Shadow of great britain

The rain fell finely on the cobblestones, making a slight sound.

In their dark coats and top hats, each holding a black umbrella, Arthur and Louis looked like two wild mushrooms growing on the streets of Paris.

The pipe in his hand exudes a faint aroma of tobacco, intertwined with the fresh air in the rain. They walked and talked, occasionally stopping to avoid the splash of passing carriages.

Louis glanced at Arthur, who was wearing a windbreaker. The cold air after the rain made him exhale softly: "Arthur, you never told me that you have connections with the royalists."

Arthur didn't mean to apologize at all. On the contrary, he was quite calm about Louis' doubts. He took off his pipe and looked at the ripples blooming on the toes of passers-by on the roadside: "Is this weird? I I always thought you should understand what kind of job I am doing now: spying on secrets, creating conspiracies, inciting revolution, and then making profits from it. "

"Of course I understand."

Louis didn't mean to blame him. He was just curious about how much of what Arthur just said was true and how much was false: "So, what you just said are your true thoughts?"

Arthur glanced at Louis beside him: "Yes, and no."

"What do you mean?"

"It's simple."

Arthur said: "Louis, you have to know that people will change. Most people don't know what they really want, and everyone needs different things at different stages. Just like we just met Mr. Dubris has always emphasized that he needs a fair social environment, but this kind of thing is too illusory to me. I don’t understand what fairness is and what a social environment is. I understand the subtext of Mr. Dubris. He just wants to return to the Paris High Court to work, not as a judge of the Civil Court of the 12th District, but to become a judge of the Paris High Court. To him, this is called fairness. social environment.”

Louis sounded a little uncomfortable: "Arthur, what was originally a noble slogan suddenly became despicable when it came to your mouth. Mr. Dubris is a conscientious judge. In my opinion, he should It’s really unfair to be a judge of the High Court and to have him sit in the Civil Court of District 12.”

"Really?" Arthur counted with his white-gloved fingers and said, "If a country like France wants to properly handle lawsuits with such a large population, France needs at least 6,000 magistrates. Are you sure there is no one among these six thousand who should be a judge of the High Court more than Mr. Dubris?"

"this……"

Louis hesitated.

But it was this hesitation that made him understand the answer in his heart.

Yes, he wasn't sure anyone could do it better than Mr. Dubris.

There are many outstanding figures in this world. Even in a chaotic and corrupt country, there will always be officials with a pure conscience.

No matter how small the base of these people is, even if it takes one out of a hundred people, it is enough to make up hundreds of thousands of people based on France's huge population base.

Hundreds of thousands of people!

Perhaps for those who are accustomed to seeing statistics, this number of people is nothing, but as a military cadet, Louis is very clear that hundreds of thousands of people are enough for his uncle Napoleon Bonaparte to organize several large groups. Legion and led them to rebuild Napoleon's empire in Paris.

In the Battle of Waterloo, which determined the fate of Europe, the combined strength of the French First Army, Second Army, Sixth Army, Guards, Third Cavalry Army, and Fourth Cavalry Army was only 70,156 men.

The anti-French allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington piled together the British Lobstermen, the British King's German Legion, the Hanoverians, the Brunswick Cavalry, and the Dutch-Belgian Cavalry Division, with a total of 68,424 people.

Only by adding the 56,412 men of the Prussian First, Second, and Fourth Armies under Marshal Blücher, the total strength of both sides could barely break through the 200,000 mark.

Hundreds of thousands of people. When he thought that there might be so many loyal and honest people like Mr. Dubris in France, Louis felt that France's future was still bright.

But before he could be happy for too long, Arthur turned around and poured another basin of cold water on him.

"As I just said, every country does not lack outstanding figures like Mr. Dubris. But if you want to rely on them to do something, you can't achieve it. If the Orleanists hadn't forced him to Too tight, I really can't imagine that a cautious person like him would be involved in the assassination of the king, so I still agree with the sentence. The opposition in every country is created by the government. The most that these guys brought to the July Monarchy was some trouble, and they couldn’t even create difficulties.”

Louis raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked at Arthur: "Isn't it difficult to assassinate the king?"

Arthur stopped and asked playfully: "If they are in trouble, why hasn't the Grand Paris Police Department closed the case until now? Thiers, the Minister of the Interior, has long known the real culprit behind the bombing of the Kaidousse Mansion. Who is it, but he has been delaying taking action, and the Orleans newspaper in Paris has recently been leaking news that the case may be related to the Republicans.

It is true that Mr. Thiers likes to discuss with "The Anglican" about the distribution of new books in Britain, but he also said that the cabinet position under his butt is a treasure worth cherishing even more. Does he think his position is too secure? Why trade something that might make the king furious? "

When Louis heard this, an idea flashed in his head, and then he felt a chill in his heart, and his forehead was covered with a layer of moisture, but it was not rain, but the cold sweat after the truth was revealed.

"You mean, Thiers is so confident because King Louis Philippe doesn't care at all how he deals with the royalists? What he is really worried about is the republicans..."

"I'm afraid it's not just the Republicans." Arthur picked up his pipe again: "Is he very confident about the Bonapartists? I heard that you petitioned him a few days ago, saying that you hoped to return to France and serve in the French army. Serve. As a result, you were politely rejected?"

Louis thought about what he had experienced these days, and suddenly, he felt that he had a new understanding of Louis Philippe's various operations.

"Not only that, he also specially summoned me at the Tuileries Palace a while ago and stated to me cordially: 'Although you have become a British citizen, it does not mean that you have lost your French nationality. You are destined to Destined to be a proud Frenchman, like your father and uncle.'"

When the king summoned Louis, he also felt that the other person said this to appease his frustration at not being able to join the French army.

But now Louis had second thoughts and refused to allow him to join the army, but repeatedly stated that he was a born French. Isn't this just to prevent Bonaparte's faith from growing bigger in the army? Even if the Bonapartists grow bigger again, the July Monarchy government can use the reason that Louis Bonaparte is a French citizen to punish him with the laws enacted by the current government. ?

Moreover, even if Louis is not in the country, they can use French nationality as an excuse to apply to other countries to extradite this potential political prisoner.

Arthur saw Louis gradually waking up from the joy of returning to Paris in recent days, so he continued.

"Actually, if I were Louis Philippe, I would do the same thing. Think about the people who support the royalists, right? There are a lot of farmers in remote areas, but most of them can barely survive. , so except for some extremists, most people have very weak will to resist.

In addition, there are some deprived clergy, this group of people can be said to be infamous in most parts of France. As for the royalist aristocratic leaders, needless to say, they have a terrible reputation.

Only a few years into the reign of Charles X, it was clear to almost everyone how unpopular they were. This was clearly exposed by the Duchess of Berry. On the anniversary of the assassination of the Duke of Berry two years ago, she celebrated a mass for her husband in the church of Saint-Germain-Auxerre. On the gorgeous coffin, her son Count Chambord is wearing a royal cloak in the portrait, looking like the reincarnation of Henry V.

However, the passing Parisians had no respect for this. Angry crowds gathered and not only the church was looted. After their plundering spree, they continued to ravage the Archbishop of Paris' residence, attacking other churches along the way, tearing up the royal emblem and even the crucifix.

Last year, the determined duchess traveled to western France to stage a revolt emulating the Vendée rebellion of the 1890s. But very few people responded to her, and the leading royalists in Paris were trying to persuade her not to be impulsive. M. Chateaubriand even went to Marseilles himself to implore her to bide her time.

But the Duchess didn't listen to a word of advice. As a result, the action plan turned into a farce. The massive uprising she imagined did not appear. What appeared in front of her was only a small-scale riot at best. Even she herself was arrested in November, and then the scandal of her extramarital pregnancy was exposed by the July Monarchy government. Her reputation was completely ruined, and the last spark of the royalist party was extinguished.

I think what the royalist newspapers in Paris mean is that their current anger towards this leader and a woman who does not abide by Catholic morals outweighs their anger towards the current government. Our people received intelligence that Louis Philippe was not worried that he would be assassinated by the Royalists. On the contrary, he was a little worried that the Duchess of Berry would die at the hands of the Royalists.

In order to ensure her safety, he planned to wait until the Duchess of Berry gave birth and then find an opportunity to smuggle her abroad to avoid being suspected by conspiracy theorists as the real murderer of this little woman. Louis Philippe didn't even think that letting go of the Duchess of Berry was a return of the tiger. There was no reason to think that he would go to war because of a few little assassins. "

Louis jumped out of the game, and even his thinking became much smoother: "If you think about the problem from his perspective, the Royalists are indeed far less of a threat than the Republicans. There are currently 6,000 Polish exiles around Paris, and the Germans There are 4,000 people, in addition to Italians, Portuguese, Spanish, etc. These people are all republicans without exception, and they often participate in activities organized by the republicans. In tandem, that’s a greater threat than the royalists.”

"You're right." Arthur compared his fingers to a pistol, imitating Alexandre Dumas and blowing away the gun smoke: "And there are a lot of lunatics among the Republicans, at least far more than those among the Royalists. , this group of people is far more fanatical than the Crusaders back then, and many of them are young people under the age of thirty. Don’t we both know one person? "

Louis suddenly said: "That's why Louis Philippe expelled Mazzini's Young Italy? Everyone thought he couldn't stand the pressure from the Austrian court, but now it seems that expelling Young Italy was at best a favor to the Austrians. , essentially, he is trying to weaken the power of the Republicans.”

Speaking of this, Louis could not help but feel sorry for Mazzini, a comrade of the Carbonari who had fought alongside him: "Poor Giuseppe, he thought the French government would send reinforcements when he launched an uprising. Now look Come on, he must have been tricked by Louis Philippe!"

"It's not necessarily that they were fooled." Arthur suggested that Louis should think better of it: "If their uprising succeeds, I think Louis Philippe will probably send reinforcements generously. But if they fail, then everyone will Just treat the previous promise as nothing."

When Louis heard this, he felt that his chest was filled with sadness. They had originally planned to meet Garibaldi and others tonight. It was a thing for young people to pretend to be happy and excited after knowing in advance that their action would inevitably fail. Extremely difficult stuff.

However, this sadness is not unique to Italians.

There are tens of thousands of hooligans in Paris at any time ready to overthrow the current government, shouting slogans such as: Long live the Republic, Long live the Empire, Long live the Monarch and so on.

And during the intervals when these men rest, anarchy prevails. After a while, another political goal took over, at the expense of which Paris satisfied the ambition, hatred and greed of some people.

He suddenly remembered Vidocq's famous saying.

— I have said it before, I repeat it now, and I will repeat it until I feel sick, that all revolutions originate from the political delusions of the big men and the fear of possible overthrow. The mistakes of rulers are the prelude to revolution, the leadership of the middle class is the driving force, and the real power, the real machine that spirals to control good or bad government and tear it to pieces, is crowded in the sewers and lingering. Those people.

When Louis thought of this, he suddenly recalled the scene when Arthur came to him on the night of the bombing of the Kaido Sai Mansion.

Louis stopped and put his hand on Arthur's shoulder, stopping him.

Arthur turned to look: "What's wrong? We have to go back quickly. No matter how slow Mr. Thiers eats his steak, it will arouse the suspicion of the spies who are monitoring you over time. You should know, Louis Philip is not only worried about the Republicans, he is also worried about you as a leading figure in the Bonapartist faction. "

Louis looked at Arthur's serious face and suddenly said: "You told me that day, the farmers in Brittany, would I be lucky enough to meet them?"