I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 381: Closing the Net and Catching Fish

The rioting peasants immediately followed suit and shouted, "Don't be afraid! Come on, everyone!"

"Fight those nobles!"

"We are in numbers, don't be afraid! Beat them up!"

However, it was the nobles who launched the first attack.

Two gunshots rang out from the nobles' ranks. The leading noble "commander" immediately frowned and turned around and shouted, "Who is shooting randomly?!"

The Southern Netherlands undercover who had just fired the gun hid behind the others and shouted, "We must let the @% of the untouchables know how powerful we are!"

"@%#, they are rioting, use our swords to defend the city hall!"

"For the sake of His Majesty, warriors, teach those untouchables a lesson!"

Most of the nobles who came here were young men. After being instigated like this, their blood immediately rushed to their heads, and another twenty or thirty people began to raise their guns and shoot.

The peasants on the opposite side initially shrank back in fear, but encouraged by liberal leaders such as Saint Just, they quickly calmed down and raised their guns to fight back.

The two sides were shouting and cursing at each other at both ends of the street, which was nearly a hundred steps apart, and kept firing at each other. For a moment, the noise and gunshots mixed with gun smoke soon enveloped the two nearby blocks.

However, although their momentum was very huge, both sides were rookies who had never been on the battlefield. In addition, the distance was too far, and after fighting for a long time, few people were hit by bullets.

At this moment, whistles suddenly sounded around the streets, and more than 400 police officers were divided into two teams and surrounded the conflicting parties from behind.

Lance had been a troubled place recently, and the police were on alert almost all day. However, due to the limitations of the communication level of this era, it took them more than an hour to gather enough people to disperse the rioters.

The peasants immediately fell into chaos. Some continued to "fight" under the command of Saint Just and his men, some had already escaped into the cracks between the surrounding buildings, and more were looking around in panic, not knowing what to do.

The nobles, on the other hand, became complacent and began to speak arrogantly and provocatively, or swear loudly, and some even directed the police from a distance to intercept the fleeing peasants.

As the whole street was in chaos, several men in gray coats and felt hats pulled down very low came out from the corner, showed their intelligence agency credentials to the police leader, and then pointed in the direction of the nobles.

The police immediately turned and ran towards the nobles, and soon surrounded the more than 200 people.

Several young nobles stepped forward and pointed fingers at the police. After the police reform, most of the police were civilians. Although they were well trained, they were still looked down upon by the nobles. They shouted, "Don't just stand there. The rioters are about to run away!"

"What are you going to do? There are nobles here, and the people you want to arrest are over there."

The leading security inspector looked at the men coldly and said in a deep voice, "Were you the ones who fired the first shot?"

"Yes," a curly-haired noble said proudly, "You policemen can't deal with those untouchables, so let us teach them a lesson!"

"You all participated in the fight just now?"

"That wasn't a fight, we were maintaining..."

Before the nobleman finished speaking, the public security inspector winked at the surrounding policemen and gestured to the nobles in front of him: "Arrest all those who participated in the riot!"

"Yes, sir!"

The nobles panicked immediately. Some of them started to curse, some showed off their prominent status, and most of them argued with the police, "What do you want to do? Those untouchables on the other side of the riot!"

“Let me go, I’m here to quell the riot…” “Let me go, you see, I don’t even have a gun.”

In a moment, more than 200 arrogant nobles were pinned down by the police and made to stand in a row against the wall facing the street.

The police inspector walked past them and said coldly: "Gathering and shooting citizens in Reims without permission, no matter who you are, this is a riot!
"As for those who didn't bring guns, your swords could still kill people, but we stopped them in time."

A captain beside him came over and whispered, "Sir, they are all nobles, and some of them are of extraordinary status. Look..."

The police inspector glared at him and said, "Can nobles gather together to riot?"

"No, can't..."

"Take them all away!"

"Yes!"

In the pocket of the police inspector was an order signed by the chief of police himself, ordering him to arrest all the nobles who had caused trouble, so he was very calm at this moment and did not care about his identity at all.

Of course, the Chief of Police received instructions from His Royal Highness the Crown Prince to arrest the nobles who "participated in the riot" on such a large scale.

When Joseph heard Talleyrand mention that many nobles were instigated to go to the northwestern provinces to "protect the interests of the nobles", he immediately realized that this was a very useful handle.

So he asked Fouché to send people to keep an eye on those nobles, and told the police department not to hesitate and to arrest as many as possible if there was evidence.

……

Zephyr Village.

Saint Just shouted to encourage the hundreds of peasants in front of him: "Don't be afraid of those nobles. Most of them can't walk a mile with a gun on their backs. We almost defeated them today.

"Although we didn't storm the city hall the day before yesterday, we will have more people next time, so we will definitely be able to..."

The peasants followed him from time to time, waving their arms or shouting loudly, and the crowd was very excited. After these two riots, they were no longer so afraid of the police, and as Mr. Saint Just said, more and more people gathered around them.

Next time, there will probably be two thousand people storming the city hall together. By then, why would they care about just a few hundred policemen?
Especially those farmers who made the most noise and were at the forefront, and who also received subsidies from the "Committee" of the Southern Netherlands, were now even more eager to take action.

Saint Just continued his speech: "In order to avoid being sucked blood by those nobles for another 50 years, we must unite and use..."

Just as he was filled with passion, the parish priest Joly came running over breathlessly, waving his hands and shouting to the farmers: "Everyone, be careful, don't be fooled by the ill-intentioned Southern Netherlanders!"

Saint Just frowned and looked at him and said, "Priest who has sold his soul, do you think your tricks of sowing discord will work?"

More than a dozen mounted policemen following Father Jolly finally arrived at the gathering ground - not all mounted policemen were on horseback, and many rural mounted policemen were on foot.

The leader glanced coldly at Saint Just, jumped onto the stone platform where the latter was giving a speech, and then took out a letter from his pocket and showed it to the farmers present: "Everyone, take a look, this is the letter from the Southern Netherlands Parliament to your Mr. Saint Just.

"It said that the Southern Netherlands provided money and guns, and that Mr. Saint Just was responsible for inciting the peasants to start riots in French cities. Their excuse was that the government would set a high land redemption fee.

"Oh, you can come up and see for yourself, here is Mr. Saint Just's signature...

(End of this chapter)