The Jacobins' furious propaganda over the Chanzeaux Massacre raged for days, a firestorm of ink and indignation. The King was a butcher, a tyrant, a new Herod. The story was simple, powerful, and effective. Louis knew from the reports of his agents that public opinion in Paris was turning sharply against him, the memory of his earlier reforms washed away in a tide of blood. He could not deny the massacre. The facts, however exaggerated, were out. To defend Custine's actions as "military necessity" would be to confirm his enemies' every accusation.
He was cornered. And it was in that corner that he made his most audacious move yet. He would not deny the narrative. He would seize it. He would not defend the atrocity; he would be the one to expose it, to prosecute it, and to punish it. He would frame himself not as the author of the crime, but as the ultimate guardian of justice against the excesses committed in his name.
His first move was a thunderclap that shook the entire military and political establishment of France. He signed a royal decree ordering the immediate arrest of General Adam Philippe de Custine.
The news was a sensation. The butcher he had personally unleashed, the victorious general who had successfully contained the Vendean rebellion, was to be brought back to Paris in chains. The army was stunned. The Jacobins were caught completely flat-footed. They had spent a week screaming for the King to act, never imagining for a moment that he actually would, let alone with such shocking decisiveness.
Louis's second move was even more brilliant. He announced, by royal proclamation, the formation of a special military tribunal to hold a public trial of General de Custine and the officers directly responsible for the massacre. Crucially, he did not stack the tribunal with loyalists or military cronies. The panel he appointed was a masterclass in political maneuvering. It included two high-ranking, respected generals known for their moderation, three moderate deputies from The Plain, and, in a stroke of absolute genius, he personally requested the service of a famous lawyer from the Assembly named Hérault de Séchelles. Hérault was a man with impeccable Jacobin credentials, a friend of Danton, but also a man known for his fierce, almost obsessive belief in legal process and the sanctity of the law. He could not be accused of being a royal stooge; his presence gave the entire proceeding an unassailable air of impartiality.
With the stage set, Barnave's propaganda machine, L'Ami des Lois, pivoted with breathtaking speed. Overnight, it stopped running stories of brave soldiers fighting fanatics. Instead, it became the leading voice of outrage against the massacre. Barnave's writers published heartbreaking, detailed accounts of the events at Chanzeaux, based on interviews with survivors who had been secretly brought to Paris and housed at the King's expense. They printed portraits of the victims, gave them names, families, histories.
But every article framed the story through a new, carefully constructed lens. The villain was not the King, whose horror and grief at the news were described in moving prose. The villain was not the honorable French army. The villain was General de Custine himself—a rogue general, a brutal relic of the Ancien Régime's aristocratic cruelty, a man whose personal barbarism had defied the King's will and stained the honor of the common soldier. The paper drew a sharp, clear line between the just King and his rogue servant.
The trial of General de Custine became the greatest public spectacle in Paris. The city was transfixed. Custine, an arrogant, proud man of the old school, played his part to perfection. He entered the courtroom not as a penitent, but as a defiant commander, sneering at the "committee of lawyers" who dared to judge him. On the stand, he did not deny the orders. He defended them.
"It was a military necessity!" he boomed, his voice echoing through the packed hall. "One cannot make war with rosewater! These peasants understand only one language: fear. I spoke it to them. I regret nothing. I did what was required to secure victory for my King."
His words, meant to sound strong and defiant, instead damned him completely. He came across as a monster, a perfect, unrepentant villain for the drama Louis was staging.
The Jacobins were thrown completely off balance. Their entire narrative had been stolen from them. They could not attack the King for the massacre if the King was the one prosecuting the man responsible with such public vigor. They tried to claim the trial was a sham, a show trial designed to find a convenient scapegoat. But the unimpeachable presence of Hérault de Séchelles on the tribunal, asking sharp, incisive questions and nodding grimly at the evidence, completely undermined their argument. They were forced into the bizarre position of watching their political enemies prosecute a crime they themselves had exposed.
The climax of the trial came with the testimony of a key witness for the prosecution, a witness hand-picked and carefully coached by Barnave's agents. He was a young Captain of infantry named Damien Giraud, an officer who had been present at Chanzeaux and had, according to his testimony, lodged a formal protest against Custine's order, an act of immense bravery.
Captain Giraud was handsome, eloquent, and humble. He stood before the tribunal, his uniform immaculate, his expression one of profound sorrow. In a moving speech that was reprinted in full in L'Ami des Lois the next day, he spoke of the sacred honor of the army.
"The French soldier is not a butcher," he said, his voice ringing with conviction. "We fight for the Nation, the Law, and the King. We do not fight women and old men. General de Custine ordered us to commit a crime not only against the people of the Vendée, but against our own souls, against the very flag we carry. There is a difference between the hard necessities of war and the barbarism of men like him. My loyalty is to France, and France is a nation of laws. The General placed himself above those laws. Therefore, he placed himself in opposition to France."
He became an overnight hero. He was the face of the new, honorable army, a man of courage and principle, loyal to the constitution and the King who upheld it. He was everything Custine was not.
The tribunal's verdict was swift and inevitable. General de Custine was found guilty of committing war crimes against the people of France and of conduct dishonoring the army. He was sentenced to death by the guillotine.
Louis had taken a catastrophic political defeat and transformed it into a stunning, multifaceted victory. He had purged a dangerous and politically toxic general from his own army. He had created a new military hero, Captain Giraud, whose fame and loyalty were now tied directly to him. And most importantly, he had masterfully repositioned himself in the public eye as the ultimate dispenser of justice, a just king who held even his own victorious generals accountable to the law. He was no longer the butcher; he was the judge.
His HUD, a silent observer to the entire drama, rendered its complex verdict.
PUBLIC OPINION: VENDÉE MASSACRE
Royal Culpability (Assigning Blame): -70%
Public Trust in King as 'Guardian of Justice': +40%
Jacobin Narrative Control on Issue: Disrupted/Neutralized
French Army Morale: UNSTABLE
Louis had masterfully navigated the crisis, extricating himself from the political trap with breathtaking audacity. But the final metric on his display was a stark and chilling reminder of the immense risk he had just taken. He had publicly tried and executed a victorious general in the middle of a brutal civil war. He had asserted his authority over the military in the most dramatic way possible, but the professional officer corps, men who understood the brutal logic of Custine even if they deplored his methods, would be deeply unsettled. He had won the battle for public opinion, but the loyalty of the army he depended on for his very survival was now dangerously uncertain.
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