I had given the Queen a sword, and she had drawn first blood. I never imagined how quickly they would turn their blades on her.
Two days later, the Duc d'Orléans requested another urgent, midnight meeting in the stables. The moment I saw his face in the lantern light, I knew something was wrong. His usual mocking smirk was gone, replaced by a grim, serious expression that made my stomach clench.
He didn't waste time with pleasantries. He shoved a piece of cheap, folded paper into my hand. "It started this morning," he said, his voice a low growl. "They're everywhere."
I unfolded the paper. It was a pamphlet, a libelle, printed on flimsy stock, the black ink still smelling fresh and acrid.
My blood ran cold as I read the title: The Austrian Harpy's Midnight Feasts.
It was the most vicious, disgusting piece of trash I had ever read. My hand trembled as I held the cheap, ink-smeared paper. The pamphlet was a torrent of the most poisonous lies imaginable. It accused Marie Antoinette of treason, of sending state secrets to her family in Austria. It accused her of holding satanic orgies in the Trianon, of sleeping with half the court—men and women, including her friend the Princesse de Lamballe.
And there it was, on the second page, in big, bold letters. The line that would haunt her for the rest of history. When told the people had no bread, the Queen was reported to have sneered, "Let them eat cake."
The lie was so perfect in its cruelty. So simple. So easy to believe.
On the cover was a crude, lewd woodcut caricature. It depicted the Queen with the monstrous head of a harpy, her mouth open, devouring a pile of gold coins while skeletal peasants wept at her feet.
A wave of pure, gut-churning rage washed over me. This was lower, dirtier, and more dangerous than I had ever imagined. This wasn't politics. It was a character assassination of the most brutal kind.
"Polignac's agents are handing them out for free in the taverns and markets," Orléans said, his voice tight with a grudging respect for the tactic's viciousness. "It's poison, cousin. And the people are drinking it down."
"He's not just attacking her," I said through clenched teeth. "He's attacking the Crown itself. He's trying to burn the whole damn house down just to get back at her."
And he was using my... my wife.
The thought was sudden. Instinctive. It wasn't 'the Queen.' It wasn't 'Marie Antoinette.' In the fire of my rage, she was simply, undeniably, my wife. And the realization shook me to my core.
I had to tell her. I dreaded it more than anything, but she couldn't be blindsided by this. She couldn't hear the whispers from her ladies-in-waiting before she heard the truth from me.
I found her in her chambers, arranging flowers in a vase. She looked up and smiled when I entered, a genuine, unguarded smile that was still new enough to make my chest ache. That smile faltered when she saw my face.
"Louis? What is it? You look..."
I couldn't find the words. I just held out the filthy pamphlet.
She took it from me, her brow furrowed in confusion. I watched her read. I saw the exact moment the meaning of the words hit her. The color drained from her face, leaving her skin as white as the pearls at her throat. Her eyes widened in shock, then in horror.
A single tear traced a silent path down her cheek. Her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a small, wounded sound.
I expected her to crumble. To dissolve into hysterical tears. The Marie Antoinette of the history books was a fragile creature, ill-equipped for this kind of brutality.
But I was wrong.
She stood there for a long moment, trembling. Then, the trembling stopped. She lowered her hand. Her tears dried up, and her eyes, when she looked up at me, were not filled with fear. They were blazing with a steely, defiant fury I had never seen before.
She crumpled the pamphlet in her fist, her knuckles turning white.
"They did this," she whispered, her voice shaking with rage. "Yolande. The Duke. Because I would not let them steal from you anymore." She looked straight at me, her gaze clear and hard. "This is how they fight? With filth and lies?"
"It's the only way they can," I said, my own anger mirroring hers. "Because they know they can't win on the facts."
"Then we will fight them," she said, her voice ringing with a newfound strength. "Together."
And in that moment, she wasn't just a historical figure I was trying to save. She was my partner. My ally. Polignac, in his vile attempt to drive a wedge between us, had just forged us into a weapon.
"Banning the pamphlets will do nothing," I said, my mind already racing, shifting into strategy mode. "It will make us look guilty. Like we have something to hide."
"So what do we do?" she asked, her eyes fixed on mine, trusting me completely.
"We fight a bad story with a better one," I said. The plan was forming in my head, a risky gambit straight out of a modern political playbook. "They paint you as a monster, a foreign harpy who hates France. We will show them a mother. A wife. The Queen of France."
"How? A formal portrait? A statement to the court?"
"No," I said, shaking my head. "Something better. Something real. Tomorrow, we take the children for a walk. Not here, in the private gardens of Versailles. We will go to the Tuileries Garden. In Paris. In front of everyone."
Her eyes widened. The Tuileries was a public park. The royal family appearing there, unannounced, like common people? It was completely unprecedented. It was dangerous.
"Optics," I said, the 21st-century word feeling strange in my mouth. "It's all about optics. You can't tell people what to think. You have to show them. Let the people of Paris see a loving, devoted family with their own eyes. And the lies in those pamphlets will look as ridiculous and ugly as they are."
The next day was a stunning, sunlit afternoon. We rode to Paris in a simple, open-topped carriage. Marie sat beside me, regal and terrified. Our two children, the young princess Marie-Thérèse and the little Dauphin, Louis-Joseph, sat opposite us, excited by the unexpected trip.
As we arrived at the Tuileries Garden, a hush fell over the fashionable crowd strolling along the paths. The silence was quickly replaced by a wave of excited, disbelieving murmurs. The King and Queen. Here.
We stepped out of the carriage. For a moment, we just stood there, a family, blinking in the sunlight. Then, I took my daughter's hand. Marie took our son's. And we began to walk.
We didn't act like a king and a queen. We acted like parents. I pointed out the ducks in the pond for my daughter. Marie straightened the collar on our son's little coat. We smiled at each other, and for the first time, it wasn't an act. The shared danger, the unified purpose—it had forged a real connection between us. A bond that felt stronger than any marriage vow.
The crowd grew, pressing in, held back by a thin, nervous line of guards. They were silent, watching, their faces a mixture of awe and suspicion.
Then, the Dauphin, a toddler barely steady on his feet, tripped over a stone in the path and fell. He let out a surprised wail.
Before anyone could react, I scooped him up. I swung him high in the air and settled him on my shoulders. His tears immediately turned into a delighted, gurgling laugh, his small hands gripping my powdered hair for balance.
Marie looked up at us, and a smile broke across her face. A real, genuine, unguarded smile of such warmth and beauty that it took my breath away. She reached up and squeezed my arm.
That was the moment. The image. The King of France, with the heir to the throne laughing on his shoulders. The Queen, beautiful and beloved, looking on with pure, maternal love. A perfect, living portrait of a family. An image so powerful, so wholesome, that it made the filthy lies in the pamphlets seem like a pathetic, desperate fantasy.
The mood of the crowd shifted. The suspicion melted away, replaced by murmurs of approval. A few women started to clap.
The day was a stunning success. But the victory felt dangerously fragile.
As we made our way back to the carriage through the now-cheering crowd, a young woman, a simple shopgirl by her dress, broke through the line of guards. Her face was flushed, her eyes shining. She clutched a single, simple pink rose.
She didn't offer it to me. She held it out to Marie.
"Courage, Your Majesty," she said, her voice thick with emotion.
Marie's eyes filled with tears of genuine gratitude. She took the flower, her fingers brushing the girl's. It was a small moment, but it was everything. A connection between the Queen and her people.
As Marie clutched the rose to her chest, I happened to glance past the young woman.
And my blood ran cold.
Half-hidden by a marble statue, a man stood in the crowd. He wasn't cheering. He wasn't smiling. He was watching us with cold, dead eyes. He made brief, chilling eye contact with me, his expression a mixture of contempt and warning. Then he turned and melted back into the crowd.
I recognized the face. I'd seen it in the palace corridors. He was a member of the Swiss Guard. A man whose sworn duty was to protect us. A man who had access to every room, every hallway, every secret passage in Versailles.
Polignac's reach wasn't just in the printing presses of Paris.
The threat was already inside the walls.