The Court of Public Opinion

The shock in the Baron de Clugny's deposition hadn't merely rocked the foundations of the court; it destroyed them. The news, relayed in panting messengers from the courtroom, ran through Paris like a plague. Paris, come evening, was in an uproar, a foaming ocean of rumors, indignation, and confusion.

Art had desired to control the story, be the hero of an uncomplicated narrative of justice and redemption. Vergennes, though, with diabolical cleverness as a skilled politician, had stolen the story from him and made it a nightmare. In a flash, Art could no longer be the hero. He had been appointed heir to the villain.

The next day, the enormity of the Old Guard's counter-attack became clear. It was a propaganda barrage, a wide-based assault on the court of public opinion. Paris received a tidal wave of pamphlets, broadsides, and hastily conducted cartoons. Art had a page boy collect a sampling, and he read through them in his study, his stomach churning with a feeling of outrage and grudging respect.

Vergennes' genius consisted in what the broadsides omitted. They never appeared in defense of the Baron de Clugny as an innocent. That would have been a falsehood. No, they crucified him as a tragic, loving servant, a man of his word with a sworn sacred oath to his king, condemned for serving a perfidious master. They framed him as a scapegoat, a lower noble being martyred by the new King in order to cover sins committed in the Bourbon dynasty.

The headlines were toxic and brilliant: "THE KING'S COMMAND OR A BARON'S CRIME?" screamed one. Another, more rhetorical, begged, "If a King can in secret command robbery from his own Treasury, then what does the law mean?" The tale was plain and deadly: Art's much-ballyhooed quest for justice was a ruse, a opportunistic ploy meant to clear his own family's name through the erasure of an honest, though flawed, retainer.

He could feel the ground falling away from his feet. His carefully built trust among his people was fading like morning mist. Cheers in the street were being replaced with suspicious whispers. He looked in the HUD, and the figures only made his fear worse.

Public Trust in Monarchy: -25% and FALLING.

Third Estate Popularity: -10% (STATUS: WARY).

Old Guard Hostility: -15% (STATUS: TRIUMPHANT).

They were framing him, indirectly, yet through an attack on the institution he represented. Everything he would say in his defense would sound defensive. If he defended his grandfather, he defended corruption. If he criticized his grandfather, he demonstrated his dynasty was corrupt through and through. It could not be a more exquisite trap.

He summoned a crisis meeting forthwith in his study. Tension filled the room. Necker, the careful banker, was in a state of panic. He paced white-faced, his hands trembling slightly as he walked back and forth in front of the fire.

"Your Majesty, we must bring it to a halt now!" he implored, his voice tense. "This is a debacle. Hour after hour, day after day, the trial runs, the Crown loses credit. We must act, get the charges dropped. We can banish the Baron in comfortable obscurity, strip him of his titles. The scandal is doing irreparable damage to our ability to negotiate new loans. The bankers in Geneva and Amsterdam are losing faith!"

Art listened, understanding Necker's fear. It was the prudent, risk-averse thing. Cut your losses, damage control. But he could only stare into the frightened minister's eyes, knowing it was the wrong thing to do.

Out of a shadowy alcove in the room, a second voice replied, even-toned. "Just the contrary, Your Majesty. The path adopted by Minister Necker is one leading towards destruction."

Beaumarchais stepped into the candlelight. He had been brought into the palace an hour earlier, spirited, and he looked not like a man in a crisis, but like a playwright enjoying a dramatic reversal.

"To call a halt now in the trial is to confess guilt," he exclaimed, his eyes aflame with intellectual fervor. "It confirms their every accusation. It announces to the whole world, 'Yes, the King's family is corrupt, and he'll do anything within his power to cover his tracks.' You can't get away from this story, Majesty. You'll have to take it and give them a different one."

Necker looked aghast. "A greater story? This isn't a play! It's the reputation of the kingdom!"

"Oh, dear Minister," Beaumarchais replied with a commiserating smile. "It's all playacting. And now, Vergennes is playwright, producer, and star. We must write a new play."

Art looked towards the playwright. "What do you propose, Monsieur?"

Beaumarchais began pacing back and forth, his mind working on strategies. "Right now, the drama being played out in the Paris streets is 'The Corrupt Dead King vs. The Loyal Scapegoat Baron.' It's a tragedy. We must rename it an action-packed drama: 'The Courageous Reformer King vs. The Plotting Old Guard.'"

He gestured wildly, tracing out the narrative. "We can't defend Louis XV. He's dead, and defending him makes you an accomplice. We concede the point! We say, 'Aye, the old times were corrupt, exactly why your new King's reforms are so important!' We move. We change the villain. It isn't your grandfather. It's the cabal of dark nobles who prospered off that ancient corruption and now fear that your new period of justice is going to come crashing down."

He wrote a full-scale counter-propaganda program. "We must prepare pamphlets that do not excuse, but condemn. They must raise the right questions. 'Why would the Baron de Clugny remain silent for years, only to repent now?' 'Who stands to gain the most from this scandal?' 'Is it not a very singular coincidence that this deposition redounds to the very nobles who have openly combated the King's audits and reforms the most?'"

Beaumarchais's eyes were alight. "And cartoons, Your Majesty! satire is a knife. We shall provide caricatures of Vergennes as a puppeteer, with strings connected to the poor, defenseless Baron, making him dance. We shall caricature the Old Guard as vultures, feasting on the dead bodies of the ancient regime, fearing the new dawn. We shall depict them as not only corrupted, but avaricious, ridiculous."

Necker looked on in disgust with the sheer vulgarity of the plan. But Art felt a surge of adrenaline. It was reckless, it was risky, it wasgenius. It was the only thing. He was tired of justifying, tired of retreating. It was time to go on the offensive.

"Monsieur Beaumarchais," Art said, with a determined grin. "You now hold your commission. Minister Necker," he turned, faced the reluctant financier, "you'll provide Monsieur Beaumarchais a discretionary fund from my personal coffers. Fifty thousand livres, for starters. I wish each sympathetic printer, each poor artist, each satirical writer witty enough in Paris who'll take the King's pay in exchange for coin to be hired come dawn."

"Your Majesty, are you absolutely certain?" Necker whispered. "Involving oneself in something like... a verbal street fight..."

"Minister," declared Art, his voice as steel-hard as iron. "Vergennes has dragged the Crown into the gutter. We can either lie there and get trampled, or we can learn to fight in the mud. Start printing."