and ultimately occupy Paris—restoring the old French order and elevating Louis XVI once more to power. Its commander would be the Prussian prince, Marshal Brunswick.

  On this basis, Field Marshal of Saxe-Coburg’s reserve of 30,000 elite troops was suddenly gone; in a sour mood, he naturally would not approve Archduke Charles of Austria’s so-called counteroffensive plan. But the young Charles refused to accept it. Therefore, he decided to return to Brussels, intending to actively lobby his adoptive father, the Governor of the Austrian Netherlands, Duc de Teschen, to support his offensive scheme.