Chapter 228: First Impressions (6)
Early 1799.
On the outskirts of Paris, Saint-Germain was bustling with people from early morning.
“So then… what exactly is that engine-whatever-car thing supposed to be?”
“They say it uses a steam engine to move the wheels.”
“What about horses?”
“They say it doesn’t need horses. They say if you just feed it coal, it moves forward on its own.”
“Goodness, things are appearing one after another that I never could have imagined when I was young.”
“Say, where did they say it was made? The Royal Academy?”
“No, they said Ears of the Nation.”
“Ears of the Nation again? …Did they say it was safe?”
“They said General Bonaparte rode it himself and was amazed, so if such a high-ranking figure has tried it, it must be safe.”
“Hmm, now that you put it that way, I suppose so.”
The eighteenth century was truly a dull age, with little entertainment beyond the occasional circus troupe visiting the city, the opera, and sitting around chatting over coffee.
The rumor that the world’s first “horseless vehicle” would run on rails led Parisians to visit the Saint-Germain train station with their families.
Of course, the first person to present a true “horseless vehicle” to the world had actually been that chemical scholar La Mo in the Saint-Antoine District, but that was the sort of thing only historians who devoured history books would know. How could ordinary people know that? Only the scholar La Mo, robbed of the spotlight, ground his teeth at home.
In any case, some people worried, saying, “What if it crashes into something like that quack Cugnot’s invention from before?” But was France really a country made up only of cowards like that?
If they had been the sort to get frightened by that, they would never have marched on the Bastille because life was so damned unbearable.
The newly built Saint-Germain train station had already exceeded its capacity, and people crowded right up to the temporary stakes driven into the ground here and there.
“Hot soup! Fresh hot soup! Boiling water too!”
“Here now, give me a ladle of soup.”
“Right away, sir!”
With tradesmen trying to make a quick profit off the cold winter dawn joining the throng, the Saint-Germain train station truly became so packed there was not a single place left to stand.
—Ding, ding, ding!
“Pheeeew! Pheeeew!”
While everyone was jostling noisily, a station worker standing on the roof of the station with a telescope spotted something in the distance and immediately began ringing a large bell and blowing his whistle.
“Citizens, please step back!”
“It is dangerous! Everyone, step back!”
For a short while, the station workers and the military police who had been dispatched in case of emergency pushed the people back from the railway.
And then, at last, black smoke—like smoke rising from a fire—became visible even to the crowd.
And into their ears came a strange noise they had never heard in their lives.
Step by step, it came toward them. It was coming toward them from far away in Le Havre, cutting through the long coniferous forest.
Its body, rounded and wrapped in black steel, looked in a way like a beetle, while a long cylinder at the front ceaselessly spat black smoke into the air.
At the thing that made the forests surrounding Paris tremble, some people thought of the monsters of the woods their mothers had described to them at bedtime when they were children.
Some trembled, calling it a miracle produced by human reason and rationality.
And some merely giggled at the wondrous sight.
But all of them acted the same way.
—Hissssss!
At last, the thing called the steam locomotive halted, breathing out hot steam, and laid its solid body before the station, and people one after another cautiously reached out their hands toward it.
Some touched it with fear, as though feeling the monster of a fairy tale.
Some touched it with reverence for the engineers and scientists who had created such a great vehicle.
And some touched it simply because it was fascinating.
From young children to old men of seventy, even the soldiers standing guard, countless arms stretched past the stakes toward that wonder wrought in steel.
The wonder was not a monster from legend that devoured men.
Nor was it the sorcery of some evil magician.
Nor, for that matter, was it a holy relic bestowed by a messenger of God.
It had not come from such irrational and unreasonable origins.
It was a human invention—not something granted by some superstitious being, but something devised and created by the many humans living in the world. And if humans did not use it, it was nothing more than a heavy lump of iron.
Something made by humans for themselves, something that no living creature in the world but humans could ever use, something that existed only for humans!
The faint doubts, worries, and unease people had felt at first sight had melted away like snow under sunlight, and in their place certainty and pride filled their hearts.
How much more astounding would the changes to come be? What would come and go in this world ten years from now?
People who, from the moment they were born, had only known how to walk the world with their own feet or with the feet of horses, had at last begun to walk the world using the feet of civilization itself—machines.
In 1799. Beginning in Paris, France.
“As for the locomotive…”
“So how long would it take to get to Toulouse now?”
“They say the railway will be extended somewhere else next…”
Two weeks had passed since the steam locomotive demonstration. Now, no matter where one went in Paris, people were chatting about locomotives.
In such a boring age, there were only two possible meanings when something became such a huge topic of gossip. It either crashed and burned, or it was a runaway success.
Fortunately, after citizens saw the Le Havre–Paris steam locomotive line begin regular service,
“Gyaaah! It’s the work of a wizard!”
“Holy water! Throw holy water on it!”
“Long live Catholicism! Smash that abomination!”
—nothing of the sort happened.
“It is the great victory of human reason over all superstition!”
“If you elect me mayor of Dijon this time, I swear I’ll bring the next locomotive route here!”
“So when are locomotive-related stocks being listed?”
Far from merely favorable, public opinion was burning so hot it was as though everyone’s thought processes had been replaced with dreams of happiness.
To ride that wave, I added a few special feature articles with interviews of me, and the effect was excellent.
[Saint Nicholas’s sleigh appears in Paris? What is the mysterious means of transport unveiled by Ears of the Nation—the locomotive?! Forbes, exclusive interview with Guillaume de Toulon, owner of Ears of the Nation!]
“Me! Give me one!”
“Get out of the way! I was here first!”
“P-please form a line!”
Since I had been so anxious and had used every means available to stamp a good first impression into people’s minds, it felt as though my efforts had finally been rewarded.
Now all that remained was to pour more budget and resources into it, lay railways across the country under the name of Ears of the Nation, and enjoy the sweet profits forever.
Food that used to rot during the overly long distribution process and therefore skyrocket in price, construction materials whose freight cost several times more because they were so heavy, even tourists traveling for pleasure—all of them would ride Guillaume’s locomotives on Guillaume’s railways.
Money would practically be printing itself!
“Then why come to me? Why not just do it all with your own money?”
“Because if you eat alone, it upsets your stomach.”
I shrugged at Mr. Louis Auguste as I said that.
There was a reason Rockefeller and his company hadn’t merely been split in two, but practically into ten pieces.
You had to show goodwill when times were good, so that later, if you were struck, it would hurt less.
“And besides, this railway isn’t something that can just be built in a snap.”
“But… the raw materials that go into the railway are produced by your company, aren’t they? Then why can’t you build it?”
“Come now, if I make it and use it myself, I end up taking a loss.”
“?”
Louis Auguste tilted his head as if to ask what that was supposed to mean.
Yare yare, it was time once again to open Guillaume’s Economics Classroom.
“Do you have any paper, Louis?”
“Will one sheet be enough?”
He pulled out one of the manuscript pages he had set aside for his own writing and handed it to me with a pen.
I drew three large circles and said to him,
“Now then, my steelworks first produce the raw materials, correct?”
“They do.”
“Let us call that primary production. Naturally, the steelworks employ workers and spend money maintaining the blast furnaces, so costs arise, yes?”
“That’s true.”
Now I pointed the pen at the second circle.
“This will be secondary production, in which the iron from the steelworks is used to make locomotives and railways.”
“And?”
“In this secondary production, iron is purchased from the steelworks, workers are hired, and then, once the railway is completed, fares are collected from its passengers.”
Louis nodded lightly, then suddenly seemed to notice something strange and asked,
“Then what is the third circle?”
“That is precisely why I need your help, Louis Auguste.”
“?”
I drew lines through the words I had written in the second circle—“collect fares from passengers”—and wrote in the third circle instead.
“In the primary and secondary production processes, losses occur. Workers’ wages, maintenance costs, and above all, these are especially prominent in the secondary production stage. After all, the initial capital cannot be recovered until the infrastructure is fully completed.”
“…But after completion, does money not come in easily?”
Come now, old man. Who knew when that would be? Why would I want my money tied up there until then?
“If money is tied up in one place and can no longer be used elsewhere, the entire company’s liquid reserves become insufficient. That means business expansion becomes difficult, and growing the company becomes difficult.”
Of course, this could be solved by taking out loans against the tied-up capital, but why would I suffer the loss of interest and ask a bank’s permission to use my own money?
“Therefore, I intend to shove this secondary production onto someone else.”
“Onto whom? …You don’t mean your bagg—no, me, do you?”
Ah, sharp as ever. As expected of the former master of Versailles, you caught on right away.
“I’m planning to create a railway construction company and sell shares in it. But it will be a subsidiary whose right to collect railway operating fares belongs to the parent company.”
My steelworks produce the iron, this railway construction company buys that iron and carries out the construction, and then, as the third step, I collect the fares and pay dividends to the subsidiary.
“And would people buy that? Isn’t that no different from leaving them only the shell?”
“Oh, come now, it’s different. Under normal circumstances, I would give them their dividends properly.”
The leash would simply remain in my hand.
Louis Auguste was silent for a moment before slowly speaking again.
“But why are you telling me all this?”
“Besides Louis Auguste, is there anyone else in France who doesn’t really invest in anything yet has enough money piled up for ten generations beneath him to live in ease?”
Come now, old man. You don’t use the money anyway. Leave it to me and just collect the dividends.
I’d be happy because my money wouldn’t be tied up, and you’d be happy because you’d make effortless money with wealth you weren’t using anyway.
Early February, 1799.
Paris, a back alley somewhere.
“Huff, huff, hff!!”
A man slipped into the shadows between buildings under cover of darkness, then stopped to hold his breath.
—Chase him! He can’t have gone far!
—Pheeeew! Pheeeew! Suspect spotted! Suspect spotted!
A group of policemen rushed past in front of him. Some time later, the man removed his hand from his mouth and let out a breath.
“Whew! That was close. I nearly got caught.”
“I think things are already pretty bad.”
At the voice from behind him, the man drew a pistol from his waist, but the rough hand coming from behind easily twisted his wrist.
“Aaaagh!!”
“Got you at last, you English spy bastard.”
Captain Michel Ney of the Counterintelligence Command said this as he stamped his military boot down on the man’s neck.