Fox of France

With Fouche's vote, the fate of Louis XVI was basically decided. Because Fouche cast the 355th vote in favor of the death penalty, which is only six votes away from the 361 votes that can cut off the head of Louis XVI, and after Fouche, there is no vote There are still many members of the Mountain faction. Their attitude is relatively firm, and it is almost impossible to rebel. The same may not be true of the remaining Brissotist MPs. It can be said that the overall situation has been settled. Immediately afterwards, new traitors appeared among the Brissot MPs behind Fouche. As a result, out of 720 votes, 387 votes supported the death penalty, and the remaining 300 Thirty-three votes supported the pardon. Louis XVI's execution was sanctioned, making him only the second European king to be sentenced to death.

In fact, there were also economic reasons for the trial of the king. As the king was sentenced to death, the property of the exiled nobles was immediately confiscated and used as collateral to issue more bonds. If everything goes well, these lands and properties will give France's finances a not-so-short buffer period. But, in any era, war is a financial bottomless pit. At this time, the war between France and Austria and Prussia was not over yet.

...

After taking Belgium, the French army began to repair. Joseph, who had nothing to do, also came out with his younger brother, wandering on the streets of Aachen.

Although they were wandering around, the two brothers still paid attention to something different. Napoleon carefully observed the street layout of Aachen city, and by the way, he demolished the city a hundred times by simulating street fighting in his head. . As for Joseph, of course he is not so bored, he just discovered a small detail: the prices in Aachen have obviously risen, and the shops on the street seem to be very repulsive to do shopping with the French, especially the French in military uniform*** *** For example, this time, when he and Napoleon came out without military uniforms, they walked into a tavern and asked in German: "Is there any brandy?" The shopkeeper immediately replied: "Yes, there is. You Pay the bill in Mark?" A smile bloomed on the boss's face.

"Couldn't River be okay?" Joseph continued to ask.

"River? Silver ones? Silver ones are fine too, but we don't accept coupons." The boss replied.

"Silver." Joseph said as he unloaded a few silver coins on the counter.

"That's good." Seeing that Joseph took out silver coins, the shopkeeper said happily, "One livre and a glass."

"What? Didn't you have two cups for one livre before?" Joseph asked in surprise.

"That was before the French came." A voice came from the side, and Joseph turned his head and saw a red-haired young man holding a glass of frothy beer in his hand. Seeing Joseph's gaze, the man raised the wine glass in his hand towards him and smiled slightly.

"That's right, that was before the French came. Since the French came, everything has gone up in price." The shopkeeper also said.

This is also a normal thing. Generally speaking, soldiers who live and die are always willing to spend money. Wherever the soldiers of the brigade go, it is always easy to cause certain industries, such as wine, and certain indescribable industries to boom in business and increase prices.

"So you should have made a lot of money, shop owner?" Joseph asked with a smile.

"Where is it?" the boss shook his head and said, "it was okay at first, but now, they all come to ask for a drink with a small piece of paper-hey, isn't this a lie? Of course I won't I wanted it, but in the end, I was beaten up by them. They also said that if they don’t accept the coupons, they are counter-revolutionary, and they threatened to hang me on the lamppost! Now we dare not accept their kind Scraps of paper, but the good stuff has to be hidden beforehand so they don't see it."

In France, in order to ensure that the coupons are accepted, the parliament has indeed enacted a decree prohibiting merchants from accepting coupons. If a businessman insists on refusing to accept the coupon, he may indeed be hanged by the street lamp. (Of course, French businessmen also have their own ways to deal with it) But this is not France.

But the soldiers have nothing to do, they have to come out to relax, spend money, right?

At the beginning, when the front line was very critical, in order to boost the morale of the soldiers, the French government sold everything they could, and the soldiers were paid in real metal coins. However, since the Battle of Valmy, finger coupons have appeared in the military pay of the government to the army, and after the victory in the Battle of Remap, the proportion of finger coupons in the military pay has exceeded that of metal currency, and when Louis XVI After going to the guillotine, there will be no metal currency in the military pay at all.

Of course, this is what Dumouriez said, and there are also sayings that at this special moment, in order to stabilize the situation, the military salary sent by the government to Dimouriez is still in metal currency. But General Dumouriez exchanged these metal coins for coupons, and then distributed them to the soldiers.

Moreover, there is even a certain basis for this statement, because there are always small traders doing a special kind of business near the French army barracks, which is to exchange coins for finger coupons. Of course, this exchange ratio is much darker than in France. The soldier who didn't want to be exploited furiously beat a certain merchant, snatched the two hundred or so silver livres beside him, and finally threw him four hundred paper livres.

General Dumouriez, who had never cared much about this kind of thing, was furious because of this, claiming that this lawless act was really a heinous crime, which caused complaints from the common people, and it was really not enough to kill them. Then hang those soldiers up, which is regarded as rectifying the military law.

But many soldiers suspected that the reason why General Dumouriez, who had never cared much about such things, would be so furious was probably because he was the backstage boss of the merchants who traded the coupons. This kind of irresponsible speculation quickly spread throughout the army, which made the morale of the army even lower.

Joseph tossed two livres to the shopkeeper, took two glasses of brandy, and stared at the street corner, thinking about how to ambush a cannon there, and then the cannon fired and blasted his mother Napoleon, who was standing next to him. He sat down by the window on the street.

The two of them just sat down and took two sips when they heard a noisy commotion outside, followed by gunshots, and then exclamations and cries, mixed together and forming a mess.

"What's wrong?" Joseph stood up and looked outside.

A man hurried in and shouted palely: "French, the French robbed and killed!"

...

In a short time, the French lost their hearts in Belgium. At least most ordinary people in Belgium were really looking forward to the arrival of the French army. But the actions of the French army turned their dream into a nightmare. Many guys who flirted with the French when Austria ruled are now hooking up with Audi again. It can even be said that once Austria starts to counterattack, the whole of Belgium may stand up against France.

However, in order to solve financial difficulties and prepare for the coming second round of intervention - the war cost so much money that it was no longer enough to simply confiscate the crown and some noble lands - the French government needed Get more money out of Belgium.

The National Assembly has sent a large number of commissioners to Belgium in order to get more money from these places.

Direct plundering is obviously inefficient, and it will bring a lot of trouble, and even just economically, it may not be worth the candle. So, the leaders of the National Assembly came up with such an idea.

Everywhere war should be accompanied by revolutionary measures. Wherever the Church, the nobles, and all their lackeys who hate the revolution, all property should be confiscated and used for the cause of the revolution. (Mainly used as collateral for bonds) In addition, the tenth tax and territorial rights in the liberated areas will also be abolished. The old taxes will be cancelled, and taxes will be increased on the local rich. The administrative system of all liberated areas must be reformed, and only those who have sworn to freedom and renounced all privileges have the right to vote and be elected. At the same time, in order to prevent the coins from flowing into these regions, and through them out of France, the use of coins in these regions should be prohibited, and the use of denominations in these regions should be compulsory.

They felt that by doing so, they could divide the people at the bottom of the occupied areas from the feudal lords at the top.

Compon, the councilor who made the proposal, declared: "Shoot the palace and give peace to the huts. That way we can stand everywhere."

This proposal was supported by most of the MPs and passed smoothly. However, Robespierre said to Danton in private: "Compon's idea is very beautiful, but I am always worried that in actual implementation, it may be out of shape. And we actually lack the ability to guarantee this. The ability of a decree to stay in shape. I am worried that this seemingly beautiful decree will become a nightmare when it is implemented. What's more, even in China, not many people are willing to accept coupons..."

"The road to hell is often paved with good intentions," Danton said. "But at this point, that's all we can do."

In order to effectively implement this decree, the parliament sent 30 commissioners to Belgium at one go, and Compon, who proposed this plan, was naturally one of them.

But just as Robespierre worried, in many cases, once the policy falls to the implementation level, it will be completely deformed. Those special commissioners are in great power, and they can deal with most things first, and they can decide with one word, even surpassing the so-called imperial envoys in the past. However, not every commissioner is an "incorruptible person" like Robespierre. It can even be said that the vast majority of commissioners are taking advantage of this opportunity to enrich themselves.

In just a few months, the Component Commissioner alone raised as much as 64 million livres for the Republic in the Belgian region, but the whole of Belgium, even those the French were trying to win over, lived in "huts". "The lower levels inside are all resentful of the French.