Fox of France

After leaving the Academy of Sciences, Lavoisier did not go home, but left Paris in a carriage and went to a manor of the Duke of Orleans. A few days ago, he had borrowed a space from the Duke for a new scientific experiment.

Maybe it's because for a long time, His Majesty the King couldn't give birth to a son. (Queen Marie Antoinette gave birth to her first son eleven years after marrying him.) Many nobles in the country who are close relatives of the king have produced kings who may die, and the crown may fall on their heads. idea. The Orleans family, who are close relatives of the king, may not have had similar ideas. A few years ago, after the king underwent an operation, he finally became pregnant and gave birth to two princes in succession. But ambition, once created, is hard to extinguish naturally. It's like Macbeth, because of the witch's prophecy, he had ambitions for the Scottish crown. Although the old king made it clear afterwards that his crown would be handed over to his son instead of Macbeth, Macbeth's ambition for the crown did not die because of this, but became more intense. And finally drove him on the road of killing the king and seizing the throne. And some big nobles including the Orleans family, like Macbeth, their ambitions have not disappeared because of the birth of the prince. In addition, the king has a weak personality, and the queen, although her personality is much stronger, but as a woman, she has not received much political education, and she is quite naive in politics. This makes those big nobles feel that "he can replace him".

In order to "replace it", over the years, the great nobles including the Orleans family have worked hard to dismantle the king overtly and covertly, making the king unable to do anything well. At the same time, they deliberately created public opinion to slander the royal family. Of course, they will not point the finger at the king directly - this is too direct, and it is too easy to expose their ambitions. So they all aimed at Queen Mary in unison. Queen Mary has a strong personality, but lacks political wisdom, coupled with her love of vanity, and has no concept of money, so they easily let her fall into the trap. On the one hand, they flattered Queen Mary, tempted her to hold various balls, and defrauded her of millions of francs of "gifts" every year; She took the nickname "Madame Deficit". The weird necklace incident that broke out recently even discredited the Queen. (A female liar was able to escape from a heavily guarded prison after directing such a drama that trapped the queen. God knows if there is any problem here.)

Of course, the nobles still have a sense of propriety, and they always insist on one point in their propaganda, that is, the king is a good man, but his ears are too soft, and he is too afraid of his wife. The treacherous minister... No, he was just led by the nose by a woman."

This kind of propaganda, on the surface, seems to be justifying the king, but in terms of its effect, it is actually better than directly attacking the king's greed and cruelty. Because a greedy and cruel king is hated, but also feared; but a kind and weak "good old man" who is controlled by his wife will be despised by others.

Machiavelli believes that the weakest and most easily overthrown king is not a tyrant hated by everyone, but a king who is generally despised by his subjects. By such propaganda, the great nobles directed the hatred of the people to the queen, and at the same time reserved the most terrible thing-contempt-to the king.

If Louis XVI was a lord, no, it need not even be a lord, but only a tyrant. He can also use stormy means to quell these discussions, at least turning people's contempt for him into hatred and fear. The crown of a feared tyrant is comparatively more secure than that of a despised king.

However, Louis XVI was a weak character, looking forward and backward, he couldn't make up his mind to chop off the heads of those big nobles. However, his concession made the great nobles, including the Orleans family, more and more feel that the French crown should naturally be worn on their heads.

Machiavelli also proposed in The King Theory that the king should also give people a little bit of favor, so that the people are grateful to him and look forward to him. Therefore, while laying various ties to the king, the great nobles competed to dress themselves up as "friends of the people", "enlightened gentlemen", and "pioneers of democracy". In the words of the great mentor later, it is: "In order to win over the people, the nobles waved the begging bag of the proletariat as a banner." Of course, the final result of the great nobles must be "whenever the people follow them At that time, they all found that their buttocks had the old feudal coat of arms, so they laughed and scattered." But at least for now, these methods can still make the people come behind them.

In order to pretend to be "friends of the people", "enlightened gentlemen", and "pioneers of democracy", the great nobles pretended to love science, love the motherland, and love the people. The more support for academic research and academic freedom has become what these great nobles compete to flaunt. Supporting Lavoisier's research, which has become the pride of France, is naturally something that a "friend of the people", an "enlightened gentleman", and a "pioneer of democracy" should do.

His Royal Highness Duke Phillips happened to be fine, so he was waiting for Lavoisier there. He was also very interested in Lavoisier's experiment, so he asked Lavoisier about the content of his experiment.

"Master, you know, I don't mean anything else, I'm just curious. Can you tell me what experiment you want to do here?" Duke Phillips once asked when he lent this site.

"Oh, Joseph wrote me a letter. It said that he had carefully processed glycerin with concentrated nitric acid and sulfuric acid in a special way, and obtained a very powerful liquid gunpowder. Well, maybe like Joseph said, it should not be called gunpowder, but dynamite. There are still many problems with this kind of liquid explosives, but Joseph is busy with mathematical things now, and he is not counted in such things He is very proficient, so he told me this matter after only conducting preliminary experiments. I tried it, and it is indeed as he said, this thing is very powerful. In terms of power, it is at least as good as brown gunpowder Dozens of times to more than a hundred times."

"So powerful?" Duke Phillips was taken aback.

"Isn't it?" Lavoisier said, "You know, Joseph said that the power of that thing was like Zeus's thunder. He suggested that when I experimented by myself, the amount of experiment should not exceed one gram at a time. Then I said I tried it with a gram, and it really exploded. And the power far exceeded my expectations. Well, Mr. Duke, this thing is quite dangerous. If you want to conduct a comprehensive test, it must be impossible to conduct it in the city of Paris. "

"Such things should be studied by the military, right?" Duke Phillips said.

"Ah, Your Royal Highness, you may not know that although this thing is powerful, it is really not suitable for military use, at least not for military use at present." Lavoisier looked at Duke Phillips and said, "You may not know, this thing Very unstable. A little vibration, or light, or a little heat, this thing will explode. Your Highness, if it is used for military use, this thing is in transit, as long as the wheels of the carriage bump in a small hole, it will explode for a whole day. The explosives in the carriage will explode with a bang, and the power is equivalent to the gunpowder of more than a hundred carriages exploding together."

"My God!" said Duke Phillips, "if it's so dangerous, what's the use of this thing?"

"Military use is useless." Lavoisier said, "This thing is not easy to transport, and it often needs to be prepared on the spot where it is used. How can it be prepared on the battlefield for military use? But for civilian use, such as mining, we can It is relatively safe to prepare this thing directly at the mining site and use it immediately. Lord Duke, this thing is actually very useful. For example, it can be used in mining, such as digging canals, and many times it will even Bring about revolutionary changes. And the cost of the raw materials used is not too high, if the problem of preparation can be solved, this thing should make a lot of money. Is His Highness the Duke interested?"

"If the problem of preparation can be solved? My master, so there are still problems in the preparation of this thing?" Duke Phillips asked.

"Yes, it can only be produced in the laboratory at present, and the quantity produced at one time is quite limited. If it is to be applied on a large scale, the method of preparation must be changed. Moreover, even when this thing is prepared, it is quite dangerous. For large-scale preparation, the environment is different from that of the laboratory, so careful research is needed." Lavoisier explained.

"Then, Monsieur Lavoisier, may I take part in this study?" asked the Duke of Phillips.

"Of course, I welcome your participation. In the future, you can also name this product. In addition, you can also sign your name on the position of the author of future papers." Lavoisier said.

The Duke laughed: "Ah, that's not acceptable. People will say that I shamelessly pursue honors that don't belong to me. Therefore, my name must never be on the position of the author of the paper. But if you can I would be very happy if the paper mentioned that I contributed even a little bit to this research."

"That's not a problem." Lavoisier laughed. "In addition, this research has certain risks. So, although you can participate, Your Royal Highness, please keep a certain safe distance when performing some dangerous operations. "