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The Tinderbox of Change

Rollant stood a sentinel behind King Louis, scanning the room.

The Estates-General was a stage, and the actors followed pre-written scripts, none of which addressed the primary grievance: social inequality and injustice.

The same tired premise of noble support dominated the agenda, ensuring the king’s reliance on the First and Second Estates remained unshaken.

Even if Louis had the best intentions, they were lost on the Third Estate.

It didn’t help that delegates were forced to wear black while the First and Second Estates paraded into Versailles with their best clothes, uniforms, and vestments.

Worse, they waited hours to bow before the king.

When Louis finally appeared, the Third Estate had kept their hats on in silent protest, forcing him to remove his own in return.

Rollant had scoffed under his breath. For a king so unwilling to concede power, Louis seemed not to mind shedding it in public spaces.

The opening speeches were as dull as expected.

The king and the new Keeper of the Seals delivered platitudes that drew only polite applause.

But the mood shifted when Jacques Necker, the Third Estate’s beloved celebrity minister, took the floor.

Delegates leaned forward in their seats, eager for substance.

It never came.

Necker’s voice failed early, leaving a moderator to drone through his words for three hours, stripped of the minister’s zeal.

The delegates wore scowls for lips and daggers for eyes.

There was no mention of social injustice, no acknowledgment of the grievances Rollant had outlined in his report—ignored again, tucked away for some undefined future.

He understood why Louis and his advisors were reluctant to order the nobles to do anything.

They were the generals and the bankers with families boasting a long history of support for the king.

Still, the issues at hand were not adequately resolved in the decades prior, slowly building under the heavy weight of financial burden.

He tried to tell Louis and his Cabinet again in February, but the fools brushed him off as they had in December.

Mocked him even: What did the Captain of the King’s Bodyguard know about economics and government?

Their taunts echoed in memory, as did their chortles.

They had dismissed him as a soldier who couldn’t comprehend the intricacies of governance.

Perhaps they were right. But Rollant didn’t need their numbers and charts to understand suffering.

He had seen it in élise’s haunted gaze, in her fury at a world that ground people into dust. Her beautiful face came to his mind, but he immediately pushed her away, unable to bear his love for her.

Every instance where she came to mind was a harsh reminder of the life he could never have.

He straightened up and focused on the room to distract himself from the agony of his decision never to see her again.

Half the soldiers in the room also appeared disgruntled, their gazes fixed on the Third Estate delegates as though weighing allegiances. He doubted any of them would give their lives to defend the palace if the crowds outside rebelled.

He hated standing idle, watching history unfold in gilded circles. Yet, despite his frustration, he knew his place, his eternal loyalty to the throne. He was the king’s shadow, his ageless weapon, bound by duty even as cracks formed in the crown they both served.

The first day adjourned with no further progress. Rollant escorted King Louis to the Cabinet, where they waited for the advisors to follow. Louis paced alongside the long table while Rollant stood in his usual position.

Unable to contain himself, Louis whispered, “How do you think it went?”

Rollant shook his head, eyes still on the wall across the room.

Louis pursed his lips. “That bad?”

Rollant sighed, knowing Louis’ request for advice would come; he would give it, and it would be ignored.

“What should I do?”

Rollant’s gaze shifted and met Louis’. “Your Majesty, you have nearly six hundred delegates from the Third Estate and the crowds outside in their support. If you command the First and Second Estates to give up their privileges and demand equality, the people will agree, and you will earn some favor with them.”

Louis gritted with a tight jaw. “I’ve already told you. This is a meeting to pass the tax reforms. We cannot risk bringing up other grievances.”

“That is what they have done, however. They expect you to hear their grievances and act accordingly.”

“The Estates-General wasn’t called to address grievances,” Louis said, his voice sharp. “Its purpose is to solve the financial crisis and advise on tax reform, nothing more.”

“From my time in Paris, I can firmly say the original purpose no longer matters. Your people’s support is on its last breath. Your noble’s support is built on favors, and it is not likely to withstand much more. I?—”

The door swung open, and the ministers waltzed in as if they had outstanding accomplishments to share.

Louis glanced back at him and shook his head. “Let’s just see what happens,” he murmured.

Rollant’s eyes hit the floor. He already knew what would happen.

The Estates-General would falter, its divisions too deep to heal.

But for élise’s sake, he allowed himself a brief, foolish hope—that this time, the call of the people might finally be answered.

Perhaps, for the first time in centuries, history might prove him wrong.

* * *

After a month of bickering about names, titles, and voting procedures, the Estates-General produced nothing.

The Third Estate demanded to be called the Commons.

Some members of the First Estate sided with the Third Estate, and all of the nobility disregarded every grievance and course of action proposed by the Commons.

Louis demanded a swift resolution, but the Dauphin fell ill and perished, taking the king away from the chaotic and futile Estates-General.

With the king absent, the Estates-General devolved further into chaos.

Every resolution crumbled beneath the weight of infighting, and no one dared enforce unity in the king’s place.

Rollant doubted Louis would have succeeded even if he were present—but in the private royal chapel, kneeling in grief, Louis seemed more kingly than he ever had on the throne.

Rollant had seen every monarch kneel in prayer in a chapel of their royal residence since the day he died. Louis was no different as his pleas for the Lord to take his son’s soul into heaven echoed against the gilded walls.

“An innocent child…for such as these, theirs is the kingdom…” he whispered. The weight of the crown seemed to bow Louis lower than his prayers.

The king’s tears pricked at Rollant’s long-buried grief.

He had knelt as this king did, begging the heavens for mercy—for Amée, for Cateline, for his descendants, until the last bright-eyed Ninette.

Time had dulled the sharpness of loss, but since he’d met élise, moments like the one before him tore open old wounds, bleeding into his eternity.

He closed his eyes to focus his thoughts.

He had secluded himself from the world once, and he could do it again.

He pushed élise and all the others away, for the pain was too much to bear.

It was difficult enough to have élise live in his dreams; he couldn’t endure the pain of having her in his waking thoughts as well.

He drew a deep breath and opened his eyes with a clear head.

Louis whispered, “Amen.” His voice cracked, raw with anguish. For a moment, he was not a king but a father, fragile and mortal; his crown rendered meaningless in death.

But the country was failing, and the king’s ministry had been paralyzed amid the chaos beyond the doors of the royal quarters. He wanted the king to have his time to grieve, but urgency was at hand if there was to be any saving of the monarchy.

“Your Majesty,” Rollant began.

“Not now, Rollant,” Louis gritted and buried his forehead atop his knuckles. The rosary looped through his hands.

“It has been three weeks since the Dauphin’s passing.

As your friend and confidante in our time alone, I must reluctantly provide this warning.

The Estates-General has spiraled out of control.

The people, the Commons—they will not wait for a mourning king.

They have also mourned their loved ones due to the famine and high cost of food; they do not share your sorrow. ”

Louis’ shoulders shrank. “Leave me,” the nearly inaudible command followed.

He was on shift with a royal oath never to leave the king’s side. “You know I cannot do?—”

“Leave me,” Louis ordered.

Rollant shifted his weight. He ran a hand over his mouth as he debated. “I will be outside the doors.”

When Louis finally emerged, his red eyes betrayed his grief. His voice carried a brittle resolve. “Shall we see to the Estates-General?” he asked in a rush of words.

Rollant’s jaw grew taut. Never had he seen Louis act like a king until that moment, though his heart ached for him as a father. Rollant lifted his chin in respect before doling out the news he had withheld from the king in his time of mourning, an error perhaps, given the state of things.