Chapter 31: How to Live (4) DuPont & Co.
It was a major American company—the world's largest multinational chemical corporation, and the first in the world to create nylon.
When I first heard the name DuPont, I thought, No way…? But unfortunately, he was French.
If it had been an American company, then either an American must have founded it—or at the very least, it should have been someone planning to migrate to the New World. But our DuPont did not look like he had even the slightest desire to leave France.
At first, I got excited thinking I had hooked a big one, but well—an engineer was still an engineer.
"Mr. Guillaume. What are you thinking about so hard again?"
DuPont asked me, his usual bright, clear eyes fixed on me as I spiraled into thought.
"Oh, you know. Just this and that."
I shrugged, then propped my chin on the table again and stared at the loathsome nuisance sitting in front of us.
"Guillaume, staring at belladonna like it's your mortal enemy won't change anything. This world is already hard enough to look at with loving eyes."
With a pitiful look, Mathieu patted my shoulder.
This guy. He had been running around everywhere because he was dating lately, and now he had completely lost it.
Damn. Thinking about it now made me mad.
Some people spent all day shuttling between the office and a makeshift lab working, while others lived easy, got a girlfriend, and went out having fun.
Aaaaah! Me too! I want to have fun too!
Ughhh! My yolo life! My comfortable life! Give it back to me, please!!
Whether he noticed how I felt or not, DuPont spoke.
"Squeezing out the juice leaves too many impurities. If only we could extract just the active components."
"Couldn't we use heating or something like that?"
At my words, DuPont shook his head.
"We've already tried all the basic experiments we can do, but none of it worked."
"Tsk."
I clicked my tongue once and leaned back in my chair as far as it would go.
Simply squeezing out the juice would not work.
If we filtered out the impurities and made the product from what remained, we would have no choice but to sell it at a high price to make the numbers work—and that would keep customers from opening their wallets.
What did National Geographic do at times like this?
We tried heating.
We tried simple extraction.
Electricity?
Electricity—what electricity exists in this era? Cross that out.
Then did we pour in some kind of chemical substance?
"Mr. DuPont. What if we mix in other chemicals? Just try combining things?"
DuPont looked like he was thinking hard, then nodded.
"Hmm. In a way, that's the most reasonable inference right now. Understood. Let's try it."
"Ah!!!"
At that moment, Mathieu shouted and jumped up, making DuPont and me jolt and look at him in confusion.
"W-what is it, hyung? Did you find a method!?"
"Mr. Mathieu, please tell us what method it is!"
"Huh? What are you talking about? It's time for me to go meet Ms. Théroigne, so I stood up. You two work hard! I'm heading out! Heehehehe!"
"Get the hell out, you bastard! Aaaaah!"
At Mathieu's shameless boasting and my outburst, DuPont only slowly shook his head from side to side.
"Pressing my face into your chest~ hmm hmm~"
At the kitchen of Ears of the Nation's first shop, Aunt Marie was in a good mood again today as she hung laundry under the clear sky.
Had the past three years improved her lot that much? Unlike before, she now felt she had some breathing room in life.
A job where she only had to work two or three hours a day, received free meals, and even earned pay was, by itself, enough to make life a little more comfortable for a family of four.
But the boss went further than that—he even let her take home leftover convenience meals in quantities equal to her family size to share with her children, and last time he even personally took care of her daughter's birthday. He was the sort of person who made you wonder if Jesus had come down again.
To Marie, it was a job as precious as family.
"Ma'am. Let me ask you the way."
"Oh my!"
Lost in happy thoughts, Marie startled at the deep male voice behind her.
When she turned around, she recognized his face immediately.
No—how could she ever forget that loathsome face?
Marie's smile darkened in an instant.
"…Tax Collector, what brings you here…? Ah! W-we've paid all our taxes this time!"
"Hm?"
At Marie's words, the Tax Collector's monocle-wearing face twitched in confusion. Then he went, "Ah," as he realized something and spoke.
"Hahaha! Ma'am, I did not come here on your account today."
Only then did Marie relax a little.
"T-then what is it?"
"Is there a household nearby with the surname Theo?"
All traces of laughter vanished from the Tax Collector's face.
To Marie, his question and expression felt like a grim reaper without emotion asking for the address of someone written in the ledger of life and death.
With trembling hands, Marie pointed toward a small shack in the distance.
"I… I think it's that house, Tax Collector…"
The Tax Collector slowly turned his head toward the shack her fingers indicated, then spoke with a satisfied expression.
"Oh, I truly thank you, ma'am. Then I'll be on my way."
He grinned and started walking toward the shack.
Marie forced herself to calm down and resumed hanging laundry.
How much time passed?
The street suddenly grew noisy with the voices of three people. Marie turned her head toward the sound.
It was the Theo couple—and that same Tax Collector.
"My lord! My lord! How can you take even this away!?"
"That's right! Tax Collector, please—just this once, show mercy!"
"Jean Touin Theo. Unpaid: this year's poll tax, the one-twentieth tax, the salt tax—six taxes in total. And this is not even your first offense."
"P-please! Because of the leg I injured at the factory last year, I still can't work properly!"
"That is not my concern. I am carrying this out under the command of His Majesty the King, so do not blame me. Besides, you are better off than rural peasants, are you not? I have heard peasants must pay land rent, corvée labor, and even sharecropping fees to their lord as well. By comparison, you are rather fortunate."
"N-no—how can you say that when you take sixty percent of what we earn!?"
"I merely act and speak as the law dictates. In any case, this is your final warning. If you do not raise the money by the next time I come, then His Majesty's loyal soldiers may come and show you the meaning of heat. Now then, farewell."
Drawn out by the commotion, countless people were watching, but the icy Tax Collector snorted as if it were nothing and calmly turned his back, walking away the way he came.
When he passed the end of the alley and disappeared, angry voices burst out from all around.
"T-that vicious bastard!"
"Damn it—he collects more than ten different taxes and still won't even grant an extension?"
"Gahk, ptui!"
The men spat phlegm onto the street the Tax Collector had walked along.
Meanwhile—
"Mr. Theo, Mrs. Theo, are you okay? Here—this is leftover bread from what we made. Take some."
"Yes. And this is mushrooms I dug up from the back hill. Take some of these too."
The women brought food and firewood to the Theo couple, who had sunk down onto the street.
Unlike the bright blue sky overhead, the ground was unbearably dark.
"These damn bastards! Thieves without equal!"
A man dressed in red velvet and wearing priestly robes of gold thread and pure white silk spat thick curses completely at odds with his attire.
It was Brienne, the Controller-General of Finance who had taken the seat after Calonne.
In just a few months after taking office, his face had withered completely. And that was only natural.
"I am Brienne, Controller-General of Finance. With our finances, we cannot avoid raising taxes. Therefore, the Assembly of Notables must pass the bill for tax increases."
"Tax increases? Of what kind?"
"Beginning taxation of the nobility and clergy, and a stamp duty imposed when purchasing books and paper."
"What? Taxing nobility and clergy? Listen here, Brienne! Do you think we put you there for that!?"
"Then how do you expect me to overcome this situation!?"
"If it can't be done, make it doable. Don't you know that? Anyway, make it doable!"
"You damned—!"
Remembering what had happened a few days ago made Brienne's head ache again.
This can't be done, that can't be done—nothing could be done.
He was not a Controller-General of Finance in truth. He was a puppet that had to obey, a sacrificial offering.
Whenever he, who had no economic ability whatsoever, tried to produce any reform plan to overcome the crisis, the Assembly of Notables pounced like rabid dogs and tore him to pieces.
"Even when Abraham tried to offer his son as a sacrifice, God sent an angel down to stop him. But I have no such angel."
Over the past few months, the only thing he had managed to do was this: when they were about to go bankrupt because they could not pay interest, he barely obtained the Assembly of Notables' consent to borrow sixty-seven million livres to pay that interest.
He was rolling debt with debt.
"At this point, there is only one method left. I must directly petition His Majesty."
With that, Brienne rose from his seat.
Not long after, by order of King Louis XVI, the Assembly of Notables was dissolved.
"Brienne, you bastard! Do you think we'll retreat like this!"
"This treacherous man dares to slander loyal subjects!"
"Boo! Brienne, get out!"
The nobles and clergy who had driven out Calonne hurled the same words at Brienne, the man they themselves had put forward.
"Father! What do we do now? It seems even His Majesty is agreeing with Brienne's words!"
"Hmph. To have to listen to a king who can't even manage his own wife."
"F-father! There are many ears listening!"
"Hah. Let them listen if they want. The blue bloods gathered here don't truly trust the king that much anyway, do they?"
"T-that's true, but…"
"What is there to say when the king doesn't even know the queen is obsessed with diamond necklaces and meeting other men?"
"Ahem, ahem."
"Well, enough. Whatever Brienne plans, we can stop it."
"Yes? How…?"
"The judges will handle it. Hahaha!"
And not long after that—
"Our high court hereby declares, on the basis of law, that the imposition of new taxes and the establishment of stamp duties require the consent of all estates, and accordingly rules that all estates must be gathered to deliberate on the matter."
The high court, composed of nobles and clergy, rejected Brienne's tax reform plan and ruled that the Estates-General should be convened.
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