Chapter 85: Everyone, Paris Is Safe! (4) "…I understand what you mean. If you have something to do, you may leave now."
"Yes, General."
At the words of the superior wearing gold epaulets, the mustached guardsman snapped a salute to the side of his head, then opened the door to the Guard Commander's office and left with disciplined posture.
"…This is fucked."
After the soldier left, Dumouriez, the Guard Commander, stared blankly into the air for a long while, then muttered in a small voice.
The ecosystem of commissioned officers, excluding common soldiers, could be divided into two.
A general with brilliantly shining stars, and those who failed to become such stars and fell.
The most obvious difference was protocol.
The difference in protocol was so great that even civilians ignorant of the military knew it to some extent.
But the truly outstanding difference among star-wearing soldiers was not protocol, but political skill.
From simply reading the trend and riding the stronger side,
to whether the line extended to you was a golden vine rope lowered by the sun and moon, or a vine rope already rotten through.
Whether this was something you could accept and swallow, or something you must firmly refuse to show your cleanliness.
Which man's offered drink you actually drank, and which man's offered drink you only pretended to accept.
That was the greatest difference between a general and one who was not—between the two ecosystems.
And now.
Charles François Dumouriez, brigadier general of the French Kingdom's army, felt the "political skill" sensor that had placed him in the position of general violently shaking.
• General, report: Controller-General of Finance Guillaume de Toulon calmly finished his meal in front of the Palais-Royal, His Majesty's residence, and then returned.
At the news the soldier delivered, Dumouriez's mind went cold. His vision swam, and his breath caught in his throat.
"…Damn it, damn it."
Like a proper Frenchman, Dumouriez pulled the wine and glass neatly set on one side of the table toward himself, filled the glass to the brim, and tossed it back in one gulp,
as if trying to wash away something heavy pressing down on his chest and choking his breathing.
One glass, two glasses, three glasses.
Even if it was low-proof wine, after three brimming glasses in a row, his face felt like it flared hot.
"Whew… I'm not some navy punk, and yet I still need alcohol to calm my chest down. I've really grown old compared to my youth. Where the hell did I sell off my boldness from back then?"
Dumouriez exhaled and spoke.
Who was he?
In his youth, he'd traded blows with the war-mad Prussians of Friedrich's Prussia, and he'd survived the star-filled headquarters of the quartermaster staff command, enduring the temper of those stars and every kind of menial serving.
And he'd survived even a foreign counterintelligence organization to which he'd been secretly assigned under the trust of the previous king, and now bore a brilliantly shining star on his epaulet—Charles François Dumouriez.
"Controller-General of Finance went to the front of the Palais-Royal… Damn it. If he threatened us openly, at least we could brace against it. Pressuring us like this—does he mean to drain the blood out of us royalists?"
Dumouriez muttered low again.
What was the Palais-Royal?
It was where the current king, Louis XVII—Orléans—had lived until only a few months ago.
And after the Enlightenment types left in disappointment with Orléans, hadn't it become the base of the royalists who now supported Orléans?
To come and go calmly, alone, right in front of a place that was essentially the front yard of a political enemy?
"…Is he gutsy, or is he just a fool who doesn't even think?"
Dumouriez spat out the last words without realizing it, then flinched and shook his head hard.
The Controller-General a fool?
What kind of nonsense was that.
Wasn't he the Controller-General who, at only eighteen, thoroughly humiliated the previous king Louis XVI—now reduced to Grand Duke—in the Assembly, then replaced him right there?
Even now, he moved the Assembly as he pleased and handled the Controller-General of Finance work not in Versailles but by moving it to Paris.
More than that, even if it was just squeezing, he was the one putting France—on the brink of bankruptcy—back onto a normal track.
And that man had strolled in front of the Palais-Royal without any meaning?
Ask even a street newsboy, and he'd snort at that.
Yes. This was a warning. A warning.
A warning that he could see their front yard clearly, so don't do anything stupid.
Wait—could the very reason Guillaume moved to Paris be a high-level political measure to seize and shake the royalists in Paris?
Then was that face that looked exhausted actually all staged—direction layered with political calculation?
Was that really the insight of someone who had only just turned nineteen? How far did he see through things?
Terrifying.
Too terrifying.
It felt like he'd moistened his lips with wine only seconds ago, yet Dumouriez's lips already felt parched again.
Then one thought flashed through Dumouriez's mind.
"…Don't tell me he sensed our rebellion plan and moved because of it?"
Dumouriez's hands turned pale and began to go numb.
If so, what did this expression of intent mean?
"…The Controller-General is someone who values human life greatly."
Dumouriez muttered low.
Even a simple inference from thinking of how he made those ignorant commoners pool their blood-like money and then scattered grain and bread, and how he gave speeches in the Assembly about a sad world and whatnot.
And things like water-and-sewer maintenance and relief grain—taking up a significant portion of current government spending—must all be because the Controller-General's influence reached there.
If a Controller-General who valued life that much knew about the conspiracy and made this expression of intent, then it must mean: let's smooth it over, round and round, without killing each other.
Did the Controller-General know the rebellion plan, or not?
"…Until I know that, I have to put the plan on hold."
Dumouriez said, rubbing the barren crown of his head where hair had all fallen out.
Knock, knock, knock.
As he gently stroked the last remaining hair at his temples, Dumouriez heard someone knocking.
"General, His Majesty the King has summoned you."
"…I'll go at once."
Dumouriez put on his tricorn hat and rose from his seat.
"General, thank you for coming."
In the War Room of Versailles, King Louis XVII spoke after sending everyone else out and leaving only Dumouriez, who had come at his call.
"Do you have an order for me, Your Majesty?"
Dumouriez bowed respectfully at the king's words and answered.
But at the words that followed, Dumouriez couldn't help flinching.
"…I've set the date."
"…If you mean the date of the action."
"I received word from the Count of Artois. Next month, on the seventeenth. On that day, twenty thousand of our troops will rise in Nancy and Zagreb."
Louis XVII's calm voice reached Dumouriez's ears.
"Your Majesty, I beg your pardon, but I believe we should push the date back."
"…General. I also think it's extremely urgent, but we have no choice."
The king fell silent at Dumouriez's voice, then spoke.
"Is there some reason?"
"The priest bastards are pulling out one by one. That Pope Pius bastard is lukewarm, and thanks to the glib tongues of those two—Sieyès and Talleyrand—people are slipping away from our side one by one! If we give those deputies any more time, we'll collapse without ever properly using our strength!"
Louis XVII, muttering with a truly arrogant face, continued.
"Know that, General, and I ask you to do your utmost."
"…I am honored beyond measure, Your Majesty."
Dumouriez bowed politely to the king and had no choice but to leave the War Room.
Of course, Dumouriez's heart was pounding as if it would burst with excitement.
Now his instinct about "survival" was screaming warnings like it had gone mad.
Stars or no stars, the thought that he had to live began filling Dumouriez's head.
Twenty thousand… Yes. With twenty thousand, it might be enough to pull something off.
No idea if it would succeed, though.
How many tens of thousands did the National Guard have? How many regiments were in the Controller-General's hands?
Even the units surrounding Versailles were two regiments.
And the commander of that was Commander of the National Guard, Marquis de Lafayette.
The straight-line distance from Nancy to Paris was about 340 kilometers, so the Guard—only just expanded to a single regiment—only had to hold out about two weeks against an army at least twice its size, and an army under a war hero's command.
Of course, that was assuming the royalist army leaving Nancy crushed all the National Guard forces departing from Reims and Troyes.
…Damn it, I can't even estimate this.
Even Charlemagne might raise a white flag in this situation.
Before returning to the Guard Commander's office, Dumouriez—his face flushed hot—went to his adjutant and said,
"Adjutant, that information you gave me last time on that republican delinquent organization—bring the materials on them."
"Yes? Ah, yes. Understood, General."
At Dumouriez's reddened face, the adjutant fetched and handed over a bundle of documents.
Dumouriez took the documents, returned to his office, and read through them again carefully.
"…The name is Cordeliers. The nickname is Jacobins."
"General! An urgent report!"
"What is it, that you're making such a commotion?"
Dumouriez looked at the adjutant, who had burst in without even knocking, with a puzzled expression.
"The H-Habsburgs…!"
At the news the adjutant delivered, Dumouriez's face began twisting bizarrely.
Why are my ears so itchy?
Is someone talking about me?
"B-boss. Why are you suddenly like that?"
"It's nothing. My ear just itches."
No, this wasn't the time.
I straightened my posture and looked at Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Trevithick.
"So, what do you think about what I said?"
"…Of course, in some regions of England, similar things are being tested experimentally, but more than that—where did you even learn about this? Even we English don't really know this."
"Somehow or other, I happened to pick it up by ear."
I shrugged at Mr. Murdoch, who asked me with a fascinated face.
I can't exactly say, "I came from the future, and I saw in something like Harry Potter that a few decades later steam locomotives would go chugging around everywhere spewing smoke," can I?
"Technically possible. A good theory!"
Mr. Trevithick said to me haltingly in still-awkward French, his eyes shining.
"…I can speak English to some extent, so if English is more comfortable, you can speak that way, Mr. Trevithick."
"Ah, th-then… is that so?"
Wow. Even after twenty years, the gist still being remembered—Korea's cramming education really was amazing.
Well, honestly, French and English had fairly similar word order anyway, so if you memorized vocabulary, it became easy to speak.
I looked the two of them straight in the eye and spoke slowly.
"So, what do you two think? A vehicle that can carry and run with hundreds of people and cargo by steam engine. Can you make it?"
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