Location: Meeting room of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (Bercy, Paris).
Date: February 15, 1995, 09:00.
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on Édouard Renault-Tessier).
The Ministry's austere, hushed meeting room seemed far too small to house what would technically be the most destabilizing financial transaction in the modern history of the Republic. Around the dark wooden table, faces were tense.
The Director of the Treasury, surrounded by his deputies, faced representatives of the three largest French banks and an emissary from the Bundesbank.
They were there, summoned by Édouard Renault-Tessier, certain that Volta SA, in the midst of a global offensive against the Intel standard and in the midst of a massive rollout of its AXIOM range, had come to beg for a debt restructuring. The bankers had already prepared their arguments: higher interest rates, conditions for granting new loans, and perhaps even, for some, the demand for a say in the board of directors in Ivry.
Édouard Renault-Tessier, with unwavering calm, didn't give them time to open their files. He simply slipped a single document into the center of the table. It wasn't a loan application.
It was an irrevocable transfer order, issued from Volta SA's clearing accounts to the Public Treasury account and those of the creditor banks.
The silence that followed was icy.
« Gentlemen, » began Édouard in a neutral voice, without a trace of triumphalism. « We have undertaken a rigorous optimization of our cash flow. The revenue generated by the AXIOM product line and the royalties from our SONG-III license in Asia have allowed us to raise the necessary funds. »
He paused, observing the Director of the Treasury whose face turned ashen grey as he read the amount.
« Volta SA is repaying, in advance and in full, all of its obligations to the French State and this banking consortium. 80 billion francs, principal and accrued interest up to the theoretical maturity date, are being settled in a single payment. »
The Director of the Treasury, though well-versed in the intricacies of high finance, let out a short gasp, almost a groan. Such a massive and sudden early repayment was a catastrophe for the balance sheets of the banks involved.
In a fraction of a second, they lost twenty years' worth of interest income on a debt that had become their safest asset. Above all, they lost their only leverage over the behemoth of Ivry.
« You can't do that, » the senior banker snapped, his voice trembling with barely contained fury. « You have contractual obligations. Our banks have set aside funds for these interest payments in future fiscal years.
This is a breach of our partnership agreements! »
Édouard Renault-Tessier displayed a polite smile, devoid of all humanity.
« The contracts included a clause allowing for early repayment without significant penalty for the debtor, Mr. Director. Our lawyers have checked every comma.
We are free of any further obligation. We owe you nothing. »
The shock was total. By repaying the public money, Lazare Bonaparte had just severed the umbilical cord. The French state was no longer Volta's creditor.
It could no longer threaten to cut off funding, nor demand strategic changes in exchange for a payment extension. Lazare had bought his complete independence. He no longer served the Republic; he coexisted with it, as a sovereign actor.
The Director of the Treasury, realizing that Bercy's leverage had just vanished, remained dejected. The State had just lost control of the industrial jewel that was safeguarding its growth and digital sovereignty.
In Ivry, far from the turmoil of white-collar workers reeling from their own loss of power, Lazare Bonaparte waited in his office. When Édouard called to confirm the deal had gone through, the Builder showed no joy.
He simply gazed out the window at the snow that blanketed the ground of the working-class suburb.
He was free. Absolutely free. And in the world of total geopolitics, financial independence was the only true bulwark against betrayal. He was no longer beholden to anyone.
It was at that precise moment, as he savored the silence of his liberation, that his secure phone started ringing again. A deep, old-fashioned ringtone.
Eleanor.
The matriarch. The keeper of the clan's secrets. She wasn't calling to congratulate him on his financial masterstroke.
She was calling to summon him, to remind him that in the game of family thrones, no one ever truly breaks free. The real test, the final duel for legitimacy, had only just begun.
Silence had fallen once more on the top floor of the Ivry-sur-Seine factory. Édouard Renault-Tessier had left the room, taking with him the smoldering ashes of Volta's debt.
Lazare Bonaparte, alone in the center of his fortress, closed his eyes. By settling, with a stroke of his pen, the 12.19 billion euros he owed to the banking consortiums and the French state, he had just granted himself absolute impunity.
No bank could ever again threaten to cut off his funds. No minister could demand any say in his strategic decisions. He had become an anomaly in the global capitalist system: a completely sovereign emperor, without a single creditor.
He was savoring this mathematical plenitude, this perfect emptiness around him, when a sonic disturbance tore through the air conditioning of the office.
It wasn't his secretary's intercom. It wasn't the MegaFab's internal line.
It was his personal communication terminal, encrypted by an asymmetric bridge whose number had been communicated to only a tiny handful of individuals on this planet.
Lazare opened his eyes. The atmospheric pressure in the room seemed to suddenly change texture. He slowly approached his desk and picked up the receiver.
« Yes, » he replied in a stony voice, prepared for any geopolitical eventuality.
« I read the midday editions of the Financial Times, Lazarus. »
The voice on the other end of the line belonged neither to a panicked minister nor to a CIA director. It was a woman's tone, calm, with an aristocratic clarity and charged with a delightful irony.
Eleanor of La Rochefoucauld.
The Ogre of Ivry felt a heartbeat jump in his chest. For a nanosecond, the financial tyrant became once again the man who had been unhorsed a few months earlier under the arcades of the Palais-Royal.
« And what does the London financial press say, Eleanor? » asked Lazarus, the timbre of his voice softening imperceptibly, abandoning the gravelly of intimidation to adopt the steel of intellectual dueling.
« She says the European banking markets are in shock, » replied the young doctoral student with undisguised amusement. « Analysts are screaming about irrationality because Volta SA just burned through its cash reserves to pay off its debts early.
They call you arrogant, uncontrollable. They say you're isolating yourself from the system. »
« British analysts have never understood the difference between an investment and a leash, » retorted Lazare, a thin smile stretching his lips. « I simply bought back my freedom of action. »
« The famous fortress strategy, » noted Eleanor, reviving the debate they had begun at Le Grand Véfour . « You've just poured lead into the moat of your empire so that no one can get in anymore. You're cutting yourself off from your own banking allies just before facing America.
That's audacious. »
« It's necessary. You don't win a war by owing money to those who manufacture the munitions. »
A slight silence settled over the line. It wasn't an awkward pause, but the space two exceptional minds needed to assess each other's position. Lazarus found himself appreciating the quiet.
With Eleanor, he didn't need to calculate his words or conceal his intentions beneath layers of corporate rhetoric. She understood the brutality of her world with the same acuity with which she dissected the falls of millennia-old empires.
« You told me, at our last dinner, that if I wasn't put off by a 'poorly optimized equation,' you would like to continue our discussion, » Aliénor resumed softly. « And I replied that you would set the conditions, but I would set the location. »
Lazare leaned back in his leather armchair. The adrenaline of the Bercy raid gave way to an anticipation of a completely different nature.
« My conditions remain unchanged, » he confirmed. « No bourgeois bowing and scraping. No entourage in the room.
Just you and me, and the bare truth. I'm willing to hear your choice of venue. But I'm warning you, if you've chosen a posh tea room full of cultural attachés… »
« Don't worry, Lazarus. My aim isn't to torture you, » she interrupted with a crystalline laugh that seemed to warm the office's air conditioning. « It will be very private.
Tomorrow evening, 8:00 p.m. I have the keys to the Byzantine manuscripts storage area of the Sainte-Geneviève Library. There will be no one there except the shadows of the old world. »
Lazarus was momentarily speechless. No fancy restaurant, no crowds, no windows exposed to snipers. The underground archives, amidst texts a thousand years old.
It was the most perfect neutral ground he could have conceived. It had solved both the security problem and the intellectual challenge in one fell swoop.
« It's... a tactically impeccable choice, » admitted Lazare, impressed by the young woman's quick thinking. « I'll be there. »
« Try not to buy the library before you arrive, Lazarus. See you tomorrow. »
The line broke with a small, sharp click.
Lazare Bonaparte slowly placed the telephone receiver back on its base. He stared into the emptiness of his vast office. He had just freed himself from the power of states and high finance to isolate himself at the top of his ivory tower.
He was alone, untouchable, paranoid, and sovereign.
But deep within his sixty-year-old mind, a new variable had just played out with irresistible clarity. No matter how much he built the thickest walls in the world, Aliénor de La Rochefoucauld had just proven to him that there were minds capable of penetrating them without even having to force them open.