Chapter 88: But Is Everywhere Else Safe? (2) Early March 1790.French Embassy to the Holy Roman Empire.
What is the virtue of a diplomat?
Smooth talk that mediates amicably between one's own country and another?
Well. That is certainly a virtue of a diplomat, but the most important thing is probably a brazen face that can keep its eyes wide open and endure no matter what it gets grilled over.
In that sense, even with an enraged German grinding his teeth and demanding answers right in front of him, Ambassador Marc Marie, sitting calmly and continuing to speak, truly suited the profession of diplomat.
"I will say it again: Controller-General of Finance Guillaume de Toulon merely answered people's questions. I do not believe it can be seen as him inciting citizens with some specific intent."
"Ambassador! You call that something you can say?!"
The German kicked his chair back and sprang to his feet, shouting.
The nasolabial folds that had formed as he neared his sixties trembled from anger.
But whether the German raged or not, the ambassador did not even blink as he replied.
"What do you mean, is that something I can say? Which Frenchman stepped forward and gathered people, or showed even the slightest subversive behavior? Our French party began the return journey without causing any disturbance, and it was the Empire's vagrants who jumped into the procession, was it not? If anything, I believe it is France who ought to be angry."
"…What?"
"To me, this matter appears from the outset to have arisen due to negligence in vigilance duty and a breakdown of discipline among the Holy Roman Empire sentries. One of those vagrants could have been carrying a weapon and could have sniped our French party, could they not?
"In a way, France treated this as a sensitive issue and smoothed it over, considering relations with our ally—your country. Yet you come storming all the way to the embassy with killing intent in your eyes. As a diplomat, I find it extremely unpleasant."
"…I will remember this, Ambassador."
"…Please take care on your way, Duke of Brunswick."
After sending away the rough, square-jawed German, Ambassador Marc Marie slumped back in his office chair, letting all strength drain from him, and spoke as if he couldn't stand it.
"…Damn it. Is that Controller-General insane? He tosses a bomb this huge and then just runs back home by himself—what are we diplomats supposed to do?"
To clean up this mess left behind by youthful hot blood, Marc Marie—already a middle-aged man far past his youth—was not suited at all.
"Your Grace, did things go well?"
"Went well? He just played dumb."
To the officer who asked in rigid attention as he came out through the embassy door, the Duke of Brunswick shook his head from side to side as he answered.
"…Then… what will you do now?"
"What else? Leave Vienna and return to Prussia. I was going to stay here, roughly pleasing the Empire's lot, then go home after the Kaiser election, but now there's no reason to remain. …Hah. Saying it like this makes it sound like I'm running away like that Guillaume bastard."
The Duke of Brunswick took out his pipe, lit it, and spoke to the officer.
Ssss.
Hoo.
A pale plume of smoke slipped past the duke's square jaw and drifted into the air like a hazy fog.
After the smoke fully vanished into the sky, the officer asked the duke cautiously.
"…But won't the Empire's princes glare at you?"
"Tsk. Those trash who couldn't even squeak when my maternal uncle, King Friedrich, was alive—now that some fat bastard who rolled in from nowhere became king, they're looking down on us Prussians. Damn it, I should've suggested to His Majesty back then that we march troops all the way to Vienna and wipe the place clean."
The duke spoke, face twisted.
Of course, it was talk with no realism whatsoever, but for Prussians who were sick to death of cleaning up after the Austrians, it was the kind of thing they said as easily as eating.
And it made sense. While King Friedrich lived, how could those Holy Roman Empire jaw-jutting bastards have dared tell Prussia what to do?
Holy Roman Empire—what kind of "Empire" was that, anyway? An empire where the Kaiser couldn't even act as he pleased? It was an "empire" in name only.
In any case, after King Friedrich died, those empire-in-name-only bastards acted like it was their world, babbling nonsense like "Prussia and Austria were originally one," and raving as they tried by any means to shove Prussia under them.
"The only reason I even took on receiving the French in the first place was because those Empire bastards are desperate to cram us Prussians into the fence called the Holy Roman Empire."
The Duke of Brunswick said, taking another deep pull from his pipe and exhaling.
Whenever anything happened, it was always formalities, etiquette, decorum.
From the perspective of those jaw-jutters swaggering as nobles, they'd praise themselves and say they'd bestowed an honorable task on a Prussian—"Be grateful, you bumpkin." But from the perspective of a Prussian practical to the bone, that kind of pointless pomp looked like nothing but stupidity.
No—rather than waste time on inefficient nonsense like that, wouldn't it be more practical to find a way to harvest even one more potato—an item that replicated the more time you ground into it?
Anyway, Austrian idiots.
"…For a while, it feels like the Holy Roman Empire is going to get noisy. At a time when we need to stabilize and solidify the territory King Friedrich prepared, we'll be bothered by outside matters. And when the Empire falls into chaos, Prussia always gets splashed by the sparks…"
Right now, Prussia was in a state of total focus on reclaiming and cultivating the lands King Friedrich had subordinated, turning them into complete royal territory.
Just as a person needs digestion after eating, a state also needs digestion after swallowing territory.
You had to assimilate the people who lived there into your own nationals—and if that was difficult, you had to resettle people and turn it into fully Prussian land regardless.
After that, you had to create various offices and government posts, hire new people, and stabilize rule.
And lastly… well, plant potatoes and plant more potatoes to increase the population,
Then use that increased population to form a new army and attack Poland, and that was it.
So he'd meant to use the Empire's stabilization—and that period of calm—to finish digesting, but now the Duke of Brunswick felt he might end up with a major setback.
As if reading the duke's mind, the officer spoke in a low voice.
"Shall we deploy troops in advance to Prussia's south, to the border with the Empire?"
"No, there's no need to go that far. Just keep one regiment on standby, ready for immediate deployment at all times."
"Yes, Your Grace."
The officer raised a military salute at the duke's order and answered.
Mid-April 1790.Holy Roman Empire, Electorate of Cologne, Bonn.
"Wow… Vienna is really something else."
With his younger siblings—who had never once left their hometown of Bonn in their lives—at his sides, Ludwig, returned home for the first time in a while, was walking through Bonn on a stroll and telling them about what had happened in Vienna.
"The French minister tried so hard to take you in… Hyung, at this rate, won't you become famous like Master Haydn?"
"H-ha… haha, is that so…?"
Sure, he'd added bits and pieces here and there until it became a more thrilling story than what had actually happened, but so what? If it was fun, that was enough.
"Hyung, what are those people doing?"
"Huh? Ah, those people?"
Ludwig looked at the group of people at the tip of his second younger brother Johann's finger, then gave a crooked grin.
"Just… think of it as something good."
"…Really? Father didn't say that."
"Hey. That drunkard, broken-personality bastard—listen with one ear and let it out the other."
At the word "father," Ludwig's face twisted hard as he spoke to his siblings.
After "that" incident in the capital Vienna, here and there around Bonn, people dressed in black suits like France's National Assembly deputies gathered in small groups, shouting while waving the Empire's double-headed eagle flag and red flags.
What was notable was that the police responsible for Bonn's public order merely watched with their hands behind their backs, not trying to interfere.
Thanks to that, Bonn's civic movement only grew larger by the day.
"Citizens! We can do it too, like the French! Let us sweep away all the remnants of the old era called feudalism! Long live the Holy Roman Empire! Long live the citizens!"
"Remember what Controller-General of Finance Guillaume said, everyone! Why do we live in shabby huts, while those called nobles live in dazzling mansions?! Does it make sense that such a difference exists just because the cradle you were born in is different?!"
"Rise up—you too!"
"""Long live the citizens of Bonn! Waaaa!"""
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, in Bonn's square, citizens would surely gather in small groups and shout "Long live!"
Until that day arrived.
Late April 1790.Holy Roman Empire capital, Vienna, Reichstag Imperial Diet.
"…Therefore, I, Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, invoke in advance the authority of the next Kaiser, and request that the Assembly pass a bill enabling the suppression of the series of mobs stirring in Bonn and Frankfurt."
The Reichstag Imperial Diet.
Unlike France's National Assembly, this was a place only nobles—princes and bishops—could enter and vote. In the middle of the Imperial Diet, the next Kaiser, Leopold, spoke in an even tone.
"Leopold! Leopold!"
"Long live His Majesty the Kaiser! Long live His Majesty the Kaiser!"
"We must seize and kill the traitors at once! Long live the Holy Roman Empire! Long live the Imperial Diet!"
"Are you saying you'll massacre the people of the Empire?!"
"To suppress the citizens of the principalities is no different from trampling the rights of the principalities!"
"Kaiser—if you do not retract your words at once, our county will withdraw its support for you!"
Enlightenment thinkers and absolutists,
and besides them, dozens and hundreds of nobles entangled in interests rose one after another, shouting whatever they wanted—
"Vote tally result: the bill to temporarily grant Archduke Leopold the authority of the next Kaiser in advance is hereby passed."
Leopold's hand rose, and it was done.
"Duke of Austria, Karl Ludwig Johann Joseph Lorenz, and Brigadier General of the Holy Roman Empire army, Joseph Radetzky, shall lead a suppression force to purge the traitors in Bonn and other cities."
"We receive the Kaiser's command."
"We receive the Kaiser's command."
The two who received Leopold's order came out of Hofburg Palace and mounted their horses.
"Your Highness, are you truly all right?"
Brigadier General Radetzky spoke, looking worriedly at Archduke Karl, the prince five years younger than himself.
"Well, General Radetzky—what do you think?"
"…It's true your seizures have eased greatly, but the battlefield is not like other places, Your Highness."
Even at Archduke Karl's grin as he replied, Radetzky—only twenty-four, yet already having lived through two wars—could not withdraw his worried gaze.
"Now, let's go. To Bonn. All troops, follow me!"
Archduke Karl, regardless, drove the reins up and down forcefully and galloped out.
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