The news of the Paris Commune's intervention was not just a new variable in the night's bloody equation; it was a complete inversion of it. The Commune, the radical municipal government of Paris, was a third beast, more unpredictable and in many ways more dangerous than the other two. It was not a political faction in the Assembly, but the direct, institutionalized power of the most extreme Parisian sections. It was the voice of the sans-culottes, the true believers for whom even Robespierre was sometimes too cautious. For them to make a play for supreme power was the nightmare scenario, the final, uncontrolled descent into the abyss.
Louis, Barnave, and Talleyrand stood in the study, the chaotic reports of their agent echoing in the silent room. The King's gambit, his clever, cynical plan to have his enemies devour each other, had failed in the most spectacular way possible. It had not produced a weakened, manageable victor. It had created a power vacuum, and the most extreme force in the city was now moving to fill it.
They were now faced with a new, even more terrible and immediate choice. They could continue to hide behind the palace walls, to remain spectators, and allow the three-way battle to rage across the city. This would likely result in the exhaustion and destruction of all organized authority, leaving the disciplined battalions of the Commune as the masters of the smoking ruins. A victory for the Commune would not mean a trial for the King; it would mean a pike with his head on it before sunrise.
Or, they could intervene. They could abandon their position of neutrality, get their own hands bloody, and deliberately tip the balance of the chaos in favor of the "lesser" of the available evils.
"We have to back one of them," Talleyrand said, his voice urgent, stripped for the first time of its usual ironic detachment. The situation had moved beyond amusing observation. "A victorious Commune means the end of everything we know. The National Assembly, the Constitution, the Monarchy—all of it will be swept away in a tide of pure, unadulterated anarchy. It is the abyss."
He looked at Louis, his eyes sharp and analytical. "Robespierre, if he survives, will establish a systematic, legalistic terror. A nightmare, but a structured one. Danton, if he wins, will preside over a corrupt, chaotic, but ultimately negotiable gangster state. Of the three possible outcomes, a Dantonist victory is the only one from which we might recover. He is a thug, but he is a thug with whom one can do business. We must back Danton. Now. Decisively."
Barnave, who had been listening with a look of pale horror, finally found his voice. "Back Danton? By what means? We cannot send the Swiss Guard out into the city! That would be the final provocation! It would unite every faction, every single Parisian with a musket, against the 'tyranny of the palace'! They would storm us before we even reached the Louvre! It would be the tenth of August all over again, but a hundred times worse."
He was right. They were trapped. They had the means to intervene—the loyal soldiers within the palace—but the political cost of using them was suicide.
Louis stared at the map of Paris, his mind racing, processing the cascading failures and the rapidly shrinking list of options. The HUD was a blur of catastrophic probabilities, a quantitative scream of impending doom. He felt the cold touch of the historical inevitability he had fought so hard to escape. Was this it? Was this the moment where, despite all his cleverness, all his future knowledge, the timeline snapped back to its bloody, pre-ordained conclusion?
No. He had one last card to play. One last, desperate, and insanely risky gambit.
He saw the flaw in Barnave's logic. They could not send the palace guard. But there was another force. A disciplined, professional force that was not associated with the palace, a force whose intervention could be framed not as a royalist coup, but as something else entirely. He looked at Barnave, then at Talleyrand, a new, hard light in his eyes.
"You are right," Louis said. "We cannot send the Guard. But we are not the only legitimate authority in this city. There is the National Assembly. It is the sovereign power of France, and it is currently under siege by warring, illegal factions. It has a right, a duty, to defend itself."
He began to pace, his mind forging the new plan as he spoke. "We will not send the palace guard to support Danton. We will send the Army to 'defend the National Assembly.' We will frame our intervention as a perfectly legal act, an answer to a desperate call from the legitimate government to restore order to the capital."
Barnave was aghast. "Your Majesty, you can't! To enter Paris at the head of regular army troops… they will call you a military dictator! They will scream that it is a coup d'état!"
"They are already calling for my head," Louis retorted, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "I would rather be called a dictator than a corpse. The framing is everything." He turned to Barnave. "You will go to the Assembly. Now. Gather every moderate, every terrified man of The Plain you can find. Have them pass an emergency decree, invoking the authority of the nation and formally requesting military assistance to restore order. It will give us the cover of law."
Then he turned to the terrified agent, Weber. "Find Colonel Giraud. He is billeted with his regiment just outside the city walls at the Champ de Mars. Give him this." Louis scribbled a quick, authoritative note, signing it not as King, but as Commander-in-Chief. "Tell him to assemble his most loyal battalion, the veterans, and prepare to march on my signal. His objective is not to fight for any faction, but to secure the building of the National Assembly."
Finally, he looked at his own reflection in the dark glass of the study window. He saw the face of a man who had tried for years to be a chess master, only to find that the board was on fire. The time for moving pieces from a distance was over.
"Get me my uniform," he commanded to a stunned aide. "The blue one. And have my horse saddled."
The final scene is a mad, desperate, and surreal procession through the chaotic, torch-lit streets of Paris. Louis, on his white charger, a drawn sword in his hand, is at the head of a small, elite bodyguard of his most loyal Swiss Guards. He is no longer hiding. He is a target, a king riding into the heart of the anarchy he paid for. He gallops through deserted boulevards and across barricades manned by confused and terrified citizens, a royal ghost in the machine of the revolution.
He reaches the army encampment at the edge of the city. Colonel Giraud has his men assembled. They are a thousand strong, veterans of the northern campaigns, their ranks perfectly dressed, their bayonets gleaming in the torchlight. They are a rock of professional discipline in an ocean of chaos. They see their King arrive, not in a carriage, not hiding in a palace, but in the saddle, in uniform, his sword drawn, ready to lead them himself. Their wavering loyalty, tested by the execution of Custine, in that instant crystallizes into a white-hot, absolute devotion. This is a commander. This is a king.
Louis wheels his horse to face them. He does not need to give a speech. He simply points his sword toward the glowing orange sky that hangs over the burning heart of Paris.
His column of regular soldiers arrives at the Rue Saint-Honoré. The scene is a vision of hell. The Duplay house is now a raging inferno, the flames licking high into the night sky. The Dantonist mob, victorious but disorganized, is fighting a desperate, swirling battle against the disciplined, newly arrived battalions of the Paris Commune, who are attempting to cordon off the entire street. It is a chaotic, three-way melee, a maelstrom of pikes, muskets, and screams.
Louis, at the head of his column of regulars, sits on his horse, the heat of the fire on his face. He has backed a coup, only to see it spiral into a multi-sided civil war. Now, to save himself from the catastrophic consequences of his own brilliant plan, he must personally lead a professional army into the heart of the inferno he created. He is no longer a chess player. He is a piece on the board, the most valuable and vulnerable piece of all, and the next move could be his last. He raises his sword, its polished steel gleaming in the firelight.
"Forward!" he commands, his voice ringing out over the din. "For the Law and for France!"
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