King's Landing in France

Chapter 26 The Young Incorruptible

After making the decision, Mirabeau stood up, took a sip of the sweet tea, and said to An Ning, "Let's go, there will be something to eat when we arrive at the club, so we won't have lunch."

An Ning: "You forgot that I am a commoner, and commoners only have two meals a day, morning and evening."

In fact, An Ning is used to three meals a day, but his body is an aborigine occupying this time and space, so he is used to two meals a day.

Mirabeau: "I eat almost twice a day, but I have to eat something in the afternoon to satisfy my stomach, or I will be hungry at night. All right, let's go, Mrs. Evans, I will be back in the evening."

The old lady nodded.

Fanny asked, "Do you want me to help hire a carriage?"

"No, we can just stop one on the street." Mirabeau waved his hand, "Go back to the Duke's house and wait."

Fanny nodded, then pressed her hands on the maid's skirt and bowed to An Ning: "Then I'll go home first, and I hope you can meet Mr. Robespierre smoothly, master."

"Well, be careful on the way back." An Ning waved her hand.

Mirabeau: "Did you walk here?"

"Yes, after all, the place where I live is only one block from your place, and I didn't know it was so close." An Ning responded.

"But to go to the Breton club, you have to take a car. After all, you have to cross two and a half districts of Paris."

Mirabeau said so.

At this time, the city of Paris was already quite large, only a little smaller than the later urban area of ​​Greater Paris.

Later, France decided to build a fortress-style wall around Paris to surround the whole of Paris. The outline of this wall almost coincides with the outline of modern Paris.

It can only be said that France at this time already has the basis for a civil revolution: there are a large number of citizens.

The great Paris and the people of Paris were the foundation of everything that came after.

Theoretically speaking, there are only two cities in modern Europe that have the basis for civil revolution, one is Paris and the other is London, but Britain has been bourgeoisized after the Glorious Revolution, so the Great Revolution finally broke out in France.

As soon as Mirabeau went out, he immediately stopped a carriage.

An Ning drove across the city of Paris in a carriage.

He leaned on the car window, looked at the bustling streets of Paris outside the car window, and once again lamented the prosperity of the city.

Seeing An Ning's expression, Mirabeau said beside him: "You can't see such a scene in your hometown, right? Paris has the most cafes, pubs and tennis courts, and there are salons everywhere in the afternoon. The wives of young bourgeois imitating the ladies at the salon."

An Ning: "Aren't gentlemen going to the salon?"

"Gentlemen want to work, as clerks, lawyers, doctors, or engineers." Mirabeau laughed at himself. "A pen funded by the duke, like me, can often attend ladies' salons."

An Ning joked: "I guess these salons also provide you with a lot of writing inspiration."

"Isn't it? I'm afraid you don't know. The queen's love history I wrote was first told to me by the wives. For example, the queen's Swedish lover was first rumored by the wives, and then it came to my ears. of."

An Ning: "Then you let the whole of Paris know. Did the Swede restrain himself afterward?"

"Not at all. In fact, it is basically an open matter for noble wives to have lovers. Without one or two lovers, it will make people feel abnormal. Correspondingly, husbands will also have mistresses, but our king is a bit special..."

An Ning joked, "He prefers to play with locks?"

"Yes. So he doesn't have a mistress, which is unique in the Parisian aristocratic circle."

An Ning raised her eyebrows, suddenly thought of something, and asked, "The Duke of Orleans—I mean, does Mr. Tollestern have a mistress?"

"Of course, the Duke's wife also has a friend, but the Duke's wife's friend is a beauty in men's clothing, Ms. Oscar, the colonel of the guards guarding the palace."

An Ning almost spit out, Ms. Oscar, or an officer of the Palace Guards, what is the plot of "The Rose of Versailles"?

But in the Rose of Versailles, Oscar and Queen Mary have a lily.

Wouldn't Oscar, the beauty in men's clothing, die in the battle at the main gate of the Bastille in the end like in the comics?
What kind of messed up world line did I cross over to?
Mirabeau: "Okay, here we are."

An Ning got out of the car and looked at the building in front of her: "Church?"

"The monastery and the chapel were leased to the Bretons, so they became a meeting place." Mirabeau shrugged, "In places like Paris, churches generally have no land, so they can only open the place to donations. The believers are used as public venues, and many clubs are opened in the monastery.”

An Ning let out an "oh".

Mirabeau led him to the main building of the monastery.

As soon as you enter the door, you feel as if you have entered a cafe. The gentlemen are gathered around the table in groups of three and five, discussing loudly.

An Ning heard a young gentleman at the table next to the door say loudly: "It is a mistake to form an alliance with Austria! We should form an alliance with Britain!"

"Are you kidding me, have you forgotten the Hundred Years' War? The maiden of Orleans will cry in heaven!" Another gentleman retorted loudly.

But the young gentleman was unmoved: "But look at the current situation! Over [-]% of our colonial trade has been cut off by the British. The supply of tobacco, chocolate and coffee in Paris is in short supply, and even sugar has become extremely expensive! But what influence does Austria have? Austria has no colonies and is completely unaffected!"

An Ning couldn't help but interjected: "Although it seems so, isn't the essential reason why our navy has never fought the Royal Navy?"

The gentlemen who were discussing loudly immediately turned their heads and looked at An Ning suspiciously.

"Who are you?" The young man who spoke asked suspiciously.

Anning: "Andy Frost, from Caen."

As soon as the voice fell, the gentleman who just said don't forget the feud with the British said loudly: "Oh! I heard about you, the man who defeated that Reginald yesterday! Well done, that Reginald has been looking down on you People with noble titles often come to provoke us."

The young gentleman who was staring at An Ning aggressively just now also changed his friendly expression: "Good job! Last time that guy provoked me in the salon, saying that my father is just the clerk of the nobleman. Damn it , my father is obviously the prosecutor in the town!"

An Ning: "In Reginald's view, it probably doesn't matter what position the civilians have, they are all civilians anyway."

"Even among the aristocrats, there are very few such idiots." Another gentleman said disdainfully, "I found a rule, the more rural aristocrats, the more likely they are such idiots. Many big aristocrats in the city have Open arms to common people, like the Duke of Orleans."

At this time Mirabeau intervened: "That's right, many of the enlightened nobles agree with Rousseau and Montesquieu. This is a trend. It's because Reginolde, a country noble, can't keep up with the times. I just went to Having greeted the others, allow me to introduce you, Mr. Frost, this is Georges Jacques Danton of Troyes."

An Ning looked at the young man suspiciously.

This is actually Dandong, one of the giants of the Jacobin Club. An Ning's impression of Dandong still maintains the image in later movies and TV dramas. He is gentle, wearing a white wig, and looks bookish.

It turned out to be such a young stunned young man!
He looks less than 20 years old!

Wait a minute, An Ning vaguely remembered that when Dandong was sent to the guillotine, he was only in his early thirties, so shouldn't he be a young boy now?

So their images and impressions of later generations are different, not because the world line is wrong, but because I came early?

Dandong held out his hand: "Nice to meet you! I heard that you are still a war hero who has won the Legion Service Medal?"

An Ning held Danton's hand: "Indeed, but the medal has not been issued to me. Considering that my only contribution in the war was to save the eldest daughter of Duke Tollestire, maybe General Carnegie's application for the medal will be accepted." Rejected."

Danton: "No, now that the war has made everyone's life worse, His Majesty needs something to distract everyone. They will give you a medal. But you just said that the current bad situation is mainly due to the Navy Can't beat the Royal Navy..."

An Ning: "Isn't it?"

"Of course not! Not long ago, when the North American colonies fought for independence, the navy won the battle, so we were able to send the Marquis of Lafayette to North America to beat up Cornwallis' British army!"

An Ning: "Although the navy won the North American War of Independence, Britain with its naval tradition is not so easy to defeat. After a few years, he licked his wounds and defeated our fleet again. He wants to defeat the navy with a long history. In traditional England, we had to adopt technological innovations, such as installing steam engines on warships, building coal-burning ships, or adopting new types of artillery with breech loading..."

An Ning is also a veteran Wu Zhai, and he will talk about these things if he is not careful.

However, several gentlemen laughed together as if they had heard a joke.

Dandong still patted An Ning on the shoulder: "It's a shame you can figure it out, use coal to propel the boat, are you going to use a steam engine to paddle?"

An Ning: "You can use a paddle wheel to paddle..."

"My God, Paddle! He wants to put wheels on the boat!"

Another gentleman shook his head and said, "The breech-loading gun will never appear, because the airtightness of the barrel cannot be solved. When the gun is fired, most of the gunpowder will leak from the back instead of spraying out from the muzzle."

"The airtightness of a flintlock is bad enough. It is often heard that a man who burns his cheek when he fires it wants to use it on a cannon!"

The gentlemen commented on An Ning's idea in one go, as if they all thought it was a whimsical idea.

Mirabeau also looked at An Ning with a smile, and said to An Ning, "Entertaining everyone is a good way to integrate into a new group."

It seems that Mirabeau thought that An Ning made violent remarks deliberately to make everyone laugh.

At this moment, a voice joined the conversation: "What are you laughing at? No one knows what the future will hold. Since you can believe that nobles will be equal to common people one day, why can't you believe in coal-burning sailboats and breech-loading bombs?" Cannons? In my opinion, these are easier to achieve than the ideal of equality for all!"

Everyone turned their heads to look at the speaker.

An Ning looked at this man carefully: he was probably in his early twenties, but he was not as unkempt as Dandong. He was wearing a green overcoat and the wig on his head was carefully worn.

He wore gold-rimmed glasses, but even those couldn't hide the heavy dark circles under his eyes.

Danton obviously knew the newcomer: "Come on, Maximilian, when did you become an engineer playing with steam engines again?"

An Ning realized that the serious young man in front of him was the famous "Incorruptible" and "Roman" Maximilian François Marie Isidore de Robespierre.

(End of this chapter)