March 14th, 1789, Madrid.

Jose Monino, Conde de Floridablanco, sat alone in the courtyard, surrounded by blooming carnations, poppies, and pomegranate flowers. The royal council had finished its daily assembly, and the First Secretary had decided that he would spend the rest of his afternoon away from the rest of the court, seated in a forgotten corner of the Patio del Rey.

Jose had found himself sitting in this lonely little corner almost daily since the death of the last king. It was a good place to reflect, under the canopy of a transplanted beech tree. He thought about a lot here: about the Kings, new and old, about the many matters of government, and, in more recent time, the Queen.

La Reina Maria-Luisa de Parma was a dangerous woman, not in the mold of her predecessors. She was, perhaps, the most active Reina the man had ever seen. She had sat in on the first meeting between the King and his Council, and had increasingly been informing the King of his opinions. This fact worried Jose, he knew that Carlos had never been very willful, and he feared what a woman like her, one more defined by a certain desire to retain her youth (she was always surrounded by young men) and a definite and loud power-hunger (No Queen before her had sat in on every single assembly of the Royal Council) was destined to bring nothing but trouble to the Crown. Jose had never liked her, from the moment they had first spoken on the occasion of her and the King's wedding. And now, more than ever, he felt a growing need to do something about her. He knew she was whispering in the King's ear, slipping hints of new appointments of her favorites, perhaps even the removal of Jose himself from his office.

Jose rubbed his hand along his sash, pressing his thumb and index finger hard together. He could not abide such things, such insults to his person, to his work. He had labored 35 years to make Spain great again, to restore her to her former glory, to continue the legacy of Philip V.

There were many solutions, but he knew precisely which one would work best.

The King was soon to call his Cortes.

Dios Está con Carlos