Late on the night of August fifth, just after André had someone return the “key” that symbolized Paris’s security authority to Paris City Hall, his brief tenure as the capital’s security commander came to an end. From that very moment, the countdown to the next armed uprising in Paris began in earnest.

  That same night, the deputy who had once again “skipped work” received a message from The Manège Hall: the Legislative Assembly’s 518 sitting national representatives had unanimously passed a motion appointing André Franck as the next rotating presiding officer of the National Legislative Assembly. His term would run from August sixth to August fifteenth—ten full days. If necessary, provided that at least half the deputies did not object, or that André himself did not resign, the term could be extended by another five to six days.

  “What the hell?” André burst out with a profane curse, leaving the young parliamentary messenger staring in bewilderment. André waved him away impatiently, then tossed him a five-livre silver coin to get rid of the clueless courier.

  Ever since becoming a deputy, André had grown to loathe the assembly hall’s raucous, market-like atmosphere—especially in summer, when the air barely circulated and a strong stench of sweat often hung over the benches. Even when he had no choice but to work at The Manège Hall, he did his best to hide in the second-floor committee rooms. More often than not, he would deliberately arrive late and slip out early, or simply invent excuses and absent himself entirely.

  Several days earlier, Thuriot had told him that the assembly’s right wing, along with many of the so-called moderates, were scared half to death by the second revolutionary wave that was about to hit Paris. Many were either fleeing abroad, retreating to country estates, or simply throwing themselves under the Jacobins’ protection. By early August, a legislature that had been formed only ten months before—originally with 745 deputies—had abruptly shrunk by thirty percent, losing more than two hundred members.

  It must be added that many suspected this mass disappearance of deputies was a political plot by the Robespierre–Danton faction. Evidence suggested that after Robespierre, Danton, and Marat reached an alliance, and in order to change their disadvantage inside the assembly, the man known as “the Incorruptible” proposed a particularly insidious scheme to Danton:

  They would incite the Cordeliers and the spear-bearing units led by Marat—composed largely of the militant street crowd—to terrorize timid deputies along the roads leading to the National Assembly, forcing them to leave The Manège Hall and seek refuge elsewhere. The goal was to drive the number of deputies down to the legal minimum—below three hundred—so that the Legislative Assembly would dissolve automatically, a new national election would be triggered, and a new assembly could be convened.

  However, André’s unexpected intervention prevented the Robespierre–Danton faction from fully succeeding. In early August, the Legislative Assembly still retained more than five hundred deputies. Much of that was credited to André in his capacity as security commander: on the grounds of public order, he ordered the National Guard to disperse several districts’ spear-bearing units. Any militiamen who refused were disarmed along with their leaders and expelled from Paris. If any assault occurred, the Paris courts—backed by the National Guard—would pursue criminal liability against the street militants.

  Seeing this, many remaining nobles and conservative centrists tried to cling to André for shelter. These restless figures quickly formed cliques, stirred up opinion during the election for the rotating presiding officer, and ultimately pushed André to the front. Given his contributions to revolutionary Paris and to the assembly itself, it was no surprise that the vast majority of the five hundred-plus deputies voted in favor.

  In reality, the newly installed President André was not happy in the least. His complaints about the work environment were merely a convenient excuse. Of those who had shoved him upward, he estimated that at least half had no good intentions; some were even royalist agents planted by the court. They fantasized about provoking divisions within the Jacobins, driving rival leaders into power struggles, and bleeding the strength of the Paris popular party through internal conflict—thus, in their minds, securing the safety of the Tuileries.

  Brissot and his friends, who also voted yes, were simply going with the current. They hoped to keep André in Paris, rather than let him personally consolidate an even stronger Army of the North. Only days earlier, with General Kellermann’s cooperation, Deputy Gensonné—acting as Plenipotentiary—had successfully taken control of the Army of the Moselle, and on charges of repeated defeat and dereliction had kicked the aged, incompetent Marshal Luckner back to his estate to retire. Like André, the Brissot faction did not like reckless purges of frontline commanders.

  André could not help finding Brissot’s na?veté amusing. They always believed that winning over a few generals meant controlling an entire army. If such a simple method truly worked, André would not have spent years in Bordeaux, Reims, and Avignon devouring Church property, building heavy industry in the Marne and Ardennes, fostering light industry, rallying the nation’s academicians to establish research institutes, forcing upward the tree of technology, and planting vast experimental fields.

  From 1790 to the present—less than three years—André had burned through over one hundred million livres, mobilized immense manpower and material, and constructed an unprecedented military–civilian industrial conglomerate. He had only one purpose: to bind the interests of the officers of the former Champagne Composite Regiment and of most of the present Army of the North together, so that they would rise and fall as one.

  Even so, André—forewarned by knowledge others did not possess—still did not dare relax. Even when the senior officers he had appointed would later be proven loyal, he continued, openly and covertly, to test their allegiance through the gendarmerie, the Military Intelligence Office, and other organs that could not be named aloud, doing everything possible to weed out the hidden rot.

  That was why, upon learning that Gensonné had taken control of the Army of the Moselle, André felt no concern at all. He also knew that General Kellermann—now appointed commander—was an old, slippery man with a will of his own; even the future Emperor Napoleon would find it difficult to secure the unwavering loyalty of the Kellermann father and son.

  On the morning of August sixth, André—still a deputy—arrived at the hall on time for once. To a wave of applause, he mounted the dais and sat in the presiding officer’s chair. Scanning the chamber, he saw that many benches were empty—down by 30 percent—no longer packed into the usual chaotic crush. Even the air felt noticeably better.

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  “Mr. President,” an elderly, veteran secretary turned and reminded André softly from below.

  By the rules, no one else could speak until the rotating presiding officer began; everyone was waiting for the new presiding officer either to deliver opening remarks or simply to ring the small brass bell.

  “Very well, citizens.” André rose. Pointing with his right hand at the King’s throne, he said, “What I wish to say is that this thing is far too close to my own seat. One day I might sit in the wrong place and be driven off this platform in disgrace. Therefore I present today’s first motion: move the King’s throne into the storeroom. Those opposed, raise your hands—no, those in support, raise your hands!”

  Amid good-natured laughter, André corrected himself in time. The motion passed without surprise. What followed belonged to the assembly: free debate, submission of bills, arguments, and votes.

  In the end, everyone shouted and bickered as usual. André listlessly toyed with the little brass bell; whether the deputies listened or not, he could not be bothered to care. From time to time, the four clerks below would take turns bringing up bills that had passed in committees or on the floor, asking the presiding officer for final review.

  Now André held one such document: a joint proposal from the committees on domestic affairs and finance, requesting funds to supply the National Guard’s volunteer troops with standardized uniforms. Attached were drawings of the new design and the projected costs.

  A blue coat; a white shirt; scarlet trim and cuffs; golden epaulettes; three buttons at the sleeve opening; triangular pockets; white outer coat and trousers; one cuff printed in gold with “Law,” another with “Liberty”... This single lavish coat alone cost five livres. Add the tricolor badge and plumed hat, leather boots, sword belt, and the rest, and a Paris uniform workshop gave a final quote of fifteen livres—four sets per year.

  Half an hour earlier, André had reviewed the treasury’s expenditure situation; he would not mention the exact numbers. By the end of August, the printing presses would likely have to run at full speed again to produce an additional one billion livres in paper notes.

  With a few strokes of his pen, André first cut the four sets down to two. Then he recommended cancelling the boots, replacing them with cheaper, more durable outdoor shoes produced by the Reims footwear works. He also required that each soldier be issued a small sewing kit so that he could mend damaged uniforms and trousers himself.

  After he stumbled through the morning session, noon recess finally came, and he could step outside to breathe. By chance, André ran into an “old acquaintance”: Napoleon Bonaparte—the thin, short officer in a dark uniform, with a slightly sallow face, who walked with his chin up and a challenge burning in his eyes.

  In fact, Napoleon had arrived in Paris two months earlier. Before coming to the capital, he had run in an election for command of the Ajaccio National Guard and lost to a family enemy, obtaining only the post of deputy major. Soon after, however, a bloody clash broke out between the residents who supported Corsican independence and the local garrison. Unluckily for Napoleon, he was made the scapegoat, and the Ajaccio council stripped him of his National Guard post.

  At first, Napoleon lodged in an expensive hotel near the Tuileries, where Corsican deputies stayed. He hoped that help from fellow islanders would restore his lieutenant’s rank in the regular army. Naturally, Napoleon’s first idea was to seek the help of the General André whom he already knew.

  But at that time André had left Paris and gone to a camp in Lille, more than two hundred kilometers away, where he took command of the Army of the North’s war effort as Plenipotentiary. Napoleon therefore had to try his luck among the Corsican deputies and search for a sympathetic patron.

  A middle-aged deputy named Pozzo refused him outright, publicly declaring that Napoleon was one of the principal instigators of the Ajaccio bloodshed and would receive no assistance from the people’s representatives. Because Pozzo enjoyed a good relationship with General Servan, the Minister of War, Napoleon’s application for reinstatement was ruthlessly rejected.

  After these two setbacks, Napoleon faced another problem: he was running out of money. He had to move out of the costly hotel and find cheaper lodgings. In the end, he received help from Brune, a former classmate from the Brienne military school, who found him a cheap room on a narrow side street at a drab-looking inn. The location was so out of the way that few visitors from the provinces stayed there, and the rooms were correspondingly inexpensive.

  During this period, Napoleon personally witnessed the events of June twentieth near the Tuileries. He saw the King, the Queen, and the royal children forced to wear red caps; he saw the King, under mob coercion, raise a cup in a toast—whether it held water or wine, he could not tell.

  On the way back to the inn, Napoleon told Brune, “The King bows and is despised; and in politics, once a man is despised, he can never rise again.” He also strongly agreed with General Lafayette’s criticism of the Jacobins: “They are madmen without education or learning.”

  As a serving officer trained in the regular military academies, Napoleon was a soldier who revered law, discipline, and order. To him, “liberty and equality” were fine words, but government could not be allowed to sink into chaos. Society required respect and authority across ranks; it required a leader. If action was to be efficient, one person had to lead—one leader had to decide, to issue orders, and to direct how those orders were carried out.

  After the Jacobin cabinet fell, Napoleon went again to the War Ministry to complete procedures and press for reinstatement. He submitted a certificate issued by a Corsican commander, General Rossi, and attached documents from both the Ajaccio authorities and the Corsican provincial government. He explained why he had been absent during the verification in January 1792: it was because he had served as deputy commander, a lieutenant colonel, in the National Guard.

  Plainly, the War Ministry officials aligned with the Constitutionalists were happy to restore officers trained in the regular academies. Moreover, at that time, two thirds of the artillery officer corps had already left their posts, and the army was desperately short of capable officers. Among Napoleon’s many classmates from the Paris military school—Pecadou, Philippe, Mazès, Bellecourt, Dufresne, and many others—almost all had relocated or emigrated abroad.

  Unfortunately, before long, just as Napoleon began to believe the War Ministry would reinstate him soon, André returned to Paris, and the Jacobins launched a fierce offensive against the Constitutionalists. A single coordinated blow sent their opponents reeling. The result was that Lafayette and others were driven into exile, and the Constitutionalist cabinet collapsed as well.

  Originally, the War Ministry’s review committee had agreed to complete Napoleon’s reinstatement process in early August. But Deputy Pozzo once again stepped in to obstruct it. The Corsican representative wrote numerous letters to War Ministry officials, accusing Napoleon of his actions in the Ajaccio disturbance, casting a shadow over any hope of restoration. Thus Napoleon came to the Legislative Assembly again, hoping to find André and try his luck.

  It must be said: today was Napoleon’s lucky day. André readily agreed to the short officer’s request and sent his aide, Captain, to make a run to the War Ministry. Forty minutes later, at a table in the Mediterranean restaurant, Napoleon received the War Ministry’s final written reply.

  The letter informed him that the War Ministry had decided to reinstate him. He was reassigned to a post in the Sixth Artillery Regiment garrisoned between Marseille and Toulon, and promoted to artillery captain. Moreover, the reinstatement date would be counted from February sixth, 1792, with full back pay. His annual salary would be one thousand six hundred livres; officer allowances and wartime stipends would be calculated separately.

  Even in his joy, a faint sense of loss rose in Napoleon’s heart. The all-powerful General André had not, at any point, invited him to join the famed Army of the North.

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  Coming up next: you’ll be stepping into a storm of intrigue—shadowy political maneuvering aimed at the Bourbon royal family, and the tense opening moves that set the stage for war.