I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 480: Mara's Combat Strength
Western suburbs of Paris.

In an office at the Notarial Investigation Bureau headquarters, Joseph looked at Desmoulin in front of him, glanced at the work report he had just brought, and said casually:

"Is Mr. Mara not here?"

"Yes... yes... Your Highness," said Desmoulins, the second-in-command of the Bureau of Investigation. "He... he went to Poitou the day before yesterday."

Joseph remembered that the Earl of Norfolk, the Governor of Poitou, was one of the two governors who opposed the abolition of the tax farmer system, and nodded slightly:
"Is he going to inquire into the Earl of Norfolk's affairs?"

"No... no." Demoulin shook his head. "It's... it's the water conservancy construction department that embezzled the repair... fees."

Joseph frowned, then looked through the investigation bureau's work report in his hand and asked:

"Has Mr. Mara arranged a large number of new investigation tasks recently?"

"Yes... yes... Your Highness."

Desmoulins helped him turn to the last few pages, and indeed there were quite a few investigation plans.

But when Joseph took a quick look, his brows furrowed even deeper - most of these investigation tasks only had one investigator assigned to them, and the deadline was 5 to 8 days. What could be found out with so few people and time?

Shit! Joseph realized that Mara was just playing me. He didn't check it seriously at all.

Joseph was a little annoyed. If the Intelligence Bureau was not far less efficient than the Notary Investigation Bureau in investigating corruption, and if intelligence personnel investigating officials would cause criticism from officials, he really wanted to hand the matter over to Fouché.

He was about to reprimand Desmoulins, but suddenly remembered that doing so might have a counterproductive effect on the Jacobins, so he sighed, got up and left.

"It seems that we need to increase the intensity of Mr. Mara's work."

Joseph got on the carriage, thought for a moment, and said to Emmanuel, "Go to the Intelligence Bureau."

"Yes, Your Highness."

……

Bourges, south-central France.

Cecilien, a second-class investigator at the Notarial Investigation Bureau, was flipping through the municipal revenue and expenditure accounts out of boredom and couldn't help yawning.

As Mr. Mara said, there was nothing wrong with the municipal commissioner Baron Bassion and the municipal finance officer Mr. Comou, and the investigation was just a pathetic political manipulation.

The accounts were very clean. Cecilien had checked the bank accounts of the two men in the past few days and visited some officials familiar with them, and there were no problems.

"That's it." He closed the account book and stood up. "In two days we can go back to Paris. This time it's like a vacation."

He left the town hall and was about to hail a carriage when suddenly a burly man with his hat brim pulled low jumped out from the left corner and bumped into him.

"Hey, you walk so gracefully!"

Cecilien protested loudly to the man, but the latter seemed not to hear him and lowered his head, blending into the crowd of pedestrians.

When Cecilien returned to the hotel and was about to take out the key to open the door, his fingertips touched a piece of paper in his pocket.

He remembered that he had never put anything like this in his pocket, so he took it out and checked it. He saw only two sentences on it: Go back to Paris, there is nothing here. It's not too late to leave now. If you continue, you will definitely encounter an accident!
Cecilien's face flushed immediately. He was the investigator personally selected by Marat, and his character and values ​​were typical of Jacobins. He gritted his teeth and growled:

"You shameless guy, do you think you can scare me like this?! For the benefit of the people, I must expose your dirty deeds to the public!" He tore up the note, went into the house and wrote a letter to the Investigation Bureau. The main content was that he felt there must be serious problems in Bourges and that the investigation time needed to be extended, so he asked his superiors for approval.

Then he went out again, thought for a moment, and, following the technique that Mr. Marat had taught him before, went straight to the residence of the most famous journalist in Bourges.

The man who bumped into him outside the City Hall door couldn't help but smile when he saw him leaving. That night he wrote a letter to his boss at the Intelligence Bureau to report that the "Ignite" plan was progressing smoothly.

At the same time, investigators across France who were investigating the more than 40 officials also encountered various situations.

Some people were threatened with knives by gangsters to stop their investigations. Some people were robbed of all the investigative materials they had collected. Some people watched the documents they wanted to read being burned.

Soon, these investigators, who were as stubborn as Mara, became furious!

They had previously thought that these officials were innocent and were just victims of political struggles, but now it seems that none of them are clean. They felt guilty before they had even started investigating.

If we don't get to the bottom of this, how can we give justice to the French people?
Of course, these threats and other things were specially arranged by Fouché's agents according to the instructions of the Crown Prince. They were not good at investigating corruption, but they were familiar with these things.

Marat, who was conducting an investigation in Poitou, received a large number of investigation requests within a few days. When he saw what his men had encountered, he was also furious.

He immediately wrote to Desmoulins, instructing him to send more people to assist the threatened investigators, even if he had to suspend some unimportant tasks, and to thoroughly investigate the officials involved!

The entire Notary Investigation Bureau suddenly entered a state of "madness".

……

More than half a month later.

Palace of Versailles.

Mara stood in front of the crown prince with a guilty look on his face, blaming himself:

"Your Highness, I wrongly accused you before. Please accept my sincere apology. As you expected, those officials are indeed problematic."

"I have never blamed you. It turns out that your work is as excellent as ever." Joseph smiled as he opened the report sent by Marat. In less than 20 days, this "piranha"-like fighter had dug out solid evidence of crimes committed by 16 officials!

It was mainly corruption, but also included abuse of power for personal gain, collusion between officials and businessmen, smuggling, and even a murder case!

For a moment, Joseph had a feeling that he should let Marat manage the Intelligence Bureau. The efficiency of its clue-finding efforts would definitely put Fouché's men to shame.

However, he immediately dismissed the idea. The Intelligence Agency needed to do a lot of "dirty work", and with Marat's character, there was no need to expect him to do it. Only someone like Fouché would execute any of his orders without hesitation.

Joseph showed the 16 reports and said to Mara in a deep voice:

"Please treat these parasites and vampires impartially."

The Notary Investigation Bureau has the power to arrest directly, and can detain people even longer than the police without evidence. After finalizing the evidence, they only need to submit an application to Joseph, and after approval, they can directly initiate public prosecution.

"Yes, Your Highness!"

Joseph nodded with satisfaction, then looked at the investigation reports of the remaining 30-odd officials who had not yet obtained conclusive evidence, and couldn't help but frowned slightly.

(End of this chapter)