The beach near Saint-Malo was dark, wet, and silent.
A small fishing boat ground its keel into the sand. Three men jumped out, splashing in the knee-deep surf. They didn't carry weapons. They carried heavy wooden crates.
"Quickly!" the captain hissed. "Before the patrol comes!"
They dumped the crates above the high-tide line and smashed the lids open with crowbars.
Inside, stacked in neat bundles, were thousands of Assignats.
"Leave it," the captain ordered.
"Leave it?" the youngest smuggler whispered. "It's a fortune!"
"It's bait, you idiot. Let the locals find it. Let greed do the work."
They pushed the boat back into the water and vanished into the fog.
Ten minutes later, a local fisherman found the crates.
He stared at the money. He looked left. He looked right.
Then he filled his pockets. Then his shirt. Then his boots.
He ran back to the village, screaming for his wife.
By sunrise, the entire village was rich.
By noon, they were in the market town of Dol, buying everything in sight. Cows. Tools. Wine.
The merchants looked at the crisp, new bills. They were suspicious. But money was money. And these peasants were paying double the asking price.
Greed is infectious. It spreads faster than cholera.
The merchants took the money. They went to the wholesalers. The wholesalers went to the bankers in Nantes.
The virus was in the bloodstream.
Two weeks later. Paris.
The sun beat down on the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The air smelled of rotting garbage and unwashed bodies.
Marie-Claire stood in line at the bakery. She had been waiting for three hours.
She clutched a basket of Assignats to her chest. Yesterday, a loaf of bread cost fifty francs. Today, she brought a hundred. Just to be safe.
The line moved. Finally, she reached the counter.
The baker, a large man covered in flour and sweat, looked at her basket.
"Two hundred," he grunted.
"Two hundred?" Marie-Claire screamed. "It was fifty yesterday!"
"Flour costs more today," the baker shrugged. "Take it or leave it."
"Thief!"
"I'm not a thief, Citizen. I'm a businessman. Look at this!"
He grabbed a handful of bills from his cash box and threw them on the counter.
"Everyone has money! The market is flooded! A peasant from Brittany came in this morning and bought all my pastries with a wheelbarrow of cash. If everyone is rich, no one is rich!"
Marie-Claire looked at the money in her basket.
It represented a month of work at the laundry. A month of scrubbing sheets until her hands bled.
And now it wouldn't even buy a loaf of bread.
"It's worthless," she whispered.
She looked at the baker. She looked at the line of hungry people behind her.
Rage, hot and white, exploded in her chest.
"You are starving us!" she shrieked.
She threw the basket at him. The bills fluttered into the air like confetti.
"Burn it!" someone shouted from the back. "Burn the paper lies!"
A torch was thrown. The dry paper caught instantly.
The bakery didn't just burn. It exploded.
The mob roared. They weren't looting for bread. They were tearing the building apart brick by brick.
The Paper War had begun.
The Tuileries Palace. The Solar.
The room was silent, save for the ticking of the clock.
General Napoleon Bonaparte stood by the window, looking down at the smoke rising from the city. His hands were clasped behind his back.
At the desk sat the Regent. The Boy King. Louis-Charles.
He was looking at a stack of bills.
"British work," Napoleon said, not turning around. "The paper is too good. The ink doesn't smear when it gets wet."
Louis-Charles picked up a 500-livre note. He ran his thumb over the engraving.
"It's not just the paper," the Boy said softly. "Look at the signature."
Napoleon turned. "The Treasurer's signature?"
"No. The flourish on the 'R' in République. It curls up at the end."
Louis-Charles dropped the bill.
"My father taught me calligraphy. He said a man's signature is his soul on paper."
He looked at Napoleon. His eyes were cold, blue chips of ice.
"This is my father's hand."
Napoleon frowned. "Your father is a retired invalid in Saint-Cloud. We have reports. He spends his days gardening."
"Do we?" Louis-Charles stood up. "When was the last report filed?"
"Two weeks ago. Captain Bessières."
"And where is Captain Bessières now?"
"He... hasn't reported in."
Louis-Charles slammed his hand on the desk.
"He's gone, Napoleon! He didn't retire. He defected."
The Boy King walked to the large map of Europe on the wall. He stared at the island of Great Britain.
"He went to the competition."
Napoleon picked up the counterfeit bill. "If he's in London... if he's advising Pitt... that explains the attack vectors. They aren't targeting our forts. They're targeting our supply chains."
"We have to stop it," Louis-Charles said. "Issue a decree. The death penalty for anyone found with British paper."
Napoleon shook his head. "We can't."
"Why not? I am the Regent! I command it!"
"Because," Napoleon said, tossing the bill back onto the desk, "we just paid the Army of Italy with this money."
The silence in the room was heavy.
Louis-Charles froze.
"What?"
"The paymaster in Lyon accepted a shipment of cash from a 'private contractor' three days ago," Napoleon explained. "He didn't check the serial numbers. The soldiers have already spent it. They've sent it home to their wives."
Napoleon leaned over the desk, his voice low and dangerous.
"If you declare this money illegal, you are telling two hundred thousand soldiers that they worked for free this month."
"They will mutiny," Louis-Charles whispered.
"They will march on Paris," Napoleon corrected. "And they will hang us both."
The Boy King sat down slowly. He looked small in the large chair.
For the first time, the mask of the "Wolf Cub" slipped. He looked like a seven-year-old boy who had lost his toy soldiers.
"He trapped us," Louis-Charles said. "If we ban the money, the army revolts. If we keep the money, the economy collapses."
"It's a pincer movement," Napoleon said admiringly. "Classic strategy. But applied to finance."
"He's teaching me a lesson," the Boy murmured. "He used to tell me: 'The ledger is mightier than the sword.' I thought he was weak."
He picked up the fake bill again. He squeezed it until it crumpled in his fist.
"I was wrong."
The sun set over Paris, casting long shadows across the burning city.
I sat in my office in London, reading the semaphore reports.
Riots in the Faubourg. Inflation at 800%. Army pay disrupted.
It was working.
The patient was screaming. The fever was spiking.
"Sir?"
Cléry brought in a tray of food. I hadn't eaten all day.
"The latest reports from the coast," Cléry said. "The price of bread in Paris is now five hundred francs."
I nodded. I didn't look up.
"And the death toll?"
"Thirty dead in the riots today. Including... including a baker."
I closed my eyes.
I could see the baker's face. I could see the woman who threw the torch. I had put the torch in her hand.
"Sir," Cléry said softly. "Is it worth it?"
I opened my eyes. I looked at the map on my wall.
Napoleon's army in Italy was stuck. They couldn't advance without supplies. They couldn't buy supplies with worthless paper.
The invasion of Europe had stalled.
"Yes," I lied. "It's worth it."
I picked up my pen.
"Send a message to the fleet," I ordered. "Double the shipment for next week."
"Double?" Cléry gasped. "Sir, the economy is already dead!"
"Then we bury it," I said. "We bury it so deep that Napoleon can't dig it up."
I looked out the window at the fog of London.
"My son wants to play war? Fine. I'll show him what Total War really looks like."
"It doesn't look like soldiers marching," I whispered. "It looks like a mother who can't feed her child."
I dipped my pen in the ink. It was black as blood.
"And I am the one starving them."