The dawn of the nineteenth century set up Sultan Selim III both hopeful and uneasy. He'd survived storms that would have broken numerous autocrats — the French irruption of Egypt, the Janissaries’ growling, the endless wars on the conglomerate’s borders. His reforms, the Nizam- ı Cedid or New Order, had survived long enough to take root. But like youthful saplings in a harsh wind, they were fragile, their survival uncertain. In Istanbul, whispers swirled through the stores, the coffeehouses, and the barracks whispers of treason, of foreign influence, of a sultan who no longer heeded to his dogfaces. The megacity breathed with pressure, though its thoroughfares brimmed as ever with the commerce of conglomerate.