Fox of France

To be honest, when he heard about Cano and Joseph's introduction to Joseph's brother Napoleon, Lafayette's first reaction was also "Joseph wants to use power for personal gain." But Lafayette wasn't angry at all. Even a little happy.

This is first of all because, in this era, this is a very common thing. On the contrary, if someone does not do this, it is somewhat abnormal. Moreover, Joseph is willing to follow his path. In a sense, at least in Lafayette's view, this is clearly moving closer to him. Of course, Joseph's movement towards him was too slow and too hesitant. It wasn't until now that the overall situation was settled (at least in Lafayette's view), it was not close. However, Lafayette still felt that he should accept his refuge with enthusiasm. Because, Joseph is really talented. Generally speaking, people are always more generous to talented people.

As for whether Joseph and his brother would spoil the matter, Lafayette was not particularly worried. First, he felt that Joseph's ability was still trustworthy. Even if he is really not very good at military affairs, he is no less good at it than the large number of gold-plated noble officers with mixed seniority in the French army. Moreover, it is only a matter of a small army, even if it is used to gild the Bonaparte brothers, it is actually not a big deal. So the matter was settled like this.

After approving this matter, Lafayette put it behind him, because now, there are more important things in front of him.

For Lafayette, the first and most important thing is to rectify the French army. Lafayette is indeed very prestigious in the French army, but prestige does not mean that the army will follow you. Feng Fengxian of the later generations is so prestigious in the Northwest Army, but when he encounters the silver bullet of Chang Dashuai, his men follow Chang Dashuai one by one. The Northwest Army was pulled up by Feng Fengxian single-handedly.

Today's French army is in a very strange state. The royal party can't trust the army, the parliament can't trust the army, and what's more, the army itself can't trust the army. The middle and high-level officers in the French army are all nobles, but the bottom-level officers and soldiers are all third-class. Now they also mistrust each other.

Lafayette knew that if this situation continued, the army would split. The division of the army will completely collapse the foundation of his rule, followed by civil war and chaos.

"This will ruin France completely," thought Lafayette.

But there are those who would rather destroy France than encourage this division. Because in their view, France today is not their France at all.

Some nobles in the past were very dissatisfied with France today, including some nobles who joined the third-level ranks in the third-level conference; After all the wealth was confiscated, some priests who had originally joined the revolutionary ranks came, and at the meeting of the third level, the priests who clearly stood on the side of the third level also stood on the opposite side of the current France.

A group of priests and aristocratic councilors, including Bishop Maury and Councilor Katsanes, organized a club called the "Black Party" (because there are a large number of priests wearing black robes in this club.) Oppose the revolution as much as possible. They created various newspapers, such as "Friends of the King", "Acts of the Apostles", and "Le Petit Gautier", insulting the "powers" including Lafayette, and taking the crisis facing France. The difficulties were all attributed to the "rebellious careerists" in Parliament. They even advertised to the people at the bottom, pretending that they don't care about their own interests, but the people at the bottom of the relationship with compassion.

Such tricks are not very effective, but it cannot be said that they are completely useless. Because the new regime did not really take care of the people at the bottom. Whether in the cities or in the countryside, there are people whose living conditions are not as good as before the revolution. Many of them are asking a question: "I didn't have enough to eat before the revolution, and I still don't have enough to eat after the revolution. Isn't the revolution a white leather?"

These people gave an answer to this question, that is: revolution is better than no revolution. If we can return to the era of kingship, the world will be peaceful. This kind of argument is not very popular in Paris, but it can deceive some people in some rural areas of the provinces.

In addition, some middle and high-level officers in the army are also in frequent contact with these people. They may be plotting something, which makes Lafayette very worried.

On the other side, some comrades who used to stand on the same side as Lafayette have also changed. Maybe they felt that their brilliance was covered by Lafayette, so some of them also distanced themselves from Lafayette. Perhaps to attract attention, these people have also become more radical than before. Some of his old friends from the past, like Du Boer, Lamer, etc., began to become more radical. And some new friends are more radical than old friends. Well, the main thing here is Bishop Talleyrand.

Bishop Talleyrand and some of his religious friends proposed a "Clerical Civil Organization Law" in Parliament. According to this decree, eighty-three bishoprics (one in each province) were established in France, belonging to ten archdioceses. There are dioceses under the bishopric. Like state officials, priests, bishops, and archbishops are elected by citizens. The elected person shall be appointed by the higher-level teaching staff, and the bishop shall be appointed by the Archbishop. Newly appointed bishops and above only need to write to the Pope, expressing that they belong to the same faith, and do not need to go to Rome to buy legal belts from the Pope, nor do they need the Pope's approval. In addition, this decree also abolished the "first-year church donation" (that is, new teachers should pay their first year's income to Rome.), and stipulated that the priest's salary should be paid by the state, and the diocesan conference replaced the original privileged church affairs. Conference, and participates in the administrative administration of the diocesan.

This is tantamount to cutting off most of the links between Catholicism in France and the Holy See, and it is a huge split in Catholicism. The pope reacted almost immediately, denouncing the act and announcing the excommunication of Talleyrand. But Talleyrand dismissed this. He still wore the archbishop's robes and engaged in various religious activities. Even as a counterattack to the Pope's actions, the Parliament is preparing to pass a new bill again, requiring all French clergy to swear allegiance to the French motherland. Any clergyman who refuses to take the oath of allegiance will be dismissed.

This is a requirement that goes completely against Catholic tradition. He has almost turned Catholic clergy into ordinary state servants. And from a doctrinal point of view, the only object of allegiance to the clergy can only be God. This decree further aroused the conflict between the church and the council.

At one point, Lafayette tried to get Parliament to behave softly and not to be overly aggressive in such matters. But members of parliament need such a bill to show their "firm stand", and those clergymen who are leaning towards parliament need such an opportunity to control the church. (If you don’t get rid of those guys, when will I be a bishop?)

So Lafayette's efforts went nowhere, and the bill was passed anyway. After that, things almost got out of control. Most of the bishops and archbishops in the country insisted on refusing to swear allegiance to the government and the constitution, so they were forcibly dismissed from their posts. Constitutions swore allegiance and were then raised to serve as bishops and archbishops.

However, in many dioceses outside Paris, the appointment and dismissal orders issued by the parliament were simply ignored. On the contrary, many bishops of dioceses outside Paris began to publicly accuse the parliament of blasphemy and encouraged believers to fight these "antichrists".

The addition of these church forces has also greatly increased the power of the Black Party. In places such as Lyon, they actually controlled the place and organized their own militia. The local garrison also fell to them, and civil war was almost imminent.

Lafayette believes that the key now lies in the king. If the king is willing to stand firmly on his side and firmly support the constitution, then the activities of the king's party will not be successful at all. On the contrary, if the king wavers and falls to the royal party, then the problem will be very troublesome.

For this reason, Lafayette kept visiting the king, trying to convince him that he really supported the constitutional monarchy. He tried to make the king and queen understand that times have changed, and the autocratic rule of "I am the country" in the era of Louis XIV is no longer possible. The British-style constitutional monarchy is the best choice for the country and the royal family. And those royalists are not really loyal to the king. What they do is fundamentally only for their own benefit. The king is just a plaque they use to call on followers. Even, in a sense, the Royalists, like the radical republicans, are the ones who most hope that something will happen to the king.

In all fairness, Lafayette's point of view is indeed very reasonable. And he also felt that he had succeeded in convincing the king.

"In fact, our king is still a very rational and knowledgeable person." When he came out of the San Carlo Palace, Lafayette said to his adjutant Pierre.

This evaluation is actually not bad. The reason why King Louis XVI had not adopted severe suppression measures before this was precisely because he knew that the times were different from those of his grandfather. But is reason necessarily able to overcome emotion and desire? What's more, the queen doesn't have that much knowledge.

But Lafayette didn't notice that shortly after he left the San Carlo Palace, a messenger left the palace with the Queen's secret letter, and the recipient was the radical-looking Congressman Mirabeau. .