At first, Lafayette listened with eyes blazing, fists clenched, and his whole body trembling with rage—so much so that he nearly drew his sword and demanded a duel. Yet as André spoke on, the commander suddenly fell quiet and silent. He recalled that André’s every step in Paris truly had been like treading on thin ice: a man with no foundation at all, maneuvering day after day among rival political factions, seeking only a path upward—like a man on a tightrope stretched along a cliff, with hellish abysses yawning on both sides.

  Before his death, Comte de Mirabeau had privately sent word to Lafayette: if Lafayette could not eliminate André cleanly and completely—along with his private armed force, the Champagne Composite Brigade—then Lafayette should instead accept André and draw him into his own circle. André might be base and cunning, but to benefactors and friends he was still fairly kind; at the very least, he did not kick a man when he was down.

  Mirabeau repeatedly emphasized to Lafayette that, when real danger arrived, he could choose to trust André. Thus, last year, Lafayette had tried to recruit André as his deputy, promising that after some time André could even succeed him as Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard. Only André had refused outright—more precisely, he despised that sinecure of a post.

  Then, one day after the Legislative Assembly was established, Lafayette suddenly discovered that André’s power and standing now exceeded his own. The former petty lawyer had grown into a figure of real weight: he could profoundly sway the National Assembly, alter elections at the Paris City Hall, and even challenge many of the cabinet’s administrative powers.

  Before the “Champ de Mars tragedy,” André and Lafayette had remained on fairly good terms. The rift between them appeared only after Lafayette led troops to suppress the radical republicans and became the target of all arrows. In truth, André’s original intention was to support Lafayette’s brutal suppression of the radicals. He had even urged the National Guard commander—who held the armed forces of the Paris suburbs in his hand—to go further still, and had drawn up a list of political prisoners who “must be removed,” insisting that all radicals and all resisters be cut down to the root and that no future trouble be left alive.

  When the moment was ripe, Lafayette could then take the next step: drive the troublesome Louis XVI and Queen Marie out of the Tuileries, place the royal couple under house arrest at the fortress of Tampoul, and enthrone the young Louis XVII—thereby making Lafayette prime minister, the true “first man of France.”

  Yet the rigid and obstinate knight refused André’s absurd proposal with unwavering resolve, and continued—faithful to the tracks of history—toward his own death trap. So, at that time, André finally discarded every lingering illusion he had entertained about the romantic Constitutionalists, and turned to stand firmly on the republican side—at least on the surface. Outwardly, he still belonged to the revolutionary moderates: he advocated demands for democracy that were “not excessive,” and opposed radicalism in every form.

  In a word, André was waiting in silence—waiting to see one tower collapse, and another tower rise.

  André’s purpose in coming to the Army of the Moselle (the central army group) now was not to break with Lafayette face to face; the continuing theme was still the pursuit of power. He had provoked Lafayette on purpose only to test the commander’s patience and capacity to endure, and then to decide what method to use for the next step.

  For by the middle of next month, Lafayette’s Army of the Moselle would have to move its base to Sedan in the Ardennes—within André’s line of sight. If André wished, he could ruin this proud, lonely idealist in twelve different ways.

  But for the present, André wanted only to plant one man inside the army group—and to take one man away.

  In the reception room, the discordant air between commander and commissioner did not last long. A knock sounded outside: a guard reported that a man claiming to be the commissioner’s secretary, Monsieur Ouvrard, had arrived.

  “Let him in,” André said casually, settling back onto the sofa.

  The guard did not answer. He glanced at the commander’s expression; seeing no objection, he stepped aside and allowed Ouvrard to enter.

  “Is it all ready?” André asked.

  Ouvrard nodded and drew a document from his portfolio. He had meant to hand it to André, but André waved him off and indicated Lafayette with his eyes. “Not to me. Let your commander have a look.”

  Lafayette seemed not to catch the barb. He took the paper and began to read. But soon he sprang up from the sofa and asked André with visible delight, “Is all this true?”

  André said nothing. He pointed at Ouvrard. Standing before Lafayette, Ouvrard replied with deference, “All of it is true, Commander.”

  “Oh, I have one—no, two conditions—before I help you get rid of this man.” As he spoke, André raised a finger, then a second, bargaining with Lafayette as naturally as breathing.

  Ten minutes later, the senior officers gathered in the meeting room saw the door to the commander’s office suddenly open. They all rose in unison and watched as Marshal Lafayette and Commissioner André entered. Behind them walked a man carrying a brown leather bag.

  “Gentlemen, at ease,” Lafayette said with a wave, and invited the commissioner to sit beside him. After the Revolution, most meeting rooms had adopted a stripped-down style: long tables assembled into an elbow shape. All working committees in the Legislative Assembly conducted their business the same way.

  Lafayette continued, “Originally, I meant to invite Commissioner André to take luncheon with the gentlemen present. But the commissioner has informed me that he must first handle an urgent duty entrusted to him by the Legislative Assembly. Please—Monsieur André.”

  “Thank you—my thanks to the commander, and to all gentlemen, for your patience.” André rose. His gaze swept across the officers like gunfire, and almost all of them felt their blood run cold. Only now did they remember General Narbonne’s earlier jest:

  “…They say what he likes best is to pick fights with the thorns—and he almost never misses.”

  Who was the “thorn”? Perhaps no one in the room knew—except the two highest commanders. Yet no one wished to become the protagonist.

  Narbonne’s handsome face, however, broke into a smile, because in the papers the unfamiliar bag-carrier had handed to the commissioner, Narbonne had caught sight of a familiar—and detestable—name.

  “Grand Colonel Pierre!” André called out the quartermaster’s name in a loud voice.

  “Yes, Commissioner!” The fat quartermaster sprang up by instinct, head high and chest out, waiting in anxious dread for what would come next. Behind people’s backs, he dared complain once or twice. To a man’s face, he even controlled his breathing, terrified of making too much noise and becoming the “thorn.”

  André looked him over and asked, “Grand Colonel Pierre—someone has reported that, during your tenure as quartermaster officer of the Army of the Moselle, you embezzled pay and diverted 21,000 livres for private use; that you cut rations, and issued potatoes as bread, treating them as the staple. Are these facts true? Do you admit these accusations?”

  “No—impossible! I absolutely did not! It’s a frame-up—by certain royalists with hostile intentions, by conspirators in Mainz and Coblenz! Commissioner!” The fat quartermaster flailed his arms, furious, struggling to defend himself while flinging every charge onto the émigré nobles.

  André could not be bothered to listen. He gave a contemptuous snort—“Fat pig. Read it yourself.”—and then flung a thick sheaf of papers into the face of the man seated at the lower left, the pages slapping loudly as they hit.

  The senior officers froze. In their experience, heated arguments in headquarters meetings were common; but blows at the first disagreement were rare—almost unheard of.

  Yet from the scattered documents on the table, the commissioner’s accusation was no empty threat. The papers listed the Grand Colonel’s crimes over the past six months; even the transaction times, delivery locations, bribe amounts, and responsible parties were arranged with perfect clarity in tabular form. One page even included statements from more than ten witnesses, their names blacked out with thick ink.

  If those seated could see it, the standing Grand Colonel could see it better. At least half the incidents were operations he had personally directed; most of the rest he had touched as well, and shared in the profit. His heart sank; despair rose like cold water.

  “I can’t admit it—I won’t lose,” he told himself again and again. Then he lifted the head that had begun to droop, and shouted to everyone in the room:

  “I’m a member of the local Jacobins! Last month I was even the rotating chairman of the branch! And Deputy Brissot and Minister of War General Grav both know my name. I report to them on military affairs every week—regularly! So someone is trying to pin this on me—someone is! I know who they are—Narbonne, Kellermann, Custine—it’s them…!”

  The threat of patrons and backers meant nothing to André. The commissioner gave a small laugh. “Grand Monsieur Pierre, I am the liaison secretary of the Correspondence Committee of the Jacobins’ Paris Club. Three days ago, I represented the central club in proposing that the Metz branch revoke your membership; the motion has passed. As for the two great men you named—Deputy Brissot and Minister of War General Grav—both have already written to me in turn, stating they will not interfere in internal matters of the Army of the Moselle, but they do hope all corrupt and embezzling elements will be punished severely. The rest falls within my duties as commissioner, and there is no need to report anything to you.”

  André no longer wished to hear the quartermaster’s incoherent defence. He rang a small bell. Captain Suchet and two gendarmes, waiting outside, entered at once, and took hold of the quartermaster, who was beginning to show signs of frantic madness.

  When the gendarmes tried to drag him away, André stopped them again. He glanced at Lafayette, who had remained silent from beginning to end, and then asked the others, “Since the facts are assembled, and both the commander and I are present—where is the judge advocate?”

  “I—I’m here. I am Colonel Bell Reck, Commissioner,” a thin-faced colonel raised his hand timidly, almost like a man surrendering, drawing an angry glare from Marshal Lafayette.

  “Good. Since the judge advocate is present, I demand that a three-man military tribunal be convened at once, presided over by Marshal Lafayette, Commissioner André, and Judge Advocate Colonel Reck, to try the suspect, Grand Colonel Pierre, and to deliver judgment on the spot. The gentlemen present will serve as the jury, and Captain Suchet of the gendarmerie will act as the prosecutor. Does anyone object?”

  André asked the question with a smile. No one dared meet his eyes.

  Grand Colonel Pierre, however, clawed his way back to lucidity and shouted desperately—first opposing the very establishment of such a tribunal, then demanding counsel and an extension of the proceedings. André rejected every request, citing that a wartime military tribunal did not admit defence counsel. In the end André wanted only one thing: to finish all legal procedure in this room. He needed a bloody head to establish authority within the Army of the Moselle—especially among the senior officers.

  Grand Colonel Pierre’s greed had left him almost no allies in the upper ranks. Every general—Marshal Lafayette included—loathed him and sincerely wished he would be gone, but few dared say so aloud. It was not merely Pierre’s close relationship with the Jacobins. It also involved secret dealings between high officials in the Legislative Assembly and the War Ministry, and the army group’s quartermaster. If trouble broke out, supplies would be cut off at once; the Army of the Moselle would collapse and become a second German Corps.

  “Then my proposal is adopted,” André said with satisfaction when no one objected. He signalled Captain Suchet to read out the indictment that had already been drafted.

  “First Military Tribunal of the Army of the Moselle of the Kingdom of France, Indictment No. ___: Defendant Pierre Grand, male, aged thirty-nine, employed in the Quartermaster Supply Office of the Army of the Moselle, rank colonel… After a thorough investigation, the facts of the aforementioned crimes are clear; the gendarmerie recommends that the First Military Tribunal impose severe punishment upon the offender.”

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  André again asked the jury for its view. The officers cooperated readily and expressed support one after another. Most of them hated the quartermaster and wanted him to suffer. Even those who might have wished to oppose did not dare, at the moment of the commissioner’s display of power, to become the “thorn” who was certain to be ruined. From Marshal Lafayette’s conduct it was plain the two highest commanders had already reached an understanding; this was merely a formality.

  So André exchanged two or three brief words with the commander and the judge advocate, and then announced in public:

  “The jury finds Pierre Grand deserving of punishment. And the three judges of the military tribunal unanimously sentence Pierre Grand to death. One hour from now, Judge Advocate Colonel Reck will supervise the execution by firing squad on the church square.”

  With that, André made a sign. Captain Suchet had the gendarmes take the fat man—collapsed into a heap of meat on his chair and babbling nonsense—out of the room, throw him into a confinement cell, and leave him to eat the last meal of his life.

  Under André’s original plan, he meant only to remove Grand Colonel Pierre from office and hand him over to the military police; he had not intended to use the man as a sacrificial banner. But after witnessing the Army of the Moselle’s wretched condition—soldiers unpaid, food miserable, more than half the men openly or covertly refusing to obey orders, officers astonishingly lax and forever scheming against one another while ignoring the troops—André swiftly corrected his earlier view.

  If he wished to establish the commissioner’s lofty authority in the Army of the Moselle and, at the same time, invigorate sagging morale, he needed a head dripping with blood—the one unfailing instrument of discipline. With Marshal Lafayette’s full cooperation, that universally hated fat quartermaster became, very unfortunately, the sacrifice laid upon the commissioner’s altar.

  There was no doubt: André’s action shook the entire body of officers and men, forcing them into awe. Of course, awe alone could never truly buy hearts; it was neither enough nor durable. André had already prepared the second step—and the third.

  Lafayette saw every one of these tricks clearly, yet his own scruples bound him and left him unable to stop them. When Lafayette demanded to know why Moncey’s infantry regiment and Hoche’s cavalry regiment still had not reported to the Metz headquarters, André answered only, “I’m sorry—I am no longer the supreme commander of the Champagne Composite Brigade. So on that question, either ask the two parties themselves, or question the acting brigade commander—General Berthier.”

  Lafayette fell silent at once. In his heart he knew perfectly well that in both the Ardennes and Marne, the armed forces were all held in André’s hand.

  André remembered a saying: “Character determines destiny.” In Lafayette’s mind lived a chivalric spirit, blended with the Enlightenment ideals of liberty and equality. That spirit could make him a great patriot and a soldier with conscience; but it did not make him a capable administrator—perhaps not even a competent one.

  That a mere quartermaster could leave a commander with heavy forces at his disposal utterly helpless was a farce. No wonder that, in another world-line, when Lafayette “defected” to an enemy country, among the tens of thousands in the Army of the Moselle, only a little more than twenty noble officers were willing to follow him to the death—sending their own families to the guillotine.

  It was for this reason that André dared to press with sheer power, “bullying” this good man, brazenly demonstrating before the commander and the senior officers, and branding into their minds the supreme authority of Commissioner André. Now, when the generals looked at André, there was less arrogance and disdain, and more submission—perhaps even a trace of fear.

  When the former quartermaster’s pig-like screams were shut behind the meeting-room doors, the commander drew out his pocket watch and confirmed it was already ten minutes past two in the afternoon. Lafayette then invited Commissioner André and the senior officers to take a working meal together—served right here in this meeting room, which had just functioned as a makeshift tribunal.

  Even for the senior officers of the Army of the Moselle, their daily fare remained the same unchanging rotation: black bread, roasted potatoes, meat-and-vegetable soup, and a small dish of green peas and olives (usually pickled). As officers they could also have red wine, but the rule was one bottle shared between two men, for fear of drunkenness and mistakes. They poured for themselves; there were no attendants.

  Facing this “husks and chaff” of a meal, André—accustomed to white bread and French dining—had no appetite at all. He instructed Ouvrard to fetch some tins from his carriage.

  …

  Moreau sat on the steps beneath the remnants of the cloister arcade. The courtyard before him had once been the residence of the monastery’s senior clergy, but after long years of decay, the walls had darkened and cracked; the rooms were cold and damp, moss-covered, and sometimes bright green weeds pushed up from the seams.

  A week earlier, Lieutenant Colonel Moreau and more than 500 men of the 1st Breton Volunteer Battalion had been assigned to camp here. The long marches had worn down the men’s patriotic ardour; and the damned quartermaster’s daily provision of barely edible mashed potatoes drove their spirits lower still, until complaints began to spread. The grumbling was private and low, but Moreau heard it clearly.

  If he could not solve the problem of morale, Moreau believed desertion might well appear even in the 1st Breton Volunteer Battalion. So this twenty-nine-year-old officer gathered his courage and decided to go to the army group quartermaster and demand proper rations: more bread as the staple, not potato paste.

  The result of that negotiation was, predictably, failure. But that was not the worst of it. Lieutenant Colonel Moreau had provoked a man he never should have provoked: Major General André, the commissioner attached to the Army of the Moselle. Worse still, the commissioner had fixed his eyes on Moreau and declared that he would “have time” to settle with him.

  So when Captain Decon—blond-haired—set a tray before Moreau with a few slices of black bread and a bowl of soup, Moreau had no interest in eating; he did not even feel like looking at it.

  “Take it to the sick and wounded,” Moreau said flatly.

  This gang-bred lieutenant colonel was fiercely loyal to his men; the sick and wounded routinely received the best treatment in the battalion. It was for this very reason that, during the dull, grinding marches over long distance, the 1st Breton Volunteer Battalion had not produced a single deserter—losses from illness and injury remained in single digits. It was nearly a miracle.

  “They’ve already eaten—and they ate like officers,” Captain Decon replied. He handed the bread to his commander, watched him swallow an entire slice, and continued, “The quartermaster-sergeant just told me most of the potatoes have sprouted. They can only be used as seed now, so they can’t be issued as food.”

  Moreau nodded blankly, but said nothing.

  Decon hesitated, yet the seriousness of the situation forced him to speak plainly. “So at the latest, starting the afternoon after tomorrow, I’m afraid our kitchens won’t be able to guarantee even the potato mash.”

  Moreau still showed no reaction. At that moment, a noisy commotion suddenly rose from the courtyard. Decon glanced at his impassive commander, then turned and hurried out.

  Not long after, the captain came running back, excited, holding a large glass jar with the lid already opened. Inside were pieces of something that looked like meat, and it smelled wonderfully rich.

  “Lieutenant Colonel!” Captain Decon shouted. “The commissioner sent gendarmes to deliver bread to the lads—and this too. They call it—officers’ tinned meat! Oh—and there’s more good news: that damned fat quartermaster was found guilty by a special military tribunal, and he’s already been shot in public on the church square.”

  The “officers’ tinned meat” Captain Decon mentioned was, of course, luncheon meat produced by the United Canning Works—a simplified version of what later generations would call Spam. Its main ingredients were still ham, pork, sugar, salt, water, and potato starch; and, inevitably, a small amount of preservative (sodium nitrite) was added. In cost it was only half the price of fresh meat in Metz. A two-pound jar sold for only 2 livres. Not only that: the meat kept an attractive pink colour and lasted longer in storage.

  It must be said: this “Spam” jar at present was issued only to junior and middle-ranking officers. For the massive number of ordinary soldiers, the “luncheon meat” they received was cheaper still—more precisely, it was a mash of unwanted animal organs and filthy offal, mixed with the shrimp and fish that swarmed in the river, all ground together, bulked with cheap spices and still more additives, steamed, then stir-fried into a crude medley.

  As for the toxicity of sodium nitrite—the chief preservative—André chose, deliberately, to ignore it. For the soldiers about to go into battle, most of them would not live to see the day when sodium nitrite could seriously impair their bodies.

  Besides these two glass-jars—so different in substance—there was a third, higher-end kind: tin cans. These included real pork and beef tins—not diluted with masses of starch—as well as sardines and even caviar. The cheapest of these higher-end tins already cost 5 livres per half-pound, and naturally they were reserved for senior officers.

  Now, on the long tables of the headquarters meeting room, dozens of tins of different types were laid out—high, middle, and low. And Ouvrard, as the commissioner’s secretary, had become a salesman for the United Investment Company, seizing the chance to promote these three price tiers of tinned meat to the army group commander and the commanders present.

  To strengthen his pitch, with Lafayette’s permission, Ouvrard selected three battalions as pilot units. He distributed the two kinds of glass jars for officers and men to taste. Praise rose at once. Soldiers starving for meat declared the tins unimaginably delicious, and called them the finest meat product on earth. Gendarmes from Marne even taught their colleagues in the Army of the Moselle a method: cook the pink luncheon meat until it turned into a paste, spread it directly on black bread—or mix it into potatoes—then sprinkle salt and chopped spring onion over it. It was perfection.

  Whether they truly valued the tins’ utility or simply feared the commissioner’s authority, the officers on both sides declared one after another that they hoped the tins would soon be added to the Army of the Moselle’s standard supply list.

  When the pitch was nearly complete, the vast meeting room was left with only four men: Marshal Lafayette, André, Ouvrard, and General Narbonne, who was temporarily acting as quartermaster.

  “Even the soldiers’ tins—two pounds a jar—still cost 1 livre. If we issue one jar per man per week, then with more than 50,000 soldiers the army group will burn 250,000 livres a month. Add the officers’ share, and it’s likely no less than 350,000 livres.” General Narbonne, the former Minister of War, ran the numbers. The Army of the Moselle’s monthly food allocation was only 400,000 livres; it was impossible to spend it all on tins.

  Ouvrard followed smoothly. “Then halve it. I think in non-combat conditions, or when we’re not in emergency marching, we issue tins once every half-month. That way, 150,000 livres a month is enough. I can guarantee this is already the cheapest method of supplying soldiers with meat in all Europe. I strongly recommend that you replace all potato deliveries with whole potato flour, which can substitute for flour—cheaper, better in texture, and especially suited for long-distance transport with less spoilage. As for cigarettes, we still split them into three grades—high, middle, and low—and I suggest…”

  He paused only to press his advantage.

  “Of course, I know funds are gravely short, and many items are insufficient. But that’s not a problem. I know that the Duchy of Luxembourg (present-day Luxembourg) has already dissolved the illegal gatherings of émigré nobles in February and agreed to pay France 500,000 livres in compensation. The money has already reached Metz and is currently held in the bank vaults. If the commander and the commissioner agree, the Army of the Moselle can draw on it in advance.”

  “And you, Commander—what do you think?” When Ouvrard finished laying out the plan, André began tapping the tabletop in a measured rhythm. He was applying pressure. He was ready to force the issue.

  The compensation from the Duchy of Luxembourg (present-day Luxembourg) was something André meant to take; he believed the Legislative Assembly and the cabinet would not complain much. At times, André found Napoleon’s line deeply persuasive: “Lafayette is a complete fool.” A heap of money lay at his feet, and he would not bend down to pick it up.

  On the other hand, André had already forced the canning works to push the “soldiers’ tin” price down to the limit—its cost pushed down to the limit as well, almost made from scraps that cost nothing. Even so, the soldiers’ tins still carried at least a 25% profit margin (the other two tiers reached 35%). This one-pound “meat-like tin” cost only ten sous—only two to three times the price of bread—yet it could restore enough morale and strength for soldiers to sustain combat preparation.

  Paris had prepared 20,000,000 livres for the coming foreign war. Weapons, ammunition stockpiles, new uniforms, and soldiers’ pay consumed most of it; the remaining 8,000,000 livres were meant to supply 150,000 troops with food for six or seven months. In case the situation worsened, the “cabinet of Brissot’s friends” planned to raise another 20,000,000 livres in emergency war funding, and hoped the Legislative Assembly would approve it in early April.

  As the hidden master of the United Investment Company, André did not need anyone to point out the opportunity. Even the monthly food consumption of 1,200,000 livres—if 30% of it went to tinned meat—was already a substantial figure. Once war began, all consumption would swell still further.

  Say had made a rough calculation: if the three army groups purchased the United Investment Company’s tins, cigarettes, and whole potato flour, profits in peacetime would run around 300,000 livres per month. Once Europe entered full war mode, that figure could rise to 1,000,000 livres—or more.

  In truth, profit was only one part of what Say pursued. More important was that such large-scale military procurement would drive explosive growth in Marne’s labour-intensive industries and create at least 100,000 to 150,000 jobs. Governor Basile would be delighted; he would no longer need to fear the weekly influx of thousands of refugees from neighbouring departments.

  A few days earlier, Say had already sent others to pitch tins, cigarettes, and whole potato flour to the Army of the North and the right-wing army group. The Army of the Moselle, however, had been left to André and Ouvrard.

  “I have no objections,” Lafayette said at last, with little hesitation, and nodded his agreement. “As for the detailed arrangement, General Narbonne will settle it with your secretary.”

  In fact, Lafayette could see it clearly: Narbonne had already been bought, quietly, by André. Most of the generals would likely receive “special gifts” from the commissioner as well. So long as André did not cross the red line—directly interfering with operational command—Lafayette could endure almost anything.

  However, when Ouvrard and General Narbonne moved from broad terms into details, a not-insignificant obstacle emerged. Much of the pay the War Ministry issued to the army groups arrived not in cash but in kind—such as potatoes from Marne, and meat supplies assigned to Moselle.

  On the former, Ouvrard proposed replacing two-thirds of the fresh potatoes with whole potato flour. It would keep for ten years, tasted decent, and was far easier to transport long distances with reduced loss. On the latter, Moselle had long failed—under one excuse or another—to deliver the required amount of fresh meat to the Army of the Moselle’s logistics office. The ball was now kicked straight to Commissioner André.

  André did not shirk his responsibility. “No problem. I will order Captain Suchet to take my warrant into Metz and demand a response from the Moselle Department administration within twenty-four hours.”

  In truth, the Moselle Department administration and the Metz City Hall responded in less than two hours after receiving the commissioner’s warrant. They declared that within three days they would refund in full the relevant meat-procurement funds issued by the cabinet—including the value of fresh meat already delivered to the camp—as compensation to the Army of the Moselle.