Chapter 92: Foundation Stone (2)
Chapter 92: Foundation Stone (2)
If you asked what there was to do for fun in the 21st century, you probably couldn’t count it all even using both hands.
That’s how abundant the 21st century was—the most prosperous era in human history, and the era in which entertainment was most developed.
So if we change the subject to late 18th-century France—what was there to do for fun?
Chess, magazines, horseback riding, shooting, listening to music, card games, cutting heads off with a guillotine?
Wow. You could count that on fewer than two hands.
And horseback riding and shooting were sports reserved for the veeeery noble.
A horse? Come on—where would ordinary people, who struggled just to survive, get a horse?
Shooting? It would be a relief if they didn’t get angry and storm into their neighbor Philippe’s house and start firing. And gunpowder wasn’t exactly cheap or easy to obtain.
In the end, for ordinary people in the 18th century, the best you got was chess.
And magazines made with crude printing technology.
Even then, chess didn’t have properly standardized rules yet. The rules differed from city to city, and most people didn’t even know how to play.
Alright, then—magazines?
Wow! There were over 130 magazines being sold in France? Great! There had to be tons of fun reading material, right?
The top-selling magazine, Friend of the People, was a political magazine.
The second top-selling magazine, Père Duchesne, was also a political magazine.
The third top-selling magazine, Free France, was also a political magazine.
What the hell—out of 130-plus magazines, not a single one wasn’t political?
Sure, fine. I knew politics could be entertaining.
I wasn’t exactly new to cracking a beer and chewing dried squid while watching politicians throw eggs at each other on TV and spout nonsense at one another in parliament.
But there were limits. How could people live on nothing but politics?
There was a reason Forbes and Maxim sold like crazy the moment I made them.
Since ancient times, they said life was joy, anger, sorrow, and delight.
This had been passed down for ages... I don’t know, it was probably written somewhere—whether in some Goguryeo text or the Samgang Haengsil-do or whatever. Why would I care?
So what was left? Listening to music, card games, and head-cutting with the guillotine...
First, let’s set aside France’s folk pastime—the guillotine. Ugh. Just thinking about it made my head feel like it would split.
Card games were mostly used for gambling. That wasn’t “play.”
Which left only music—long called “the only drug the state allows.”
Music? Music was great. It was a shame there still wasn’t anything exciting like rock or jazz yet, but classical music was still good—worthy of its tradition.
Paris at least had many theaters, and because there were so many, price competition existed to some extent. Even ordinary people could save up and attend. Music was refined, but it could still become a hobby enjoyed by ordinary people who had some money.
Once a market existed and consumers existed, wasn’t it only natural for a businessman to jump in?
And if we even took hold of music, then Ears of the Nation—already drawing people’s eyes with Forbes and Maxim—would seize people’s ears too, gaining the greatest soft power it could wield in the 18th century.
Meaning: once Ears of the Nation moved into whatever business it wanted, it wouldn’t just be able to promote it easily through media influence spanning all of France—
It would also become extremely difficult for any company inside France to be born that could surpass the media influence Ears of the Nation held.
For example, if we released some product, we could immediately place an advertisement on the front page of Forbes and Maxim, do a bit of promotion before a theater performance, and gain free publicity to hundreds of thousands of consumers.
If you were a market leader, you had to be able to pull off at least this much to be called a market leader.
But to do that, first we needed good music—music whose copyrights Ears of the Nation held.
If the songs weren’t good, people wouldn’t listen.
And we also needed to ask the people who would become future customers, at least once.
A business without market research was bound to fail.
Early July, 1790.
Kingdom of France, Paris.
Restaurant, La Grande Taverne de Londres.
“You suddenly want to make an ensemble—Guillaume, what kind of sinister scheme are you plotting this time?”
Mathieu said that while looking at me—sitting across from him—with suspicious eyes.
“What scheme? And it’s not an ensemble.”
What other model citizen was there besides me, and he called it a scheme? If someone overheard him, they’d think I was plotting a rebellion.
“Then what is it?”
“Not an ensemble. An entertainment agency. That’s what it is.”
“...‘Entertainment agency’? What kind of weird word did you invent this time? If you carry instruments around, it’s an ensemble. What else would it be.”
“Ah, truly an ignorant mortal...”
“Guillaume, did you drag me to this expensive restaurant just to insult me?”
“I wasn’t planning to, but I guess I’ll do that too while I’m at it.”
“Ha... I should’ve punched you a few more times when we were in school.”
“Yeah, you should’ve taken your chance when you had it.”
While Mathieu grumbled and glared at me, the waiter set a steaming veal dish down in front of us.
The smell of veal grilled in butter, mingling with the herbs placed on top, rose into my nose.
Damn. That smell.
Beauvilliers might not be able to make ketchup, but he prepared meat properly.
“...You didn’t buy me this expensive meal for nothing. So you want my opinion on whether your ‘entertainment agency’ plan will work or not, right?”
“Oh?”
As I picked up my knife and fork and cut the meat, Mathieu narrowed his eyes like a veteran detective interrogating a criminal.
Sharp as hell.
“As expected—our class runner-up, François Mathieu!”
“Coming from the class top like that, it feels really irritating.”
Mathieu narrowed his eyes again—he looked in a bad mood today. Did he fight with his lover, Anne-Josèphe Théroigne?
“You should’ve listened better in Professor Laplace’s class.”
“Didn’t you fail that class with me?”
“If you hadn’t failed, you would’ve beaten me.”
“...You bastard. I can’t argue with that.”
“Joking. Out of the three of us, the only one who didn’t fail Professor Laplace’s class was Napoleon. There’s a reason Professor Laplace wanted to send him to graduate school.”
“Haha, yeah, that’s true. Wow. Come to think of it, it hasn’t even been two years since we graduated, but it feels like forever ago.”
“That’s because a lot happened in the meantime. Here—how about a toast?”
Like last time, I poured red wine into Mathieu’s glass.
Our glasses clinked with a crisp sound.
He alternated bites of veal and sips of wine, then spoke calmly.
“...Honestly.”
“Yeah.”
“What you told me... that entertainment-whatever.”
“Entertainment agency.”
“Right. Anyway, that. I don’t know.”
“What part?”
Whether it was criticism or praise, you always listened to what a prospective consumer said if you were a proper manager.
I listened carefully.
“It’s just... the concept, the name, all of it. Those high-nosed musician lords—do you really think they’ll crawl out of the warm cradle of aristocratic patronage and, like you say, sweat and write music?”
“Hmm.”
“In the first place. Playing violin or piano a few times under nobles and living comfortably, versus grinding away to make a living by composing—those are completely different difficulty levels of life.”
It was a persuasive point.
Most artists of the late 18th century followed a standard path: secure a patron, then create under that patron’s support.
If you were lucky, you ended up under the protection of a king or emperor, in a court orchestra.
If you were still pretty lucky, you gained the attention of a prestigious noble and stayed in a grand mansion.
If you were moderately lucky, you lived under a local aristocrat in a modest mansion.
If you were unlucky, you performed on the streets and waited—somehow—for contact from the high and mighty.
That was what artists were in this era.
And if even that didn’t work? You starved.
That was exactly where I was placing my hope.
The basics of management strategy and marketing were understanding stakeholders—the psychology and needs of consumers and employees.
Spineless artists who waited endlessly for contact that might never come were out of the question.
The ones I needed were artists who had skill, desperately wanted to succeed, and were terrified of the future.
“I’m about to starve to death.”
“I have talent, but the world doesn’t recognize me!”
If I gathered only those artists into our agency and worked them properly, at least we wouldn’t go bankrupt from them slacking off.
Artists produced songs and made money, and we received high-quality songs—or brokered and sold them.
That was killing two birds with one stone.
“And that agency you’re talking about. It feels like it’ll only look viable if the first artist you launch hits a massive jackpot.”
“Yeah?”
“You know how most people are. Someone says, ‘This stock will go up!’—and they swarm in to buy. Someone says, ‘This is trending!’—and they swarm in to dress like it.”
“...If the first musician the agency puts out succeeds properly, then promising talents will come in after them?”
“Wouldn’t they?”
Come to think of it, famous entertainment agencies in the 21st century also led with artists who hit big.
Of course, that assumed the first one succeeded.
But here’s the thing.
Our first prospect was no ordinary person.
“‘The first prospect has to succeed’—I’m not too worried about that.”
“...No. Isn’t that the hardest part?”
“The prospect we’re raising isn’t just anyone.”
“What, then? Is their name Vivaldi or Bach?”
Vivaldi. Bach.
No. The card I held was comparable to that—or even above.
I spoke proudly.
“Beethoven.”
“...Beethoven? Never heard of him.”
“Ludwig van Beethoven. Remember the name well. He’s the ultra top-tier prospect Ears of the Nation is raising.”