Chapter 32: How to Live (5) "Ugh…"
DuPont let out a low groan as he rubbed his eyes, which had grown gritty lately thanks to the increasingly dry weather.
To take a short break, he stood up and moved to the window, taking in the scene outside.
It was November, but snow had already begun to fall this year.
In shady spots where the sun did not reach well, snow had already piled up thickly, and children were building snowmen earlier than usual, throwing snow at each other as they played.
Thinking back to the sweltering July weather when DuPont first came to this Ears of the Nation laboratory, he could not help feeling that a lot of time had passed.
"…Hoo. It's already been four months, and there's still no progress at all…"
DuPont spoke with a bitter expression.
Belladonna and all kinds of chemical equipment lay scattered messily across the seat he had been using, along with a heap of empty coffee cups, showing how hard he had been working.
At first, just as Master Lavoisier said, DuPont did not think well of Guillaume and regarded him as nothing more than a "tax dodger."
But after staying by Guillaume's side for nearly four months, DuPont realized Guillaume was not the wicked, treacherous person the master described—if anything, he was the exact opposite.
They were the same age, and the way they thought was similar, so they had outright become friends.
"Well, even if Guillaume is an Enlightenment guy… he's still pretty… free-spirited."
Thinking of Guillaume heading to the slums today as well, now that the cold was setting in for real, carrying a bundle of bread, DuPont smiled.
To him, extracting belladonna no longer felt like something he did because the sponsor ordered it. It felt more like research he was doing together with a friend.
"Alright, then. Let's start again."
After cracking and loosening the stiff arms, legs, and waist that had been locked into a chair for too long, DuPont sat back down and rummaged through the chemical reagents.
"Is it sodium carbonate that's next to combine?"
Just like in the previous experiments, DuPont poured a measured amount of sodium carbonate into belladonna that had been dried and ground into powder, then stirred it until it mixed thoroughly.
"Hm… do I need to add something else?"
Chemistry was the product of empiricism. A chemist's job was to pour things in first and observe what happened.
In that sense, the moment DuPont's eyes fell upon ether was, in a way, fate.
"Ughhh, it's cold! Cold! It's damn cold!"
"You're whining because this is cold? Then how are you going to protect your girlfriend?"
"What the hell does that have to do with it being cold?"
"It has everything to do with it!"
"Guillaume, you're being spiteful just because you're single again, aren't you? With that nasty mindset, women will all run away. Heehee."
"Aaaaah!"
After a full hour of charity work, Mathieu and I returned to Ears of the Nation, our cheeks and hands red from the cold, warming them over the stove while snickering at each other.
Just wait. One day, I'm going to grow taller and kick your ass with my foot.
Damn it—someone's 180 centimeters tall and even has a girlfriend, while someone else is only 170 centimeters now and spends every day crushed by work. Life is an unfair game. This is a total trash game. If it were a real game, I'd have rage-quit ages ago.
While we were cackling like that, we heard someone pounding down the wooden corridor toward us.
The footsteps stopped in front of the kitchen, and the door was kicked open.
"DuPont? What is it—did something happen?"
DuPont's face was red as a radish, and he was so excited he was panting. The corners of his mouth were split wide, almost up by his ears.
"I found it!!! I found it!!!"
"W-what?"
"Belladonna! I did! I found it!"
It was a pure raw extraction of atropine—forty years earlier than in actual history.
After DuPont finished his part, I went around various places promoting our product.
The place with the best response was the coachmen's guild.
From what I had experienced before, the roads of the eighteenth century were the absolute worst. Naturally, there were countless passengers suffering from motion sickness.
So carriage passengers would become the most loyal customers of our motion-sickness medicine.
And for the coachmen, on top of what they earned from passengers, they could take part of the motion-sickness medicine sales as extra income—how could that not be good?
After smoothly landing our first contract, I headed straight for Jefferson's residence.
Because a bigger contract still remained.
"So you want to sell this 'motion-sickness medicine' to our United States of America, Mr. Guillaume?"
"No. More precisely, I want to sell it to ships that travel back and forth between America and France."
Ships in this era were sailing vessels with masts. A basic voyage time was nearly two months at minimum; three months was common, and if you met headwinds, sometimes it even took four months.
Even on giant passenger ships built with twenty-first-century advanced technology, seasickness was not rare—so how much worse would it be for passengers on sailing ships like these? It would be lucky if they did not vomit themselves into exhaustion.
"Tsk. When you came to see me, Mr. Guillaume, I got excited, thinking you were finally accepting my proposal."
Jefferson smacked his lips and looked at me like a drenched puppy.
Ah, I'm not going to America. I'm not going. I'm not goinggg!!
"That's… a bit…"
"Hahaha! It's a joke! A joke! I'm not a king—how could I possibly order a person's will around?"
Jefferson laughed loudly in response.
Still, there was a little too much sincerity in his eyes for it to be just a joke.
Jefferson stopped laughing and spoke again.
"Still, I cannot work for free. We New World people place good faith above all. Something must come in for something to go out."
In short, he wanted some benefit either for Jefferson himself or for America.
"Then how about you take two percent of the sales profit?"
"Oh?"
Jefferson stroked his chin with his right hand.
"But only for the ships you arrange, Mr. Jefferson."
"Hahaha! Really now—are you allowed to put a diplomat of an entire nation to work like this?"
I shrugged.
"It's a product that my staff and I ground ourselves down on for months. You'll need to do at least that much for the numbers to work."
Jefferson shrugged as well and spread one hand wide.
It was acceptance.
"Excellent, Mr. Jefferson! Thank you for cooperating with Ears of the Nation!"
Without either of us needing to say who would go first, we clasped hands and shook vigorously.
Ah—come to think of it, there was one more thing.
"There's something I forgot for a moment."
At my words, Jefferson tilted his head.
"Hm? What is it?"
"For this year only, I'd like to try doing some grain trading with the New World. Could you arrange a meeting with someone involved?"
Jefferson rested his chin on his hand and thought briefly, then spoke.
"Hm. Understood. But don't you already have sufficient grain even now?"
"Well… yes, but."
I had contracts with four grain merchants as insurance, and I had also taken out insurance.
Still—wasn't there a saying about preparing in advance?
"No matter how much you prepare for disaster, it's always not enough."
As I said that, I looked out the window. Jefferson followed my gaze.
Outside, despite it being November, the snow was coming down thickly, making the city look as if it had been built from white bricks.
"…Mr. Guillaume, because of what happened before, are you on guard against a cold wave that may come this time?"
"That too, but…"
"?"
"I just have a bad feeling."
Compared to December 1785 and January 1786, the snow this year was falling earlier—and heavier.
"Your Majesty! Please kill me!"
"That is enough. Stop it and raise your head, Controller-General."
At King Louis XVI's words, Brienne, who had been kneeling, rose.
Still furious at what the so-called "blue bloods" had done, Brienne's face was even redder than a radish.
"…So. The judges of the high court refused, did they? And they demanded that the Estates-General be convened?"
"I-it is as Your Majesty says, though I am unworthy to report it."
"Hoo… Control. How unfortunate. Truly unfortunate."
The king spoke as he wiped a hand along the window, which had grown cold from the weather.
The chill stung his fingers.
"They say those people—the nobles and clergy—are still making a commotion about the matter between myself and the queen."
At Louis XVI's words, Brienne's face turned pale in an instant.
"Y-Your Majesty!"
"It is fine. What has happened cannot be undone."
With a sigh, the king soothed his loyal Controller-General.
Because of Queen Marie Antoinette's diamond necklace affair, the authority of the royal house had fallen—not all the way to the ground, but it had crumbled considerably.
First, it was a blow to his dignity that Louis XVI, the king of this nation, had not even realized the queen was in an adulterous relationship with a mere libertine noble.
Second, because of his gentle nature that hated the sight of blood, he did not execute the instigator at once. He imprisoned him instead—only for the man to escape and spread scandal about the affair across all of Europe, which became another blow to royal dignity.
If he had willingly accepted the title of "cruel king" and taken the head of the libertine noble who had bewitched the queen, then even if some people complained, the king's dignity would have remained firm.
In the end, because of his weakness, he chose a method that was neither this nor that, and the royal house's dignity collapsed—so who could he blame?
Louis XVI could only pray that this regrettable reality would be swiftly healed by the medicine called time.
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