Chapter 56: Poisoned Chalice (4) "T-then, Finance Minister, Your Excellency, I'll be taking my leave! Once again, truly—thank you, thank you!"
"Yes, yes, please just go already. And remember—bring me a method by four months from now."
"Yes! Of course! I'll definitely find a way and make it happen, Your Excellency!"
As Lavoisier bowed his head repeatedly while speaking, I waved my hand like I was sick of it.
Even so, Lavoisier kept bowing to me over and over all the way until he left the door and got into his carriage.
Sure, circumstances can change a person, but how did someone turn into a groveling mess like that?
"Still, me—the face of the revolution? Who's going around saying something that weird?
Mr. Florian, you haven't heard anything?"
I asked Mr. Florian, who was standing beside me.
"…Are you seriously asking because you don't know?"
"I've been in Versailles the whole time and only came back to Paris after a long while. How would I know?"
"Well, I suppose that's true. Please wait a moment, Boss."
At my words, Mr. Florian nodded, then pulled a few issues from the stack of magazines piled in one corner of the office and brought them over to me.
"Let's see. The magazine name is… The People's Friend?"
Tch. That name's a bit… yeah. It smells a little like the North, if you know what I mean.
"Yes. It's a new magazine that came out recently, and it's extremely popular with people."
"Is that so? Who wrote it that it sells that well?"
"That… who was it, Marat? Ah, yes. The name is probably Jean-Paul Marat."
"Jean-Paul Marat? I've never heard of him…"
Tilting my head, I opened the magazine and started reading line by line.
"Versailles, the crucible of revolution! Each and every passionate, revolutionary action of Deputy Guillaume de Toulon shattered every selfish desire held by reactionary conservatives…"
What the fuck is th—
This isn't just a little 'North flavor' added—every single word is like eighty percent North flavor!
And in the illustration in the magazine, I was up on the Assembly's podium, swinging a sword with both hands at nobles and clergy with goat horns.
What the hell is this.
Am I France's Liu Bei or something, swinging twin swords? Next thing you know, Father Sieyès is going to pull out a zhangba serpent spear, and Commander Lafayette will be swinging a Green Dragon Crescent Blade.
I tossed the magazine onto the table and opened the next issue, reading on.
"The conscience of this era! The citizens' shield, the citizens' face! Guillaume de Toulon sounds the trumpet of revolution before the greedy king!?"
After that, the parade of red-flavored magazines went on for a long time.
But the most unacceptable part was—
"What? 'Louis, are you even human?' That's something I said—so they put it in a magazine and sell it without even paying me an interview fee?"
You bastards—if you're going to sell magazines off someone else, aren't you supposed to kick some back?
"Mr. Florian."
"Yes, Boss."
"How much are they selling these for?"
"Probably… five sous to ten sous per issue."
"…Really? That's cheaper than I expected. Are they running some kind of mass rotary press?"
"Ro…tary press?"
"You know—those machines that spin and print books."
Like the machines at the mint that print banknotes.
But Mr. Florian tilted his head and said,
"I've never heard of it."
"I-is that so?"
When was the rotary press invented? When did newspapers start getting distributed in bulk…
"Mm… Mr. Florian, I have one favor to ask."
"Yes, Boss. Go ahead."
With a serious face, I looked Mr. Florian in the eyes and spoke.
"Tomorrow, you must go to the Royal Academy or the patent office and look into a thing called a 'rotary press.' If this goes well, we might hit a jackpot."
"Understood. I'll do as you order."
If we properly patent a rotary press and use it to print newspapers or magazines, we won't even be in the same game as print shops that don't use one in terms of price competitiveness—and later, when we print banknotes or bonds, we can mass-produce them with the rotary press too. Two birds with one stone, isn't it.
"…At first I was glad you came back to Paris after so long, Boss, but now I just want you to hurry back to Versailles. Things keep piling up."
Mr. Florian grumbled with his lips stuck out.
"Hey, I told you not to slander me. I'll raise your salary this time."
"Instead, please hire one more person to work like me."
"Mm… I guess the workload is a bit heavy right now?"
"…Is it only 'a bit'?"
That look says he'll beat me to death if I don't hire someone.
"Fine. I'll hire one more. But get a recommendation from the Marquis de Condorcet. He's the Director of the Mint, so I figure he can recommend one or two proper office people."
"Yes, understood, Boss!"
Mr. Florian said with the brightest smile I'd seen from him yet.
"Congratulations, Your Majesty!"
"Long live Louis-Philippe Orléans, Your Majesty! Long live! Long live!"
"Haha, thank you, thank you! I—ah, I misspoke. 'We,' soon, in Reims, shall receive the coronation, and it is all thanks to you, gentlemen. On the day we return to Versailles, each of you shall receive your due share of royal grace!"
"Long live! Long live! Long live!"
The Duke of Orléans looked on with satisfaction as the privileged class gathered in his residence, the Palais-Royal, raised their hands high, and chanted "long live" at him.
In truth, even after sending the letter to Louis XVI, Orléans kept receiving updates—through his confidants planted in Versailles—about the movements of the National Assembly and Louis.
But even with Orléans's surveillance, no particularly strange developments were detected.
Louis XVI stayed shut up in the palace all day, and the National Assembly was preoccupied with preparing tax reforms and some declaration about human rights or whatever.
There were reports that the greenhorn elected as Finance Minister had met Louis a few times, but what always followed was the same: the Finance Minister was furious and caused a scene.
Well, wasn't he a hard-core traitor who'd told the king in the Assembly that he was hiding behind the throne and all that?
"Four months. Four months from now—Reims. After Reims, the main gate of Versailles. After the main gate of Versailles… the Hall of Mirrors."
"Hahahaha!"
Orléans couldn't hold back the laughter rising from deep inside him.
The Hall of Mirrors!
What a magnificent place it was. The more he imagined himself seated there, the more it felt like he was floating buoyantly on the wind.
Four months after Finance Minister Guillaume de Toulon briefly visited Paris—
Early December 1789, Saint-Mandé in eastern Paris. 11:30 PM.
"Hwaaam."
Patrick, a sergeant with the Paris Police Bureau—no, promoted three ranks to an inspector—let out a long yawn and stretched both arms straight up.
As he tensed his fully extended arms with a "hup—" sound, Patrick's stiff body—ached from sitting still for hours—loosened with a dull crack.
The shadow cast by the lamp hanging on the wall of the temporary post also swayed this way and that with Patrick's movement.
"…Feeling drowsy."
Patrick muttered without thinking, then startled and clamped his mouth shut.
Complaining that I'm drowsy—have I finally gone crazy?!
Just five months ago, how terrifying had Paris been? Five months ago, the people surged in, took the Bastille, hanged the fortress commander—then riots broke out everywhere.
A few unlucky officers among Patrick's own colleagues got caught up in the chaos and lost their lives or were injured, and here he was saying guard duty felt drowsy.
And Patrick's rank of inspector was effectively temporary too, wasn't it? Because his superiors had fled one after another.
"…I've had it too good. Too good. Sigh."
Letting out a long sigh, Patrick stared blankly again at the window that looked out beyond the post.
But maybe because his mind had grown unsettled, the more he stayed still, the more his spirit felt like it was being sucked deeper and deeper somewhere, his mood sinking.
"…Rather than sitting here moping like this, it'd be better to go on patrol."
Patrick put the police cap back on his head, took the lamp in his hand, opened the post door, and went outside.
Wheee—
"…Damn it, this is unsettling. It's not even a siren—what is that sound?"
Patrick hunched his shoulders as his body shivered for no reason, raised the lamp, and trudged around the post.
From the sky, white flakes—sleet or something—fell little by little, and before long, white specks appeared here and there on part of Patrick's police cap.
Late at night. Near the post, aside from the lamp Patrick held and the light from the stove burning inside the post, there wasn't even the slightest thing that resembled light.
The pitch-black darkness, black as ink like always—today, for some reason, made Patrick's skin crawl.
"Damn it. Is that why they say you shouldn't talk about dead people?"
In the end, Patrick tried to open the door and go back into the post—of course not forgetting to shake the snow off his police cap first.
"It's just sleet—why's it piling up so much?"
Grumbling, Patrick set the lamp down on the ground and started brushing off his police cap with his hand.
But at that moment—
A strange noise came from behind the post.
Clank! Clunk! Clank-clank!
Patrick stopped brushing his cap, hurriedly grabbed the lamp from the ground, and dashed toward the path behind the post.
Rounding the post wall, Patrick froze in horror.
"U-uaaah!"
A carriage—twice, no, three times the size of a normal carriage—was hurtling along, shaking left and right as it ran.
"M-move! Move aside! Move aside, I said!"
"DuPont! Faster—we have to go faster! Hurry! Hurry!"
In the end, Patrick's legs gave out and he toppled backward. The huge carriage thundered past his nose with a clattering roar, like an arrow shot from a bow.
Patrick could only follow it with his eyes, utterly dazed.
"Sir! How's the water temperature?!"
"It's still boiling! We have to pour it fast—at every corner road on the way to Reims!"
Behind DuPont, who was yanking the reins up and down with force, Lavoisier was handling the oak barrels filled with boiling water as carefully as if they were treasure jars.
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