Chapter 67: A Strange World (6)
Chapter 67: A Strange World (6)
What on earth had he done wrong that everyone was so desperate to devour him?
Antoine Lavoisier, Director of the Gunpowder Office of the Kingdom of France and a tax collector, couldn’t understand it.
To begin with, Lavoisier had only collected taxes set by law.
And even that was only because his job was tax collector, so he had no choice.
If people wanted to vent their anger because the law was unreasonable, wouldn’t it make more sense to direct it at the lawmakers who made the bad law, not a tax collector like him?
In the carriage from Versailles to Paris, Lavoisier kept grumbling under his breath.
“Isn’t this truly too much, Doctor Guillotin?”
“I-It truly is so.”
As Lavoisier asked with heavy sighs, Doctor Guillotin nodded and agreed just enough.
But only once or twice is fine. After listening to the same thing for nearly two hours, Doctor Guillotin felt like he was going to lose his mind.
In the end, Doctor Guillotin had no choice but to try to change the mood of the carriage, which was filled with Lavoisier’s self-pity.
“Wait, wait, Monsieur Lavoisier. More importantly, what was it that Finance Minister Guillaume wanted to commission?”
“Pardon? Ah—he said he wanted to ask for opinions about something called a rotary press.”
“A rotary press? Just hearing the name, I can’t quite tell what it is.”
“Well, the Finance Minister said it’s a printing machine far faster than pressing with printing plates the way we do now.”
“Oh? Is the power human? Or…”
“I’m not entirely sure, but if it’s faster than stamping plates by hand, then I think it would use a steam engine, Doctor.”
“A steam engine!”
Doctor Guillotin’s face flushed at that single phrase.
After all, wasn’t the steam engine something engineers had been gossiping about constantly lately?
A machine called a rotary press—something he’d never heard of. And not a manual device, but one using a steam engine!
“Truly, doesn’t the world these days feel as though it’s working magic? If this were only a hundred years ago, it would be the sort of thing that would get one seized as a witch or wizard.”
Doctor Guillotin—an engineer, and innately a man of the sciences—felt something boiling up inside him, and the joints of his fingers tightening until they ached with tension.
“Well, a steam engine is certainly remarkable, but calling it magic is a bit… To be frank, up to now it’s just a machine that pumps water out of coal mines, isn’t it?”
At Lavoisier’s words, Doctor Guillotin replied with a grin.
“Certainly, Monsieur Lavoisier has a point. But wasn’t it only twenty years ago that a proper steam engine—made by Monsieur James Watt of England—appeared?”
“Ah, I’d forgotten Monsieur Watt. Indeed, what he built is quite interesting.”
“Hahaha, isn’t it? Monsieur Lavoisier really is a scientist.”
Smiling warmly, Guillotin adjusted his posture and began speaking with excitement, as if drawing diagrams in the air.
“Think about it, Monsieur. If the steam engine grows larger and advances further—what will happen?”
Isn’t it thrilling just to imagine? Guillotin added.
“…By Doctor Guillotin’s thinking, in the future we’ll ride steam carriages instead of horse-drawn ones?”
“Hahaha, well, that might happen. That’s the idea! Anyone can indulge in fantasies, can’t they?”
At Guillotin’s genial smile, Lavoisier also let out a small laugh.
“It’s dizzying to think we might even remove masts and sails from ships.”
“Now you’re speaking my language. Haha!”
While the two spoke at length about this and that, the carriage had already run deep into the city of Paris.
Soon, through the carriage’s front window, the coachman’s voice soothing the horses could be heard, then the window clunked open and the coachman stuck his face in.
“Gentlemen, we’ve arrived at the destination.”
“Your Excellency! As you ordered, I brought Doctor Guillotin!”
“Ah, yes. Good work. Go up to the office first.”
When I waved my hand as I spoke, Lavoisier hurried up the stairs and vanished to the second floor.
Wow, he came faster than I expected. From now on, when I make Lavoisier do something, I can probably set the time even tighter.
“Your Excellency the Finance Minister, thank you for calling for this engineer.”
While I was briefly lost in thought, Doctor Guillotin held out his hand.
“It’s nothing. More importantly, since you came this fast, I can guess what Versailles looks like without even seeing it.”
After shaking my hand, Guillotin spoke with a deliberately gloomy expression at my words.
“Haha… it’s unfortunate. Still, now that it’s come to this, what can we do? We should simply resolve what’s in front of us, one by one.”
“That’s a hundred times correct.”
When I answered, Doctor Guillotin—well into his fifties—smiled with satisfaction and spoke again.
“Then let us go up now, Your Excellency.”
I nodded and took Doctor Guillotin up to the second-floor office.
Florian had cleared the desk in advance and laid out the rotary press blueprints obtained from the patent office.
“Florian, this is Doctor Guillotin. Doctor Guillotin, this is Florian.”
“Nice to meet you, Doctor. I am Florian, the secretary to the boss of Ears of the Nation.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Florian. I am Joseph Guillotin—Deputy of the National Assembly, and an engineer.”
While the two shook hands, I examined the rotary press blueprints on the desk from every angle.
But this—
I really don’t understand a single damn thing.
How do engineers make stuff like this? Is their brain structure different from mine?
“Huh—this is quite interesting!?”
While I’d been groaning for a while, Doctor Guillotin came to my side, looked at the blueprints, and immediately spoke.
“…Really? Doctor Guillotin, what do you think—specifically?”
“I already like it quite a bit, but I’ll have to read it carefully to know for sure.”
Doctor Guillotin slowly read through the blueprint here and there with his eyes, then began to let out little chuckles like a child playing with a toy for the first time.
And of course, in between, he tossed out terms I couldn’t understand at all.
Cylinders, this and that, mechanisms doing this and that.
Yeah. I’m not built for the sciences.
After muttering to himself over the blueprint for a long time, Doctor Guillotin lifted his head, looked toward Lavoisier sitting gloomily in the corner, and spoke.
“Monsieur Lavoisier! Come here a moment. Now, this part seems important—”
At Guillotin’s words, Lavoisier went over to the blueprint, stared closely at the section Guillotin indicated, and said,
“Ah, so it moves the cylinder and stamps the printing plate.”
“Exactly! Exactly! Now then, let’s think. If we remove this part entirely—”
“Then the thermal efficiency will drop, so instead we should add another cylinder chamber, and—”
Now the two of them practically glued themselves to the blueprint and started trading strange terms ordinary people couldn’t understand.
“…Boss.”
“Yes, Florian.”
“I can’t understand a word of this. How about you, Boss?”
“I can’t understand a word either.”
Still—Lavoisier really changes as a person when it comes to science.
Is this really the same man who was just buttering me up?
Thinking about Lavoisier needling me over tax collection makes my chest feel petty and stifled, but watching him grind away under me like this makes my chest swell and feel grand.
Lavoisier really is a legend.
“Finance Minister, Your Excellency!”
At that moment, Doctor Guillotin and Lavoisier—who had been muttering at each other—suddenly looked at me and spoke in unison.
“Y-Yes? Um—why are you calling me all of a sudden?”
“Do you have something like a large sheet of drawing paper?”
“D-Drawing paper?”
Ears of the Nation is a place that makes and sells bread, not an art classroom.
I turned and looked at Florian.
“Florian. Do we have anything like drawing paper?”
“…We have lots of official documents and tax invoices, but nothing like that.”
Florian shook his head side to side as he answered.
Seeing Florian’s response, Doctor Guillotin practically wailed.
“Finance Minister! Right now—right now, we need something to capture this inspiration!”
“Even if you say that…”
If I could just conjure it, I’d be a magician.
“…Boss.”
“Yes?”
“Um… should I bring one of the aprons the cooks downstairs use?”
An apron? That’s a bit…
“Anything, quickly! We need something to write on—aaagh!”
“…Bring an apron.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“…Sir.”
Wh…o…
“Finance Minister.”
“Huh? Yes?”
“Haha. You should get up now. It’s already past noon.”
“…Past noon? Ah.”
Right. Last night I fell asleep in the chair after cleaning up after those two until late dawn.
Covering the yawn spilling out with my hand, I asked Doctor Guillotin.
“Wait—did you keep working even after I fell asleep?”
“In fact, I just finished the blueprint. Hahaha!”
“…You stayed up the entire night?”
Even in the 21st century, after a four-hour drive back home I’d be exhausted—but someone who’d ridden a carriage all day stayed up all night and finished everything?
“…That’s impressive.”
“Hahaha! Why praise me so much? If Monsieur Lavoisier hadn’t been here, I couldn’t have done it.”
Come to think of it, where did Lavoisier go?
When I looked around, Doctor Guillotin went “Ah,” and spoke.
“As for Monsieur Lavoisier, he completed the blueprint and left for home just now. He said an experiment he wanted to try came to mind.”
“I-I see.”
Is this… what engineers in this era are like? What the hell, that’s scary.
The engineering students I knew in the 21st century were always holding Bacchus, wearing checkered shirts and thick horn-rimmed glasses, and carrying bags stuffed with thick major textbooks.
“Now, now. Come and look at the blueprint Joseph Guillotin has made, Finance Minister!”
“Ah, yes, yes.”
Dragging me—still half-asleep—over to the blueprint, Doctor Guillotin looked at me with a dignified face as if ordering me to read it.
On the desk were two aprons covered in writing, split between them—some… some complicated machine blueprint drawn across them.
But I still have no idea what this is even if I look at it.
I should give him some lip service.
“A-Amazing, Doctor! I knew I could trust you!”
“Wuhahaha! Is that so? I don’t know where to put myself!”
“Oh, of course!”
After smiling broadly for a while, Doctor Guillotin suddenly asked me with a curious expression.
“But Finance Minister—what do you intend to use this for?”
“The rotary press?”
“Yes.”
I hadn’t thought of anything specific. I just figured if I made it ahead of time, later I could sell it to a magazine publisher and collect royalties.
“Mm… it’s not like I had a specific place in mind, like ‘I must use it here!’”
“Hm. If you don’t have a particular use, then how about you start a magazine company yourself?”
“A magazine company?”
“People I know say magazines are selling like hotcakes these days. And weren’t you originally a businessman, Finance Minister? You have the foundation to make something this good—surely you aren’t planning to let it sit idle?”
Tsk. That’s tempting. Having a media company is more good than bad.
Ah, but if I expand the business again, won’t Florian beat me to death?
Whatever. I just hired one more employee, so he can handle it.
“Now that you mention it, that’s a great idea. A magazine company—yeah. It’s worth making one.”
Just then, someone behind me spoke in a trembling voice.
“Ma… magazine?”
“Huh—who—”
That huge nose.
Wait—if it’s well past noon, then let’s call it around 1 p.m.
“…Mister Saint-Just?”
“Gu—Guillaume, sir! I—I write well! I really want to join the magazine company you’re going to make!”
Author’s Note
Hello. I’m the author, Suting Star.
Thanks to all of your interest and love, Revolution Is Also a Business is scheduled to become paid content on October 18 at 6:00 PM.
Episodes 1 through 32 will be available for free, and after it becomes paid content, the serialization time will be one hour earlier than now—18:00.
Once again, I sincerely thank you for the support you have sent.