Fox of France

Just when the struggle in Paris was about to enter a feverish stage, in Toulon, Joseph had just given himself a day off and took his mother and all his younger brothers and sisters to go fishing at the Fort Margrave to celebrate the family reunion—— A few days ago, Napoleon had just sent someone to pick up Louis from Paris.

After punishing Lucien last time, Joseph was quite satisfied with his prestige among his brothers. But he also keenly felt that the distance between his brothers and sisters seemed to be a little bit farther away from him.

This is a very easy situation, as the saying goes, "Lovely people don't have to be respectable, and awesome people are no longer amiable. But if the elder brother is only "respectable" in the eyes of the brothers, then there will be no guarantee that there will be no grievances in the future. So in order to rebuild his "cute and amiable" image in everyone's mind, Joseph took the time to arrange this event.

Of course, according to Joseph's habits, this kind of thing is of course unavoidable to be done for personal gain. So this event, although it reads as a family gathering, has to be written as a "technical experiment" in many places in order to reimburse some expenses that can be reimbursed.

Of course, the content of the experiment cannot be written as fishing and grilling fish, but must be written as "the sailing state of a high-speed communication ship at a low speed, and related experiments on strengthening the self-sustaining ability at sea."

Seeing the name of this experiment, we know that this family gathering will be held on this newly built small boat of less than a hundred tons. This boat, which is also painted gray-blue, looks extremely short from a distance because it has two hulls, but in fact, the two hulls, plus the deck between the hulls, so at least The deck space is quite spacious. If you look down from a height, the square deck of this ship looks a bit like a raft.

But this boat is much more expensive than a raft. Even more expensive than the larger "Black Pearl". .

For example, the structural parts that connect the two large buoys below the water surface and support the entire hull are all cast in bronze in order to ensure firmness and resistance to seawater corrosion. It took a lot of money to open the mold and cast it. As for the pontoons, each pontoon is made of three thick balsa wood. Balsa wood is the lightest wood in the world, half the density of the cork we usually use to make water bottle stoppers, and the wood is balanced and has good corrosion resistance. Can provide considerable buoyancy.

Balsa wood itself is not precious, but this thing is a product of South America, and the French do not have much in stock. Therefore, it can only be smuggled in from the Spaniards by means of smuggling. And even for the Spaniards, there are generally only balsa wood boards that have been sawn into planks, complete and thick, and dried balsa wood is also difficult to find. As a result, the unscrupulous smugglers just sold the balsa wood for the price of Brazilian mahogany. Then the whole buoy will be covered with another layer of copper skin to reduce resistance, which increases the cost again.

There are also ship boards and so on. Joseph can use it as well as he can, even if it can only bring a slight improvement in performance. Joseph didn't care about the cost of the ship, since he didn't use his own money anyway.

The family boarded the boat, and the boat opened its sails, and the speed was as fast as an arrow.

"How fast can the ship go?" asked Napoleon.

"More than fifteen knots." Joseph replied, "faster than any other ship. At sea, no ship can catch up with us. Moreover, the control of this ship is relatively simple. Only two people are needed to do it. It can be controlled, and even one person can't control it. Also, have you noticed? This boat, although small, is more stable than many much larger boats."

The two chatted, and the boat sailed into the bay below the Mulgrave Fortress. Lucien volunteered to help stow the sail, and watched the sailors drop anchor again. Then everyone took out their fishing rods and started fishing. Well, this is the so-called "experiments related to strengthening maritime self-sustainability".

Napoleon's mind was not on fishing. He casually put a small piece of sardine on the hook, then threw the bait into the sea, and said to Joseph: "Joseph, the situation in Paris seems to be not right recently."

The situation in Paris is indeed not right. According to the news they have now, Robespierre first united with Danton and killed the indignant Ebert and the others; then turned around and killed Danton and the others. . Then a lot of extreme economic policies were launched, some of which were even more extreme than those of Ebel.

"It's not right," Joseph said. "Theoretically, our 'Incorruptible One' is about to be destroyed. Napoleon, you know, there is a saying that says, 'God wants to destroy him, he must first destroy it. Make it crazy'. Do you know why he's crazy?"

"Why?" asked Napoleon.

"Because he has nowhere to go." Joseph smiled. "He killed Ebert and lost the support of the sansculottes. He killed Danton and lost the support of businessmen and factory owners. Now, he can only Relying on terror itself to maintain his rule. So he has to be crazy, because now he is full of enemies and eyes that hate him everywhere. If he shows even the slightest weakness, those people will rush up and put He is torn to pieces. With his current madness, he will not live long; but if he is not crazy now, he may not even live today."

"Then why don't you go back to Paris? Going back at this time will have huge political benefits." Napoleon asked.

But before Joseph could answer, he laughed to himself: "Ah, Joseph, I forgot, you're not me. If it were me, I would definitely go back at this time. You...you don't want to take any risks at all."

"Now is not the time to go back." Joseph shook his head and said, "This is not a question of whether to take risks, but a question of disproportionate risks and benefits. Napoleon, first of all, we must admit that Robespierre is indeed a Great guy. I don't think you'd object to that, would you?"

Napoleon was silent.

"The reason why powerful guys are powerful is because they are good at using the resources in their hands, even if they are extremely limited resources, to create miracles." Joseph continued, "Robespierre is crazy now, why? He can mobilize the economy Resources are not enough to support his policies. He is doing this now in a hurry to buy off the bottom, but his policies are not sustainable, which means that he will soon face the problem of exhaustion of economic resources. No money means no money, as if If he can't solve the math problem, he just can't do it. He will definitely take a large-scale risk before the capital chain is broken, and try to set off another big purge. If he can really succeed, then the resources obtained from the purge will be enough Let him support for a while. So going to Paris at this time is very risky."

"What about the small gains?" asked Napoleon.

"I still don't understand?" Joseph raised his eyebrows, "You went to Paris at this time, can you become the person who contributed the most to overthrowing him? Do you have enough resources to control this government with internal and external troubles? You None. In that case, what are you rushing to do? Napoleon, do you still remember that I told you that we don’t need to stand in line. A truly powerful person never needs to stand in line, because where he stands, where It’s the first team. Is there anyone who can replace him who has come to the end of his life now?”

"Hehe..." Napoleon just laughed twice and didn't say anything, but his attitude was already very obvious.

"Then don't worry." Joseph said, "Even if these people win, they will definitely not be able to control the current situation. We just need to wait, when France needs a real hero."

"Well," said Napoleon, "what if Robespierre wins?"

"What if? Let's see if you can control the army first. If you are as incompetent as Dimouriez, then we can only use this boat to escape to the New World. But don't worry, with your brother and me, Wherever you go, there will be food to eat.”

"Bah!" said Napoleon.

At this time, the bell on the fishing rod beside Joseph rang suddenly.

"A fish has been hooked!" Joseph said.

...

In Paris, the situation has reached the most critical moment. Just a day ago, a man attacked Couton with a pistol. However, the shooter's shooting skills were really not very good. He failed to hit Couton with two shots. The people around reacted and surrounded him, and then the man swallowed the poison and committed suicide.

This unsuccessful assassination caused a great uproar. First of all, the assassin's identity was confirmed. He was Ebert's subordinate in the past, and when he shot Couton, he shouted: "Kill the lackey of the tyrant and avenge Ebert!"

Robespierre has been working hard these days, trying to win over the sans-culottes man, but this assassination caused the seemingly healed wound to be torn open again.

Robespierre realized that pursuing this matter would undermine his ongoing efforts to mend relations with the sans-culottes. But if he does not pursue it, it will obviously make him feel weak, and thus encourage his enemies to dare to unite against him.

So he was caught in a dilemma. However, after in-depth thinking, Robespierre decided that the matter must be pursued.

This is because his current status is completely dependent on people's fear of him, or in other words, "terror has become a means of protecting oneself, and thus has become an absurd thing." (Engels) Anything that weakens terror is weakening his position.

Secondly, he also realized that if he could not eliminate the remaining Ebelists, his plan to win over the sans-culottes would be very difficult to succeed.

At the same time, the plummeting amount of material reserves also began to sound the alarm for him. In order to please the sans-culottes, the food prices that had risen were forced down again, and flour was mixed with chalk, talcum powder and sawdust. Behavior was also stopped. The sale of grain to neutral countries in exchange for some necessary supplies was also suspended, but the grain stocks in Paris continued to decline rapidly.

But on the other hand, the grain sent to Paris from other regions is rapidly decreasing. A series of events in Paris had reduced their control over the provinces, and the deliberate slowdown of some people exacerbated the problem. Therefore, it is difficult for the food in Paris to continue to support Robespierre's policy.

If it was a few months ago, Robespierre could have sent special commissioners to other provinces to crack down on passive sabotage and supervise the recruitment of food. But at this time, he was unable to do so. Because at this time, there are very limited people he can trust. Sending these people out would reduce his control over the situation in Paris.

However, he also knew that allowing this phenomenon to continue would only lead to his demise. The situation was such that he had to take a risky action.

At the beginning of June, under the arrangement of Robespierre, Couton submitted a so-called document called the "Bill to Punish the Enemies of the Revolution" to the National Assembly. This bill further simplifies the trial process of the revolutionary court, cancels the defender, and stipulates that the court no longer needs witnesses and physical evidence to make a judgment. Sentence the criminal. At the same time, the penalty has also been simplified, and the revolutionary court will only make two sentences: acquittal or death penalty.

The National Assembly tremblingly obeyed Robespierre's will and passed the bill. Even Carnot, who is now the most rebellious in front of Robespierre, did not object to this obviously unreasonable bill. Because Fouche has already greeted him in advance, that is: "Now the moment that everyone is looking forward to is coming."

As soon as this bill was announced, it immediately caused tension, and the entire National Assembly panicked. Everyone knew that Robespierre was preparing for a big purge again, and everyone could benefit from this murderous bill. It can be seen that the number of heads that Robespierre will chop off this time may be far more than the previous few times.

And the bill has sparked controversy among Robespierre's own ranks. For the bill, Saint-Just had a fierce quarrel with Robespierre for the first time. It is said that after this quarrel, Robespierre returned to his residence and said to his landlord, "I have no one to trust except you."

The Punishment of the Enemies of the Revolution Act is certainly not for fun. Robespierre must eliminate all enemies who might oppose him before the food supply in Paris completely collapses. So the guillotine began to run crazily, cutting off the heads of eighteen to twenty people every day on average.

Among these heads, there are businessmen, small workshop owners, and even a lot of low-level people-because they are suspected to be related to the assassination.

During these days, Fouché was not idle either. He disguised himself, kept in touch with those congressmen, and told them: "Your name is on the next batch of lists!" Sometimes, he even deliberately risked some traces so that Robespierre's people could Know who he might have gone to see.

All kinds of information were slowly gathered into the hands of Robespierre, and Fouché's figure loomed among those clues. Robespierre decided to go to Parliament early tomorrow morning to force them to announce the arrest of Fouché and send him to the guillotine.