Chapter 205: Brave New World (7)
Chapter 205: Brave New World (7)
Early January, 1794.
The recruitment notice in Forbes, thrown into eighteenth-century France where liberalism and Romanticism ran rampant, was like tossing a lit match into the middle of a powder magazine packed full of gunpowder.
“A dangerous journey! Threats that may appear from anywhere! Safe return cannot be guaranteed! Glory and honor if you succeed! Let’s gooooo!!”
“Mom, I’ll go and earn a mountain of money!”
“Aaaah! Put me on a ship right now! Put me on one, I said!!”
As expected, after the final December issue of Forbes hit the market fresh off the press, the Ears of the Nation was swept up day after day in such an enormous tide of people that there was no room even to set one’s feet down.
“All right, next person, please come in.”
“Yes, sir!”
“How old are you?”
“I’m sev— I mean, twenty this year!”
“You don’t look twenty.”
“No! I really am twenty! I’m very healthy!”
“Hm… all right. Your name?”
“Well, that is…”
Despite the condition that applicants had to be at least twenty, people lying about their age was a frequent occurrence. But were the office clerks of the Ears of the Nation ordinary people? Our clerks, who had been put through the wringer for years by the citizens of Paris, efficiently sorted out those unqualified applicants with remarkable skill.
“Here’s the list of suspicious ones. Send it to Commissioner Patrick.”
“Yes, sir.”
And once the Paris Police Prefecture confirmed their identities—
“You little brat! Instead of going to the school you’re supposed to attend, what are you doing? Aaaamericaaa? You’re getting beaten today! Beaten!”
“Ack! I was wrong! I was wrong!”
In any case, the Ears of the Nation was cruising along smoothly today as well.
“Let’s see. My beard is neatly trimmed, I cleaned out the crust from my eyes…”
On New Year’s morning, and at that bright hour too, Toussaint Charbonneau spent a long while turning his body this way and that in front of the washroom mirror. At last, he raised an arm and brought his nose into his armpit.
Sniff, sniff.
…Damn it.
“Hey! Heat water for the tub right now! And prepare soap too!”
“Yes, sir.”
From the very first meeting with a VIP—no, a VVIP—he could not possibly be giving off sour armpit stench. In a precious opportunity bestowed by heaven itself, if instead of showing the VVIP a diligent and exemplary side of himself, he showed the pathetic side of a half-wit incapable of even basic self-care, what would happen then?
“This is an opportunity I struggled to get. I can’t let it fall apart for some idiotic reason. Yes. Exactly.”
While his servants boiled water to prepare hot bathwater, Charbonneau muttered those words while looking at a letter that had been delivered to him.
[To Toussaint Charbonneau.
It seems the former Finance Minister has taken quite an interest in America these days. He even made a direct inquiry to the Trade Bureau asking them to find an America hand, so do your best and handle it well.]
Guillaume de Toulon, the great capitalist who owned the Ears of the Nation, was personally searching for an America hand.
That money-devil Guillaume was about to lay his hands on America! There was no need to read any further. Even a fool with no sense for such things would be able to see through the current situation from that one fact alone—that Guillaume’s hand had reached for it.
This was a gold mine. And was this not the Ears of the Nation, which took care of its own people to the very end no matter what happened?
If Charbonneau himself could merely succeed in building a cooperative relationship, then even if things failed, at the very least he would still be able to make a living panning for placer gold. And if things succeeded, he could not even begin to imagine how far that success would go.
Perhaps he might even be able to buy one of those luxurious mansions abandoned by nobles who fled when the Revolution broke out, leaving their homes behind.
“Khehehe. Right. I’ve bought those Trade Bureau officials enough lunches by now. It’s about time they started letting a few crumbs fall into my mouth.”
A person so high above him that he hardly dared meet his eyes just happened to be looking for a lackey, and by sheer coincidence, Charbonneau happened to be exactly suited for the role, was he not?
In truth, calling it crumbs was an understatement. At this point, it barely even counted as corruption. The mouths of the Trade Bureau officials certainly glistened with the grease from the meat Charbonneau had bought them, but that did not mean he was not qualified, did it?
“Right. If they’re looking for an America hand, it only makes sense to use someone like me, who was born in America.”
After soaking himself in hot water and scrubbing his body thoroughly with soap until not a trace of odor remained, Charbonneau was at last able to leave the house while twirling his cane in his hand.
“A pleasure to meet you. I am Guillaume de Toulon, president of the Ears of the Nation.”
“Oh my! It is an honor to meet you, Your Excellency! I am Toussaint Charbonneau, a small merchant who buys furs in America and ships them to Europe for sale!”
The man who introduced himself as Toussaint Charbonneau kept bowing and nodding over and over as if his waist were made of carved wood. Was he simply flexible, or was he just unusually deferential? It made one wonder just how far his waist could bend.
The man I once knew who bore the name Toussaint had been like a bamboo stalk that would never bend even in death, but this white Toussaint felt more like a reed that would bend very easily. Perhaps it was because his face gleamed with the sheen of someone who had eaten well.
Judging by the way he approached me in such a low posture, he seemed to understand roughly how important this meeting with me was for his business and career… As expected of an expert on America, he seemed to have at least some idea of its potential.
“Please, sit. If we’re going to talk business, it will likely take quite a while, and we cannot very well stand the entire time.”
“You are absolutely right.”
The two of us sat down side by side. I called over a page and requested that coffee and cookies be brought, just as with any other guest. A little while later, a tray of refreshments had been set on the table between me and Charbonneau.
I bit into a cookie and spoke.
“I heard from my friends at the Trade Bureau that you were born in America.”
“Yes, that’s right. I was born in Canada back when Quebec was still French territory.”
“Then when you were born, you were a French national. …In that case, what is your nationality now?”
“Well, that would be Canadian, but…”
Thinking that matters were beginning to go badly for him, Charbonneau briskly rubbed his hands together and continued,
“But my blood is French through and through, so even if my nationality is Canada in name, the homeland I think of is of course our France!”
“So in the end, on paper, you are a Canadian?”
“Th-that’s right.”
When I spoke firmly, Charbonneau could no longer say anything more and merely nodded.
Hmm. A French Canadian.
To be honest, I had no desire to discriminate based on nationality. There were two Englishmen right outside in the open lot enthusiastically turning bolts with spanners, and if I had discriminated against people because of their nationality, I would never have developed the steam locomotive at all.
But I could not entirely dismiss my concerns either. Murdoch and Trevithick were engineers through and through, the sort who screamed happily even while grinding themselves down because they themselves wanted it. This Charbonneau fellow, however, was a businessman. A businessman who might be raising a snake inside his own belly.
Besides, did industrial espionage not still exist even in the twenty-first century? There had even been a huge uproar when a Chinese national applied to work at a nuclear power plant, one of the country’s key industrial facilities, so I could hardly ignore the fact that his nationality was different.
“President Charbonneau.”
“Yes, yes, Your Excellency!”
“To be frank, you’re worried about what I’m going to say next, aren’t you?”
“…Yes.”
“Then would you care to persuade me?”
“Persuade you?”
“Tell me why I should use a Canadian named Toussaint Charbonneau as the central axis of this large-scale project. Go ahead.”
In other words, self-promotion. Why should I take the risk of using you? That was what I was asking him to say.
Charbonneau frowned briefly in thought, then slowly opened his mouth.
“Your Excellency, to begin with, this Charbonneau knows every language on the American continent.”
“Languages?”
“English as spoken in Boston and Labrador, French in Louisiana, and Spanish in Nueva España as a matter of course. I can also speak several Indian languages, such as Cherokee and Iroquois.”
“Oh ho.”
Languages were certainly a plus, never a minus. That was a very good start to his self-promotion.
“And over the past ten years or so, while buying furs from the Indians, I have built a great deal of trust with them, and I also have a small distribution network for transporting those goods. On top of that, because I’ve traveled all over the American continent, I’m rather knowledgeable about its geography as well!”
Now that was significant.
If I built a cooperative relationship with this man, then not only language but even our first impression with the Native Americans could begin on very favorable terms. We were already scraping together every last person we could, so we had to avoid letting relations with the Native Americans grow strained.
“Very good.”
“Then… does that mean you’ll let me join you?!”
“No. There’s still one thing I haven’t heard. President Charbonneau, what do you want to gain from this project?”
“What do I want to gain? Hahaha… I only wish to be of some small help to Your Excellency.”
“Let’s speak frankly right now. If I catch you secretly skimming something off later, I won’t let it slide.”
The moment my friends in the Trade Bureau heard I was looking for someone, they all recommended this man with one heart and one mind. That said enough already.
At a glance, it was obvious that he had stuffed our civil servant friends’ mouths full of liquor and meat. You looked like a man who had lived quite shrewdly, so why not go ahead and speak openly while we were at it?
I might look like this, but I’m a man who charmed even the staff of the Counterintelligence Bureau and chatted idly with deputies in the Versailles Assembly. Little tricks like that are all visible to me. That was the point.
Charbonneau pursed his lips briefly, then said,
“Would it be possible for you to extend me a loan so that I may establish a tannery in my own name in the region we pioneer?”
“Well now, a loan?”
I crossed my arms without realizing it and smiled.
“But aren’t loans issued by the Chamber of Commerce anyway? Even if you cling to me, there’s nothing in it for you.”
“You could issue me a private bond in your own name, Your Excellency.”
“You want to borrow from me?”
Ha. This man’s mind worked pretty well, didn’t it?
“And why do you think I would willingly give you a private loan?”
“Because Your Excellency sees tremendous potential in the American continent, does he not?”
“Hmm.”
“Now that people will live in the New World as well and trade volume will increase, if I establish a tannery and process leather locally before selling it, naturally the freight cost for renting merchant ships will decrease, and net profit will rise as well.”
“It seems you don’t have any starting capital.”
“There are still no proper banks in Canada, and the French Chamber of Commerce is reluctant to lend to foreigners.”
Ah, I loved conversations like this. If both sides could agree on conditions that were perfectly reasonable, there was no reason to refuse a win-win arrangement.
“I’ll give you an interest rate a little lower than the market rate.”
“An excellent choice! Then may I call you President from now on?!”
“As you wish.”
“Haha! Thank you, President! You absolutely will not regret this!”
The two of us clasped hands.
Four months later, in May 1794, more than twenty ships raised their sails from Le Havre in northern France and set course for Louisiana.