Eagle's Glory

Being stared at by the marshal, Edmond Dantès suddenly felt his heart beating wildly.

He had already crawled out of the dead and was used to seeing life and death, but when he looked at the marshal, he instinctively felt a little guilty.

He was a little dry, and then looked at the Marquis of Treville, and the Marquis was also caught off guard.

After thinking about it, he cleared his throat and spoke up.

"Marshal, you are right. This gentleman is a close minister of His Majesty, and he is also a person specially sent by His Majesty to France to preside over the overall situation. His Majesty trusts him very much and granted him the qualification to represent himself."

Now that the matter has reached this step, the Marquis of Treville no longer hides it. He no longer becomes the "King of Rome" and directly uses "Your Majesty".

Moreover, he felt that there was no need to play tricks on the marshal.

If the marshal hadn't been tempted and didn't want to overthrow the dynasty, then he would have been kicked out when he opened his mouth to speak out that he was a lobbyist just now, and he wouldn't have been left by the marshal to say so much.

Under the encouraging eyes of the Marquis, Edmond Dantès quickly calmed down.

He has accumulated so much experience and seen so many great things in the world, and now he has become a nobleman with a manor, and he has cultivated his own bearing. Although the marshal is famous, it does not make him feel at a loss.

"The Marquis is right. I am the special envoy sent by His Majesty to France." He looked at the marshal calmly, and then introduced himself to the other party, "My name is Edmond Dantès. awarded the title of Count of Monte Cristo."

"Huh?" The Marshal looked at him meaningfully again, "You were proclaimed a nobleman by the King of Rome? Then you must be a very outstanding talent."

"Mr. Earl is His Majesty's most trusted subordinate, otherwise His Majesty would not have appointed him to take on such an important task." The Marquis of Treville complimented Edmund, "He is brave and witty, a fighting hero, and fought bloody for His Majesty However, it can be said that it is a one-in-a-million talent.”

The Marshal blinked, seeming interested. "Appreciate further details."

Edmund didn't want to play tricks in front of the marshal either, so he simply poured beans out of the bamboo tube and told the marshal exactly how he worked for him after meeting His Majesty—but he didn't want to mention the past because it involved privacy. Yes, of course the Marshal didn't want to ask too much about it.

The marshal listened patiently. After hearing about Edmund Dantès' experience in the battle, he couldn't help but clapped his hands lightly to pay his respects to Edmund.

"I can't see that you are such a powerful warrior! Back then, I was short of people like you...Mr. Earl, you are indeed worthy of such an award, and I also congratulate the King of Rome for getting your service .”

After all, he is a person who leads troops to fight, and he naturally likes warriors, so after hearing the experience, the marshal instantly liked Edmund a little bit more.

Of course, this kind of favor was not enough to make him immediately decide to side with the Bonaparte family, but it was enough to make the originally serious atmosphere in the room a lot more harmonious.

After seeing the Marshal's attitude, Edmund Dantès decided to strike while the iron was hot.

"Your Excellency Marshal, I don't think I can be called a warrior. I just want to repay His Majesty's kindness to me... Your Majesty trusted me, helped me selflessly, and bestowed me with such grace. I should use this as a reward. Really It’s not worthy of praise.” After a few words of humility, he turned back to the marshal, “And you are the truly well-deserved commander. You participated in creating the most glorious feats of our country, and you also saved the marshal. When the empire needed you the most, you stood up without hesitation and followed the emperor until the end—I hope you can pick up the passion and loyalty you once had, and fight with Bonaparte again. Once the family joins forces, I believe, and I can assure you, that you will receive all the gratitude and rewards from the Bonaparte family, and I will serve you with great respect!"

The marshal just smiled lightly, and refused to make a decision on this.

"Young man, it's good that you have enthusiasm, but even without me, this country is running just as well now, and I am old, our time has long passed, and now is your time—— "

Edmond Dantès wanted to say something more, but was stopped by the marshal with a gesture.

Then, the Marshal looked at the two people across from him.

"Since you have come from afar, you are my distinguished guests. I will entertain you warmly until you leave. We have been sitting in this small room for a long time today, and it is really boring. There is still some time before dinner. How about How about I show you around?"

"That's a good idea, but... where to visit?" the Marquis de Treville asked.

"My coal mine." The marshal shrugged, then replied with a smile.　　

143. Defeatism

"My coal mine."

This answer stunned the Marquis de Treville and Edmond Dantès.

The two of them are here to be lobbyists, who cares about coal mines?

However, since this was an invitation from the marshal as the master, the two of them could only obey, after all, they couldn't afford to offend the marshal.

So, they ended the conversation in the room hastily, and after a short rest, led by the marshal and his entourage, they walked out of the house together, and then walked into the mountains near the town.

The mountain road is a bit rough, the marshal is old, and he stops to rest from time to time when he walks up the mountain road, while Edmond Dantès is in the prime of life, although the Marquis de Treville is old, his body is also weak due to the battle. They are very strong, so the two of them seem more calm than the marshal - of course, their bodies are inevitably stained with mud and weeds.

While walking and stopping, they chatted while admiring the surrounding scenery.

It is summer at this time, everything is growing, and there is greenery everywhere in sight, accompanied by the sound of birdsong and streams, if not for the special identities of a few people, this group of people would seem to be traveling together for an outing up.

But soon, the green scenery was replaced by another scene - when he came to a hillside, Edmund saw a huge hole on the opposite hillside, the hole was covered by wooden beams and shelves The reinforcement extends all the way to the depths of the hillside. It is so dark that the scene inside cannot be seen clearly, and the surrounding area of ​​the cave is bare, with no green plants, only a mixture of yellowish brown soil and dark brown coal ash. Ugly shades.

Even if the Marshal didn't introduce it, the Marquis de Treville and Edmund could of course tell that this was the Marshal's coal mine.

The dark opening of the cave did not interest either of them, but the Marshal seemed very interested.

"Let's go together, get closer!" The marshal picked up his cane and waved it around.

So, the group had no choice but to go down the slope, and then walked to the entrance of the coal mine opposite.

Seen from a distance, this coal mine is a quiet and ugly giant, but the closer they get, the more they can feel the noise and restlessness in it. There are various sounds coming from inside, human voices and mechanical collisions. There was even smoke coming from inside and outside the hole.

In the smoke, mine carts full of coal were continuously pushed out along the track by workers, and then transported to a nearby stacking site.

Because coal ash was mixed in, the smoke diffused around was light black, and there was even an unpleasant smell when asked. Although the Marquis and Edmund felt very uncomfortable, they did not dare to cover it in front of the marshal. Mouth and nose, so I could only force myself to endure it, while I secretly scolded the marshal for nothing, and brought them here to suffer.

However, perhaps because he had already adapted to this environment, the old marshal did not show any discomfort. He stood outside the cave entrance, watching the busy scene in front of him with great interest.

"This is where I invest!" Because the surrounding voices were very noisy, the marshal raised the volume and said loudly to his two guests, "What do you think?!"

Of course, the two of them disagreed, but neither of them dared to show it, so they had to compliment the Marshal in general terms, saying things like "unique vision" and "revitalizing the countryside", but they only hoped that this trip would end quickly.

The marshal listened patiently to the compliments of the two of them, and then suddenly asked the Marquis de Treville.

"Victor, do you know what is the most important thing to run a coal mine?"

This question stumped the Marquis. Although he was well-informed, it was beyond his knowledge.

"Funds?" he asked tentatively.

The Marshal did not reply to the Marquis, but instead looked at Edmund, "Count, what do you think?"

Edmund was also stunned. After hesitating for a moment, he could only ask tentatively, "Reliable staff?"

"Hahahaha..." Seeing the awkward yet polite expressions of the two of them, the marshal couldn't help laughing, "You are all right, but you are too layman--that's fine, I won't play tricks on you Well, the answer is drainage."

The Marquis and Edmund looked at each other again, but this time they didn't need to say much, they just had to wait for the Marshal's "guidance".

"People have been using coal mines for many years, and the medium that is easy to dig has almost been dug. The mine is getting deeper and deeper, and at this time, we have to consider the problem of drainage. If we can't drain the water, we can't dig. The mines are filled with water as deep as they are. In those days, poor miners had to rely on manpower to drain the water. They dug wells in the mines and then used buckets to lift the water away... such a job It's inefficient and dangerous because you can't fit many people in the mine."

As the Marshal said, he walked towards the coal mine, and the Marquis and Edmund could only follow behind him, "In the last century, someone invented the pneumatic machine, which uses the principle of air pressure to drive the pump to pump water... ..."

The two of them were still a little dazed. They couldn't figure out why the once famous Marshal was now teaching them like a coal mining expert, but they could only listen silently and follow behind the Marshal.

After they walked into the mine, the aisle became narrow all of a sudden, and at this moment, the sound inside kept vibrating back and forth in the narrow cave, and the rumbling sound made both of them have tinnitus.

"However, the cost of the pneumatic machine is too high, so it is difficult to promote the technology. It has been nearly a century, and people are still unable to develop coal mines and other mineral deposits on a large scale..." The marshal continued to explain to the two guests.

Suddenly, he changed the topic, "However, just a few decades ago, the situation was different. There was a great inventor in England. He creatively applied the steam engine to mine drainage, which revolutionized this problem. !His steam pump can run at a low cost, not only cheap but also fast, he easily solved this problem that has plagued mankind for thousands of years, and also allowed our mines to be developed deeper underground!"

While speaking, he shouted loudly at the two guests.

"Are you interested in taking a look?"

They have already reached this point, even if they are not interested, they must be interested now, so the two of them followed the marshal to the shaft in the coal mine, where a huge steam pump was placed. It nestled in a small space like a monster, and then emitted loud noises and smoke. It was continuously pumping water up from the well, and then drained it along the tunnel dug in advance.

The loud noise was extremely uncomfortable to hear, and even the marshal couldn't help but feel a little ringing in his ears, but even so, he walked to the side of the machine and looked at the giant beast with a complicated expression.

"It's the heart of the mine, we can't function without it."

"This is a lesson that impresses me, Marshal!" The Marquis de Treville complimented the Marshal with polite words.

"No, you're not impressed enough, Victor." The Marshal turned his eyes away from the Marquis, then shook his head, "You still don't understand what this means—this is a machine I bought from England, and I asked British engineers to help Well done, with their latest technology, you understand? British! All British, without them I couldn't build mines, and almost all coal mines on their damn island now use this A steam machine! They can dig deeper than us, dig out more coal, and then they can use coke to make steel and make more steel than our country, do you understand? My friend, we Not only did we lose to the British on the bloody battlefield, but before we knew it, we had already lost to them on the silent battlefield and the industrial battlefield!"

The marshal spoke very loudly, with a kind of helplessness and irritability, "We have lost so thoroughly that we don't even know how to get back together, but at the same time, the lords in Paris are unaware of this, and it is not appropriate One thing, they thought that we were so strong in the past, and we will be as strong in the future, but they didn't think that we had already lost a complete defeat!"

Hearing what the marshal said, Edmund and the Marquis de Treville looked at each other again in astonishment.

None of them thought that when the Marshal developed the coal mine, he really regarded himself as an industrialist, and then he was heartbroken for the achievements of the British in the mining industry.

They hoped that the marshal was scaremongering, but the expression of the marshal, as well as his image all the time, made people feel that his words were extremely convincing.

"Is the situation so bad?" The Marquis de Treville was still in disbelief.

"It's that bad, my friend." The Marshal shrugged, "We can destroy everything, maybe better than the British, but the world doesn't run by destroying, it runs by building The emperor said that the pen is stronger than the sword, and I can also tell you that in the future the machine will be stronger than the pen. And now, unfortunately, the British have the best machinery and the best coal, The future of the world is in their hands. Although I am a hundred times helpless and unwilling to say such a judgment, we are all smart people. Smart people should not replace reality with fantasy, but should admit reality and then find ways to change it. If If things go on like this, the British will have for decades, if not a century, the strongest industry and the strongest army they can do, and have even done."

The Marquis de Treville knew that the marshal's words inevitably had personal feelings—during the peninsula war, the marshal was humiliated in front of the Duke of Wellington, so anyone could despise the British army, but he couldn't, he had to recognize the British army The strength of the army.

Besides, even the Marquis de Treville himself now has to admit that the British are already invincible at sea—during the long war, the British continued to fight against all kinds of powerful enemies, and their powerful navy severely damaged The French, Spanish, Danish and even Russian fleets were destroyed, and their own losses were so small that every enemy had to admit that they could no longer defeat them at sea.

"The fleet of the British was not built overnight. We can also build a fleet that is on par with them or even surpasses them. Maybe not in one generation, but two generations and three generations. As long as we have this will, one day we will It did!" the Marquis replied loudly.

However, although what he said was impassioned, if you listen carefully, you will find that this is already a guilty conscience-two generations and three generations, one day, the true meaning of similar words is "we have nothing to do now."

Of course the marshal could hear the guilty conscience behind the tenacity, so he curled his lips and sneered, "Really? Victor? Can we really? If the British can always have better machines than us, dig out more more coal, more steel, and all that you say is empty talk, three generations from now."

The Marquis de Treville was so choked that he couldn't speak for a while.

Whether he was an aristocrat of Versailles or a general of Napoleon, he was full of hostility to Britain, wishing he could cross the strait and turn that island country into a sea of ​​flames.

However, his rationality told him that what the Marshal said made some sense, so he didn't have much confidence to refute the other party.

"You must be very distressed. I never thought that the former Marshal Soult would become a defeatist... Has he been frightened by the British and turned into a coward?" Seeing the guilty look of the Marquis , The marshal smiled even more happily, "But, Victor, I have never been a triumphant or a defeatist, I am just a realist-the reality is that we not only lost to The British, if only on the battlefield, that would be fine. We have a larger population than the British. We only need a generation to amass a larger army than the British, but what's the point? If we are in industry and technology lost to the British in the world, so many soldiers are just gathered into a tower, and the British can still crush it with a heavy punch-so, instead of thinking about how to avenge and how to gather more troops, it is better to think about it. How to make our country have more powerful machines and industries? When we have accumulated more wealth than the British, we are qualified to compete with it. Otherwise, we can accept our fate with peace of mind and live an honest life. In the sunshine of the British century, admit that you are just a poor nation suppressed by it!"

After speaking, the marshal tapped his cane lightly, which also meant that he wanted to leave.

The Marquis and Edmund seemed to be pardoned. They had long been unable to bear the noisy, humid and stuffy environment, and hurried out of the mine with the Marshal.

Only then did they realize that because they were in the steam mist next to the machine just now, they were all drenched all over now—the coal ash and mud that were originally stained on their bodies had also become larger on the clothes through the steam. Block stains, even more unsightly.

But Edmund was not in the mood to pay attention to such trivial matters at the moment.

He was still thinking about what the Marshal said just now.

Unlike the Marquis, he doesn't have so much arrogance in his heart, so he can look at the problem more objectively.

"Your Excellency Marshal, do you want to say these words to His Majesty..." He asked in a low voice.

"Smart man." The Marshal smiled and nodded, "Tell that little guy, if he understands!"　　

144. Warriors

"Tell that little fellow, if he understands!"

"Okay, I understand." Edmond Dantès could only nod in agreement.

To be honest, he is still a bit confused about what the marshal said today. He also feels that the marshal is too discouraged and sees the British as too invincible.

But since the marshal said what he said, there must be a basis for the marshal, and Edmund can't deny it arbitrarily.

He can only tell His Majesty to see what His Majesty thinks.

And he was keenly aware that since the marshal said so, it meant that he was open to cooperation between the two sides and was willing to stand on the side of the Bonaparte family—as long as the conditions offered by His Majesty were suitable.

Although the people on both sides have lost power now, they are equally ambitious and ready to go. His Majesty is inspecting the Marshal, so why isn't the Marshal inspecting His Majesty?

After leaving the coal mine, Marshal Soult seemed to be in high spirits today, and took them for a walk in the mountains for a while, before returning to his house in the evening.

At this time, the marshal's servant also prepared dinner for him. Although it was not luxurious, it was also very rich, with all kinds of game.

Of course, neither the Marquis nor Edmund's thoughts were on the meal, they were all focused on the marshal, thinking of continuing to convince each other—at least, leaving a better and deeper one in his heart The impression made the marshal more inclined to the side of the Bonaparte family in the future.

During the dinner, the marshal took the initiative to chat with the two people, but he completely avoided any political topics, and even pretended not to understand when the two people hinted at it intentionally, and just talked about it.

The two felt helpless, knowing that the marshal had no intention of getting closer to them, so they had no choice but to follow the marshal's wishes and began to change the topic of politics.

Once the political topic was put aside, the chat became more interesting, especially when the marshal and the Marquis de Treville were still subordinates. They had been in the military for many years and experienced quite a lot of interesting things, some of which were never seen. Edmond Dantès was very interested in hearing the secrets recorded in history.

Although he is a confidant of His Majesty and has been named a nobleman, deep down in his heart, he is still a little ashamed of these "Empire Elders". The marshals and generals are far superior to him in terms of seniority, and he is full of them. I admire them, and even feel that it is a great honor to be able to sit with them.

Fortunately, neither the marshal nor the general showed any contempt for him, not only because he is a close minister of His Majesty, but also because he has established his "brilliant image" in the previous legendary experience, which is enough for anyone to take a high look at .

A person's prestige and power are built up invisibly bit by bit. Although Edmund is just on the road now, he already has the basic conditions to step onto the highest political stage. Maybe in the future, he It will no longer be the audience and spectators, but the direct participants of those major events.

"Edmond." Just as Edmond Dantès was listening patiently, the marshal turned his attention to him, and then said kindly to him, "I know Victor's affairs very well, and I know him I have worked with him for a long time, and I know what a powerful person he is... What about you? What did you do in the past? I searched my memory carefully, but there is no impression of you—”

This is actually where the marshal was puzzled.

Judging from Edmund's age in his early 30s, he is not too young. He should have entered the society before the empire was destroyed - and judging from His Majesty's trust in him, he should be with the empire and Bonaparte. The family has a deep connection, but the marshal should have heard about it, but the reality is completely opposite, he has no impression.

Although the marshal is ambitious, he is also a cautious person. In participating in such a major conspiracy, he cannot help but be careless. He wants to control everything in his own hands as much as possible, and the Count of Monte Cristo is The biggest unstable factor in front of him now, so he wants to get to the bottom of it.

Under the sight of the marshal asking, Edmond Dantès hesitated. He looked at the Marquis, not knowing how to answer—especially, how far to speak.

"Is there something unspeakable?" The marshal asked curiously, "If you find it inconvenient, then just pretend I didn't ask."

"No! Your Excellency the Marshal!" At this moment, Edmund felt overwhelmed and decided to go all out.

He didn't want any rift between himself and the Marshal.

"To tell you the truth, I was just a nobody before, serving as a sailor on a merchant ship in the Mediterranean Sea. I didn't participate in politics, and I didn't have any relationship with the Bonaparte family... until one day, I got a job from my captain. A letter arrived and was sent to the Isle of Elba in accordance with his last instructions..."

Then, Edmond Dantès once again told his story to Marshal Soulte.

But this time, he spoke quite briefly, just telling the story of his imprisonment after sending the letter.