America’s Last Emperor: Bulletin
Chapter Nineteen
September 17th, 1859
Norton awoke this morning, feeling clear-headed for the first time in a very long time.
He went through his morning ablutions as he had for the previous ten years, but today there was a significance about the ritual he hadn’t expected. He looked at himself in the mirror, yet nothing seemed different. It was, however. His friend David Broderick was dead. The entire city was in mourning. The continental government had succeeded in tearing apart a nascent state with its politically poisonous ideas that some people could own other people. Norton felt this was somehow the sign that he waited for his entire life.
He sat down at the desk in his room and thought harder when a tiny voice in his head provided the obvious solution — why not just announce himself to the world as he was, child of Napoleon III? When the idea hit him, he immediately set about to writing his announcement. After about thirty minutes he had the perfect message to his people. Now to choose which paper to send it to.
After another five minutes of consideration, he decided that the best place to announce his good news would be the newspaper started by James King of William. It was an evening edition at any rate — if he gave his news this morning, it would be printed by…
