I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 522 Heaven (asking for monthly pass at the end of the month)

At night, the city of Paris is illuminated by gas lamps as bright as day, and the streets are crowded with pedestrians, even more lively than during the day - many workers do not get off work until 8 pm. Only then can they finally take a break, go out to buy some daily necessities, walk around, and relax their tired bodies after a busy day.

The dilapidated shantytown outside Antoine Town was still dark, with only occasional screams or curses indicating that people still lived there.

However, this is already considered a relatively acceptable area in the suburbs of Paris. After all, it is not far from the town of Antoine where workshops are everywhere. It is not difficult for people living here to find some jobs in the town. Although the income is not high, it can barely fill their stomachs.

At this time, in a small room made of broken wooden boards, a woman who looked to be in her forties, with her head wrapped in a gray-white cloth and wearing a gray coarse linen dress that had been patched countless times, was washing clothes vigorously under the dim starlight coming in from the window. Her hands were rough and swollen, and there was a layer of dead skin on her lips. She looked like a woman from the lower class who worked all day but could barely make ends meet.

"Dommy, go hang it up. Remember not to get too close to Frank's clothes, or his wife might take them away again."

She took a black dress-style coat out of the basin and handed it to a teenage boy beside her. Then she put her swollen fingers into her mouth, letting the temperature of her mouth slightly relieve the severe pain there.

She looked at the figure on the bed next to her, hesitated for a moment, pulled out her finger and said, "Paul, have you heard? The government said that you can go to the tax bureau to appeal against the unreasonable taxation in the past..."

The man on the bed wanted to turn over and face her, but he was too tired to move a finger. He only responded vaguely: "Well, I heard Mr. Pierre mention it during the day."

The woman got up excitedly and walked towards the bed. Suddenly, she felt something soft under her feet. A "squeak" sounded immediately in the dim room, and a mouse scurried out of the window.

The woman was so frightened that she staggered and knocked over the wooden tub and basin used for washing clothes, and the cold water immediately poured into her shoes.

"Oh, my God..."

She fumbled with her hands to lift up the bucket, and found that there was not much water left in it. She immediately murmured in tears: "It's over, it's all over. I'm afraid I won't be able to finish washing these clothes tonight..."

If she failed to deliver the laundry on time, she would be deducted 5 sous, which meant that two of the children would have no breakfast the next morning, or she and all the children would have only half the usual amount of bread.

The man on the bed heard the noise, struggled to get up, raised his hand to touch the dining table, and after determining the direction, he hurried over to support his wife, patted her back and comforted her: "It's okay, dear, we will go to the Tiny River to fetch water immediately, we should still have time."

He found the wooden barrel, lifted it up with all his strength, turned around and said to the boy outside, "Duomi, take good care of your brothers, your mother and I will be back soon!"

"understood."

A moment later, four little boys ranging in age from 4 to 10 leaned against the creaking door frame and watched their parents disappear into the night.

Mrs. Leonor followed her husband, holding the large wooden basin, and whispered timidly, "I'm so sorry, Paul... Will this affect your work tomorrow?"

The man shook his head silently. Without these three hours of sleep, he would definitely have a hard time recovering his strength tomorrow, but in order not to worry his wife, he didn't want to say it.

At worst, he could "go down to the pit" tomorrow, so he could carry less soil. Although it wasn't his day to "go down to the pit", it was better to be nauseous and vomit for a few days than to have his wages deducted.

The two walked in the night for a while, and Mrs. Leonor thought of the previous topic again, and said to the figure beside her: "Paul, maybe we can try the tax bureau. I have all the receipts and penalty documents from that year. If it really works..."

Leonor sighed and said tiredly, "It's useless. Those are just means used by bureaucrats to show off their political achievements. Master Boca paid a lot of taxes to the king. How could the tax bureau's master offend him?"

After another silence, the woman looked up at the starry sky and said slowly, "Dad, do you still remember our old Sophie?"

Sophie is his old horse. Of course, that was 5 years ago.

"That year, it farted constantly, refused to eat, and was so weak that it could hardly stand up. You said we should just sell it to the butcher, but I refused to let you. Later, I held it and fed it oats for half a month, and I didn't expect it to recover! The next year, with its help, we harvested 270 bushels of wheat! Do you remember that year when we danced around the threshing floor, and I was pregnant with John..."

Leonor muttered, "Why do you bring this up?"

"That was the happiest time of my life!" The woman excitedly raised the basin high, just like when she danced in the village threshing ground with her eldest son Domi, but tears welled up in her eyes. "Let's go and give it a try. Poca shouldn't have taken our land, and poor old Sophie. If we can get these back, we can return to the village and continue...

"Even if the tax bureau masters really don't care, we won't be any worse off than we are now, right?"

Leonor sighed and said, "But that will take at least a whole day. When I passed Coles Street, I saw that the tax office was already surrounded by people. Maybe even a whole day's queue would not be enough.

"You know, if I work one day less, we won't have bread. And we might even be fined an extra day's wages, and then we..."

"It doesn't matter! I can take on 10 more pieces of clothing starting tomorrow. It only takes half a month to save enough bread for a day. Please, just give it a try!"

Leonor stopped, turned around, took his wife's hand, gently stroked the red and swollen area, and carefully avoided the two ulcers.

"Look at your hands. You need rest, not more clothes."

During the day, she took on the job of making rattan baskets, and her fingers were often pierced by the bamboo strips. After dark, she had to work as a laundry worker, soaking her injured hands in ice water, causing the wounds to swell and fester repeatedly.

Leonor knew that she had lost sensation in the little and ring fingers of her left hand. Father Hugo, the parish priest, said it would be best to amputate them, otherwise the whole arm would eventually be damaged.

But they simply don't have the money to do this operation.

Not to mention the cost of the operation, even if a doctor was willing to amputate her leg for free, she would not dare to accept it because she would not be able to do anything for at least a month after the operation, and their child would probably starve to death with Leonor's meager salary.

"No! I'd rather let them all rot!"

Madame Leonore suddenly pulled her hand back with all her might and shouted, “In one day, or at most two days, maybe we can get our land back!
"You never have to push that damn dirt truck again, and you'll never have to deal with that poisonous stuff again!

"I heard from Mrs. Frank that if you come into contact with that thing too much, you'll probably go blind. One of her distant relatives was like that."

"Please, we will only eat Mr. Maxence's bread for a while. But if it works, we will go back to heaven again!"

Maxence was the most unscrupulous baker in Antoine Town - at least half of his bread was sawdust, and sometimes even soil was mixed in. But there was one advantage, that is, the price of 4 pounds of bread was 1 sou cheaper than other shops.

Heaven?

Leonor was stunned.

He used to be a farmer and didn't know any skills. After his land was mortgaged to Boca, he could only come to Paris and do some of the cheapest jobs that no one was willing to do.

For example, now he works for a dye factory. Specifically, he uses a wheelbarrow to transport a kind of soil containing some "alkaline substance" from a place seven or eight miles away to the factory, and then pours it into the big pool and mixes it with the highly toxic liquid. It is said that the soil can reduce the toxicity in the water. This job is not bad in other aspects, but every ten days he has to go to the bottom of the pool and stir the soil poured in with a shovel. At that time, he will be very close to the toxic liquid. After working for a day, he will inevitably feel dizzy, and his eyes and lungs will hurt like fire...

In comparison, I used to go to my own fields early in the morning to turn the soil, water them, and return home at dusk. Although I was exhausted and my whole body ached, and there was not much food left after paying rent and taxes every year, the whole family always had something to eat, my wife's hands and my own eyes were still intact, it was really like heaven.

He found that he had almost forgotten his life back then.

I am almost exhausted by more than 14 hours of heavy work every day. My only remaining energy is on that small piece of bread. How can I think about anything else?

His wife was still talking, "Domi is 10 years old and still can't read. Father Hugo said that Mark can also go to the church to learn literacy, but now they have to clean chimneys every day to make money.

"If they can't read, they won't be able to find a job that pays well in the future...

"By the way, I heard from Mr. Faustin from the laundry that the order for the tax bureau to review the tax accounts was issued by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. Perhaps those bureaucrats dare not..."

A gleam of light suddenly flashed in Leonor's cloudy eyes.

He clearly remembered that when he first moved to Paris, gangs were rampant and thieves were more numerous than mosquitoes in summer. He had to go home with a dozen or so co-workers every day.

Later, it was the Crown Prince who launched a massive police reform. He witnessed with his own eyes those majestic policemen shouting "In the name of the Crown Prince" as they drove batches of gang members into a dead end with guns and then kidnapped them all.

Since then, their living environment has become much safer. Going out to fetch water after 10 pm like now was unthinkable a few years ago.

There was also the magic medicine that could cure almost all diseases - the blessing of the prince. It could be bought for just a few sous. The other medicines prescribed by the doctors in the town cost more than 1 franc. Many of his and his neighbors' children were saved by this medicine, especially when they had a fever. They could get better quickly after taking a few pills.

Leonor then recalled the spectacular scene of His Royal Highness the Dauphin leading a triumphal army through the city of Paris at the beginning of the year. At that time, His Royal Highness was like a god of war radiating golden light.

Perhaps, those bureaucrats would not dare to disobey the instructions of the God of War.

Thinking of this, he made up his mind instantly and nodded to his wife, "Dear, let's try it."

……

Paris.

Coles Street.

Leonor sat on the ground exhausted, his stomach rumbling. Queuing was not a physical activity, so he only brought half a pound of bread as a daily ration.

Just then, a voice came from the front: "Next."

"It's your turn." Someone reminded Leonor.

He was suddenly startled, stood up and walked towards a row of tables in front of the State Administration of Taxation.

A young recorder looked up at him and asked, "What's your name and what do you want to complain about?"

"I... I'm Paul Guessin Leonor. I... I think five years ago the tax collector, Master Pocar, said I owed taxes..."

Leonor swallowed nervously, and mustered up the courage to say, "And they fined me. I want to ask, is this unreasonable..."

The recorder at the tax bureau took a few documents from him and nodded politely, "Can you tell me the details?"

Leonor recalled what Pierre, the factory manager, had done for him, took a deep breath and said, "It was a little cold that spring. You know, that would slow down the growth of wheat.

"Sure enough, the wheat had just started to ear in May. Then Master Poka suddenly sent someone to inform the village that this year's taxes had to be paid in advance, in mid-June.

“In previous years, we could have started harvesting in mid-June. But that year the wheat didn’t mature until July.

"The tax collector came to my house three times to collect taxes and beat me. But the wheat had not been harvested yet, and I had nothing to give him. So he said I owed a lot of taxes and fined me twice the tax..."

Leonor's voice was a little choked, and his lips trembled as he tried to speak: "At that time, in order to increase spring planting, I borrowed 30 livres from Master Poca at high interest.

"I calculated that even if I sold all the crops from the land, after paying him back, it would still not be enough to pay the tax..."

He sighed heavily again: "The tax collector tied me to a tree at the entrance of the village for two days and two nights. My wife was pregnant at the time, and she was frightened and had a miscarriage...

"Oh, God! I really had no choice but to mortgage all my land and livestock to Master Boca. In the end, I still owed him 15 livres, which I paid off completely until last year."

Leonor's eyes were red as he looked at the recorder: "Master, you know, taxes used to be paid at the end of July. If the tax had not been levied in advance that year, I would not have been fined and would have been able to pay the money. I asked Mr. Pierre from the factory, and he said that Master Boca could not change the tax deadline at will..."

The young recorder frowned, wrote down everything he said, asked him more questions, and finally wrote a notice to him: "You can go back first. As soon as we find out the result, we will send someone to contact you immediately."

"Ah, ah. Thank you, sir!" Leonor nodded repeatedly and walked towards the town of Antoine in the setting sun. Behind him, there were hundreds of people in similar situations, still queuing in a very long line.

Three days later, a tax collector came to Leonor's house with two assistants.

……

Second floor of the Tuileries Palace.

Goldmid said to Joseph with an expression of seeking credit, "Your Highness, in addition to preparing to stop the caravan from trading, they will also try to disrupt the normal flow of goods in and out of the Port of Marseille.

"I privately inquired about the situation at Pellier, and it seems that they are going to pay a sum of money to instruct all the port managers and workers to go on strike and go home."

Joseph's face immediately turned cold.

These guys really don't know how to live or die.

(End of this chapter)