Chapter 8: The Interrogation

In the fading, golden light of the setting sun, a light that gilded the rooftops of Paris with a melancholic splendour, Albert de Foix-Grailly paused with an artist’s appreciation at the imposing entrance of the Cercle de Chloé. He meticulously, yet with an air of studied nonchalance, adjusted the fall of his perfectly tailored attire. Bathed in the warm, amber glow of the dying day, the handsome, elegantly featured young man, with his air of languid, aristocratic grace, might have been mistaken by a passing poet for a classical Greek sculpture, a momentarily animated Endymion.

Then, twirling his slender, ebony walking cane with an air of sublime indifference to the world and its tedious, pressing concerns, he sauntered with an almost insolent yet undeniably charming nonchalance past the saluting, liveried doorman and into the hallowed, exclusive precincts of this renowned and notoriously selective upper-class social club.

After the tumultuous, epoch-shattering end of the Napoleonic Empire, a certain Anglophilia, a fashionable admiration for all things English, had become curiously de rigueur amongst the French upper classes. The “club,” that novel, and to some, rather curious, English invention, had successfully navigated the narrow, often choppy straits of the English Channel and established itself as a new and highly popular vogue in the sophisticated social landscape of Paris. And after the French government had formally, if somewhat ineffectually outlawed public gambling houses, those dens of vice and ruin, the gentlemen of leisure and substantial means cherished these remaining, more discreet havens of masculine sociability and refined amusement all the more.

As Albert entered the sumptuously appointed main salon, the club’s occupants, a distinguished collection of well-dressed gentlemen engaged in various leisurely pursuits – some engrossed in the perusal of newspapers, their brows furrowed in contemplation of affairs of state or finance; others conversing in hushed, confidential tones, no doubt dissecting the latest political intrigue or society scandal; a few deeply absorbed in intricate games of cards – cast a cursory, appraising, and perhaps slightly wary glance in his direction. Then, recognizing him as a familiar, if somewhat unpredictable presence, or merely dismissing him as another gilded youth of their acquaintance, they averted their gaze and returned with an air of studied indifference to their own absorbing affairs.

Beneath his carefully cultivated mask of light-hearted, boyish frivolity, Albert, with a subtle, imperceptible shift of his keen blue eyes, carefully scanned the room. His gaze swept over the assembled company, taking in each face, assessing the prevailing mood, searching, always searching, with the practiced eye of a seasoned social campaigner.

And then, in a relatively quiet, secluded corner, his eyes, like those of a hawk spotting its distant prey, found their quarry – a young man, appearing to be in his late twenties, of no more than average height, with a slightly portly, almost plump figure, and rather unremarkable, somewhat fleshy features. Yet, he was impeccably, foppishly dressed, his attire a testament more to his tailor’s skill and his father’s purse than to any innate elegance of his own.

Louis, Comte de Léognan, eldest son and heir apparent to the wealthy and influential Marquis de Léognan, was at that moment engaged in somewhat listless conversation with a group of his companions, whilst simultaneously, and with a notable lack of concentration, partaking in a game of whist.

After the cataclysmic, world-altering collapse of the Napoleonic Empire and the subsequent, to many Frenchmen, deeply humiliating, restoration of the Bourbon monarchy – it was bitterly remembered with the indispensable and resented aid of foreign bayonets – a deep-seated, almost subconscious, almost pathological, fear of antagonizing Great Britain had taken firm root in the French national psyche. This pervasive sentiment, this cautious deference to English power, persisted with a stubborn tenacity even after the July Monarchy under Louis-Philippe had overthrown the older, more intransigently reactionary Bourbon line. The France that had once, with such pride and ferocity, fought a Hundred Years’ War with England, the France that had once, under the visionary, if ultimately doomed, leadership of the great Emperor, led the entire continent in a titanic, existential struggle to crush British global power, the France that had so often and so bloodily clashed with British forces on the battlefields of Holland, of Spain, of Belgium, now seemed to have lost all appetite, all inclination, for further, potentially ruinous confrontation with her powerful, implacable, and increasingly dominant island neighbour.

Consequently, English textiles, English political ideas, English social customs, and even English forms of entertainment had become increasingly, almost slavishly fashionable in France – the card game of whist, with its complex rules and its aura of quiet, intellectual sociability, being a prime and ubiquitous example of this pervasive, and to some, rather lamentable cultural influence.

Albert, feigning a casual, almost aimless indifference, began to saunter slowly, with an air of leisurely exploration, towards the corner where the Comte de Léognan was seated, pausing here and there with an engaging smile to exchange greetings and light-hearted, often risqué banter with those acquaintances he encountered along the way, his progress seemingly random, yet in reality, meticulously calculated.

“My dear fellow,” he drawled to one such acquaintance, a portly Baron with a penchant for gossip, his voice carrying just enough for those nearby, including the Léognan party, to overhear without appearing to be deliberately addressed, “I found myself, on one singularly unfortunate occasion, through a momentary… shall we say… lapse of judgment, a youthful indiscretion of the most regrettable kind, in the exceedingly delicate, not to say perilous, position of having made a certain charming, if somewhat naive young lady a mother. And what was infinitely worse, my friend, the poor, bewildered, and utterly distraught girl was foolish enough, in her innocence, to confess her… error of judgment… to her own formidable mother! Imagine my predicament, if you can! The distraught mama, a veritable dragon in silks, descended upon me, wringing her hands, tears streaming down her face, demanding, with a voice like the thunder, to know what I, the vile seducer, intended to do about her ruined daughter… And do you know how I, in my youthful terror, replied?”

“How in heaven’s name did you reply, Albert?” someone nearby inquired, his curiosity thoroughly piqued by Albert’s scandalous and expertly delivered tale.

“‘But, Madame,’ I responded, affecting my most innocent, most perplexed, most utterly bewildered tone,” Albert recounted, deliberately pitching his voice into a high, almost effeminate, almost comically plaintive squeak, “‘I am, alas, neither a surgeon of renown nor an experienced midwife! Therefore, what possible assistance, could I, in my humble and entirely non-medical capacity, render in such a… profoundly delicate and clearly rather urgent medical emergency?’”

His drollery, delivered with an air of perfect, wide-eyed innocence that was belied by the wicked gleam in his eye, elicited a ripple of appreciative, if somewhat ribald and distinctly masculine laughter. And under the convenient, distracting cover of this general amusement, he managed with an almost imperceptible, balletic grace, to arrive as if by chance at the very side of the Comte de Léognan’s card table.

“Though now, I confess,” Albert continued in a lower, more confidential, almost conspiratorial tone to his immediate companions, yet still loud enough for the preoccupied Comte to overhear if he so chose, “were that same distressed, and if memory serves, rather attractive lady to approach me again under similar circumstances, perhaps I should not be entirely averse to bestowing upon that yet-unborn and entirely blameless little angel a few rather substantial, and no doubt exceedingly welcome, pieces of almond-iced marzipan…”

Albert, while engaging in this light, seemingly inconsequential and artfully distracting badinage with those around him, was, all the while, observing the Comte de Léognan’s rather inept play at the whist table.

It did not take him long with his own considerable, if rarely exercised, skill at cards, to reach a definitive and rather satisfying conclusion.

His card play was crude, almost laughably so, utterly lacking in finesse, foresight, or any discernible strategy. His discards were haphazard, ill-considered, almost random. He was, Albert surmised with an inward, almost pitying smile, an easily manageable, pathetically vulnerable opponent. A lamb to the slaughter, should one be so inclined.

It appears my old friend Charles’s rather delicate commission will be accomplished with rather less difficulty, and perhaps even with a modicum of amusement, than I had initially anticipated, he thought to himself, a flicker of self-satisfied satisfaction glinting in his cold blue eyes.

Just at that moment, as if the prolonged sitting at the card table had become physically uncomfortable, or perhaps, more prosaically nature called with an urgent insistence, the Comte de Léognan abruptly pushed back his chair, its legs scraping gratingly on the polished floor, rose somewhat unsteadily to his feet, and began to make his way with a slightly befuddled air towards the gentlemen’s lavatory.

Now is the moment, Albert thought, his senses instantly sharpening, his charming languor vanishing, replaced by a cold, calculating alertness. The stage is set.

With a subtle glance, a mere flicker of his eyelashes, Albert signalled to a robustly built, somewhat rough-looking young man who appeared to be engaged in casual, animated conversation nearby, but whose attention, Albert knew with absolute certainty, was entirely and expectantly focused on him.

This young man, whose rugged, weather-beaten features and somewhat pugnacious, almost belligerent air bespoke a life perhaps less sheltered, less refined, than that of most of the club’s privileged members, understood Albert’s silent signal instantly. He slowly and casually, as if by chance, shifted his position, placing himself with a deceptive artlessness directly in the Comte de Léognan’s intended path.

The Comte, his mind perhaps still preoccupied with the frustrating intricacies of the card game he had just abandoned, or simply, as was his wont, unobservant and self-absorbed, failed to notice the human obstruction looming in his way. Inevitably, with a dull thud, the two men collided.

“Have a care where you are going, Monsieur!” the young man exclaimed, his voice rough, glaring at the Comte with a look of stern, aggressive disapproval. And then, with a deliberate, almost contemptuous and entirely unnecessary shove, he pushed the startled Comte aside.

The Comte, momentarily discomposed, his face flushing a dull red, merely shook his head as if to clear it from the unexpected impact, and then, without uttering a word of protest or apology, continued on his way to the lavatory, perhaps too surprised or too timid to remonstrate.

Albert, observing this little scene from his discreet vantage point, gave the young man a subtle nod of approval. He then found himself a comfortable, strategically placed seat in a nearby alcove, settling down with an air of pleasant anticipation to observe the unfolding and carefully orchestrated drama.

A short while later, the Comte de Léognan emerged from the lavatory, his expression still somewhat ruffled, and began to walk back towards his original seat at the card table, no doubt eager to resume his losing game.

And then… with an almost theatrical, almost farcical predictability, he once again, and with rather more force this time, collided with the very same young man, who seemed, by some malign coincidence, to be standing in precisely the same obstructive spot.

“Monsieur, are you doing this deliberately?!” the young man exclaimed, his voice considerably louder now, his expression one of carefully calibrated, rising anger. His eyes, hard and unforgiving, fixed on the unfortunate Comte with a fierce, accusatory glare.

“I am not! It is you, Monsieur, who have twice, with a singular lack of courtesy, blocked my path!” the Comte retorted, his own notoriously short temper beginning to fray, his face flushing a deeper, more unbecoming, shade of crimson with indignation and embarrassment.

“Are you suggesting, Monsieur, that this is somehow my fault?” the young man demanded, his voice taking on a dangerous, menacing edge, his hand instinctively moving towards where a sword might once have hung.

“Is it not patently obvious that it is?” the Comte shot back, glaring at his antagonist with a mixture of fear and bravado. He then muttered something indistinct and derogatory under his breath and attempted, with a show of bluster, to brush past him and continue towards his seat.

“Monsieur,” the young man said, his voice now cold, clear, and dangerously arrogant, his posture erect and challenging, effectively blocking the Comte’s passage, “I believe, under the circumstances, that you owe me an apology. A most profound and public apology.”

“An apology? To you? Certainly not! It was entirely your own oafish clumsiness that caused these… unfortunate encounters,” the Comte scoffed with a dismissive, if somewhat shaky, laugh. “Besides,” he added, drawing himself up with an air of immense self-importance, “do you even have the faintest idea who I am?”

“Oh?” the young man responded with an indifferent, almost insolent shrug of his broad, muscular shoulders. “And who, pray tell, might you be, Monsieur, that your passage should be so sacrosanct?”

“I, Monsieur, am the Comte de Léognan!” the Comte announced, his chin held high, his expression one of profound, comical offended dignity. He then reached with a flourish into his embroidered waistcoat pocket, produced a fine, engraved calling card, and presented it to the young man with an air of someone bestowing an immense and entirely undeserved favour.

The young man took the proffered card and glanced at it with an air of exaggerated, almost insulting bored disdain, as if it were some distasteful object he had been forced to handle.

The Comte, a small, self-satisfied smirk playing upon his lips, prepared to turn away, clearly expecting this dramatic revelation of his noble identity to resolve the matter instantly and entirely in his favour.

However, the young man’s next action and his subsequent words took him, and indeed many of the now avidly watching club members, completely by surprise.

“It is… soiled,” the young man stated coldly, his lip curling in a deliberate, unmistakable sneer. “It appears, Monsieur le Comte, that you have kept it in your pocket for far too long, and it has become… contaminated. Pray, fetch me another, a cleaner one. This one is quite unfit for a gentleman to handle.” And with that, with a gesture of supreme, calculated contempt, he contemptuously dropped the calling card to the polished floor at his feet, as if it were a piece of refuse.

The other occupants of the club, who had been observing the escalating confrontation with a mixture of discreet, sidelong glances and ill-concealed fascination, now fell utterly silent, their hushed whispers and murmured conversations ceasing abruptly. An almost palpable, electric tension filled the air, thick with unspoken anticipation. This was no longer a mere accidental collision; this was an affair of honour.

The Comte’s eyes widened in stunned disbelief, his jaw dropping.

This was a provocation of the most egregious kind, a deliberate, public, and unpardonable insult! There could be no mistaking its intent!

And in such circumstances, according to the rigid, unforgiving code of honour that still, despite the changing times, governed the conduct of gentlemen, he was obligated, absolutely and irrevocably obligated, to demand satisfaction, to issue a formal challenge to a duel. A young man, a French nobleman of his standing, could not possibly tolerate such a flagrant, public humiliation. His honour, his family’s honour, his very reputation within society, demanded that this stain be washed away, and washed away with blood. If he were to back down now, if he were to show the slightest sign of hesitation or fear, he would be branded a poltroon, a coward, his name forever disgraced in the drawing-rooms and clubs of Paris.

But… to risk everything – his life, his future, his impending, advantageous marriage – over a quarrel, however provoked, with this… this ill-mannered, unknown, and clearly dangerous ruffian who had seemingly appeared from nowhere, conjured from the very air… it was madness! Utter, unthinkable madness!

The Comte’s mind was in a dizzying turmoil. He wanted to speak, to utter the formal, time-honoured words of a challenge to this insolent cur who had so grievously, so publicly offended him, yet the words seemed to stick in his throat, refusing to emerge, choked by a wave of cold, sickening fear.

“Well, Monsieur le Comte?” the young man pressed, his voice laced with an even greater, more overt, and deeply wounding mockery, his eyes glinting with a dangerous, feral light. He deliberately raised his voice, ensuring that everyone in the now silent, intently listening vicinity could hear his taunt. “Are you not going to fetch me another, more presentable, card? Or has your courage, perhaps, deserted you along with your manners?”

More and more eyes, curious, critical, and some, perhaps, even pitying, were now fixed upon them, the silence in the club growing heavier, more expectant, almost suffocating.

A cold, clammy sweat broke out on the Comte’s forehead. He glanced desperately, almost pleadingly towards his former seat at the card table, hoping for some sign of support, some intervention from his card-playing companions. But they all, to a man, studiously, pointedly, avoided his gaze, their faces carefully blank. They too had recognized the dangerous, potentially lethal turn the situation had taken and clearly had no intention of becoming embroiled in what was rapidly escalating into a serious affair of honour. They were, it was clear, leaving him to his fate.

“Monsieur…” the young man drawled, the  mockery in his eyes deepening, his lip curling into an insolent, unbearable sneer. He took a deliberate step closer.

I must do it! I have no other choice! My honour demands it!

The Comte, his heart pounding in his chest like a trapped bird, his resolve hardening out of sheer, abject desperation rather than any true courage, took a ragged, deep breath, preparing to utter the irrevocable, life-altering words of a challenge. His hand, trembling slightly, moved towards his own pocket for a fresh card.

“My dear friends, my dear sirs! What in heaven’s name is all this unfortunate commotion about?” a smooth, melodious, and eminently reasonable voice suddenly interjected, cutting through the tense, charged silence like a soothing, welcome balm.

Instinctively, almost convulsively, the Comte turned towards the source of this unexpected and potentially life-saving voice.

A young man, impeccably dressed in the latest Parisian fashion, his features refined and undeniably handsome, his smile perfect, charming, and utterly disarming, was approaching them with an air of easy, unruffled grace. In the soft, flattering light of the magnificent crystal chandeliers that illuminated the salon, he seemed to shimmer with an almost messianic, benevolent radiance.

After a moment of stunned and uncomprehending silence, the Comte, his mind still reeling, recognized him.

“Albert…” he stammered, his voice trembling slightly, husky with a mixture of profound relief and residual, lingering fear. “Albert de Foix-Grailly…”

Albert de Foix-Grailly, for it was indeed he, glided towards them with the effortless grace of a seasoned diplomat and then, with a movement so swift, so subtle, so unobtrusive as to be almost invisible to the casual observer, he stooped, retrieved the discarded, offending calling card from the floor, and, with a discreet flick of his wrist, slipped it into his own waistcoat pocket.

“Louis, my dear fellow! A pleasure to see you looking so… animated!” Albert said, his voice warm and friendly, addressing the Comte with an easy familiarity. Then, turning to the belligerent young man, he added with an equally charming smile, “And Léonce, is it not? My good friend!” Albert addressed the ruffian by a name the Comte did not recognize, yet with an air of established camaraderie, he regarded them both with that same flawless, utterly charming and entirely unreadable smile. “Forgive my unwarranted intrusion, gentlemen, but I could not help but observe from my quiet corner, that you seemed to be engaged in some… slight, shall we say… disagreement? A matter of some trifling misunderstanding, perhaps? What, precisely, is amiss?”

“We… we merely… bumped into each other, twice, quite by accident, I assure you…” the Comte stammered, his voice still shaky, desperately eager to downplay the incident, to grasp this offered lifeline.

He knows this ruffian! This… Léonce! the Comte thought, a wild, improbable surge of desperate hope flooding through him. Perhaps, oh, praise be to God, perhaps he can extricate me from this dreadful, potentially lethal situation!

The Comte’s racing heart began to slow its frantic pace, a fragile, tentative sense of stability, of reprieve, returning to his shattered nerves.

“He collided with me, Albert, and then had the unmitigated audacity to claim that it was my fault,” the young man, Léonce, replied, his tone still sullen and deeply resentful, though perhaps a fraction less aggressive than before, his glare fixed on the Comte.

“Good heavens, is that all it was?” Albert exclaimed, his voice light and airy, almost dismissive, as if commenting on some trivial children’s squabble. “I had imagined, from the… intensity of the moment… that it was some grave affair of honour, some unforgivable slight! Surely, gentlemen, such a minor, inconsequential mishap is not worth such heated, and potentially regrettable, contention?”

“He must apologize to me, Albert! Publicly!” Léonce insisted, his expression still truculent, his pride clearly still wounded.

“Come now, my dear friends,” Albert said, placing a firm, yet conciliatory hand on Léonce’s broad shoulder, then turning his most persuasive, most dazzlingly charming smile upon the still-flustered Comte. “In the name of our old friendship, Léonce, and in the spirit of good fellowship, Louis, surely we can resolve such a trifling misunderstanding without further acrimony, without resort to… more drastic measures? Is it not far better, on such a pleasant evening, for us all to enjoy the convivial pleasures of the club together in good fellowship, rather than to mar it with ill-feeling?”

Léonce’s tense, angry features slowly, almost reluctantly began to relax under the soothing, irresistible influence of Albert’s persuasive charm and the subtle pressure of his hand.

“Hmph. Very well, Albert,” he grumbled at last, though with considerably less conviction, less animosity than before. “For your sake, and for yours alone, I shall let the matter pass. This time.”

Albert, beaming with a triumphant, cherubic benevolence, took each young man by an arm, linking them together as if they were the dearest of companions. “Excellent! A most wise and commendable decision, my friends! Come, it is a rare and fortuitous opportunity for you two to become properly acquainted. Let us share a drink together, a toast to new friendships, and let all this unpleasantness be forgotten!” Then, he turned to the visibly relieved Comte with a conspiratorial wink and a confidential lowering of his voice. “This, my dear Louis, is my very good, if somewhat impetuous friend, Léonce. He served with considerable distinction, I might add, in North Africa, you know. A crack shot with a pistol, they say, positively deadly at fifty paces! We have a long-standing engagement to go hunting in the country together in a few weeks’ time, if our various pressing schedules permit, of course!”

The Comte’s face, which had been pale with anxiety, now turned a shade paler, almost ashen. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing convulsively, then let out a long, shuddering sigh of profound, almost abject relief.

He was saved. Truly, miraculously, saved.

The three young men then found a vacant table in a quieter part of the salon, and Albert, with a lordly, expansive air, ordered several bottles of the club’s finest whisky. They raised their glasses in a somewhat strained, yet undeniably relieved toast.

Perhaps due to his lingering ill-humour, or perhaps, as Albert suspected, because he had played his assigned part in their little charade to perfection and now wished to make a discreet exit, Léonce departed after consuming only a few perfunctory drinks, leaving Albert and the increasingly garrulous Comte to continue their libations alone. They refilled their glasses frequently, their conversation, lubricated by copious amounts of alcohol, growing more animated, more convivial, and considerably less guarded, as the evening wore on.

As they drank, they chatted, with the easy familiarity of men of their class, about various topics – the latest political gossip, the prospects at the racetrack, the charms of certain opera dancers. Somehow, after several meandering shifts in conversation, the subject, as Albert had subtly, almost imperceptibly guided it, turned to the ever-fascinating and often fraught topic of marriage.

“My dear Louis,” Albert said, leaning forward with an air of warm, confidential camaraderie, his voice pitched low, “I hear congratulations are most definitely in order! You are soon to be married, are you not? A most auspicious event! And to a granddaughter of His Grace, the Duke de Tréville, no less! A Tréville! You are a fortunate man indeed, my friend, a very fortunate man! You must have secured a most handsome, a truly magnificent, dowry with such an illustrious alliance, eh? Come, let us drink to your exceptional good fortune, to your beautiful bride, and to the future prosperity of the House of Léognan…”

The Comte, who had by now consumed a considerable, indeed a rather alarming, quantity of neat whisky, his tongue significantly loosened, his customary discretion entirely eroded by the insidious effects of the alcohol, took another large, unsteady gulp. He had long since lost count of how many glasses he had drunk; he simply continued to drink, one after another, with a kind of desperate, almost mournful enthusiasm.

“My dearest friend… hic… Albert…” he slurred, his words thick and indistinct, “I… I have… what is there to envy, I ask you… hic… what earthly reason for congratulation? I have acquired a wife… yes… a Tréville, as you say… but… but she brings… no… no dowry… not a single, solitary sou, my friend… not one damned, cursed sou…” His voice cracked with a sudden, maudlin self-pity.

“Hmm?” Albert feigned an expression of profound, almost shocked astonishment, then adopted a tone of playful, incredulous disbelief, as if accusing his friend of boasting by some perverse, inverse means. “You are jesting with me, surely, Louis…? A Tréville, and no dowry? Impossible! Unthinkable!”

“How could I… how could I possibly… hic… deceive you, my dearest, truest friend…” the Comte slurred, his eyes vacant, unfocused, a dull, glassy film of advanced intoxication clouding his gaze. “It is… it is a transaction, Albert… a damned, cursed, and entirely one-sided transaction…”

“A transaction?” Albert prompted gently, his voice soft, sympathetic, his curiosity now thoroughly and painfully aroused. He sensed he was on the verge of a significant revelation.

“My aunt… my late, sainted aunt…” the Comte mumbled, his words becoming increasingly indistinct, his head lolling slightly.

“Your aunt, Louis?” Albert encouraged, keeping his voice soothing.

“My aunt… she died… some months ago… She had no children of her own… Her considerable fortune… it should have… it should by all rights, by all laws of God and man, have passed to me… or at least, to my father, and then, in due course, to me… I was her closest male relative, her natural heir… But instead… instead… the unnatural, scheming old woman… she… she made a will… a wicked, unjust will… and left everything… every last franc, every last hectare… to my younger sister… to Marie… Damn her! Damn them all!… When that notary… that cursed, sanctimonious notary… read out the outrageous terms of that iniquitous will… my father… my mother… and I… I… I was… I was incandescent with rage! Utterly beside myself! It was… it was an outrage! A betrayal!” His voice rose in a sudden, drunken crescendo of fury and self-pity.

“And how much, approximately, did this… unexpected fortune amount to, Louis?” Albert inquired casually, his tone carefully neutral, as if merely making polite, sympathetic conversation, though his mind was racing, fitting the pieces of the puzzle together.

“How much exactly… I… I do not know for certain… The lawyers are still… hic… wrangling over the details… But… but it must have been considerable… quite, quite considerable…” Under the pervasive, debilitating influence of the copious amounts of alcohol he had consumed, the Comte de Léognan was now almost completely incoherent, his words slurred beyond easy comprehension, his sentences fragmented and rambling. Albert had to strain, with intense concentration, to decipher his garbled meaning. “My aunt, you see… her late husband… a prudent man, for all his faults… before he passed away… he had invested heavily in government bonds… a vast sum, they say… And then… then there was the compensation from the government… for lands lost during the… the troubles… that too was a substantial amount… a king’s ransom, almost… Added together… yes, if one were to add it all together, it would be… it would be a fortune fit for a prince…” His voice trailed off into an unintelligible mumble, his head finally slumping forward onto his chest, overcome at last by the potent combination of whisky and righteous indignation.

In 1825, the ultra-conservative government then in power in France, dominated by reactionary émigrés who had returned after Napoleon’s fall, passed a highly controversial law, often referred to by its critics as the “Billion Francs for the Émigrés.” This legislation provided substantial financial compensation to those nobles and clergy who had suffered losses of property and land during the upheavals of the Great Revolution. This enormous sum, amounting to approximately one billion francs, was to be paid from the national treasury. To finance this deeply unpopular measure, the government controversially, and some said illegally, reduced the interest rate on existing national bonds, an act which directly and grievously angered the French bourgeoisie, who were the primary holders of these bonds, and who saw it as a blatant theft of their rightful income to enrich a parasitic aristocracy. This law is widely considered by historians to be one of the most foolish, divisive, and politically damaging decisions of the entire Bourbon Restoration era, and it became a significant contributing factor to the widespread discontent that eventually culminated in the July Revolution of 1830.