Chapter 28: How to Live (1)
Chapter 28: How to Live (1)
After the eventful year of 1786 passed, Paris welcomed the New Year of 1787, bustling with lively movement as people prepared for the start of another year.
Grain shops and blacksmiths were crowded with farmers looking to buy new grain varieties or improved farming tools. Among them were nobles who, as a pastime, wanted to grow potatoes or sweet potatoes brought over from the New World.
Of course, most of them were trend-obsessed nobles drawn in by rumors that Queen Marie Antoinette farmed as a hobby on the grounds of Versailles Palace.
At the high court, judges enjoying their New Year holiday had shed their heavy velvet judicial robes for the first time in a while and were holding their children’s hands as they ordered toys from carpentry shops.
In prisons and detention centers, under the name of the king’s benevolence, prisoners were served wheat bread instead of the meager meals of dried potatoes they usually ate.
Amid this New Year atmosphere, at the office of Ears of the Nation—
“…So what exactly is the unit price?”
“Five livres per bottle, sir.”
Despite my incredulous tone and expression, the middle-aged gentleman sitting across from me, wearing a monocle, calmly sipped his tea and spoke.
“No, belladonna grows in abundance even around the outskirts of Paris, doesn’t it? No matter how much you monopolize the blending technique, isn’t this far too expensive!?”
[Even if you’re skimming a profit, there should be some restraint, you bastard. Even if you developed the technique, there’s such a thing as a line. You’re just pulling wild plants out of the field, grinding them, and squeezing out the juice—what’s so expensive about that?]
“We don’t want it to be this way either, sir. Belladonna is an extremely dangerous and delicate organism. It took countless efforts on our part to manufacture it to a level harmless to humans. Shouldn’t we be compensated for that effort? Heh. Heh. Heh.”
[So what are you going to do about it? If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. Or why don’t you try blending that poisonous weed yourself? If you die, that’s not my problem. Just pay up and take it, kid.]
“Son of a—”
“…What did you say?”
“Hm? I didn’t say anything. The window just shook in the wind—I think you must have heard that. Ha. Ha. Ha.”
At my excuse-that-wasn’t-quite-an-excuse, the middle-aged gentleman narrowed his eyes and looked at me for a moment. Then his face twitched as if to say it didn’t matter, and he returned to his usual calm demeanor.
If you want to fleece people, you should at least be prepared to get cursed out to your face, you bastard.
Well, he probably knew that too, which was why he didn’t make any further fuss over my “unintentional slip of the tongue.”
After overcoming last year’s oat panic caused by the cold-damage wave with corn bread made with the help of Marquis de Condorcet, Thomas Jefferson, and James Hemings, Ears of the Nation was now running normally again.
Thanks to that, as we entered 1787, Ears of the Nation expanded its business more aggressively while keeping in mind the material supply risks brought on by last year’s cold damage. We diversified our suppliers and took out insurance in advance.
As a result, our business escaped danger and became far more stable.
They say that when people are warm and well-fed, all sorts of thoughts come to mind. That saying was right.
One such thought was the motion-sickness medicine business that I had only planned since last year without being able to put into action.
Last time, a sudden crisis struck during the stage of concretizing the idea, forcing me to abandon it. This time, however, the business was fairly stable, so there was nothing to hinder planning a new venture.
At least, that was the case until this meeting today.
“…For now, please give me some time to think. I didn’t expect the raw material costs to be this high.”
“Hm, very well. When you make your decision, please come to our office at any time. Sir. Then I’ll take my leave.”
As if he had expected this, the middle-aged gentleman stood up, opened the office door, and left.
“Mr. Florian.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go to the kitchen and bring me some salt.”
“Pardon? Why salt all of a sudden…?”
“An ancient Eastern sorcerer once said that sprinkling salt where an unlucky person has passed brings good fortune.”
“…Have you been reading occult articles in magazines? Anyway, I’ll bring it.”
With an awkward expression, Florian fetched salt from the kitchen and sprinkled it along the corridor the middle-aged gentleman had just walked through and at the office door.
Ah, that’s nice. Seeing something like that after so long makes it feel like I’m back in my hometown, Korea.
“More importantly… what do we do now?”
Atropa belladonna was one of the common wild plants.
The kind that just grows under trees if you go up the hill behind the neighborhood.
On top of that, it wasn’t particularly difficult to cultivate. In other words, if we bought farmland and grew it ourselves, securing raw materials would be easy.
So what was the problem?
“Damn it. If the ratio is even slightly off with the water, it becomes poisonous or turns into useless sludge with no effect. That means we’re basically forced to offer money to those unlucky bastards.”
The problem was the blending ratio.
To find the exact ratio, you had to repeat the blending thousands of times until you got meaningful results.
And since even buying one kilogram of belladonna only yielded enough extract for maybe five or six experiments, the cost far outweighed the benefit.
Ah, I really want an engineer. If only there were a 21st-century engineering student around, wouldn’t they whip something up just like DoX-aemon?
It was a day when my longing for an R&D department grew stronger than ever.
As I was lost in thought, I heard someone knocking on the office door.
Bang bang bang!
Meanwhile, behind the stables used by the French Royal Guard, a staff officer wearing captain’s insignia was tearing into a rookie wearing second-lieutenant’s insignia.
“Hey. What the hell is this?”
“Second Lieutenant! Emmanuel de Grouchy! I don’t understand what you mean!”
“No, damn it, I asked what the hell this is!”
“Second Lieutenant! Emmanuel de Grouchy! I truly don’t understand what you mean!”
“Hey, call your superior.”
“Second Lieutenant! Emmanuel de Grouchy! Yes! Understood!”
Not long after, an officer wearing first-lieutenant’s insignia came running over with Grouchy, looking utterly dazed.
“First Lieutenant! Louis Charles Antoine Dezé. I was told you needed me!”
The captain gave a hollow laugh at Dezé’s words.
“Lieutenant, the army’s running backward these days, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry! I don’t understand what you mean!”
“What did the battalion commander say yesterday in his address?”
“He said that, in preparation for shortages during wartime, even the horses would undergo a two-day fasting drill!”
“Right? Then what’s this?”
As he spoke, the captain kicked something toward Lieutenant Dezé. It was a wooden tub shaped like a bucket.
Dezé nearly fainted when he saw what was inside.
“Why the hell is this rookie feeding fodder to his horse? Is that bastard ranked higher than the battalion commander?”
“Uh…!”
“Lieutenant, down—push-up position.”
“Push-up position!”
At the captain’s icy command, Dezé had no choice but to obey.
“On one, spirit. On two, unity. Repeat until I say stop. One!”
“Spirit!”
“Two!”
“Unity!”
Each time the captain opened his mouth, the lieutenant’s body went up and down.
After some time passed, when the lieutenant’s arms finally gave out and he collapsed, the captain stopped speaking and grabbed Dezé by the shoulders to pull him up.
“Lieutenant Dezé, how do you assess this incident?”
“I… pant… failed to educate him properly. I’m sorry.”
Dezé replied, utterly exhausted.
“Good. You handle the rest yourself. And you—whether your name’s Emmanuel or Madam Coachman—do better from now on. I’ll be watching you.”
“Second Lieutenant! Emmanuel de Grouchy! Yes! Understood!”
With that, the captain left the stables. The moment he was gone, Lieutenant Dezé collapsed onto a pile of hay. Turning his head slightly, he spoke to Grouchy, who stood there with his head bowed low.
“Why… why did you do that… Emmanuel…”
“I’m sorry, sir! It’s all my fault! I’m truly sorry! I’ll make sure nothing like this happens again!”
“…On one, spirit.”
“Pardon?”
“…On two, unity.”
That day, the stables were filled with a young man’s screams from morning until night.
“What do you mean? You went through all the account books today!”
“Hmph! I may withdraw for today, but one day your corruption will be revealed!”
“You… you bastard! Get out right now! How many years has this crap been going on!?”
At my order to throw him out, Lavoisier clicked his tongue and walked out of the office.
That lunatic.
He demanded all the tax invoices and ledgers I’d written over the past three years, then made a huge fuss insisting on checking every single one. After confirming there were no issues, he proceeded to conduct leading interrogations under the presumption of guilt. If you’re going to go crazy, at least do it properly.
I feel like I’m about to lose my mind. I really am. Aaaaah!
Seeing me half out of my senses, Florian quietly approached and asked,
“Shall I… sprinkle more salt, sir?”
“…Please sprinkle twice as much as before.”
Please, let that bastard Lavoisier just disappear.
“Is… is this true?”
“Regrettably… yes, Controller-General.”
“Necker, that madman! Are you telling me the former finance minister hid all of this and lived calmly!?”
Charles Alexandre de Calonne, Controller-General of Finance, could not believe the contents of the report in his hands. His grip trembled uncontrollably.
Because of anger?
No—because of fear.
“H-how could anyone know this and still walk around so calmly? No… no! This has to be a lie! Ugh… my head…!”
“C-Controller-General! Please come to your senses!”
Unable to withstand the shock, the Controller-General collapsed onto his desk and lost consciousness.
At the same time, his grip slackened, and the report slipped from his hand, fluttering down to the floor.
On the final page of the report that fell there was a single, stark line:
[Projected financial loss: 3,500,000,000 livres]
And the day after Controller-General Calonne collapsed, in the name of the king, the Assembly of Notables, a gathering of high nobles, was convened.