Chapter 438: The Invalides

Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.

Franz was rarely bothered about dressing, which made Adjani feel a little strange.

Because Franz was not a person who paid attention to his clothes. He would wear a set of decent clothes according to the occasion.

Most of the clothes were arranged, and he rarely raised objections.

"Archduke Franz, where are you going? Are you going to meet your little lovers?" Adjani said with a smile.

"No, the theater matter has come to an end. Those people have their own livelihoods. Although there is still a component of selling sex, at least they will not starve or be too unbearable."

Franz's answer did not surprise Adjani. After all, in her heart, she should be more attractive than those girls.

"Then where are you going that makes you so entangled?"

Franz thought about it and answered.

"Les Invalides, you should also prepare to go with me later."

"Les Invalides?" Adjani asked with some doubts. She couldn't think of why Franz wanted to go to that kind of place.

First of all, excluding business, there are only a group of disabled and dying old people there, and she doesn't think there is any profit in those people.

Generally speaking, the elderly may accumulate wealth, knowledge, connections, and experience. So we often say that the elderly are a wealth. But the disabled veterans in the Invalides do not have these things. They are a group of people who deserve to die but have not died.

This is the view of disabled veterans in this era. Most people forget them in the corner of time, and a few people criticize them as worms who waste food and cowards who fear death.

The rulers hope to frame these people, but don't want to spend money on them.

Of course, there are some special existences. For example, Napoleon's empire has been destroyed for decades, but some people still remember it today. That is, Napoleon gave half of his inheritance to the veterans who once followed him.

Even if those people crossed the ocean and went to the United States and Brazil, they still remembered this kindness. They made a lot of contributions to the rise of Napoleon III and the development of the Second Empire in the future.

The second thing Ajani thought of was that they might be searching for some secret intelligence, but most of the people in the Invalides in Vienna were veterans from the Napoleonic Wars. Even if these people knew something, it would have been out of date.

"Don't guess blindly. Archduke Karl asked me to do this before he left. He said that although he couldn't help these soldiers who were loyal to the empire, as long as he walked around the Invalides from time to time, those villains would be more restrained.

But now he is leaving, and he is afraid that no one will deter those villains, so he wants me to do this for him."

Franz thought of Archduke Karl's helpless look, but his tone was so unquestionable.

"This should be considered a task."

Franz smiled self-deprecatingly.

"If you are going on patrol, it is better to wear a military uniform. Don't care about your military rank and those medals, and there is no need to feel ashamed for wearing this military uniform without having been on the battlefield.

You can wear a military uniform to visit them, which is the greatest respect for them."

Ajani is right. If Franz wears a luxurious formal suit to visit the veterans in the Invalides, it will be disrespectful to them.

At this time, there are still 570 people in the Invalides in Vienna, of which more than two-thirds entered the Invalides during the Napoleonic Wars.

In fact, the threshold requirements for the Invalides in Vienna are very high. Unless you are injured in a national war, you must be seriously injured to enter here.

Those who are injured in border frictions or in battles with bandits, gangs, and smugglers can only receive a pension at most, and are not eligible to enter the Invalides.

The veterans who enter the Invalides have another characteristic, that is, they are helpless. Most of them lost their families in the war, or they were excluded because of their loss of ability to work, so they chose to enter the Invalides.

Initially, some veterans with minor injuries or mild disabilities took care of those with severe disabilities, and the expenses were directly borne by the royal family and the government.

But soon, with the end of the war, the status of soldiers declined, and the management of the Invalides was transferred from the army to the imperial government.

Austria after the war was not in ruins, but in a mess. A large number of young and middle-aged people died, the buildings became ruins, and the government was heavily in debt.

Austria was the country that suffered the most damage in the Napoleonic Wars.

The Invalides became a useless place, and the veterans became waste among wastes.

If Archduke Karl and a group of veterans who participated in the Napoleonic Wars had not tried their best to stop it, I am afraid that the Austrian Imperial Government led by Prince Metternich and Count Korolov would have abolished it long ago.

But even if it was not abolished, it would be inevitable that it would be managed by officials.

One of the major drawbacks of the bureaucracy is the rampant corruption. Coupled with the fact that the Austrian Imperial Government had no money, life in the Invalides was naturally miserable.

Moreover, those high-ranking officials had no respect or awe for these disabled veterans.

Most civilians in the Austrian Empire could only eat two meals a day, while the veterans in the Invalides could only eat one meal a day. If they went too late, they would have to go hungry.

Those with disabled legs could only rush to the canteen half an hour before the meal. Some severely disabled people wanted to live in the canteen.

Some who really couldn't eat enough started to grow wild vegetables in the garden, until Archduke Karl remembered his soldiers again.

But when he came to the Invalides again, he found that those once passionate young men had become skinny monsters, and even fought with their brothers who had fought through life and death for a mouthful of porridge.

Archduke Karl shot the head of the Invalides on the spot, and bought flour and meat for the veterans out of his own pocket.

After that, he petitioned the Austrian imperial government, hoping that the government would allocate more funds to those who had shed their blood for the victory of the empire.

But the answer he got was that the burden of the empire was already heavy enough, and he also got a list of accounts, which clearly recorded the funds allocated by the government.

Although the money was not much, it could definitely ensure that every veteran had white bread to eat and could eat enough.

But Austrian officials of all sizes were corrupt, and in fact, there was not much money left in the hands of the Invalides. The head who was shot by Archduke Karl only embezzled a few thousand florins every year.

And although he was the emperor's younger brother, the impact of privately executing officers was still too bad.

Archduke Karl was ordered by the Emperor to leave Vienna, so he had no choice but to donate 100,000 florins to the Invalides every year and sent one of his most trusted stewards to supervise the use of the money.

However, when Archduke Karl returned to Vienna three years later, he found that his steward had absconded with the money, and the head of the Invalides was nowhere to be found.

The lives of the veterans did not improve much, but they only had one meal a day instead of one meal a day.

So Archduke Karl stopped donating and came to the Invalides every quarter to do what he could, so that they could at least have two meals a day.