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“The First Estate joined the Third Estate and called themselves the National Assembly. It began conducting its business outside the Estates-General, declaring all taxes illegal. Minister Necker has been offering concessions in your name, but the others haven’t been much help.

The National Assembly has claimed authority on behalf of the people.

The crowds outside the palace gates are growing more uncontrollable.

And apparently, no one told the National Assembly of our next royal session, which would be today, and they were outraged when they arrived three days before to find the door locked. ”

Louis’ mouth twisted into a frown, and for a moment, Rollant thought tears would again fall down the man’s cheeks. “Well,” he said, adjusting his cravat and blinking back his tears, “It looks like quite the predicament. God help us,” he muttered.

The king stopped before he entered the royal session and sighed. He stood silent before the grand double doors. His jaw twitched, and his gaze was downcast. “I never wanted the crown,” he whispered. “I’ve never been good for it, but I’ll show the people I am the best king I can be.”

As the doors swung open, Louis entered with Rollant at his side. The King’s steps were measured, and his expression was a facade of authority. But Rollant could see the cracks—Louis’ hand trembled, and his breaths were too shallow.

The grand hall was stifling. Tension thickened the air as the Estates convened once more.

The Second Estate was in full regalia, their seats a sea of silks and powdered wigs.

The deputies of the National Assembly sat clustered together, their black attire stark against the opulence.

Their silence was a weapon, their unmoving presence to greet the king louder than any shout.

Rollant couldn’t shake the thought of élise.

Her belief in change, her speech at the Au Pain Roux , shouting, “Take it back!” empowered the people.

When the news spread to Charonne, she’d be elated at what was transpiring, though he feared what would come if the royal session did not go as intended.

Louis took his place before his throne and addressed the Assembly.

He announced, “We shall begin again. We have made mistakes, and we shall reset our proceedings. Any decisions that have been made in my absence are null and void. As a gesture of goodwill, I hereby decree that no future taxes will be raised unless the Estates-General consents.”

The deputies sat unmoving, with a quiet, dissatisfied murmur rippling through the room.

It was not the cheer Louis had hoped for, so he glanced at Rollant as he paused.

He drew a deep breath and spoke again with a slight waver.

“Additionally, as the monarch of the Kingdom of France, I advise the Second Estate to relinquish its privileges to allow for equality among the estates.”

Rollant scanned the deputies, noting the only murmur came from the Second Estate.

The king hadn’t commanded the Second Estate to relinquish privileges as Rollant had suggested, only advised them.

As such and as expected, the National Assembly remained stoic with eyes locked in a deadly glare at the king with expressions of contempt or hate.

At their silence, Louis began again, his voice straining, “In the present company, I must state as a reminder, the crown is the ultimate authority; nothing the Estates do is valid without the king’s approval. Let us adjourn to our separate quarters for the day.”

As Louis turned to leave, Rollant’s gaze swept the hall.

The National Assembly deputies sat rigid, their inaction loud with open defiance.

A shift in the air arose. The king’s words were like ants to the elephant.

Louis left without noticing, but Rollant knew their refusal of the king’s command to leave was only the beginning.

Louis had executed Rollant’s advice half-done again, and again, the king would find it to fail. What might have appeased them in May only fueled their rebellion in June. But as it were, they were past anything Louis had to offer other than approve what they gave him.

The sun dipped below the horizon, leaving the palace bathed in restless shadows.

The murmurs of discontent outside the gates swelled into a nasty roar as night fell.

The crowds stormed the palace, and the soldiers, as Rollant had expected, did nothing.

He had warned Louis, the advisors, and anyone who would listen, but never once had they heeded his warnings in all the long decades.

It was the tipping point—a people who would not be subdued by order but by chaos.

They felt they had nothing to lose and forced the king’s hand to order the Second Estate to join the new National Assembly.

The crown, once absolute, had been slowly drowned and clung to life in the latest form of government.

Rollant watched it all unfold and remembered it would be just another day in his immortal life.

But if there was one sentiment he cared to retain for the reign of King Louis XVI, it was this: too little, too late.

He’d seen it all before, and he knew history had a knack for repeating itself—kings falling to their knees, killed, and perhaps burned, and the victor placing the crown upon their head, becoming a new master for Rollant to serve.

From his experience, time usually worsened before it was ever better.

The people would rebel again and crown a new king. Always a king, it seemed.

And yet, even as he resigned himself to history’s unbroken cycle, a part of him held to an ember of hope in the imminent pyre—hope that élise, with her vitality and courage, could find something better in the ashes of this crown.

* * *

Thirty thousand troops were garrisoned in Paris at the discreet order of the King.

His newly replaced ministers had insisted on it, except for Minister Necker, warning that the National Assembly’s defiance and new constitution could spiral into rebellion.

The presence of soldiers, their uniforms crisp and their muskets gleaming, did little to quell the unrest.

Rollant stood in his palace attic room, his gaze fixed on the city on the distant horizon.

Paris was a tinderbox, and the King had struck the match.

The Assembly had offered to extinguish the flame by passing a motion requesting King Louis withdraw the soldiers.

Minister Necker suggested His Majesty accept the motion as he continued to make greater and greater concessions on behalf of the king.

Rollant advised Louis not to replace Necker, though he never liked the Genevan banker and even suspected it was he who told the Assembly of the King’s order. Louis had paced at the foot of his bed while Rollant stood at the door.

“I want him gone,” Louis had said, but Rollant shook his head.

“He has done nothing for dismissal.”

“I thought you wanted a king with absolute power,” Louis said, marching up to Rollant.

Rollant’s gaze had met his king’s. “We are past that now, Your Majesty. Minister Necker is your last lifeline to the people. Cut it, and you will sever your own head,” Rollant advised. He hoped, for once, the king would listen to him.

But he didn’t.

That morning, July 11th, Louis dismissed and ordered Minister Necker to be deported in a fit of frustration over the latest constitutional draft, which reduced the king’s role to that of a figurehead.

As the Cabinet departed, Louis ordered Rollant to go to Paris to assess the reaction to the dismissal.

It wasn’t a request, as it had been before, but Rollant obeyed, as he was bound to.

“Always the tinkerer,” Rollant muttered regarding the king’s locksmith hobby as he stuffed his pack of clothes again. “Tinker too much, and it breaks.”

He wasn’t sure where to stay as no royalist inn would take him in.

They were all closed up, afraid of the mobs.

He dared not return to his Charonne home and face élise again, knowing he’d have to leave, and the king had no place for him to stay in the city and keep his spy’s disguise.

He slipped out of the palace and into the forest the grounds butted up against to avoid the eyes of the National Assembly.

He took the long way to Paris, a four-hour horse ride turned five.

The countryside was eerily quiet. Villages were shuttered, their streets empty, as though the inhabitants had vanished into the shadows.

As Paris neared, the air thickened with smoke, sweat, and desperation.

He circled the city’s edge with the city walls in far sight, not daring to enter with a horse.

A horse was status, and status was the enemy in the streets.

Chaos lay in wait. Paris was restless, hungry, and livid.

No one in Saint-Denis would take him in.

No matter what tale he told, no one in the rural districts offered him lodging until finally he came to Charonne.

The uneven cobblestone clacked beneath the mare’s hooves.

She shifted beneath his indecision, her breath huffing in the humid air.

“Dare I go back?” he asked.

élise’s face flashed in his mind, her voice sharp and full of fire.

She won’t forgive me , he thought, and maybe she shouldn’t .

He could already hear her sharp questions, her anger at his return after so long. But it wasn’t just her wrath he feared—it was the pull of her presence, the longing that had no place in his cursed eternity.

“Maybe I could stash the horse and sleep in the stable without her knowing.” The heat of July was no comfort, but at least he wouldn’t freeze.

With a heavy sigh, Rollant dismounted and led the mare toward the familiar path to his Charonne home, off the main road to hide his approach.