The summer air of Versailles was heavy with the perfume of roses and the faint musk of the fountains. In a private salon overlooking the gardens, the Dauphin awaited his guest. He had arranged the setting carefully: a table spread with samples of dried herbs, several pots of soil, and, most importantly, a curious instrument—a small brass and glass microscope,he asked from his father, crafted by the Englishman George Adams.
When Monsieur Parmentier arrived, he bowed respectfully, his powdered wig slightly askew from the journey. He was a man of modest stature but carried himself with the confidence of one accustomed to skepticism. For years, he had struggled to convince others of the potato's worth, or of new methods of preserving food. To be summoned by the heir of France was both an honor and a rare chance to advance his work.
The Dauphin greeted him with all the politeness expected of royalty, yet with the enthusiasm of a boy in earnest.
"Monsieur Parmentier," he said brightly, "thank you for coming. I wished to learn not from books but from one who truly knows. They say you understand plants better than most men in the kingdom."
Parmentier inclined his head, flattered. "Your Highness honors me with such words. Plants are humble creatures, yet within them lie cures, sustenance, and even survival."
The boy led him to the table, where the microscope gleamed in the light of tall windows.
"This," Louis-Joseph explained with pride, "is the English glass of Monsieur Adams. Through it, one can see the world as if it were magnified by magic."
He leaned closer, lowering his voice in a conspiratorial tone. "I have wondered, Monsieur Parmentier—people say blue cheese, though covered in mold, does not make men sick. Why is that so? Could we not look upon it with this instrument, and test its nature? Perhaps even try it upon the animals of the kitchens, to see what becomes of them?"
Parmentier blinked, surprised at both the cleverness of the question and the audacity of the suggestion. Few children of three would think so directly of experiment and proof. Yet, here stood the Dauphin, his eyes alight with the hunger of inquiry.
"Your Highness," Parmentier said after a pause, "that is indeed a remarkable question. Mold, to most, is a sign of corruption, yet in some cases it is not harmful—indeed, it may even be useful. With your permission, we may observe it, as you propose, and conduct an experiment. But," he added with a faint smile, "perhaps with more discretion than the kitchens' animals at first."
The boy laughed softly, pleased to have drawn such a response "I've learned from his majesty Gustave III".
In that moment, a bond was struck—not merely between teacher and student, but between curiosity and opportunity. For Louis-Joseph, this was not idle play. Each step brought him closer to establishing trust, reputation, and the beginnings of influence. Parmentier, unknowingly, was becoming part of a larger design.
That afternoon stretched into hours of discussion: on roots that healed wounds, on leaves that calmed fevers, on ways to keep bread from rotting and meat from spoiling. The Dauphin listened with rapt attention, asking questions that revealed both innocence and startling foresight.
And as the sun dipped lower, painting the gardens in amber hues, Louis-Joseph knew he had taken his first step. Not on the battlefield, not in the council chamber, but here—in the quiet corridors of knowledge and trust.
The palace workshop had been cleared of clutter, swept until the flagstones gleamed, and filled with the scent of fresh wood shavings. It was no ordinary project that brought such order to the usually neglected space, but one born of the Dauphin's quiet suggestion and his father's eager indulgence. The boy had spoken of a box that could "write with light," and Louis XVI—lover of mechanics, locks, and puzzles—had taken the idea to heart.
The King himself chose the wood. "Only the finest will do," he declared, running a large hand across planks of rosewood and mahogany, their polished surfaces glowing warmly in the light of tall windows. "This is not a mere toy. It must be a chamber as worthy of Versailles as of science."
Beside him, the Dauphin watched attentively, his youthful face composed, yet his eyes burned with excitement. He knew the true purpose of this endeavor, though none around him suspected it. The device they were building was not a curiosity snatched from a forgotten book, as he had claimed, but the rebirth of knowledge decades ahead of its time—knowledge he carried in silence from another life.
The trusted menuisier, a craftsman who had long served the court, set to work under the King's watchful eye. His hands were sure, guided by years of fashioning cabinets and marquetry fit for royalty. Each board of rosewood was cut with care, the joints fitted so perfectly that no sliver of light could pierce the seams. The box took form slowly, its edges smoothed, its lid carved to close flush without gaps.
Louis XVI, impatient yet fascinated, assisted where he could, holding pieces steady, testing the tightness of joints, running his fingers along the grain. "It must be utterly sealed," he repeated more than once. "Light is the enemy here. A single ray slipping through where it should not will ruin the effect."
The Dauphin nodded solemnly, though inwardly he smiled. His father was unknowingly speaking the truths he had already learned—truths whispered once across his former world's networks, debated in forums where multiple minds had pieced together the secrets of light and chemistry. Now, those fragments of forgotten discourse had become instructions for artisans in Versailles.
When the chamber was complete, it was no crude contraption. Its polished mahogany gleamed like a jewel box, its corners reinforced with gilded fittings, its interior painted in the deepest black to swallow any stray light. It was not just a scientific instrument but a work of art—a royal object of luxury, worthy of curiosity and envy alike.
Yet the box alone was nothing without its eye. The true challenge lay in capturing the image, in focusing light with precision.
For this, Louis XVI summoned one of the finest minds of Paris: a lunetier connected with the Observatoire, a man who had polished lenses for astronomers who charted the heavens. His arrival at Versailles caused murmurs among the courtiers, but the King brushed them aside. "If my son desires a window for his chamber, he shall have the clearest window in France."
The craftsman presented a selection of convex lenses, each ground with painstaking care. Some were cut for telescopes, designed to magnify the moons of Jupiter; others had once served glasses, revealing the hidden words of books.
Louis-Joseph, standing close by, seized his moment. With careful words—enough to guide, not to command—he offered his counsel.
"We must have a lens that gathers the light and bends it to a point," he said, his voice steady though he spoke as though repeating from memory. "A convex glass, Father. Not too strong, else the image will be blurred. But fine enough to bring the picture sharp upon the plate inside."
The King glanced at him, impressed as ever by his son's unusual clarity. "You hear him?" he said to the lens-maker. "He already speaks like a man many time his age."
The lunetier smiled politely, though he studied the boy with a trace of curiosity. "Indeed, Monseigneur speaks with reason. A convex lens shall serve. Allow me to fashion a mount that may be adjusted, so the image may be made sharp or soft at will."
Within weeks, a small brass tube had been crafted, its focus sliding back and forth with a precision that thrilled the Dauphin. When fitted to the chamber's front, it transformed the polished box into something altogether new—no longer a mere curiosity of carpentry, but the embryo of an instrument that might one day rival paint and brush.
By late August, the apparatus stood complete: a chamber of rosewood, sealed against light, its interior waiting to receive a plate coated with mysterious chemicals; at its front, the convex eye of the lens, ready to drink in the world and project it within.
Louis XVI surveyed it with a craftsman's pride. "See, my son? Together, we have built more than a box. We have built possibility."
The Dauphin bowed his head, hiding the glint in his eyes. For his father, it was the joy of creation, a puzzle solved. For himself, it was the next step of a plan unfolding silently beneath the gilded ceilings of Versailles.
He laid his hand gently upon the box's polished surface. "Yes, Father," he said softly. "The most beautiful box ever made."
But within his heart, he whispered another truth: And the first camera the world will ever know.
But the lunetier was not done yet….