She couldn’t help but move to Bastien’s imposing desk and pull out the leather chair to sit upon it. She swung her legs up onto the mahogany surface like she had watched him do earlier that day and rested her hands on the back of her head. From here, the duc must have felt very powerful indeed. There was a portrait across the room she hadn’t noticed earlier. It was of Bastien’s father, the former duc de Vincennes, and two young boys Belle guessed were Bastien and Lio, painted sometime before Lio left Paris for good, judging by their ages.
The painting was a fine work and would have cost a fair bit to commission. She could see that Bastien took after his father, though the painted version of the elder duc lacked his son’s knowing smirk. Young Lio appeared to be as haughty as his cousin. Belle didn’t recognize the look of cold superiority on his face. This young version of Lio was about to learn he had lost his mother. Her heart ached for him, and she found she didn’t want to look at it any longer.
When she pushed her knees back under the desk, she knocked them on the underside of it, releasing a mechanism and revealing a hidden drawer. She paused before her curiosity got the better of her, and she pulled the drawer out to find a hidden trove of documents. On top were papers published by Rousseau, Descartes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Voltaire, the philosophers Belle had spent years studying. She shuffled through the papers and noted that a lot of them were revolutionary pamphlets like the one that had been pressed into her hands at the gardens of the Palais-Royal. She was no stranger to pamphlets, but these were authored by people she had never heard of. Information was often slow to trickle to Aveyon, if at all. She had to stop herself from tucking a few into her pockets. She found bound folios labeled Cahiers de Doléances, and inside were the demands of the Third Estate, assembled for the États généraux that King Louis had called earlier that year, the one that France’s peasants had called unfair, setting off the establishment of the National Assembly. Was Bastien gathering information for the king? Or was he sympathetic to the cause?
She was so absorbed in reading from the trove of pamphlets that she didn’t hear Lio enter the room.
“Belle.” He spoke from right over her shoulder, making her jump. She slammed the hidden drawer shut and turned. Her husband was ashen, and not just because of the smear of white powder on his face, now faded so that patches of skin showed through. Defeat lay heavy on his bones, and Belle’s mind flew to the worst possibilities.
“What is it? What happened?”
He sank into the chair she had vacated and spoke like he hadn’t heard her at all. “I remember Versailles being lavish, I remember being stunned by it, but, Belle, mon Dieu, it was overwhelming.”
She could only imagine the reception a long-lost prince étranger would have garnered. Lio would have bristled at the gawks and whispers from the hawkish courtiers, to say nothing of the king himself. “Were you the talk of the king’s court?”
He shook his head. “I barely saw any courtiers. We were made to wait for Louis in some forgotten set of chambers. I thought Bastien was going to murder the valet who left us there.”
“I can imagine.” Bastien was not a man accustomed to being forgotten.
“And then Louis was nothing like the Louis I remember. He was soft, weak, paranoid. He didn’t care to know where I had been for ten years. All he did was make demands.”
“Demands?”
He tore the wig from his head and threw it on the desk. “France is facing a financial crisis.”
She waited for him to elaborate, and when he didn’t, she placed a hand on his shoulder. “We know; Bastien told us.”
“I didn’t think it was quite so dire. Bastien has a way of making everything sound inconsequential. It’s a gift, really.” He sighed and ran his hands through his matted hair. “It would seem that Louis has spent his reign gifting tax exemptions to disgruntled nobles, while calling on France’s peasants to fund America’s war for independence. And then he banned promotion to officer from the lower ranks of the Royal Army, effectively preventing any commoner from advancing via loyal service and brave deeds. And he and Marie Antoinette spend and spend and spend without consequence. I don’t understand how he didn’t see what the outcome would be. It’s worse than we thought, Belle, and the king wants my help.”
She leaned against the desk and folded her arms over her chest. “With what?”
He pulled at his collar. “My undying loyalty and support in the form of money for his coffers and men to bolster his ranks.”
Belle tried to collect her thoughts. “Lio, we can’t.” It was all she could muster. The idea of sending Aveyonian men to serve in France, a place they didn’t know, ruled by a king who didn’t give a damn about them, was unthinkable. So few of the men who had left their kingdom to fight in America had ever returned, and if France was tipping toward a bloody revolution, it was up to Belle and Lio to protect their people from it, not offer them up as some sort of payment.
“I know, but Louis is desperate for more troops. He’s convinced that the peasants are going to rise up against him.” He said it like the prospect was ridiculous.
“I think they will.” She uncrossed her arms and stood. “I think France is on the verge of civil war.”
He looked up at her incredulously. “What do you mean?”
“I went to the Palais-Royal today, and it’s chock-full of people making speeches criticizing the king and calling for revolution. Look.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the Sieyès pamphlet. “I think your cousin is mistaken. I think the Third Estate is about to become something.”
Lio quickly read over the pamphlet before setting it down on the desk, looking dejected. “I don’t think I can refuse him.”
“You’d send troops here?”
“I don’t want to, but what can I say? The king of France didn’t care to know what one of his allies was doing during ten years of silence. All he cared about was my money and my soldiers. What can I do? Refuse him? On what grounds?”
“It’s not our fight, Lio, Aveyon isn’t like France.”
“I know, but as a principality, we’re subject to its laws and its king. And Bastien was right: Louis had forgotten Aveyon. Our tax rate has been unchanged for over a decade. If I anger him, he’d be well within his rights to increase the rate retroactively and call upon our people to pay the difference. I can’t do that to them.”
They sat there in stunned silence, both of them too tired to come up with a clever way out of their predicament. Belle wanted nothing more than to take a long bath and sleep the day away. Perhaps everything would look different in the morning.
“Well, I’m going to need a large tea and an even larger nap if we’re going to be up all night finding a way out of this,” she said. Lio’s face fell. “What?”
“I forgot to tell you Bastien is hosting a dinner in our honor. He invited all of the courtiers I grew up with.” He spoke as if the words were poison.
“Surely you don’t mean tonight.”
“They’ve already begun to arrive.” He took her hands in his. “Bastien cannot resist the opportunity to be the center of attention. I promise it will all be over soon.”