(Versailles, Late February 1785)
The palace breathed with a quiet expectancy. Outside, the gardens slept under a pale shroud of winter, their fountains stilled and parterres empty, while within the gilded walls life pulsed in anticipation of a singular event: the Queen's confinement. Marie-Antoinette, nearing the end of her pregnancy, remained the center of speculation and whispered hopes, her condition watched as if the fate of France itself rested upon it. Amid that hushed suspense, another gathering was arranged—not in the great halls where ceremony crushed spontaneity, but in one of the Queen's more intimate salons, a room warmed by tapestries, a low fire, and the faint fragrance of hyacinths forced early by the gardeners.
The purpose was simple, though layered with intention: the young cousins of the royal house would meet, bond, and perhaps plant the seeds of kinship that politics would later demand.
For Louis-Joseph, Dauphin of France, barely four years old yet carrying the secret of an older soul, the moment was charged with significance. His life at court was tightly regimented—lessons, audiences, observances—but here was an opportunity to weave threads of alliance not with statesmen or ministers but with children of his own blood. And yet, the weight of his hidden mind pressed upon him. He knew that family ties, carefully cultivated, could become stronger weapons than armies.
The Queen herself, resplendent though visibly weary, had chosen to attend the beginning of the encounter. On her right sat her brother-in-law, the comte d'Artois, whose irrepressible energy and laughter filled any chamber he entered. Governesses hovered discreetly, ready to step forward at a gesture, but their presence remained blurred at the edges of the scene. All eyes turned as the door opened.
Two boys entered, shepherded by their governor. The elder, Louis-Antoine, duc d'Angoulême, carried himself stiffly in his formal coat of deep blue trimmed with silver. At nine, he had already absorbed the habits of solemnity, his eyes cast down, his movements precise. He advanced with deliberation, then executed a bow so perfect it might have been rehearsed for days.
"Monsieur mon cousin," he said, his voice thin but careful, "I present my most humble respects."
The Dauphin had barely opened his mouth to reply when a flash of motion darted before the elder boy. Charles-Ferdinand, duc de Berry, just seven, bounded into the space with irrepressible eagerness. His bow was a mere sketch of protocol, a quick dip accompanied by a grin that spread from ear to ear.
"Bonjour, my cousin! I'm Charles! And here's my brother Antoine. He's very proper. Me, not so much!"
The governor paled, half-reaching to pull the boy back, but Artois threw back his head and laughed, the sound bouncing against the gilded cornices. Marie-Antoinette, too, smiled despite herself, the tension of expectation eased by the boy's disarming candor.
Louis-Joseph regarded the scene with a composed curiosity. He sensed the discomfort of Louis-Antoine, who stood rooted, his earlier effort now overshadowed by his brother's impetuous charm. Choosing deliberately, the Dauphin turned his gaze toward Charles first, his child's face brightening into a smile.
"Bonjour, Charles! I'm glad you came. And bonjour to you too, Antoine."
Then, pivoting with calculated kindness, he addressed the elder cousin more directly. "My tutor tells me you are very strong in Latin. Is it difficult?"
The words, carefully chosen, acted as balm. He was extending a hand into Louis-Antoine's guarded world, signaling respect rather than rivalry.
The children were led toward a corner where wooden construction blocks lay stacked upon a carpet. The Queen reclined in her chair, her hand resting upon the gentle swell of her abdomen, while the Comte d' Artois, restless as ever, shifted between jesting remarks and proud observation of his sons.
Louis-Antoine, once seated, cleared his throat and answered gravely, "The declension of irregular verbs requires great application, Monsieur. Yet it is the foundation of all erudition."
His tone was that of a miniature scholar, rehearsed and exact.
But Charles-Ferdinand, already seizing blocks to build a precarious tower, burst in with a laugh. "Pfft, Latin! I like riding better! Father says I sit a horse as if born to it. Joseph, do you ride?"
The Dauphin seized the opening. He knew the pride of the Artois line in horsemanship. He also understood, with the cunning of experience borrowed from another life, that to flatter a family strength was to open doors.
"Not yet as the grown ones do," he replied, carefully childlike in tone. "But I love the horses my father keeps. They're so tall! And my uncle"—he turned toward the Comte d'Artois with deliberate recognition—"said he would take you hunting soon. That must be exciting."
The younger boy's eyes lit up as if fireworks had been set off within.
"Oh yes! Antoine fears the gun's noise, but not me! Boom!" Charles mimed the recoil of a musket, scattering his blocks.
Louis-Antoine flushed crimson, his dignity pricked. For a moment, awkward silence threatened to descend, but Louis-Joseph acted swiftly.
"I, too, startle at loud noises," he confided, lowering his voice as if sharing a secret. Then he added, with deft diplomacy: "But Antoine, since you know so much history, perhaps you can tell us a tale of Saint Louis hunting? Then we can think of stories instead of the noise."
It was a masterstroke. Antoine straightened, pride seeping back into his posture. He began, hesitantly at first, to recount how King Louis IX, the holy ancestor, had once ridden into the forest, hawk upon his arm, seeking game not for vanity but to feed the poor at his table. As he spoke, his words gathered momentum, his voice growing steadier, and Charles, though impatient, quieted enough to listen while stacking blocks anew.
Marie-Antoinette exchanged a glance with Artois—silent, but weighted with recognition. The Dauphin, only four, had steered a delicate moment into harmony.
The blocks became their stage. Charles insisted upon building a castle "with towers taller than Versailles itself," while Antoine corrected proportions, muttering about stability and symmetry. Louis-Joseph mediated, suggesting compromises, shifting a block here, adjusting a tower there.
He marveled inwardly at the irony: here he was, a soul decades older than his body, crouched among children, smoothing quarrels with the practiced hand of a commander keeping soldiers from bickering. Yet to the watching adults, he seemed simply an amiable child, gifted perhaps with more gentleness than most.
"Your wall will fall if you make it so thin," Antoine warned his brother.
"Then we'll build another!" Charles retorted, knocking it down with a laugh.
Louis-Joseph chuckled, though inwardly he marked the temperaments: Antoine, cautious, craving order; Charles, bold, courting chaos. Both could be useful, in time. Both, if guided, could become allies rather than rivals.
A moment came when Charles attempted to fashion a cannon from the blocks, rolling it across the carpet with an explosion noise. Marie-Antoinette's brows arched in mild disapproval, but Louis-Joseph leaned into the play.
"Every castle needs defense," he said, encouraging. "But Antoine, perhaps you can tell us where to place the walls so they are strongest? You know about battles, yes?"
The older boy's chest swelled at the invitation. He described, in halting but earnest words, how bastions should be angled, how a moat could protect the base. Charles followed his directions surprisingly well, delighting in giving his cannon something to shoot at.
To any outsider, it was child's play. To Louis-Joseph, it was the rehearsal of leadership: giving each child a role where he could shine, weaving difference into unity.
The Queen watched with softened eyes, her hand idly stroking the embroidered armrest of her chair. For weeks she had been confined by her pregnancy, restless and weary, often shadowed by anxieties of succession and court intrigue. To see her son preside over his cousins with such natural grace lightened her heart.
Artois, meanwhile, leaned close, murmuring to her in a conspiratorial tone, "Your Dauphin has more sense than most grown men of this court. Look how he turns Antoine's seriousness and Charles's mischief to good purpose. Mark me, sister, he will not be easily swayed when he is grown."
Marie-Antoinette smiled faintly, though she pressed her lips together to hide the swell of emotion.
The governesses, for their part, exchanged whispers about how unusual it was for children to converse so earnestly, so smoothly guided by one no older than the Dauphin. But propriety kept them silent, their observations tucked away for later gossip.
Louis-Joseph felt the duality of his existence more keenly than ever. Outwardly he played with blocks, laughed at Charles's antics, and listened gravely to Antoine's lectures on Roman heroes. Inwardly, however, he weighed each cousin as a commander might evaluate recruits. Charles had courage, though untamed. Antoine had intellect, though fettered by timidity. Both could be sharpened, disciplined,or used as such into the orbit of his future designs.
His thoughts flickered briefly to matters far from the salon: the hidden training of Unit 141, the reports he expected by nightfall, the drills he had adapted from his past life's army corp, the Foreign Legion. But he forced the images aside. For now, he must be child, cousin, bridge of affection.
The fire crackled softly. The game of construction continued, blocks rising and falling, laughter spilling now and then, Antoine's voice weaving stories that lent the game a heroic backdrop. The ice of formality had melted; the three boys, for this span of an afternoon, were simply kin discovering one another.
And yet, Louis-Joseph knew this was more than play. It was the laying of foundations—like the blocks beneath their hands, fragile yet essential.