Napoleon's dispatch lay on the King's desk, a declaration of intent as much as a report. It was a demand for more men, more cannons, and, most audaciously, for the authority to dictate the foreign policy of France. It was the letter of a man who no longer saw himself as a servant of the state, but as its master.
Louis sat in his study with Barnave and Talleyrand, the heavy vellum seeming to radiate a dangerous heat. The silence in the room was thick with the weight of an impossible decision.
Barnave, his face flushed with a patriot's outrage, was the first to break it. "This is the act of a traitor!" he declared, his voice trembling with fury. "He is not a general; he is a warlord, a new Caesar dictating terms to the Senate from across the Rubicon! He demands an army that would be loyal only to him, to wage a war for his own glory! We must refuse him! We must send another general, a man of loyalty and republican virtue, to share his command and dilute his power. We must act now, Your Majesty, before it is too late!"
Talleyrand, who had been examining the dispatch through his lorgnette as if it were a curious insect, gave a soft, dry sigh that was more devastating than any argument. "And which loyal, virtuous general do you propose we send, my dear Barnave?" he asked, his voice a silken purr of pure cynicism. "Kellermann? A competent man, but one whom Bonaparte would run rings around strategically before arranging for him to die heroically in a minor, pointless skirmish. Jourdan? A man whose army is barely holding the Rhine? No."
He placed his lorgnette down with a soft click. "Let us be clear about the reality of our situation. To refuse the General's request is to invite him to march on Paris. And his veteran army, which now believes he can conjure victories from thin air, will follow him without question. To share his command is a half-measure that will only result in the death of the man we send. We cannot fight him in Italy. He is, for the moment, untouchable."
Louis listened, his expression unreadable. His two advisors had perfectly articulated the horns of his dilemma: a disastrous political concession or a potentially fatal military confrontation. He was being offered a choice between abdication and civil war.
But Louis was no longer the man who had trembled in this palace years ago. He had learned that when faced with two bad options, a true ruler creates a third. He would not refuse his general. He would not surrender to him. He would do something far more subtle, far more unexpected. He would smother him in glory.
A strange, thoughtful, and deeply calculating smile touched his lips. "You are both correct," he said, startling his advisors. "We cannot fight him, and we cannot appease him. Therefore, we will honor him."
He rose from his desk and began to pace, his mind already forging the intricate pieces of his new strategy. "We will not just give him what he asks," he continued, a new, predatory energy in his voice. "We will give him a Triumph. A true, Roman-style Triumph. A celebration so magnificent, so overwhelming, that it suffocates him, that it binds him in chains of public adoration and forces him to return here, to us."
His plan, as he laid it out, was a work of profound political manipulation, an operation designed to use the very source of Napoleon's power—his immense popularity—as the instrument of his containment.
His first move was in the National Assembly. He went before the deputies himself, a rare and dramatic gesture. He did not present Napoleon's dispatch as the insubordinate demand it was. He read a heavily edited, masterfully rephrased version. He presented the request for reinforcements not as a threat, but as the noble, selfless plea of a heroic general, eager to land the final, decisive blow for the glory of France. He spoke of the army's courage, of their sacrifice, and of the genius of their young commander.
Then, with the Assembly still buzzing from this patriotic fervor, he made his grand proposal. "A general of such talent, an army of such valor, must not go unrewarded!" he declared, his voice ringing through the hall. "I propose that the Nation offer its gratitude in a manner befitting these new Romans! I propose we declare a national holiday, and that we summon General Bonaparte and a detachment of his bravest veterans to Paris, to march in a grand Triumphal Procession, so that the people of France may personally thank the men who have secured their liberty!"
The proposal was met with a roar of unanimous, ecstatic approval. How could anyone vote against honoring their own heroes?
Louis's second move was even grander, a gesture of breathtaking audacity. He announced a new project, a legacy for this new, victorious France. "To commemorate for all time the glory of our armies," he announced, "I will, with the Assembly's blessing, commission the construction of a monumental arch, an Arc de Triomphe, at the heart of our capital! It will be the largest such arch in the history of the world, its stone engraved with the names of our victories and our heroes. It will be a permanent testament to what we have achieved together!"
This was a brilliant theft of narrative. It was now the King who was immortalizing the army's glory. The triumphs of Bonaparte would be forever memorialized in a monument built by Louis, a subtle but constant public reminder of who was the sovereign and who was the servant.
His final move was the dispatch to Napoleon, the gilded cage disguised as a letter of praise. It was crafted by Talleyrand, a man who could write a death warrant that sounded like a love letter. It praised Napoleon's "Roman spirit," his "genius that rivals Caesar's." It informed him that the King and the entire nation were so overwhelmed with gratitude that they insisted upon honoring him with a formal Triumph, the highest honor the Republic could bestow.
He was therefore being "summoned" back to Paris to receive the adoration of the nation he had served so well. It was not a recall in disgrace; it was a recall for the ultimate coronation of a hero. The letter casually mentioned that, in his absence, the worthy and experienced General Kellermann would be appointed to oversee the "static and tedious but necessary" siege of the fortress at Mantua, freeing the great Bonaparte for the more important work of being celebrated.
The trap was perfect. It was a prison built of honor and public acclaim. How could Napoleon, a man of boundless ego and ambition, refuse the glory of a Triumphal Procession through the streets of Paris? To do so would be to insult the people, the army, and the Assembly. It would make him look churlish, arrogant, a man who rejected the love of his own nation. He was being forced, by the sheer, irresistible weight of public honor, to abandon his army, his power base in Italy, and return to Paris, where he would be separated from his loyal troops and surrounded by the deep, treacherous currents of the King's political power.
The news of the planned Triumph electrified Paris. The city, weary of purges and conspiracies, threw itself into the preparations for a massive, joyous festival. Banners were sewn, garlands were woven. The construction of a huge, temporary wooden version of the Triumphal Arch began in the Place de la Révolution, on the very spot where the guillotine had once stood.
Far away, in his magnificent ducal headquarters in Milan, Napoleon received the King's dispatch. He read it once, his face an impassive mask. He read it a second time, a muscle twitching in his jaw. And then a third time, his grey eyes turning to ice. He was not a fool. He saw the trap. He saw the silken threads of the cage being woven around him. He was being honored, yes, but he was also being recalled. He was being celebrated, but he was also being neutered, separated from the one true source of his power: his army.
He crumpled the dispatch in his fist, a look of pure, cold fury on his face. He had been outmaneuvered. He had tried to checkmate the King, and the King had responded with a move of such pure, ostentatious, and unanswerable generosity that it had swept all of Napoleon's pieces from the board. He was being summoned home, and he knew he had no choice but to obey.