Chapter 230 United We Stand

Chapter 231 United as one

An hour later, the dark carriage drove out from the back door of Mono's villa, with a large pile of fabric on the roof.

The car drove around the city a few more times before returning to the Palais Royal around 10 p.m.

The Duke of Orleans, who covered his whole body with a black hood, unloaded the cloth from the car like a servant and moved it into the warehouse with his head lowered. Only when there was no one around except his bodyguard did he cautiously return to the bedroom.

In the study, he recalled the whole strategy that Monod had told him before. He took out a piece of paper and pen, and wrote a secret letter to Paris Municipal Commissioner Lewebert and Governor of Montpellier Province Palmentier. , then press them with private seals and seal them with fire paint.

Then, he took out another piece of paper and wrote down the names one by one: Duke of Seville, Count of Serurier, Duke of Dulfo, Duke of Mouchy...

If people who are familiar with the aristocratic circle see this list, they will immediately find that these people are the bosses of the "outdated" political power conference.

Although these people were defeated in the last royal tax reform bill, as the top nobles, they still have energy that cannot be ignored.

In addition, there is another characteristic of the people on this list, that is, the group of people who Monod said were most affected by the Millers' Bill of Rights and the drop in land prices caused by immigration to Tunisia.

After the Duke of Orleans finished writing, he checked the names again and again, then handed the list and secret letter to the butler Donadier, and gave detailed instructions.

…

Two days later, southwest of Paris.

In a very large dog racing track on the south bank of the Seine River, the competition is going on. The sound of dogs is loud and the dust is flying. More than a dozen slender racing dogs are running towards the finish line like the wind.

The surrounding stands are full of distinguished nobles - not just anyone can get the invitation here.

In the VIP room in the middle of the second floor on the west side of the stand, more than twenty people were crowded. They all looked at the game indifferently, showing no interest.

After a long time, a tall, thin man wearing a long sapphire blue coat with cold eyes opened the door of the VIP room and stepped in.

The people in the VIP room turned around and saw him, and immediately stood up and saluted:

"You are finally here, Your Majesty the Duke of Orleans."

"Oh, Philip, my old friend, why are you so anxious to find us?"

"Your Majesty, why don't you go directly to the Royal Palace? This damn place is so noisy that it gives me a headache..."

The Duke of Orleans handed his hat to a younger nobleman next to him, smiled and nodded to everyone:

"The Palais Royal is so closely watched that it is no longer suitable for gatherings. But here we can speak freely."

He also had many intelligence agents under his command. The constant defeats in the political struggle over the past year made him suspicious, so he had his residence carefully inspected, and he actually found that someone was closely monitoring the Palais Royal. .

That was naturally the person from the Police Intelligence Department arranged by Joseph. How could he not keep an eye on the scourge of the Duke of Orleans seriously?

However, as a veteran conspirator, the Duke of Orleans also had his own countermeasures for this. For example, today at this dog racing track, nearly a hundred distinguished nobles came, and only a few of them were the targets of his meeting. However, agents from the Police Intelligence Department who did not have an invitation letter could not sneak in.

That way no one would know who he actually met. In fact, he looked like he was just here to bet on dogs.

The Duke of Orleans sat down on the chair in the middle, but did not say anything "business", but said to Count Serulier in a casual manner: "Bruzard, it is said that you have recently lost the tax revenue of seven or eight mills. It's really true." What a pity."

The latter was stunned. Although he didn't understand what he was bringing up, he was obviously aroused: "It's that damn bill! The mill tax is our traditional right that has lasted for thousands of years, and no one has the right to take it away! "

"Oh, but His Majesty the Great King did just that."

The Duke of Orleans said something sinister and looked at the old man beside him: "Duke Dulfo, land prices have been weak recently. Have you lost a lot of money?"

"About five or six hundred thousand livres."

The Duke of Dulfo owns thousands of hectares of land, and the drop in land prices has a great impact on him.

What happened to these two people made everyone in the VIP room begin to feel sympathy for each other, and they complained one after another, saying that they had also suffered a lot.

The Duke of Orleans then raised his hand to signal them to be quiet, changed his serious expression and said in a deep voice: "Haven't you noticed yet? The royal family is abandoning us!

“Have you forgotten about the tax bill at the beginning of the year? Our management rights over the High Court were ruthlessly deprived, and we had to pay tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of thousands more livres in land tax every year.

"Paying the same taxes as those untouchables is simply an insult to us from the royal family!"

The surrounding nobles immediately nodded empathetically, "This is a betrayal of tradition and glory!"

"Yes, the royal family has indeed gone too far!"

"You see, more taxes will definitely be levied on us in the future."

The Duke of Orleans was very satisfied with this reaction and continued: "Everyone should have seen that those upstarts engaged in textiles and papermaking are the new favorites of the royal family! We will be thrown into the garbage dump like broken boots.

"Those newly built workshops have attracted farmers to the city. Sooner or later, your tenant farmers will flee, the land will no longer be cultivated, and you will not be able to collect even a penny in annual tribute!"

Duke Mouchy, who had a high reputation in the meeting of dignitaries, finally spoke: "Duke Orleans, you have said so much, do you have any plans?"

Seeing everyone looking at him expectantly, the Duke of Orleans immediately clenched his fist and said: "We must put some pressure on the royal family and let our Majesty understand that he must respect the traditional system and respect the nobles!"

He lowered his voice: "There is a good opportunity now to teach the royal family a lesson. I hope you can unite and fight for our own rights!

"As you know, since the beginning of winter, serious food shortages have occurred across the country. As long as we do this, if we continue like this..."

After he finished speaking, everyone in the VIP room looked at each other. A nobleman hesitated and said: "Is this feasible? I mean, when it comes to the tax bill, we will..."

"Don't worry." The Duke of Orleans said, "There are other forces that will cooperate with us this time, and everyone will see it soon. And you don't have to invest anything, you just need to return to your territory. Even if you don't succeed in the end, you won't have to worry about it." What will be lost?”

Duke Dulfo was the first to stand up and caressed his chest to Duke Orleans: "I will stand firmly on your side."

Then several more people agreed, until Duke Mushi nodded slowly: "This is necessary in order to maintain our tradition and glory."

Other great nobles immediately responded: "Yes! For the sake of tradition and glory."

"The royal family must understand something!"

"Duke Orleans, I listen to you..."

There was a scene of unity in the VIP room.

…

In the Petit Trianon Palace, Queen Mary handed an informant letter to Chief Minister Brian with an angry face: "Look, the Marquis de Saint-Villan is eroding the foundation of the country!"

Brian opened the letter in surprise, and saw that it revealed that the Marquis of Saint-Villain was eating too much money, that the soldiers could not even maintain normal training due to poor food, and that he purchased old weapons and passed them off as new weapons, extorting huge price differences, etc. matter.

The last signature is Gallon Guinard de Lewebel, the municipal commissioner of Paris.

Brian hesitated and said: "Your Majesty, there may be some misunderstanding in this. Should we send someone to investigate in detail?"

"I asked him why he was so slow when he sent troops to North Africa. It turned out that the troops were short of personnel and lacked training!" Queen Mary was worried that she could not find a reason to deal with the Marquis of Saint-Villan. How could she give up? "Such an incompetent officer He was actually the commander of an army of tens of thousands?

"I think he must be severely punished so that he will remember his responsibilities!"

Brian knew very well that the Marquis de Saint-Villan was a very influential military family in the south and it was inappropriate to touch him casually. He quickly advised: "Your Majesty, after all, this is just the one-sided statement of Viscount Lewebel..."

Halfway through his words, the queen's maid knocked on the door and handed her a letter sealed with lacquer: "Your Majesty, this has just been sent from Montpellier."

Queen Mary frowned and took out the letter and took a look at it. A sneer suddenly appeared on her lips and she handed the letter to Brian: "Read it yourself."

The latter hurriedly corrected the letter and saw that it was the Governor of Montpellier Province who had exposed a series of corruption behaviors by the Marquis of Saint-Viran. Probably because Montpellier is the headquarters of the Saint-Viran Legion, the content of the report is more detailed.

"This, but, Your Majesty..."

Queen Mary had a sullen face and waved her hand to interrupt him: "Archbishop Briand, please help me draft an injunction immediately and severely reprimand the Marquis Saint-Villan for corruption, disregard of military discipline, and dereliction of duty. Order him to immediately reduce the legion based on the actual number of soldiers and return. The embezzled money was deducted from his annuity for half a year!”

At this time, the majority of the funds for the old-style French army came from the military service tax directly intercepted by the army commander. The court also gave large annuities to high-ranking officers to help them support their troops.

But in fact, the phenomenon of shortfalls in the French army is extremely serious. Some troops even have more than one-third of their shortfalls. Not to mention annuities, even military service taxes mostly fall into the hands of military nobles. The soldiers received their military pay from the officers, almost forming a personal dependence on the officers.

Now that Queen Mary wants to reduce the size of the Marquis of Saint-Villan's army, the amount of military service tax allocated to him will be greatly reduced. Plus the annuity deduction, it will be like cutting his flesh with a knife.

Brianne wanted to persuade her again, but Queen Mary was so angry that she was not moved at all. Just after noon, the instruction signed by Louis XVI was sent to the province of Montpellier.

The queen did not stop and directly issued another instruction, reprimanding the war minister, the Marquis de Saint-Priest, for his serious hiring mistakes, causing him to reflect deeply and personally supervise the execution of the punishment for the Marquis de Saint-Viran.

Brian knew very well that the military aristocracy had always been a monolith, and the free pay and corruption were almost always obvious, but no one from the king to the civil servants dared to say anything.

And the Queen's two instructions issued today just stoked a hornet's nest.

He anxiously paced back and forth in the office, but he had no idea for a long time. Finally, he had to order his servants to prepare a car and go to the Tuileries Palace to discuss with His Royal Highness the Dauphin.

…

Nice city.

The two officials in charge of the grain reserve watched the carriage convoy going away and couldn't help complaining in a low voice: "I don't know what the big shots in the Palace of Versailles are thinking. They mobilize such a large transportation capacity to transport grain to Montpellier, and then have to transport grain from there." Grenoble shipped grain to replenish us."

"Huh, who knows? Anyway, we just need to count the quantities correctly."

The transport team came with a document signed by the Minister of the Interior to transfer grain. What could be the problem?

"Don't delay Grenoble. We only have less than 30,000 pounds in stock. If they are a few days late, there will be no bread to sell in the city."

At the same time, Grenoble's reserve grain depot also transported a large amount of grain, but the destination was still Montpellier. Their documents showed that food from Nice would be replenished in a few days.

In fact, in the past half month, grain depots throughout southern France have received documents from the Ministry of the Interior to carry out large-scale grain allocation.

But no one thought there was anything wrong. After all, there have been frequent food shortages in the past six months, and there have been many emergency food allocations before. Although the amount of this transfer is relatively large, according to past practices, food from other places will soon be replenished, so there is no need to worry at all.

...

Eastern and central France.

On the King's Road in southern Auvergne, the Marquis of Saint-Véran sat in a speeding carriage, looking at Paris hundreds of miles away, with a fierce smile on his face.

"Austrian cousin, I will return all the humiliation to you a hundredfold! I want you to know that without the military, the royal family is just a field mouse shivering in the cold wind!"

He looked at the letter in his hand for the tenth time. It was written by his nephew, who was also the major general of the Montcalm Corps, reporting to him that the Corps was ready and could be deployed at any time. And that food shortages began to appear in many places in Montpellier.

The Marquis of Saint-Vran imagined the pleasure of revenge, and his mind could not help but recall the secret meeting in the Duke of Orleans's private hunting ground more than ten days ago.

At that time, he was still tortured by anger and humiliation, which caused his shooting performance to be extremely abnormal.

"It's all the fault of that Austrian cousin! She is completely humiliating me!" He gritted his teeth and roared after missing a buck.

The war minister, the Marquis of Saint-Priest, also had a gloomy face: "Not just you, she wants to humiliate the entire military."

A slightly fat officer frowned and said: "But why would she do this? Offending the military will not benefit the royal family in any way."

The Duke of Orleans spurred his horse forward two steps, looked at the prey in the distance, and shouted: "Because she doesn't care about you at all."