industrial lord

Chapter 529 High Threshold

Guillaume returned to Paris safely and met the landlord downstairs of the rented house.

This three-story building belongs to a baker. The landlord bakes bread and sells it on the first floor, lives on the top floor, and rents out the second floor to outsiders like Guillaume.

There is a bread oven on the first floor. The house on the second floor is very hot in the summer, but it saves a lot of firewood for heating in the winter.

The landlord is 20 years old. His parents retired last year and returned to their relatives' home in the countryside, so he officially inherited the family business.

But he couldn't handle it all by himself, and the store urgently needed a boss lady.

The landlady has basically already settled on the youngest daughter of a tailor from the next street, who is seventeen years old and is waiting for the landlord to propose to her.

The landlord was a young man with ideas. He gave Guillaume a gold coin that he had saved from his frugal life and asked him to bring back something beautiful as a marriage proposal gift when he went to the Duchy of Wesson.

Guillaume's backpack was very large, and inside it was a cowhide box containing documents such as the power of attorney, and the gift he bought for the landlord was also inside.

"Hiss..." The landlord was shocked when he opened the jewelry box, "Isn't this expensive?"

The box contained a set of jewelry made of colored crystal glass, including a necklace, earrings, bracelets and hairpins. They were dazzling in the midday sun and could not be bought without two or three gold coins in the city of Paris.

Guillaume smiled and said, "The gentleman I went to see this time works in a glass factory in the Duchy of Wessen. I bought it at the factory price, and I used the extra money to buy you a set of clothes, but you still owe me a few copper seeds."

As he spoke, he took out a set of blue blacksmith's clothes and a pair of white cloth shoes, which were sold very cheaply in the Principality of Wessen.

The landlord's eyes widened. He had wanted such a set of clothes and shoes for a long time, but he had never dared to spend money recklessly in order to save money for his wedding. He didn't expect that Guillaume would buy them for him in just one trip.

The few copper seeds he owed were not a big deal. He could just give him a few loaves of bread that he had just baked this morning, which were worth far more than those copper seeds.

Guillaume returned to his room, where there was only a bed and a cabinet. He used a low table on the bed for eating and writing. In the corner was a popular honeycomb coal stove, and a blanket was hung on the chimney that extended out of the window.

He put his backpack on the ground, the bread on the coffee table, and fell on the soft bed, taking a deep breath.

Before he left, he paid the tenant of the next room to help him clean the room every ten days and open the windows for ventilation. Half a year after he left, the room was still quite clean and had no odor.

This bed was not made of wooden boards. Guillaume could not afford large wooden boards at the time. Instead, he found some broken fishing nets, stacked them up and tied them to the bed frame. It felt elastic and soft when he lay on it.

The nerves that were tense during the long journey suddenly relaxed, and soon snoring was heard in the room.

The noisy noise of customers buying bread downstairs woke Guillaume up. He found that it was dawn outside the window and he slept until the next morning.

His body suddenly trembled, and he quickly felt his body with his hands, and finally he breathed a sigh of relief.

Guillaume took off his clothes and wore a "travel vest" underneath. There was a palm-sized pocket on the vest with several buttons on the opening, which contained the check that Frederick had given him last year.

He rested in his room that day. He went downstairs to get some wood ash, then fetched water from a nearby well. He washed all his clothes and spread the wrung clothes on the floor while people were baking bread downstairs.

The next day, Guillaume returned to school and asked for leave.

It is very common these days for students to ask for leave to work when they run out of money in the middle of their studies. The school leaders know what they are going to do and approve their leave according to the rules, but it will be difficult for them to come back.

The school's top management has decided that when Guillaume returns, he will be asked to provide proof that he can pay the remaining tuition in one lump sum, otherwise he will be asked to leave.

Guillaume didn't talk nonsense with them, and directly laid out nine gold coins on the table, most of which were florins from the Duchy of Wesson, and a few were livres from the Kingdom of Gaul. These gold coins were funded by his brothers to fight the lawsuit, but it didn't stop him from pretending that they were his own money.

The school had no choice but to let him readmit his school again.

This matter was just a trivial matter for Guillaume, and he didn't take it to heart. There were more important things waiting for him.

That afternoon, Guillaume brought a cowhide box to a tavern, which was their base.

There are quite a few students in the bar today, but the atmosphere is heavy. No one is talking and many are drinking beer or happy water in silence.

Guillaume's arrival brought some smiles to everyone, but many people became dejected again.

He asked a good friend: "Reno, what's wrong with everyone?"

"Alas..." Renault sighed, "The court has come up with a new trick. Suing a noble requires a huge deposit if it is a false accusation."

Guillaume thought that was indeed the case and asked, "How much bond do we need for this case?"

Renault held up two fingers.

"I have received a great deal of assistance," said Guillaume, "and I think it would be all right if we could all chip in a little more than two hundred livres."

Renault shook his head and said, "Two thousand livres."

Guillaume's eyes suddenly widened.

At the same time, in the noble court of Paris, two judges, Count Ferret and Sir Javert, were enjoying afternoon tea.

None of the judges in the noble court wanted to take over this case that would offend a large number of nobles, and in the end they could only draw lots to decide who would be in charge of the case.

There were fifteen judges in the court. When the lots were drawn, seven of the lots in the box had Count Ferret's name on them. This was because his backers almost ran away with their entire family to Weissembourg to get Françoise treated.

Sir Javert felt that he was the worst off, as he was assigned to be Count Ferret's assistant judge only the day before the drawing of lots.

"Your Excellency's method is great!" Javel flattered his leader. "They can't sue this time, and they won't be able to sue similar cases in the future either."

He and Ferret are now like grasshoppers tied to the same straw, rising and falling together.

Ferret smiled proudly, picked up the teacup and slowly took a sip of tea.

He knew he had been cheated, but it was too late to undo the situation, so he kept thinking about ways to break the impasse.

The easiest way to avoid offending the masters in this lawsuit is to prevent the students from suing. The students' weakness is that they have no money, so he starts with money.

So Ferret pushed for a new bill in a short period of time, requiring commoners to pay a high deposit when suing nobles. This was done under the pretext of prohibiting false accusations, but in fact it set an unattainable threshold for commoner plaintiffs in such cases.

This bill is very effective. They found out that the students were very disappointed these days.

Ferret deliberately arranged the time for the bill to be announced and take effect, specifically when those students who had gone out to collect indictments came back one after another. Many people were caught off guard and their morale plummeted for a time.

(End of this chapter)