Chapter 98: Shine or Go Crazy (2)
Chapter 98: Shine or Go Crazy (2)
“Even though I’m not a soldier right now, I heard Your Excellency the Finance Minister graduated from the military academy and was commissioned as a second lieutenant.”
“Yes, that’s true, but...?”
“Then there’s no need to drag this out any further. Please accept this, Your Excellency.”
“What is this?”
“I believe you’ll understand if you read it yourself, Your Excellency.”
“Ah, yes...”
The young black-haired army officer shoved a tightly rolled scroll into my hands, then turned around and went down the stairs as-is.
My god. I didn’t think there were people who walked by the drill manual in daily life, too—perfectly, with razor-sharp angles, step after step.
What kind of principle makes that possible? Or did every single brain cell get remodeled after becoming addicted to that deep, seasoned-service stench?
Anyway—this scroll Dumouriez sent. That reactionary royalist hardliner boss. What the hell is it?
It can’t be something like one of our Forbes hot topics, “Lavoisier’s Awesome Scientific Farming Methods vol.21,” right?
Is it a blank confession of ideological conversion? No. That fossil, converting? Yeah right.
Then what—an invitation to a duel, telling me to follow him into some back alley on such-and-such date? Honestly, that sounds more plausible.
“Hey, you drunk nobleman. Don’t lie face-down there—move over.”
“Heeheehee... I’m a colonel now, hey...”
“Ah, come on.”
I shoved Napoleon aside—he was sprawled on the table with the neck of an empty wine bottle in his hand, making a bizarre laughing noise—and untied the string around the scroll.
“What, it’s a map?”
But the map is kind of... weird. It doesn’t look like a normal map.
“...This is a military map.”
Clear weather.
Birds chirping as they drift leisurely across the sky.
And if you add a glass of wine and one of Rousseau’s novels—
“This is life.”
Charles-François Lebrun, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the National Assembly of the Kingdom of France, leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile.
Ah, what a comfortable life this was.
“Of course, I’m a bit far from power... Ah—no, that’s not it.”
A few days ago, the National Assembly he’d visited briefly floated into Lebrun’s mind, and he stopped mid-sentence and shook his head left and right.
– Hey, you reactionary royalist noble fossil—didn’t you hear me say a few days ago not to run your mouth after I smashed your deputy’s jaw?
– What? You uncultured commoner red bastard! You dare insult us! Duel!
– Fine! Bring a pistol and come out to the courtyard—I’ll put a lead ball in your fossil face.
– Hah? Like hell you will!
Dueling might be a gentleman’s virtue, but Lebrun couldn’t help thinking that lawmakers deciding national policy ought to restrain themselves a little.
And the National Guard—why were they so busy? The candle in the staff office window showed no sign of going out, burning for days on end.
A rumor was spreading all over Versailles that Commander Lafayette personally brewed coffee and handed it out to the staff officers, so no one could refuse and they just worked nonstop.
Another rumor said that a middle-aged female cook Guillaume the Finance Minister brought from Paris baked several plates of pumpkin pie every day and delivered them to the staff office. That rumor had been somewhat verified by a Foreign Affairs employee who visited the National Guard building on business.
– The staff office people are insane! If you drink all the coffee that comes with the pumpkin pie, then more coffee comes out with the pumpkin pie again! Breakfast is pumpkin pie and coffee, lunch is coffee and pumpkin pie, dinner is pumpkin coffee and pie! How can a Frenchman live like that?!
Anyway, while Versailles filled up with the sound of pistols and swords clashing and the sound of people chugging coffee with pumpkin pie, the Foreign Affairs Department received no interference at all—no real checks, no meaningful criticism.
Yes. Only the Foreign Affairs Department kept its peace in this harsh Versailles.
And keeping peace meant the same thing as being far from the core of power.
Well, who cared about the Foreign Affairs Department anyway?
There was no war to fight, no treaty to sign.
As Minister of Foreign Affairs, his work was mostly the usual socializing—laughing “ha ha ho ho” with foreign envoys now and then.
A department where it didn’t matter who sat in the minister’s seat had long since been forgotten in the minds of both royalist and revolutionary deputies blinded by domestic politics.
Thanks to that, Lebrun had the leisure today as well to calmly admire the clear July sky.
Knock knock.
“Hm? Did I have anything that would warrant someone looking for me right now? Whoever it is, you may come in.”
Hearing the knock on the minister’s office door, Lebrun tilted his head briefly, then spoke softly.
“Minister, do you have a moment right now?”
A Foreign Affairs employee Lebrun recognized well opened the door, entered, and asked politely.
“Of course. What is it?”
“Well... the envoy from the Holy Roman Empire wishes to see you.”
“Why would the Austrians suddenly want to see me?”
Diplomats are, by nature, incarnations of appointments and schedules. And yet those people were ignoring everything and showing their faces without warning?
Something was very strange.
“...Where is the envoy now?”
“We’ve shown him into the reception room for now.”
“Understood. Get back to your work. I should meet the envoy.”
“Yes, Minister.”
“Envoy Florimont Claude.”
“Ah. Good day, Minister Lebrun.”
The two diplomats exchanged handshakes and sat in the reception room chairs.
“First, I apologize for committing this diplomatic discourtesy by coming without an appointment, Minister.”
“Not at all, Envoy. You needn’t put it that strongly.”
People say politics is an extension of life, and diplomacy is an extension of socializing.
As socializing usually goes, the two traded plenty of personal talk. That his wife had bought new jewelry and it looked good, that some opera was a fine listen, stories about the young musician of Bonn birth who suddenly became famous at the Champ de Mars festival commemorating the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, and so on.
After a long stretch of diplomatic pleasantries, it was Lebrun who cut it off.
“But what brings you all the way to Versailles?”
“Ah, that is...”
Envoy Florimont Claude drew in a breath, then pulled a sheet of paper from inside his coat and held it out toward Minister Lebrun.
“This is an edict the Kaiser has issued to our embassy in France. Please read it.”
“...The Kingdom of France shall withdraw certain ‘unequal’ alliance treaties ratified during the reign of the late Emperor Joseph II, and shall guarantee the violated rights of certain German feudal lords in Alsace-Lorraine—are you kidding me right now?”
This was highway robbery with the sword merely put away.
Unequal alliance? When they dragged France into their pointless territorial wars under Maria Theresa and Joseph II, what was that supposed to be?
“Alsace-Lorraine is French land. It is not, under any circumstances, land of the Holy Roman Empire!”
“That is correct. However, is it not also true that there are estates belonging to our Empire’s border margraves within the Lorraine region? Their rights were, in the recent French resolution...”
“Abolition of feudal rights was resolved by the National Assembly representing the French people, and it cannot be withdrawn!”
Lebrun sprang to his feet and spoke toward Envoy Florimont.
“...Then we will have to tell you this as well. The non-aggression pact between the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire is no longer valid.”
“What?”
“It is what the King of Prussia and our Kaiser jointly resolved at Pillnitz.”
As Lebrun frowned, Envoy Florimont Claude pulled out another paper from inside his coat and offered it.
“...The Declaration of Pillnitz?”
Lebrun read the printed letters at the top of the page.
“You are aware that something major happened in Bonn this time, yes, Minister?”
At Florimont’s words, Lebrun’s eyelid twitched.
A diplomat sensitive to everything outside the state couldn’t not know.
“The Bonn Riot.”
Or, in other words, “the Bonn Revolution.”
The former was what royalists and nobles called it; the latter, what ink-stained intellectuals and the people called it.
An incident where the Kaiser’s son, Archduke Karl Ludwig, led the Imperial Central Army and rained lead and bayonets on Bonn’s free citizens—put differently, republicans.
“...What happened in Bonn within the Holy Roman Empire has nothing to do with France, Envoy.”
“And yet the monarchs, shall we say... seem quite concerned. After all, signs of French influence could be found here and there throughout the Bonn affair.”
“Even so, I believe this is no different from placing a crown of thorns on the innocent, Envoy.”
“I think so as well, but the monarchs want a clear answer. An answer that you will not export revolution, and that you will guarantee the rights of the Empire’s border margraves.”
At the envoy’s words, Lebrun merely rubbed his chin in silence.
“...Please wait until I can at least bring the matter before the Assembly.”
“Of course. I believe our Empire and the Kingdom of France can resolve this matter peacefully.”
Lebrun’s pleasant day was turning into hell.
About two weeks before Lebrun, Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of France, met Florimont, the Holy Roman Empire’s envoy to France.
Mid-July, 1790.
Dresden, Prussia.
Pillnitz Castle.
“Commoners are intimidating the king and even forming an assembly—how the world is turning is deeply worrying.”
“Indeed.”
“I too agree with King Wilhelm. What do you think, Crown Prince Alexander?”
“...Well. Haha.”
– I, Leopold II, Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire, believe that the series of disorders beginning in France and the infringements upon the rights of we Germans will be overcome through this declaration.
– I, Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia, also agree.
– I, Gustav III, King of Sweden, also agree with the words of the two monarchs.
– I, Alexander, Crown Prince of Russia, also agree.
– Long live His Majesty the Kaiser, who strives for the rights of his vassals, and His Highness Crown Prince Alexander of Russia! Long live the kings of Prussia and Sweden! Long live! Long live!
The monarchs of four nations gathered at Pillnitz and resolved:
First: France will not export revolution.
Second: It will restore and guarantee the infringed rights of the Empire’s border margraves.
“...I cannot say whether this is truly the right judgment, Your Highness.”
“Haha, General, don’t worry. It’s merely a verbal warning, isn’t it? And it concerns nothing more than a small estate.”
Archduke Karl brushed off General Radetzky’s uneasy words with a laugh.
All subversives within the Empire had long since been swept away.
But after the Bonn affair, those in power realized that somewhere in their hearts, accursed republicans might be lurking within the state.
If France simply promised not to export revolution and to return infringed German rights, what could happen?
France wouldn’t be insane enough to think of waging war one-against-all against these countries.
Yes. Not unless it was insane.