Stirring World (3)
In truth, there was no separate resurrection of Jesus. Just before his resignation, Prime Minister Jules Ferry, who had been on the brink of stepping down amid the failure of the Indochina expedition, miraculously revived in the midst of a political crisis.
“I will propose an urgent matter using the authority granted to me as the administrative head of the French Third Republic.”
And the shrewd politician Jules Ferry would never let such a perfect opportunity slip away.
“For the values of our Republic, freedom and equality, fraternity.”
With the solemnity of a sacred rite, Jules Ferry raised his hand in a swearing pose and opened his mouth with a dignified voice.
“Those who oppose the formation of an emergency budget for our free comrades fighting against the chaotic order in Asia, please vote. Opposition? Is there any?”
The ministers remained silent for a moment before answering in unison.
“Non! (No!)”
Their voices were filled with strength and conviction.
Like a military march, the ministers' voices rang out powerfully.
“We are not wrong!”
The parliamentary clerks and staff diligently recorded their testimonies.
“Very well.”
Accepting the ministers' burning gazes with a solemn posture, the Prime Minister continued to the next agenda.
“For the sake of freedom, equality, and fraternity, do you oppose our great French values and ideals being shared with free friends who do not care about skin color or religion? Vote, I will.”
With an even heavier subject and duty, the assembly hall answered as one.
“Non! (No!)”
This place was a crucible.
A place transcending all desires before the sacred cause.
The atmosphere in Versailles Palace now resembled that of the day the Bastille Prison fell, when the hearts of the revolutionaries burned hot.
Regardless of left or right, Jules Ferry, who trusted the will and conscience of all the ministers, finally asked.
“For our friends fighting for freedom, to help our comrades who alone lit the torch of freedom in Asia, do you have any objection to adding allied forces to the Indochina Peninsula where we are fighting? Opposition, please vote.”
However, this time there was a small change among the ministers.
Because there were ministers who hesitated for a moment at the word "Indochina."
But
“Non... (No...!)”
However, the majority, carried away by freedom and France's ideological values, agreed to the Prime Minister's proposal as something that had to be done.
The result that followed was as obvious as seeing it with one's own eyes.
The emergency budgets and the scale of the dispatched troops were processed in a smooth manner through a cross-party national consensus.
“The emergency budget for the strained economic support of the allied country is approximately 100,000 francs for blood transfusion by issuing bonds in the financial market-”
“Passed!”
“To accelerate the advance plan of our command headquarters that has been money-rotted on the Indochina Peninsula, submit the army's plan to reinforce some of the African expeditionary forces and foreign legions-”
“Passed!”
The gavel rang only twice for each agenda, which was a very strange thing in the French Chamber of Deputies, where one law had required dozens of hammer strikes and thousands of curses and criticisms in the past.
Of course, occasionally, ministers of the Jules Ferry cabinet took advantage of this atmosphere to try to increase the budget of each department, but most were rejected in response to the ministers' inquiries.
Anyway, after roughly finishing the agendas and budget formations that had no end in sight and the new support bill, Jules Ferry handed the 'letter from the East' he had been holding tightly to the ministers below the podium and said.
“Please make this telegram visible to everyone. Everyone.”
“Understood!”
So, the telegram that flew from the Far East passed through the hands of Prime Minister Jules Ferry and many people's hands and finally reached Georges Clemenceau's hand as well.
“I want to see it too!”
“Me too, me too!”
“I saw it first!”
Each time the telegram, which had been slightly crumpled and stained with time as it passed through people's rough hands, reached Clemenceau's hand, the ink marks from the stamped paper were scattered and disappeared, but it was not insufficient for Clemenceau himself to confirm the content written on it.
Clemenceau accepted it, checked if there was any content that Jules Ferry might have forgotten to pass on or any content he thought was unfavorable to him that he had edited, then, after blowing away the last bit of doubt remaining in a corner of his heart, he jumped up from his seat and shouted.
“Here is the gospel of freedom that has flown from Asia!”
In response to his shout, the surrounding ministers and citizens who devoted themselves to free France without regard to their factions let out cheers.
The ministers of Versailles Palace, who had reconfirmed the beacon of freedom burning in Asia, decided that they would no longer be indifferent.
Any further doubt was an insult to the revolution.
Any further doubt was an insult to the heroes who had firmly risen from the wasteland of civilization.
Regardless of faction, without dividing left and right, on the day when the citizens of all France united to enter Versailles Palace like the day of the German Empire's invasion.
The entire French nation was finally united.
The flame of the dead revolution had revived. Right in the Far East!
“Long live France!”
Long live the French Republic!
Our sacrifices were not in vain!
*****
Coincidentally, the resurrection was not limited to Prime Minister Jules Ferry.
The Prime Minister's speech that rang out in Versailles Palace and the telegram that flew from the East were prominently featured in the Paris press that evening, and the next morning, it spread throughout France.
Then
“Huh, why is this rising...?”
“This one is rising too!”
“Huh? This is rebounding? Really? Really...?”
“Alive! Thank God!!!”
“Am I dreaming right now?”
They had somehow saved the countless investors and capitalists who were about to jump into the Seine River in Paris the next morning.
But not all French people were swept up in emotion.
“Everyone, please calm down! It could be temporary madness!”
“That's right, everyone! For a while, the consistent crash was maintained, so a mechanical rebound came-”
Someone barely grabbed the investors' sanity and stopped them from shouting, but the investors' reactions were cold.
“Get lost, you idiot!”
“Don't talk nonsense and shut up!”
“Do you want to see my people die?!”
Most of them were earnestly praying, grateful for the luck given from the Far East.
Thus, the three-day stock market fire continued.
The Paris Stock Exchange went through emotions of fear, confusion, chaos, and doubt in sequence and finally unified into one emotion.
This is real! It really rebounded! Thank God!
“Miraculously rebounded!!!”
“Oh my!”
“It has revived!”
Exultation, it was exultation.
All French industrial stocks, including iron and steel, railroads, communications, food, and paper, miraculously rebounded simultaneously.
Starting from the morning of March 27, when the rumor of defeat spread, the stock prices that had been hammered for 29 consecutive days brilliantly revived and closed with a 17% rise compared to the previous day.
All futures related to colonial industries skyrocketed by 23% in proportion to asset value.
Furthermore
“If you save now, you're an idiot!”
“Everyone, buy war bonds! Didn't you hear? Our France is with the free republics!”
“Long live freedom! Long live equality!”
“Long live to the unknown friends of the free nation in the Far East!”
Bonds were issued, large amounts of money were poured into the market, and interest rates fell.
It was not only the Paris Stock Exchange, which had been crashing due to the information leak of the military command headquarters' advance plan on the Indochina Peninsula, that had been saved by the mysterious republic friend from the East!
“The economy has barely been revived. Let's make the most of the opportunity.”
The Finance Minister and bureaucrats were doing their best to escape the economic crisis that they might have thought would become a long depression, relying on the cross-party opinion of the National Assembly.
“Think about it, everyone! From the Indochina Peninsula, to China, to the Far Eastern republic that promised to stand with us!”
“Perhaps this is the perfect opportunity for our French Republic to snatch away the piece of Asia that Britain has taken this time.”
“Invest, invest! Just as our capitalists have the chance to repent to gold, just as our capitalists repent like sinners!”
“On the land where our friends are alive and breathing, there is land with enormous value embedded-!”
“Remember the Gold Rush of the United States! For our France, that place will be a gold mine!”
'The telegram from the East' also caused the financial market to be filled with enormous capital through the National Assembly's emergency budget formation and bond solicitation, so money began to circulate madly after escaping the capital crunch.
Because of this, Jules Ferry's cabinet, the ministers, and moreover, the leading economic experts and bankers in Paris judged that a temporary boom had come, and without hesitation, they shared the festival given from the East with the voters while generously pouring more investment and money into the market.
Instead, they encouraged it.
It was a tragedy that occurred because diplomatic relations were not formally established and information was insufficient, but politicians and the press did not care.
After all, the responsibility for investment failure was not theirs?
There was something more important to them.
It was because the belief that they were fighting for the grand cause and justice of 'the spread of revolution towards Asia' filled the hearts of the French citizens who had been depressed until then with warmth.
Jules Ferry, the Prime Minister, who had been reading several Paris newspapers from different newspapers stacked on top of each other, said while smoking a cigarette with a satisfied expression.
“The newspapers are finally doing something pleasing.”
“Prime Minister, I have always believed that you would make the right judgment and have not doubted it.”
“Hah, people are flattering.”
Jules Ferry lightly laughed at Henri Brisson's joke, which was full of flattery, and brushed his gray hair that had fallen on his forehead.
“Although I turned a blind eye, the old feelings towards the German Empire that had taken root among our people were tremendous.”
Although it was something that Jules Ferry himself had incited and stirred, even Jules Ferry could not have imagined that a mere telegram from the Far East would give such great meaning to the Paris citizens.
But if I look for the cause, I didn't need to go far.
France was exhausted.
Consecutive defeats, economic depression, the rise of rivals.
“President Brisson, it seems that the Paris citizens have not trusted us until now.”
“Your Excellency...?”
“Our France once commanded the European continent. But that glory was also a fleeting past. Napoleon lost twice, and our France lost twice. Ah, did Napoleon lose three times? Anyway. Germany and Britain are jumping forward, but our France was barely standing in place. Yes, it was barely.”
Jules Ferry, who had been muttering a deep sigh-like rambling, rubbed his wrinkled eye corners and asked Brisson with his eyes.
Am I wrong right now?
The President Brisson, who received that question, answered with difficulty after a long time.
It was a heavy subject, but he could not tell a lie.
“That's right. The fact that our France is a military power is now just a past. We are now having a hard time as Germany's counterpart.”
It was a somewhat pessimistic story that traitors might say, but Jules Ferry nodded to show that he agreed.
The stupid ones in the military and the old generals would shake the medals hanging on their chests and shout "No!" like pigs, but politicians who faced reality intuitively understood that it was not the case.
France was no longer the strongest.
“And that was our French citizens' pride. Since we were defeated at Sedan and we personally destroyed the Commune with our own hands, our people had filled their fake pride with the ashes of the burned in the rubble.”
Like repenting for the past, with both hands neatly folded, Jules Ferry continued with a comfortable expression.
“But it's fortunate. The cry of our friends who rang the beacon of freedom from the Far East made our France wake up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Today, I put a call to Clemenceau. I thought it would be good to seal the differences in positions that each other showed on a somewhat awkward issue this time.”
“Yes?!”
Startled by the Prime Minister's answer, Brisson jumped up and then quickly panicked again.
Is the divided republican faction reuniting again? Really?
“Really?!”
Although it was against etiquette, since the subject was shocking enough, Jules Ferry, who decided to understand Brisson's rudeness, answered with a gentle expression.
“That's right.”
“If that happens... .”
The upcoming general election was already set.
With a total of 586 seats in the National Assembly, at least 450 seats would pour into the republican faction!
Furthermore, it meant that the moderate and far-left factions would be reunited in one family, meaning that the terms "chaos and instability" would no longer exist in the French political world for a while.
The right-wing that barely had over 100 seats? They couldn't even make a fist! If they want to challenge, let them challenge!
When the situation reached this point, President Henri Brisson was truly afraid.
The Prime Minister's resignation and cabinet dismissal triggered by the Indochina Peninsula expedition failure, the economic crisis and deflation were all flipped by just one telegram that flew from the Far East!
“Haha.”
Or not, only Jules Ferry himself, who had found peace of mind by seeking the true values of the Republic, was the only one who let out an inexplicable smile and leaned into the warm heat of the fireplace.
*****
However, there was an old troublemaker in Europe who did not leave this alone and watched it.
Right
“The Paris Stock Exchange has rebounded, and the capital crunch has been resolved, right?”
“Yes, Your Excellency. The City of London is also doing well as a result.”
“Hoo...?”
The old senator, who was flipping through the newspapers with the news from Paris delivered by his aide, propped up his chin with an odd expression.
“That's strange. I still have the feeling that the experts warned that this depression was dangerous not only for France but also for our London.”
In response to his words, the nobleman sitting nearby replied.
“Well, those guys are just greenhorns with almost no experience in the field, right? Experts and greenhorns are worlds apart. That's why I don't invite professors who just sell books to the cabinet, Prime Minister.”
“Haha, Duke.”
The man called Prime Minister.
Unlike the Duke's stiff impression, the Prime Minister with a soft expression and firmly closed lips was impressive. He waved his hand and opened his mouth.
“Those people also have grounds, you know. They predicted the depression. That's an agenda that our Ministry of Finance has reviewed several times.”
“Prime Minister.”
“Your Excellency the Duke, the Prime Minister is now. Please don't worry too much. As much as I feel lacking, I trust our aides and cabinet.”
“Hmph.”
With a soft but obstinate attitude, the Duke shook his head and stood up to say goodbye.
“Who would say 'William of the People' no. I see, Prime Minister. I drank the wine well.”