Chapter 43: The First Act of the Stage (6)
Chapter 43: The First Act of the Stage (6)
“Wow, that guy can really talk.”
I said it while watching the man on the podium—plump-bodied, spewing nonstop passion as he spoke.
“Who? Ah, Count Mirabeau? A remarkable orator. He’s fairly famous among people like us.”
Father Sieyès nodded as he answered.
Even while we kept talking back and forth, Count Mirabeau was still sweating buckets, windmilling his arms.
Each time he stretched an arm toward the audience, shouts of “That’s right!” rose from here and there.
Each time he clenched his fist and bent and straightened his arm like he was leading a protest, cries of “Long live the National Assembly!” thundered across the hall.
With a satisfied face, Count Mirabeau drank a little water from his cup, looked over the crowd, and spoke.
“Let us remember the young deputy who showed courage before the Finance Minister a few days ago. Let us follow his fearless example and shout together! Proud deputies of the National Assembly! Come up to the podium and shout with me! Let the whole world know the injustice we have suffered!”
Okay, sure. He really could speak—but I felt like something slipped in there in the middle.
“…Young… deputy… He can’t possibly mean me, can he?”
“Then Guillaume, who else would it be but you? Haha.”
“Well, Father. I’m not really the type who likes standing in fro—”
But I couldn’t finish, because a booming voice rang out from the podium.
“Oh! Aren’t you that young deputy from then! Come up here at once!”
Damn it.
“Come up! And you there—make a little space! Clear a path!”
At Count Mirabeau’s words, the crowd in front of me split apart in an instant, like the Red Sea before Moses.
I walked slowly through the gap, under the countless glittering eyes fixed on me.
I wasn’t even some attention-seeker, and yet this many stares—stares from people who thought I was about to say something amazing.
My stomach felt heavy. I felt like I could even figure out what I ate this morning.
Despite how I felt, my feet had already delivered me faithfully to Count Mirabeau’s side.
“Courageous young man! I am Mirabeau.”
“I am Guillaume de Toulon.”
When I spoke while taking the hand he offered, the corners of the count’s mouth lifted into a grin.
“Good, Deputy Guillaume! Show us that fiery spirit of yours—same as when you didn’t flinch before the Finance Minister.”
“Ah, yes…”
Count Mirabeau gave my back a light pat, stepped down from the podium, and stood at the very front, smiling up at me.
Behind him, hundreds of deputies stared at me with their expectations cranked to the maximum.
Isn’t this a bit much for someone with no gift for words, seriously.
I cleared my throat once, composed myself, and opened my mouth slowly.
“…Hello. I am Guillaume de Toulon, representative of the Third Estate from the City of Paris. Unfortunately, unlike Count Mirabeau who stood here just now, or others, I do not have the talent to speak with smooth eloquence.
Therefore, I ask for your understanding that I can only speak plainly, in brief, about what I have experienced—again and again.
Do you know the Bir-Hakeim Bridge that connects Grenelle Street and the 16th District? At sunrise and sunset, if you stand on that bridge and look around, it offers a view so beautiful you feel certain this world truly was created by the Lord.
But even if you know the beautiful view above the bridge, I do not think any of you know the view beneath it.
There, people sit crouched down—people so stained that even the clear waters of the Seine cannot wash them clean—living in crude shacks they build from scraps of wood.
I know their faces.
I know the face of a father who walked several kilometers to come before me, just to get bread to feed his five-year-old daughter.
I know that his clothes have been patched dozens of times, until now the multicolored patches outnumber the original hem.
Once, on my way to Paris, someone said to me—
That I was a truly kind person, to concern myself even with people like that.
I don’t know.
If that is a thought one can only have if one is ‘kind,’ then this world is a truly sad world.
That is all.”
After finishing, I stepped down from the podium and went to stand beside Father Sieyès, who was waiting for me.
“…”
The hall only stared at me in silence, without a word.
Ah, this reaction is really not good. Did I mess somethi—
At that moment, dozens of men kicked open the doors of the Estates hall and stormed in.
Wearing blue coats with white trousers and gaiters, they lined up in a row and silently stared at us.
From among them, the Captain of the Royal Guard, gold epaulets on his shoulders, stepped forward and spoke solemnly.
“By order of His Majesty the King! All representatives are to cease their actions and return to their lodgings! The hall will be closed!”
After speaking, the Captain of the Royal Guard unfastened the cavalry saber at his waist and planted it upright on the floor like a ship’s steering helm—
as if he meant to take control of this ship called the hall.
In response to Guillaume’s shocking proclamation from a few days earlier, Mathieu had been taking walk after walk to steady his body and mind. Of course, the more he walked, the more his disbelief and sense of betrayal only grew.
“Crazy bastard, crazy bastard, crazy bastard, completely crazy bastard!”
Mathieu—Captain of the French Army—kicked at the innocent ground in the Versailles gardens, wider than the palace itself, while muttering under his breath.
“Rebellion? Uprising? How the hell could that bastard, my close younger brother, not say a single word about it!”
Now Mathieu wasn’t just kicking the ground—he was stamping it with the heel of his boot.
He knew nothing would change no matter how much he vented like this, but if he didn’t do at least this much, he felt like he’d go insane.
In the end, Mathieu let out a long sigh, squatted down, and began scratching his head hard.
Really, as far as Mathieu was concerned, Guillaume was a strange bastard.
He appeared out of nowhere like a meteor and smashed those arrogant Parisians to pieces. Then he went and made a ridiculous amount of money running a business. Then he gathered provincial and commoner friends like Mathieu into a social club and started doing charity.
Not a single one of those was normal thinking for an ordinary man.
He was the kind of bastard that made you wonder what was inside his head.
“No, still. Would it have killed you to tell me? Did that bastard Guillaume see me not as a reliable older brother, but just as a dumb piece of baggage? That’s… bitter.”
It’s not like I’m Grouchy, either. Mathieu added quietly.
At that moment, a group of soldiers ran past behind Mathieu in two columns.
“…What. That’s the Royal Guard. Wait—then that direction is…?”
The hall.
Mathieu felt goosebumps climb up his spine.
“This is insane. Don’t tell me?”
No. It couldn’t be.
Mathieu hurriedly tried to shake off the cold thought forming in his head.
“…Fuck…”
With that one word, Mathieu sprinted to the carriage he’d arrived in, freed a horse from it, and swung himself into the saddle.
Paris. I have to go to Paris. If something goes wrong here, it’s a pointless death.
But Mathieu couldn’t lash the reins right away. He fell into thought.
But who in Paris can I trust?
If he chose wrong, it would mean facing the king.
And through Mathieu’s mind flashed the members of the Equality Club—now deployed across the country, wearing the insignia of Second Lieutenant.
“…Guillaume, you owe me one.”
Mathieu snapped the reins hard.
“My dear, just like Mr. DuPont said, the atmosphere lately isn’t normal. Can’t you just stay home?”
“It’s fine, my wife. That fellow DuPont tends to make a fuss. And like he said, it’s been quite a while since we’ve even done any tax-collector work. Today I’m only going to procure some laboratory instruments. It will be fine.”
Lavoisier spoke as he gently stroked his wife’s cheek, trying to reassure her.
“…Understood. I was only… worried…”
“Haha. Don’t worry so much. I didn’t move the house beside the Bastille fortress for nothing. If anything happens, His Majesty’s army will protect us.”
“That is true…”
After stroking his wife’s hand once more, Lavoisier stepped outside.
On the street directly in front of him, several soldiers with bayonets raised marched in disciplined formation.
For people living near the Bastille fortress, it was a sight as natural as breathing, but for Lavoisier—who had only moved here a few years ago—it still looked unfamiliar.
Of course, it was precisely because of sights like this that he had moved his home here, and each time he saw it, Lavoisier thought he had made the right choice.
“Really now, where else could you find a place with security this good?”
The corners of Lavoisier’s mouth lifted slightly.
Just then, the sunlight flashed and started stabbing at his eyes.
Even the sun seemed jealous of Lavoisier’s presence.
“Ah, what a bright day! On such a fine day, one can’t just sit still.”
He grinned and climbed into his carriage.
As Lavoisier got in, the coachman opened the front window and asked,
“Where to, sir?”
“Hmm, to that glass shop we went to last ti—”
But the coachman didn’t catch Lavoisier’s words properly.
Because someone outside was screaming loud enough to rip the entire street off its foundations.
“Everyone! Those wicked soldiers are torturing meee—aaagh!!! Oh God!! I’m dying!!! Everyone, please, save me!!!”
The moment he heard that voice, Lavoisier’s brow tightened.
“…That bastard again?”
“Ah, just endure it, sir. Isn’t he a mad pervert?”
The coachman spoke, watching Lavoisier’s expression.
“Tsk. Marquis or whatever, so they can’t even punish him properly. What are the jailers doing, not shutting a bastard like that up?”
On a good day, on a good road, heading out for a good hobby—Lavoisier’s mood was completely ruined.
Whether he knew it or not, the madman’s voice pouring out through the barred window of the prison attached to the Bastille fortress never stopped.
“I, the Marquis de Sade, am innocent—aaaaaah!!!”
For the people living near the Bastille fortress, it was another day of terrible upstairs-neighbor noise.