After bringing war to the gates of the capital, the king, taking his heir and his most valued advisors floated in his specially commissioned Montgolfier high out of range of the guns and safely over the heads of the besieging army. The people murmured angrily. They were starving and the enemy offered no quarter, except on one condition, which the king had effectively sabotaged.

His wife watched the Montgolfier, draped in the royal colours, as it grew smaller and smaller against the sky. She had stayed with her children, the expendable ones, and the people. Not out of duty—she was a mother, not a soldier—but out of love for the babies, her own and those of all the mothers trapped in the city who would not fit in the Montgolfier. Albert had nodded solemnly when she told him of her decision, but she noticed his eyes shift anxiously to the…