The Austrian envoy had been sent away with a noncommittal answer, a masterpiece of diplomatic ambiguity crafted by Talleyrand that gave Louis time to think. The King left the heavy, consequential air of the secret council room and sought refuge in the one place where the crushing weight of geopolitics seemed to hold no sway: the palace gardens, in the company of his son.
The Dauphin, Louis-Joseph, was continuing his slow, miraculous recovery. The change in him over the past weeks was astonishing. The pale, skeletal invalid was gone, replaced by a boy who, while still thin and delicate, was now filled with a child's restless energy. He had graduated from his sickbed to a chair, and from the chair to his own two feet. Today, for the first time, he was well enough for a proper walk, with assistance, in the crisp autumn air.
The scene was one of almost painful domestic tranquility. Louis walked slowly along the manicured gravel path of the Tuileries garden, his son's small hand held firmly in his. The boy, his legs still unsteady, leaned heavily on his father for support. Marie Antoinette walked on his other side, a radiant, almost translucent joy in her face. For her, this simple, halting walk was a greater victory than all of Napoleon's conquests.
They were no longer the King, the Queen, and the Heir. They were simply a father and a mother, taking their convalescent child for a walk in the sun.
But the Dauphin was not just a recovering invalid. He was a deeply intelligent and observant child, his mind sharpened by long months of quiet, watchful stillness. His life had been a bewildering series of dramatic, incomprehensible events: the move from the grandeur of Versailles to this guarded palace, the angry shouts of crowds, the night of terror when the palace was in an uproar, his own near-death, and his father's strange, miraculous cure. He was a boy trying to make sense of his world, a world that happened to be a kingdom in the throes of revolution.
As they walked, he began to ask questions. They were simple, direct, childish questions. And they were, in their innocence, the most profound and difficult political questions of all.
They passed a grand, equestrian statue of Louis XIV, the Sun King, his bronze face a mask of haughty, absolute power. The Dauphin stopped and looked up at his famous ancestor, his head tilted.
"Papa," he asked, his voice clear in the quiet garden. "Were you a great king like him?"
The question was a child's simple comparison, but it struck Louis with the force of a complex philosophical inquiry. Was he? Louis XIV's greatness was the greatness of absolute power, of unquestioned authority, of a state that existed to serve the glory of its monarch. Louis XVI had systematically dismantled that entire edifice. Or had he? He had just imposed his will on the city by military force. He had purged his enemies. He had a secret police and a network of spies. In his pursuit of a stable, constitutional monarchy, had he inadvertently become a new, more efficient kind of absolutist himself?
He found himself struggling for an answer. "He… was a very different kind of king, in a very different time, Joseph," was the weak, evasive reply he finally managed.
They continued their walk, turning onto a path that overlooked the main courtyard, the Cour Royale. A detachment of Colonel Giraud's line infantry, the heroes of the Rue Saint-Honoré, were drilling on the parade ground, their movements a blur of clockwork precision, the shouted commands of their sergeant echoing in the crisp air. The Dauphin watched, captivated by the spectacle of the blue-coated soldiers and their gleaming bayonets.
"Are we at war so we can have more soldiers?" he asked, his logic simple and direct.
Another question that was far more complex than it seemed. Was that what this was all about? Had the glorious war of liberation, the war to secure the revolution, now become a self-perpetuating machine, a war fought simply for the sake of having a powerful, victorious army? He thought of Napoleon, of the river of gold and glory flowing from Italy, of the immense power and popularity the war was giving him. Was the war now the end, rather than the means? Was France becoming a new Sparta, a nation whose primary purpose was to fuel its own magnificent military?
"No, son," Louis said, his voice quiet. "We have soldiers so that we can one day live in peace." The answer sounded hollow, a tired platitude, even to his own ears.
As they neared the palace entrance, a group of well-dressed men were leaving. They were deputies from the National Assembly, members of the moderate faction, their faces plump with the satisfaction of men whose property values were secure. They bowed deeply to the King, their expressions a mixture of respect and a new, almost fearful deference.
The Dauphin watched them go. "Papa," he asked. "Do we have laws so that those men can be rich?"
This question was the most piercing of all. It cut to the very heart of the revolution he had guided. He had saved the nation from bankruptcy by seizing the lands of the Church. He had funded his new army with a Levy for the Defense of Property. He had built his new, stable France on a foundation of bourgeois self-interest. He had, at every turn, allied himself with the men of property against the dispossessed radicals. The result was a nation that was more prosperous and stable, but was it more just? Had he simply replaced an aristocracy of birth with a new aristocracy of wealth?
He looked at the earnest, questioning face of his son and realized with a dawning, sickening horror that he had been so completely consumed by the how of survival that he had lost sight of the why. He had successfully navigated crisis after crisis, outmaneuvered every enemy, survived every plot. He had won. But what, precisely, had he won? What was his grand, unifying vision for the future of France, beyond the immediate, perpetual maintenance of his own power?
He had prevented Robespierre's Republic of Virtue. But what had he replaced it with? An unstable oligarchy run by himself, a corrupt demagogue, and a cynical network of spies? A nation that preached liberty while secretly plotting to sell a sister republic into slavery?
He had no answer for his son.
They re-entered the palace and made their way back toward the nursery. As they walked down the long Hall of Mirrors, the boy, his small hand still holding his father's, was quiet for a long time. Louis assumed he was growing tired. But just as they reached the door to their apartments, the Dauphin stopped and looked up at him, his expression one of complete, childish seriousness.
"Papa," he said. "When I am King… will I have to be a tyrant?"
The question. It hung in the air of the magnificent, silent hall. It was a perfect, innocent, and absolutely devastating summation of the moral compromises Louis had made. He was building a state that was stable, powerful, and victorious. But was it good? Was it just? Was it free? Was he forging a crown for his son that could only be worn by a man willing to be ruthless, cynical, and cruel?
Louis looked at his son—the living, breathing miracle who was the reason for every single dark bargain and bloody compromise he had made. He looked into the boy's clear, trusting eyes. And for the first time, the King, the man with all the answers, the man with the future in his head, had nothing to say.
He realized that securing the throne had only been the first, and perhaps the easiest, part of his long journey. The true challenge, the crushing, terrifying burden of his victory, was only just beginning: the challenge of building a France that was not just powerful, but also worthy of the innocent boy who would one day inherit it. He had saved the monarchy. But now, he had to decide what the monarchy was actually for.
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