I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 542: The Devil Joseph
After an unknown amount of time, Brian, who was standing by, spoke carefully: "Your Highness, if this makes you unhappy, I will go back and tell them not to have such wishful thinking.

"After all, these evildoers are not eligible for pardon from His Majesty the King."

Joseph was moved when he heard this. Yes, he was used to thinking in the way of later civilized society and forgot that this was the era of royal power.

Why should we reason with those guys?
Let them taste the iron fist of royal power first, and then we can talk about any terms!

It's just that I want to be a "bad guy" for once - for tens of millions of francs, let alone being a bad guy, even being Satan is not a problem.

So he looked at Brian, smiled and shook his head: "No, please tell them to come here tomorrow afternoon."

"As you wish, Your Highness."

Briand had not expected that the Dauphin would agree so easily. Just as he was about to say goodbye and leave, he heard Joseph say again: "Oh, by the way, Archbishop, the one million francs they gave you should all be invested in the Industrial Development Fund. If you leave it with me, I'm afraid that Mr. Marat will be tempted to do something when he sees you."

Brian sighed in his heart. Although he was a little reluctant, the money was indeed too hot to handle. And as His Highness said, with such a large sum of money, the people from the Notary Investigation Bureau would definitely chase him like crazy.

However, Joseph's next sentence made him smile again, "But you will get half of the dividend of this money every year."

Those who deserve rewards should be rewarded, and those who deserve punishment should be punished. Since Brian did not choose to take the money, he should be encouraged.

Brian bowed and said, "Thank you, Your Highness, you are so generous! May God bless you."

One million francs in the industrial fund would earn more than 100,000 francs in interest each year, half of which would be around 50,000 or 60,000 francs. This was last year's income, which was not very good, and this number would definitely increase in the future.

Two o'clock in the afternoon the next day.

Baron Morel, the negotiating representative of the General Association of Tax Farmers, said with a smile: "Your Highness, then according to what Archbishop Briand said before, each of our seven families will take out 7 million francs to buy national debt and pay a fine of 1 million francs.

“Labouchere, De Perego and six others each purchased 6 million francs of government bonds and paid a fine of 4.

"Look, this is it..."

Joseph snorted coldly with a sullen face: "Humph, things back then were completely different from now, Your Excellency the Baron.

"Now that the guillotine has been erected and the tax bureau has invested so many people in the investigation, do you still think you can just get away with it as before?"

Morel and Ford looked at each other and immediately changed their words: "You are right. Or, we can double the fine to show our sincerity!"

Before they came, they had anticipated that it might not be easy to get through this time, so they negotiated the price in advance and then left it to the negotiators to bargain.

In their view, this is a business. Although they will definitely lose money, business is business and there will always be a stop-loss point.

Seeing that the prince was just looking at the teacup in front of him without saying anything, Morel had to grit his teeth and said, "Your Highness, then double the fine. This is almost all the funds we can mobilize."

After waiting for a few seconds, he spoke again with difficulty: "Then, the interest on the national debt can be reduced by half, is that okay?"

Joseph suddenly smiled, put down his teacup, looked at the several tax farmers in front of him, and said slowly: "Well, let me tell you my solution. Oh, there is no room for bargaining. "First of all, there is no need to buy any national debt. Viscount Ford, Mr. Hope, Baron Morel... each will be fined 1 million francs. Mr. Labouchere, Baron de Perego, Godmid... each will be fined 5 million francs. The fines for other big tax farmers range from 100 million to 300 million. "

Several tax collectors all gasped.

National debt is a kind of loan. No matter how much you borrow, you have to pay back the principal and interest. According to their previous discussion, the bottom line is that you don't need to pay interest at most. But the crown prince changed it to a fine, and he didn't even want the principal!

Ford immediately shouted, "Your Highness, you are totally leaving us no chance to survive! This much money will bankrupt us!"

"This is all your illegal gains, sucked from the blood of countless poor French people, you should hand it over!" Joseph glanced at him coldly, raised his hand and pointed at the door, "If you find it unacceptable, please leave."

Ford and the others exchanged glances with dark faces, without saying a word.

After a moment, Morrel stood up hesitantly and said, "Your Highness, if... I am willing to pay the fine, can I get a pardon?"

"A pardon?" Joseph asked in surprise. "Did I mention this before?"

Morrel was anxious: "Your Highness, I paid 1 million francs, can't I get His Majesty the King to pardon me?"

"You have committed many crimes, so it is only natural that you pay the fine." Joseph said calmly, "After this, what kind of punishment you will receive will depend on the judgment of the High Court."

"You can't do that!" Morrel protested loudly, without paying any attention to courtesy.

If the evidence of their crimes was uncovered - which was almost inevitable - the court would most likely sentence them to death, or at least several decades in prison. And judging from the Crown Prince's intentions, bribing the judges was out of the question.

Ford also stood up suddenly and said angrily: "Your Highness, you are going too far. If this is the case, then we really don't need to talk anymore.

"Well, the worst that can happen is that I'll go to jail, but I swear, you and the government won't get a penny!"

"Really?" Joseph glanced at him with a smile, "You have at least one case of forgery of tax documents, and the tax bureau can arrest you for this at any time.

"You can hide the proceeds of your crime, but I believe that you will eventually reveal the whereabouts of the money."

Ford also smiled: "Your Highness, why not put it bluntly? I might be sentenced to death by the High Court. If that's the case, why should I hand over the money?"

"Because beheading is not scary." Joseph suddenly changed his voice to a gloomy and low voice, "I heard from the intelligence agency that they have a unique way of torture -

"First, bury most of the prisoner's body in the ground, then cut a slit in his head and pour mercury drop by drop through the cut.

"As the mercury continued to fall, the prisoners began to itch unbearably and began to struggle to free themselves.

"His body would squeeze upward like a snake, and keep squeezing upward...

"But his skin is fixed by the soil. Soon, his body will 'whoosh' out of the skin like a ball of meat!
(End of this chapter)