The Crown Prince of France - Chapter 237

Chapter 237: Turning Point

Bishop Brienne asked doubtfully:
“Are you referring to the Church?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Joseph said, tapping his forehead. “Speaking of which, I’ll need your assistance.”

When Brienne learned that Archbishop Beaumont, Archbishop d’Avreux, and others had agreed to contribute their "private grain reserves" to address the grain shortages in the southern provinces, he was overjoyed:
“How did you convince them?”

In truth, what he wanted to ask even more was, how did you discover that the clergy were hoarding such large amounts of grain?
Back when he served in Toulouse, he had instructed his clerics to engage in similar practices. But after being promoted to Prime Minister, he had lost interest in such minor profits.

“By establishing the Church Cultural Development Company and selling a new type of ‘indulgence,’” Joseph explained briefly, before giving further instructions. “Draft the orders to recall the officers first. I’ll explain the details later.”

“Understood, Your Highness.”

Although Brienne still believed it necessary to use the military to maintain order, his absolute trust in the Crown Prince compelled him to comply without hesitation.

However, after taking just a few steps, he turned back with a slight frown:
“Your Highness, the latter part of this order... regarding charges of rebellion, perhaps it would be more appropriate to let the High Court adjudicate.”

Joseph was somewhat surprised. This was not a society governed by the rule of law—why the sudden emphasis on procedural justice?
Noticing Joseph’s expression, Brienne quickly explained:
“Your Highness, if we were to directly convict the officers of rebellion in the name of His Majesty, it might alarm the nobility, even leading many neutral nobles to sympathize with those ambitious individuals.”

Joseph immediately understood. He had indeed been too hasty—those officers, stationed in their respective regions, could easily justify their refusal to come to Paris as fulfilling their local duties. Charging them with rebellion under such circumstances could create the impression that the royal family was overreaching, leading other nobles to fear that they too could be subjected to severe punishment for any minor disagreement.

This would touch upon the bottom line of the noble class.

After considering for a moment, Joseph nodded:
“You’re right. For now, simply issue a stern order demanding the officers come to Paris immediately, with the consequences of non-compliance clearly stated.”

He muttered under his breath:
“It seems I’ll need to find a way to make them genuinely rebel first...”

After Brienne left, Joseph retrieved the list he had previously reviewed on the road and wrote personal letters to each high-ranking officer on it. He then had the letters signed by the Queen and dispatched.

Next, he summoned representatives of the capital’s bourgeois elite, including Mirabeau and Bailly, and handed them a prepared document, along with detailed instructions.

By the time he finished, night had fully fallen. Still unfazed by fatigue, Joseph carried his dinner onto a carriage and set off for the Paris Corps headquarters.

As the carriage sped through the night, he gazed at the starlight outside the window, chewing on salted beef, and sighed inwardly: I’m truly giving my all for France...

...

Montpellier.

In the hunting grounds of Count Sérurier’s estate, Marquis Saint-Véran lightly flicked the reins of his horse. Gazing at the sprawling encampment of the Montcalm Corps in the distance, he asked Duke of Orléans:
“Do you think the royal family will agree to these terms?”

The Duke, riding alongside at a leisurely pace, replied casually:
“With such widespread unrest, the royal family faces immense financial and public pressure, not to mention the damage to their prestige. That Austrian wench will have no choice but to agree—at least to some extent.”

“Which clauses can we allow her to reject?”

“Any of them,” the Duke of Orléans shrugged indifferently. “As long as she makes concessions, you and the other generals will deploy troops to quell the unrest.”

The exaggerated demands he had presented to the Queen were meant as a smokescreen; he never expected the royal family to accept them.

His real aim was to give the military a legitimate pretext to mobilize!

The mobs’ combat capabilities were negligible, and he had orchestrated the unrest himself through his agents. Suppressing them would be a simple task.

However, once the regional armies were mobilized, returning them to their original garrisons would be far from straightforward.

By then, the military, armed with the prestige of having quelled the unrest, could claim ongoing instability as a reason to consolidate forces in the north, forming a semi-circle around Paris. If the northwest provinces had completed their preparations by then, the city would be entirely surrounded.

With the royal family’s limited troops, they would undoubtedly panic. The Assembly of Notables could then lead the nobility in pressuring the monarchy.

At that point, the demands would far exceed those previously presented.

According to the Duke’s plan, the ultimate outcome would be his appointment as Regent. To achieve this, he had already secured an alliance with the influential Marquis de Luckner, whose daughter would soon marry Philippe.

This would restore royal authority to the decentralized state it had been under Louis XIV, with the aristocracy enjoying extensive autonomy.

After that, as a Regent with full power, manipulating the royal family would be as easy as turning his hand!

As he contemplated ways to torment Louis XVI’s family, the Duke of Orléans said lightly to Marquis Saint-Véran:
“From Brittany to Provence, everything is ready. The combined forces of all corps total 80,000 men. The northern generals, including Urteuil, will also respond in unison.”

The Marquis glanced at him:
“Your Grace, with such a large-scale troop movement, what about logistics?”

The Duke replied nonchalantly:
“I’ll finance the corps myself. Additionally, Dukes d’Urfé and de Muzy will mobilize resources to supply the troops.”

His financial support was a key reason he had become the military’s central figure. Before this, he had already distributed over ten million livres to more than twenty senior military officers.

To topple the monarchy, he was prepared to commit his entire fortune of over fifty million livres. With such resources, he was confident in outmatching the royal family militarily.

In fact, that was just his liquid assets and debts; his fixed assets amounted to astronomical sums. His annual royal stipend alone was three million livres. The Orléans lineage owned vast estates, making it no exaggeration to say he was as wealthy as a nation.

“That’s excellent,” Marquis Saint-Véran said with a pleased expression. “When do you think the Queen’s emissaries will arrive?”

“They should be here soon...”

As he spoke, a messenger from Count Sérurier galloped up, bowing and announcing:
“Your Grace, Marquis, someone from Versailles has arrived.”

The Duke of Orléans and Marquis Saint-Véran exchanged a knowing smile.
“Let’s go and see.”

...

When they returned to Count Sérurier’s villa, neither noticed the Count’s peculiar expression.

The Duke of Orléans casually sat down in a chair and said to the royal envoy:
“Tell us, what terms has Her Majesty agreed to?”

Before the envoy could respond, Count Sérurier handed the Duke a document bearing the King’s seal.

The Duke glanced at the paper and immediately stood up in shock.

Marquis Saint-Véran, curious, leaned over to take a look. The document contained only a few simple sentences, the main message being that all officers ranked major or above were to report to Versailles immediately.

He turned to the envoy and asked instinctively:
“Has the Queen not issued orders to suppress the unrest?”

The envoy nodded and gestured to the document:
“That’s all there is, my Lord Marquis.”

The Marquis, visibly flustered, pressed on:
“Which of the terms does Her Majesty find unacceptable? We can negotiate further...”

The envoy remained unmoved:
“Her Majesty has issued no further instructions, my Lord Marquis. Please sign to confirm receipt of the orders.”

Marquis Saint-Véran and the other two exchanged bewildered looks, momentarily at a loss for what to do.

They had anticipated numerous possible responses from the Queen but had never imagined that she would simply ignore the unrest entirely.

It was as though they had gathered all their strength to deliver a fatal blow to their opponent, only to find nothing but empty air in front of them, leaving them with no target.

“But what about the riots?” Marquis Saint-Véran grabbed the envoy. “My troops are ready; they’re just waiting for...”

“You can go to Versailles yourself to ask His Majesty,” the envoy replied politely, bowing with a hand to his chest. “I have received no other instructions.”

The Duke of Orléans suddenly stepped forward and asked:
“What about the other provinces? Are they ignoring the riots as well?”

“As far as I know, that seems to be the case, Your Grace. Apart from Bordeaux and Lyon, the southern provinces have all received similar orders.”

Bordeaux, being the largest potato-growing region in France, had faced minimal grain shortages and had thus avoided any riots.

In Lyon, signs of a food shortage had been swiftly addressed by the textile guilds, which organized the city’s factories, gathering foremen and security staff to form temporary patrols. These groups quickly dispersed any mobs. This success was largely due to the guilds’ substantial profits following the Paris Fashion Week, enabling them to offer generous bonuses to the patrols and ensure that the factories continued operations uninterrupted by unrest.

Once the envoy departed, Marquis Saint-Véran turned awkwardly to the Duke of Orléans:
“Your Grace, what should we do? Should we go to Paris?”

“Absolutely not!” the Duke replied, his face dark with anger. “I don’t believe that Austrian wench will truly ignore the riots. Stay here and wait—she’ll have to give in eventually!”

Marquis Saint-Véran hesitated and asked:
“And if she doesn’t compromise?”

The Duke gritted his teeth and replied:
“Then we’ll march directly...”

“Absolutely not!” Marquis Saint-Véran interrupted firmly. “Without a formal order, mobilizing troops would be rebellion!”

He was willing to use the chaos to pressure the monarchy, but outright rebellion was beyond his courage. An illegitimate uprising would at best force the royal family into exile, prompting intervention from other major powers. Ultimately, the monarchy would be restored, and the rebels would face the guillotine.

He knew the Duke of Orléans sought to usurp the throne, but he had no desire to become the stepping stone beneath it.

At the same time, he realized that after attempting to coerce the monarchy, going to Paris would ruin his political future.

After much deliberation, he made up his mind:
“I think it’s safest to wait and see for now.”

The Duke of Orléans, his expression grim, returned to his room to write letters to over twenty senior military officers, urging them to hold their ground and wait for the royal family to concede.

...

Two Days Later

In Montpellier, the starving masses swept through the city like locusts, seizing every scrap of food in sight.

Baron Laurent’s villa had been thoroughly ransacked.

In the maids’ quarters, a filthy old man found a small piece of bread in a cabinet corner. He excitedly waved it at a nearby seven- or eight-year-old boy:
“Alexei, look what I found...”

Before he could finish, a woman suddenly darted out, snatching the bread and stuffing it into her mouth.

The old man, enraged, pointed at the woman:
“You shameless thief! That was for the child...”

He hadn’t finished his sentence when a five- or six-year-old child carrying a baby walked in, looking extremely frail. The child addressed the woman weakly:
“Mother, little sister...”

The woman immediately took the baby in her arms and began feeding her the chewed bread, anxiously murmuring:
“Swallow it, Eliane, quickly!”

Having been starving for days, she had no milk left and could only feed her dying daughter this way.

The baby’s cheeks puffed slightly as if she had swallowed the food.

The woman nodded excitedly and was about to chew another piece of bread for her when she suddenly felt the bread snatched from her hands. Turning her head, she saw that the old man had taken it.

“Give it back, please!” she begged, her voice hoarse and tearless. “Eliane won’t make it without it...”

But the old man was unmoved, handing the bread to his grandson:
“Sorry, but Alexei is starving too.”

The woman handed the baby to her older daughter and used her last bit of strength to wrestle the bread from the child. The old man, equally desperate, clung to her waist, shouting:
“Alexei, eat it quickly!”

“Please, just save a little for Eliane!”

As they struggled feebly, a loud cry came from outside:
“Go to the church! The Church is distributing food!”

“They’re handing out bread in the Adègue parish too!”

Both froze, then released each other. Seeing that the bread had already been eaten, the woman quickly grabbed her older daughter and headed toward the church.

The old man caught up in a few steps, taking the baby from the older child so they could move faster.

Following the mob, they arrived at the church in the southern part of the city, where clergy were indeed distributing dark bread. Starving people nearly toppled the church’s fences in their desperation.

The woman and the old man waited in line for half an hour before each received a pound and a half of bread. They immediately began eating with their children.

Afterward, the woman bowed silently to the cleric while watching her younger daughter chew the bread mash, her mouth moving continuously.

The cleric made the sign of the cross and said to the crowd bowing around him:
“You should thank the merciful Lord, not me.”

Another cleric beside him added:
“And also His Majesty the King, Her Majesty the Queen, and His Highness the Crown Prince! It is through their cooperation with the Church that this food is being distributed.”

The crowd immediately began crossing themselves and shouting, “Long live His Majesty the King!”

Once their hunger was sated and the clerics promised more food would be distributed the next day, the people returned home, weary but hopeful.

Meanwhile, a group of hired agitators, paid to incite unrest, continued shouting nearby:
“Who’s with me to raid Viscount Anrol’s house? He must have food!”

The people glanced at them indifferently but showed little interest in joining.

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