The long winter of 1785 weighed heavily upon Versailles. Outside, the gardens lay barren, statues glistening under frost, the fountains stilled into silence. Within the golden palace, however, the hum of intrigue never ceased even with the closing of Versailles. Courtiers schemed, and ministers paced the antechambers with their endless papers and ledgers.
Louis XVI spent many of those cold evenings in his study, a place cluttered with maps, charts, and mechanical instruments. The news of Saint-Domingue's tremors and the Dauphin's precocious suggestion of shifting France's gaze toward Louisiana had not left his mind. He admired his son's unusual foresight—yet admiration was not the same as conviction.
For weeks, he summoned ministers, listened to reports, weighed numbers. And slowly, inexorably, the conclusion pressed down upon him like the unyielding weight of marble.
In January, the minister of the Marine, the Marquis de Castries, laid before the King a series of ledgers bound in leather. Each page told the same story in different figures: Saint-Domingue was not merely a colony—it was the beating heart of France's overseas empire.
"Your Majesty," Castries explained, pointing to the neat columns of numbers, "this island alone produces forty percent of all sugar consumed in Europe. Sixty percent of the coffee as well. The ships sailing from Cap-Français and Port-au-Prince represent more than a third of France's entire foreign trade. Every year, millions of livres pour into the kingdom because of these plantations."
The King nodded gravely. He knew these figures, but hearing them aloud made them harder to dismiss. Castries continued, voice tinged with urgency:
"Louisiana, by contrast, is little more than wilderness. A drain upon our treasury. Few settlers, no profitable exports, and rivers that require constant defense from English encroachment. To shift our focus from Saint-Domingue to Louisiana, Sire, would be to exchange a diamond for a patch of unfarmed land."
Louis XVI's thick fingers drummed on the desk. He thought of his son's words, so earnest: Why do we place all our treasures upon trembling earth? But the minister's argument was ironclad.
Then, Charles Alexandre de Calonne—Controller-General of Finances —spoke of money.
"The war in America, Sire, has bled us dry. The victory at Yorktown may have humbled the English, but it has left France shackled with debt. Already the financiers grow restless. We have borrowed beyond our means. To dream of grand enterprises in Louisiana—new settlements, roads, fortifications—this is fantasy. We must first pay our creditors."
Louis XVI sighed deeply. The very room seemed to grow heavier with Calonne's words. The Dauphin's plan might hold vision, but vision could not feed the treasury.
The Comte de Vergennes, Minister of Foreign Affairs, added yet another stone to the burden. He unfurled a map across the King's table, the pale rivers of North America winding under candlelight.
"Your Majesty, Louisiana cannot be defended. Look here—its borders brush against English territories in Canada, and the Americans, though now independent, remain unpredictable. Our navy is stretched thin, our forts ill-manned. If we invest heavily there, we invite English retaliation. And what of Saint-Domingue? It is already fortified, already productive. To diminish its priority is to hand our enemies an advantage."
Louis XVI stared at the map. So vast, so empty, Louisiana seemed to whisper of possibility. Yet Vergennes's voice was steady, practical, undeniable.
In truth, beyond the advice of his ministers, the King himself hesitated for reasons of temperament. He admired science, delighted in mechanics, but when it came to empire he thought as his fathers had thought.
An island producing sugar and coffee fitted neatly into the mercantile model: a jewel to be guarded, a revenue to be taxed, a known certainty. Louisiana, by contrast, required something alien to the French system—massive colonization, settlers tilling fields, building towns, forging a society continental in scale. That was the English way, not the French.
Louis XVI was not a man to gamble upon visions when the present offered tangible wealth.
It was still February when the King finally gathered the resolve to speak to his son. He chose the Dauphin's small chamber, not the grand council rooms, for he knew the matter was delicate.
Louis-Joseph sat upon a cushioned chair, toys and books scattered nearby, but his posture was attentive, almost solemn. The King dismissed attendants, leaving only father and son, and then began with the gentleness of a man addressing not just a child, but an heir.
"My son," Louis XVI said, voice low, "you have spoken wisely these past weeks. I see in you a mind most rare, one that seeks beyond the horizon. You see danger where others see only profit, and for that I admire you."
The Dauphin's eyes brightened. For a heartbeat he thought his father would agree, would embrace the plan.
But then the King continued.
"Yet I must refuse. Saint-Domingue is our treasure. It feeds France, sustains our trade, and fills our coffers when coffers run empty. Louisiana, though vast, is barren in the eyes of commerce. To divert our strength there now would ruin us. We are in debt, my son. We cannot afford grand designs when survival demands pragmatism."
Louis-Joseph's small hands clenched in his lap. He wanted to protest, to speak of the earthquakes, of the storms to come, of the revolt that even now brewed in the soil of Saint-Domingue and even France as it would be easier for him to profit of his status as the heir of France and be a salted fish, even if it means not getting the crown in the end, seeing his uncles. But he was four, and the words of prophecy would sound only like childish fancy.
The King reached forward, placing a heavy hand upon his son's shoulder.
"One day, you will wear this crown. You will learn that dreams must bow to necessity. Remember this lesson: what is easily gained is often false, and what is truly lasting is never won without hardship."
The Dauphin lowered his gaze. For the first time since his rebirth, he felt the sting of learning the hard way of a loss.
For France, the refusal seemed to seal a path that could not easily be unmade. Saint-Domingue would have remained the glittering jewel of the empire, its plantations booming, its sugar flowing like white gold across the Atlantic. But within a decade, its enslaved people would rise in fury, shattering the colony and birthing Haiti.
Louisiana, neglected and underdeveloped, would drift further from French hands until Napoleon sold it in 1803, a bargain that doubled the size of the young United States. Louis-Joseph may not have been a history enthusiast but as someone who went to college in his last life he had this high end basic knowledge: not too much but also not little.
For the Dauphin, the moment carved a scar. It was his first true encounter with the immovable wall of realpolitik. His vision of securing France's future on solid ground by the true leaders had met the iron bars of debt, commerce, and caution.
Yet far from extinguishing his fire, the refusal tempered it. He understood now that wisdom alone could not sway kings or councils. He would need more allies, better strategies, and the patience to wait for his moment.
As the King left the chamber, the child sat silent by the window, staring at the frozen gardens. A vision had been denied, a dream postponed. But within his small chest, the resolve only hardened.
One day, he thought, I will prove that the diamond can shatter, and that the barren earth may yet bloom.