House of the Scales26 Sep 2026

The Door to the Allies

1814, Paris, with the allied armies closing on the city

He has been this man's foreign minister, and the man is finished. Russia, Austria, Prussia and Britain are converging, and the only question left is what happens to the country afterwards.

He knows what a defeated capital normally gets: partition, occupation, an indemnity that lasts a generation, borders redrawn by whoever arrives first. He also knows the allies do not agree with each other about any of it, and that they will be in the city before they have settled it.

If he stays loyal to the end, he goes down with the regime, and France is dismantled by four men in a room he is not in.

If he opens a private channel now — before the surrender, while he still has something to trade — he is betraying a man who raised him to everything he has, in the middle of a war, while the man is still emperor. There is a word for that and it is not a kind one.

The letters are easy to send. He has sent them before.

Open the channel

"You serve the country, not the man occupying it. He is going to fall whether you are loyal or not — the only thing still in play is what is left standing afterwards."

Stay loyal to the end

"Whatever he became, he made you, and a man who negotiates behind his own sovereign's back has no principle left to bargain with — only a price."

Play it in Moralia

The story stops here. Choose in Moralia to see what really happened.