I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 513: Paulie's Dead End
Judging from the few towns where votes have been counted, Oscar Paoli's influence in Corsica remains huge.

After all, his father was the founder of the Corsican Restorationists, who formed an army to drive out the Genoese rulers and even briefly gained independence. After France bought Corsica, Paoli led his own army to fight against France. Although he was defeated, his reputation had spread throughout Corsica.

Therefore, the Paulist MPs firmly held 35% of the votes.

The pro-French faction also emerged as a new force this time. Count Buttafuoco unexpectedly put aside his prejudices and joined forces with the liberals, winning nearly 30% of the votes.

Although the anti-Pauli faction spared no effort to publicize that Pauli had embezzled organizational funds and colluded with the French army, it seemed that not many people believed it, so that despite the huge financial sponsorship from Chalmers, they only won 15% of the votes.

The remaining nearly 20% of the votes were won by the centrists of the National Restoration Party.

You know, if the restorationists remain as united as before, they will most likely win more than 70% of the seats in parliament, thus meeting the seat requirements for legislation.

But now, they are fighting each other. No one even cares about the pro-French faction.

Southwest Corsica.

On the hillside outside Nongza Village, two sturdy men were observing the village in the valley through binoculars.

The dark-skinned man on the left kept nodding:

"Agosta did a good job, the fire starters were very well hidden."

He put down the telescope and said to the young man beside him:
"Okay, Filippo, let's go back to town first and take action tomorrow night. Oh, you may have heard the news. The situation of this election is not ideal."

The latter nodded: "It seems that those loyal to Mr. Paulie only received slightly more than one-third of the votes. Those traitors should go to hell!"

"Yes, so we must complete this mission. That will at least allow Elek and his men to return to Mr. Pauly's side."

"Yes, sir." Filippo gritted his teeth and nodded with difficulty, "I will definitely not let you down."

Nongza Village is a famous base for restoration members - there are more than 30 soldiers from Nongza in the National Self-Defense Force, so it is very difficult to find someone willing to come here to start a fire.

It took repeated persuasion from Paulie's nephew Cesaree before his three guards reluctantly accepted the task.

And Filippo was the one responsible for lighting the fire.

When the three arsonists returned to the nearby town of Quarle and entered the inn, they heard two businessmen with southern Italian accents laughing obscenely and whispering:

"That's right. When the police came in, Paulie hadn't put on any clothes yet. He just stood there in a daze. A dozen people nearby saw it. Haha."

"I didn't expect that the Corsicans worship him like a god, but he is just an old pervert."

"And he was a lecher. He didn't even want to pursue the girl, but just raped her. Well, the most unlucky one was her poor aunt, who was also killed by Paulie just because she cared about her niece..."

The two laughed lewdly again: "He has a very unusual taste. It is said that...ah, Miss Isabella's aunt is almost a grandmother, but he can still do that." "Haha, maybe Corsicans have this hobby..."

Filippo didn't hear it clearly, but he could make out words like "Paulie", "old pervert", "force", etc., and the extremely vulgar expressions on the faces of the two men made him furious. He rushed over and grabbed one of them by the collar, shouting:

"How dare you insult Mr. Paulie?!"

Agosta also pushed another businessman hard:
"You will pay for what you just said!"

The two businessmen were startled and hurriedly explained:
"What are you doing? I'm not saying anything. Oh, there's the news in the London Gazette."

"Yes, that Paulie has been arrested for rape. Miss Isabella's father was so angry that he almost killed him."

"No, impossible!" Filippo has been a fan of Paulie since he was a child, and he immediately roared and wanted to beat them up, "You are not allowed to slander Mr. Paulie!"

"Wait!" The older businessman held his head and pointed to his suitcase, "There's a copy of The Times over there. I remember it also reprinted this story. You can read it yourself..."

Filippo was stunned, threw him aside, turned around, opened the suitcase, and quickly took out a copy of The Times.

It was last week's newspaper, and on the second page there was indeed a huge headline: "Corsican political leader arrested for rape."

He looked down, trembling all over, and saw in the news that Paulie had lured a noble lady named Isabella to a small house in the suburbs and molested her. Isabella's aunt had suspected Paulie of having a problem, so she followed them quietly. When she heard the noise of a conflict after her niece entered the house, she went forward and knocked on the door, but she was also dragged into the house by Paulie...

There were a lot of detailed descriptions at the end of the article. Filippo didn't dare to read any more. He threw the newspaper aside and stared at the two businessmen.
"You lied to me! This isn't true!"

"Stubborn fellow." The businessman stepped forward to pack up his suitcase and taunted him. "There were more than a dozen witnesses at the time, and now the whole of England knows about it. Who is he to you? I suggest you protect your women."

Filippo fell down on a chair in the hotel, feeling as if his head was about to split open. He couldn't believe that Mr. Paulie, whom he had admired for so long, could do something worse than an animal...

Of course, these were all traps set by the French Intelligence Agency.

The only thing that made Fouché dissatisfied was that he really couldn't find a man who could seduce Paulie after wearing a skirt - if Dion de Beaumont was still young, he should be able to do this task [Note 1].

Therefore, he could only settle for the next best thing and find Isabella to seduce Paulie. However, in line with the principle of "if quality is insufficient, quantity will be sufficient", he arranged another victim, who was Paulie's aunt.

As a result, Poly became famous in the UK.

The next day, the distraught Filippo saw the newspaper sent from Ajaccio, which had reprinted the news from Britain and the content was more detailed. Battolio and the anti-Paoli parliamentarians would naturally not miss such a good opportunity. They tried their best to publicize the matter and even sent reporters to London to follow up on the report.

Filippo walked for some time with a copy of the Corsica Morning Post in his hand, when he suddenly looked up and saw the village of Nonza appear before him.

[Note 1] Dion de Beaumont (1728-1810) was a legendary French spy who was good at disguising himself as a woman. He was so beautiful that many nobles pursued him crazily. He also used his beauty to obtain a lot of intelligence from his prostitutes and was awarded many times by Louis XV.

(End of this chapter)