Chapter 232: International Railway Construction Joint-Stock Company (4)
A French man was only truly French if he had two or three women wrapped around his finger.
Yes, indeed. The reason Napoleon Bonaparte was only seeing Jane Austen was because there simply was no other woman who could keep up with her intellect. It absolutely was not because he lacked ability, or because he was afraid of Jane Austen when she got angry.
In any case, the sight of Guillaume de Toulon breaking into a cold sweat and nearly fleeing the moment Pauline Bonaparte linked arms with him was quite worth watching.
Then again, after spending all twenty-nine years of his life hanging around nothing but sweaty men, it was no wonder he had no idea how to handle women. A blockhead of that level was rare even among blockheads.
After all but forcibly sending the handsome man and beautiful woman off on a date course, Napoleon Bonaparte dropped heavily onto the sofa in the now-empty reception room and muttered to himself.
He had accomplished everything he had come out on half-day leave to do. As a kind older brother, he had introduced his younger sister to the finest marriage prospect in all France. What more could he do? The rest was in Pauline Bonaparte’s hands now.
If someone heard this, they might well blurt out, Isn’t this bastard Napoleon just trying to build political connections? But in truth, it was less about that than the fact that Napoleon Bonaparte genuinely liked Guillaume de Toulon as a person, which was why he had introduced Pauline Bonaparte to him.
To other people, Guillaume de Toulon was a monster and a terrifying giant who rampaged across Versailles, London, Vienna, and Philadelphia.
But the Guillaume de Toulon Napoleon Bonaparte saw was different.
That fellow, deep down, was probably not the type to fill his head with something like 101 Ways to Secure France’s Future. More than anything, he probably just wanted to live well and eat well himself.
You could tell just from the way he would pout every year when tax season came around and grumble, What exactly has France ever done for me to squeeze this much tax out of me? Should I just march into the Treasury and flip it over?
But his nature showed itself in other places as well. For example… during the Estates-General, when he served as a deputy of the Third Estate.
How many people could truly bear it when they were handed a position of immense responsibility and power?
Most people would get drunk on that power and lose their minds, or become violent. And even among the few who did not, it was common enough for them to quietly use that power to line their own pockets.
Setting the rent at sixty percent for tenant farmers plowing the fields on one’s estate, or taking ninety percent of someone’s income in taxes—things like that had still been common only a few years earlier.
That was what made Guillaume de Toulon special.
Even after gaining immense power overnight, he had never once used it.
No matter the matter at hand, if he would only close his eyes just once—just once—and wield that power, he could sweep away everything standing in his path. And yet he always took the long road, mumbling complaints under his breath the whole way.
Even though a single stroke of the sword would not make the countless crowds supporting him vanish, and no one would even dare complain or slander him.
Deep down, Napoleon Bonaparte was already placing him alongside the people he had read about in history books.
Pericles, Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Gracchus…
The day after Napoleon Bonaparte took his half-day leave.
From early morning, a frigid atmosphere hung over the office of the commander of the Paris Counterintelligence Command, lavishly furnished with white marble and antique furniture.
“The Minister of Police said this to me. He said perhaps it was time to hand that Englishman over to the secret police. It would seem the Counterintelligence Command has nothing more to do with him anyway.”
A silence so deep that not a single person dared open his mouth. It was only natural. One wrong word here, and a head might not merely be split in two, but into fifty pieces.
And naturally, the one who broke that silence was the man with the power to neatly cut his subordinate officers’ heads into fifty pieces.
“Vice Commander.”
“…Yes, Your Excellency.”
Napoleon Bonaparte answered the call of the old general, who sat with his chin resting on his hand.
“Did I tell you to make this sort of garbage right now? Or did I tell you to mind your actual duties?”
The old general lowered the hand that had been supporting his chin, picked up the stack of papers on his desk, and tossed it down in front of Napoleon Bonaparte with a thud.
[Considerations on the Current National Guard Organizational Structure and Measures to Overcome It]
“Commander, that is merely something I have been studying in my spare time. I absolutely did not neglect official duties in order to…”
“What are you, Frederick? Or Count Villars? Do you think winning two battles makes you some once-in-a-century great commander?!”
Major General Bouillé, commander of the Counterintelligence Command, veins bulging on his forehead, slammed his fist down on the desk.
“What exactly is your post? Counterintelligence, or commandant of a military academy?! Say it yourself!”
“…Counterintelligence.”
“And yet instead of prying open a spy’s mouth, you’re here writing this kind of firewood?!”
He snatched up the stack of papers again and barked at Napoleon Bonaparte.
“Before you start babbling nonsense about placing regiments under some formation called a division and commanding them that way, focus on doing your actual job properly. Understood?!”
“Yes, General.”
Creak.
Napoleon Bonaparte ground his teeth.
Early March, 1799.
The heart of the Kingdom of Spain.
From early morning, the royal palace, the Palacio Real de Madrid, was bustling with people.
High-ranking officials dressed in elaborate clothes trimmed with gold, and merchants and financiers wearing expensive English overcoats, unwilling to be outdone.
Had one not known that the Prime Minister’s Office had sent out invitations a few days earlier for the announcement of its achievements, it might have looked as though the king was hosting a ball that evening.
But regardless of how those entering the palace were dressed that day, if one asked whether they had come gladly, the answer would have been: well, not exactly.
“Pthooey! Looks like that bastard Godoy got lucky and found a few scraps of meat still clinging to bones in some trash heap.”
“The only thing that bastard knows how to do is strip women out of their underclothes. Kissing up under him reeks so badly it’s enough to make a man cough blood.”
By now, the Spanish intelligentsia’s opinion of the current Prime Minister had long since fallen past the gutter and sunk all the way to the Mariana Trench.
The first reason was that he was not a noble central aristocrat of exalted rank, but some imitation blue-blood from the provinces who had once herded cattle.
Of course, if he had still managed to obtain the office of Prime Minister through his own ability, like Pitt in Britain or Guillaume de Toulon in France, that might have been a different matter. But the reason Godoy had seized the premiership was very far from anything like that.
How had he climbed to that position?
By servicing the dissatisfied lower half of Queen Luisa better than anyone else.
A queen estranged from her king, and the handsome, heavily muscled young guardsman assigned to protect her. At a glance, it was enough to make one complete melodrama.
The second reason was those idiotic titles of his, which kept gaining another line every time one turned around.
As if seized by some sudden madness, he had declared war on France out of nowhere, then personally led troops across the Pyrenees while posturing as a lieutenant general, only to have his skull soundly smashed by Dumouriez, the French hero who had defeated Prussia.
And was that all? In the end, he had signed a peace treaty only after ceding the kingdom’s colonial territories in the Americas, yet then added the laughable title “Prince of Peace” to his own honors, as though he had secured favorable peace terms through his own excellence. At that point, one could hardly tell whether he was a human being or a pig.
“Today, I wish first to offer my gratitude to all of you who have graciously accepted this invitation from myself, Godoy, and honored this occasion…”
At last, after everyone had waited and waited, the Prime Minister appeared draped in red silk and began delivering the usual ceremonial remarks.
“Hmm.”
“Sir, are you all right? If you cannot hear well, shall I ask them to move your seat closer?”
“You fool. What kind of nonsense is that? If there is one good thing about losing one’s hearing, it is that I have to listen to fewer filthy words coming out of that bastard’s mouth than everyone else.”
“Yes, sir…”
At the attendant boy’s nod, Francisco Goya, painter to the royal court, relaxed his face again after having twisted it in disgust.
“So then, henceforth, our Spain shall preserve tradition and custom…”
What a monster, scavenging on the garbage others throw away.
Francisco Goya fixed his gaze straight on the young man standing on the platform as he loaded and fired off that curse inwardly.
That creature is Prime Minister? Is this even a country?
Was this not exactly why the state of the nation was in such ruin—because rotten parasites like him were gnawing away at the roots of Spain?
He could not forget the faces of the peasants and laborers he had come to know while traveling through the provinces on royal command to paint famous scenery.
In every corner of the countryside, Catholic priests squeezed the peasants dry, and in the capital, bloated capitalists squeezed the workers dry.
If only the people had learned anything at all. If only, at the very least, they had learned the alphabet and numbers.
But the simple people, knowing nothing, were endlessly dragged into the mire laid out by landlords, priests, and capitalists. Not only they themselves, but also their spouses, children, and grandchildren.
This had to be overturned. Just as the Enlightenment thinkers and the citizens of Paris had risen up in France, the Afrancesados and the citizens of Madrid also had to rise.
Yet thoughts that surged like waves through Francisco Goya’s mind always broke apart as if smashing against a breakwater.
How were they supposed to rise?
Francisco Goya was Francisco Goya. He was not Guillaume de Toulon.
An artist could feel rage at the lives of common people surviving on dirt-stained corn, but he could not devise the meticulous plan required to overturn the army, the administration, and the state itself.
He could seize people’s hearts with paintings, but he could not raise a flag and lead them from the front.
So he formed a secret gathering together with the Afrancesados. A circle of Enlightenment thinkers united solely for the people of Spain, regardless of status or profession—educators, administrators, soldiers, governors.
Even so, the strength Francisco Goya and the Afrancesados possessed was still far too weak to enlighten Spaniards who continued to rely on superstition and faith.
However—
“Ahem. Lastly, though I would not call it a boast, I, Godoy, have just recently arranged to import that new invention called the steam locomotive from France. This railway, which will run from Madrid, the heart of the kingdom, to Getafe, will soon stand as proof of Spain’s excellent scientific capabilities, and…”
Francisco Goya forgot every trivial word that followed and focused all his mind and body on only two words.
Railway. Steam locomotive.
That temple of reason the French press had spoken of so relentlessly was coming.
No matter how illiterate people were, no matter if they called on God first whenever anything happened, if they saw the iron horse racing before their eyes, their eyes would surely open.
It did not matter what form it took. Whether they saw it directly or heard of it through rumor, the people—the common people—had to be made aware that they were falling behind.
Without realizing it, Francisco Goya clenched both fists.
If Spain’s people were to be awakened from the dark shadow of the Middle Ages, he needed many more comrades to stand with him.