Southern Rose [Gone with the Wind]

She doesn't know much about things at the national level, and she can't change anything. She can only try to ensure that her family can survive the disaster.The past few months have been fine, the American Civil War will not start until the new president is sworn in next spring, and the Robillards can escape the war as long as they can go to France after Christmas.As for her brother, she really can't control it. As long as he doesn't stay in Georgia, it shouldn't be a big problem.

Philip said, "Send him to Boston, and go to a factory and see how steam locomotives are made, or any factory, and he'll keep him busy for months."

Good idea, she began to think about how to write to Charles.The railway company is now in the stage of spending money in the early stage, and has recruited workers to start work. Once work starts, Charles will have the factory to urge shipments.On-site supervision is the job of the manager and the supervisors below, but the big boss still needs to follow up on the shipment business of the factory that has placed the order.

Sending a letter to the United States does not take a few days. Cruises regularly travel between Europe and the east coast of the United States, mainly Britain, France and Spain. The one-way journey takes two to three weeks. She plans to write a letter to her parents in early December to report the good news. After they receive the letter Then she can prepare to come to France, and the time is just right to leave after Christmas or New Years, and she will be able to arrive in Paris at the end of January. By then, she will be able to go out and walk around in the middle of her pregnancy.

Philip, a rich man with good money, bought another house nearby, only a few hundred meters away, and planned to live in it for his parents-in-law during their stay in Paris.

This way of thinking is very correct. There are many problems in living with parents. Regardless of which parent, it is best not to live together.

Money can indeed solve most problems.

She sent someone to bring back Victor's pony, Hector, from the Hastings mansion. Victor would stay on the horse for hours all day, and Philip took his stepson out for a horse race. It was agreed that the father and son were very eye-catching, and various invitations were sent to the Tarent house every day, and the neighbors were invited to participate in various social activities, from afternoon tea time for the wives to evening banquets or dances.

The handsome Mr. Talent and the cute little Victor became the most popular guests in this high-end community. Everyone wanted to get acquainted with such an American rich man, and also wanted to see Mrs. Talent who hardly ever went out.

Everyone knows that Mrs. Tellent speaks French fluently, and Mr. Tellent doesn't speak French very well; The voice is very nice, and I especially like white roses; once my wife went to the greenhouse to look at the flowers, but the gardener didn't avoid it in time, so he saw the beautiful wife. He couldn't remember his wife's appearance so much that he fell into the gutter by the side of the road and broke his leg.

The gardener who broke his leg became a joke in the Tarent house, and the maids laughed at the gardener privately. Josephine heard about this and asked Manny to send 20 gold louis to the gardener.

There was a new gardener in the Tarent House. The gardener who broke his leg asked his wife to allow his younger brother to work for him temporarily, and the wife agreed.

Emile wrote letters to her daughter every week. Not long after they arrived in Paris, letters from the United States arrived in an endless stream. Because they didn’t know that they moved into the Tarent House, they were all sent to the hotel. Josephine sent servants Pick up letters from the hotel twice a week.

Emile began to ask her if she was pregnant in the second letter, and was more anxious than her mother-in-law, old Mrs. Tarent.Knowing that Josephine's fertility is fine, Emile should be worried about Philip's fertility.

Philip was gloating all day long when they had impregnated her in the first month of their marriage, and he was bloated with male pride.The doctor said that miscarriage is easy in the first three months, and he should be careful. It is best not to share the same bed during this period. He is not bad, and he is willing to live in the guest room temporarily according to the doctor's order.It took three months before I moved back.

When Josephine was three months pregnant, it was actually not obvious that she was pregnant at all. At most, her belly was a little swollen when she was lying flat, and she couldn't tell it at all when she was wearing a long skirt with a bustle.She didn't go out and about until the end of December.

The winter in Paris is very cold, she is afraid of the cold, and she doesn't want to go out often.Philip soon joined a bourgeois gentlemen's club, where he spent a whole afternoon three days a week, returned after dinner, and stayed at home with her the rest of the time.

The Tarent family is a British immigrant, with a very ordinary background, that is, common people, and can't get into the small circle of nobles; Emile is the daughter of an earl, but Josephine is not a nobleman, so their marriage can be regarded as a good match, neither Aristocrats, not French capitalists, are relatively special foreign residents.

Josephine finally wrote to her mother in early December to tell her mother that she was pregnant, and they should have received the letter before Christmas.At the same time Philip wrote to his mother in Boston with the good news.Said that they waited until the first trimester when miscarriage was most likely to pass, and then wrote to them.Josephine is in good health, the baby is fine, and the doctor visits her every week.

The Tarent family spent Christmas in 1860 and New Year in 1861 in Paris. In the second week of January, a letter from Savannah arrived at the Tarent house, saying that the Robillards would be in Paris next week. Week to Dale Havre.

"Darling, go to Le Havre to pick them up." Josephine said to Philip after reading the letter.

"Well, which passenger ship is it?"

"Moonlight."

"I'll send a telegram tomorrow to ask what the sailing date is."

Emile's letter was full of joy, saying "Thank God!", and she was relieved that she would go to Paris immediately after the New Year, and this time she had to watch the birth of her little grandson.And she also wanted to bring Charles here, planning to live there for at least a year, and find a suitable bride for Charles by the way.

Josephine thought that from a mother's point of view, cities like Savannah, Charleston, and Atlanta didn't have any daughter-in-law she could fancy.I don't know what Charles thinks, young men these days have big ideas, and it's impossible to arrange a marriage.Even back then, John and Emile also fell in love with each other freely.

Perhaps the mother also wanted to find a daughter of a minor French nobleman as her daughter-in-law, but the mother didn't quite understand that it was out of her hands.

Victor has a new tutor in Paris, six mornings a week and sports in the afternoon, his stepfather teaches him horseback riding and cricket, but French kids don't play cricket so he can't find one To other children to play with him.Damian also followed him to Paris, and his only peer is Damian.

Damian is studying with the little master, and the progress of the two children is about the same.Damian's parents also continued to work as servants at Robillard's house, and this time they also came to France with the little mistress.

Josephine paid close attention to this group of servants who had just been freed from slaves.To say that there are indeed quite a few black slaves who have been brainwashed, like the black nun who has always been proud of Robillard and regards herself as a dark-skinned Robillard, but it is certainly impossible for dozens of slaves to rejoice and love their masters , John was born in a family that did not treat black slaves as human beings, and Emile was born in an aristocratic family. In fact, they did not have slaves in their eyes. They were "kind" to black slaves because they thought a kind master was a good master, not because " Slaves are people too."

If one or two disgruntled ex-slaves were out to get revenge, no smart man could hide from it.

This time, almost all the black slaves in the family were converted into free citizens, some of them left, and for others, she offered to borrow a sum of money without interest, so that they could open a small shop and do some small business, and eliminated some dangerous elements .Philip also thinks that it is better to deal with it this way. You can’t simply and rudely drive away all the free people blacks. To be honest, what the black slaves in the house do is to serve people. If they can’t find a new job, it will create instability. It's not uncommon for blacks who can't find work to blame their former owners.

Slave owners relied on strict slavery to suppress the resistance and violence of slaves. It is precisely because of incidents of black slaves violently retaliating against their masters and other whites that the laws against black crimes are so strict. It is in cities like Savannah, Blacks were often hanged on the streets as a warning to other blacks and slaves.

White people will hardly pay the price of their lives for killing blacks or black slaves, at most they will be fined, and they will not even have to go to prison; on the contrary, if blacks kill whites or have intimate physical relationships with white women voluntary), will be hanged.

In fact, many black slaves were forced to have sex with white women. Yes, Josephine was shocked when she returned to Savannah to find that a considerable number of white women would force black slaves on the farm.This kind of thing is often exposed because a white woman gave birth to a mulatto. After the incident is exposed, the white woman will not admit that she forced the black slave—and some of it is free love as you like—but will claim that she was raped by the black. ||Tranny, in the end 90.00% of them are unlucky black slaves who were hanged.

There are also white women who really fall in love with blacks or black slaves and refuse to say the other person's name. At this time, this white woman will be abandoned by the entire white community.

"Forced sex" actually happens not only between white men and black women, but also between white women and black men. The former is common in white society, but the consequences of the latter are usually very bloody and brutal. The price is usually the death of a black man.

After the shock, Josephine felt that this kind of thing was hard to explain.It's definitely wrong to force someone to have sex, whether it's a man or a woman, but who's to blame?Such a strange thing has been produced in such a conservative environment in the south. Sexually repressed southern ladies hear and see that their fathers and brothers and husbands forcefully occupy black female slaves. Once they understand that they can do the same, and they will hardly suffer Severe punishment, then there will always be people who want to practice it.

The loyalty of servants is a big problem no matter in the feudal era or the capitalist era. Don’t expect the servants to be so enlightened and loyal. They just use money to do things. Therefore, there are also a lot of masters who are betrayed by servants. This is a class conflict and cannot be reconciled. , at best, avoid it as much as possible.

Just like companies in later generations, we can’t expect every employee to regard the company as their home, 996 every day, right?The reason is the same.

Philip thought his wife's apprehension was a little funny.The Tarent family fully liberated the black slaves decades ago, and now the black servants in the family have basically worked in the Tarent family for several generations. This kind of generational servants is common in wealthy families, and it takes several generations To cultivate loyal servants, the effect is not bad.

The next day, Philip first sent a telegram to the Le Havre shipping company to inquire about the shipping schedule. The shipping company sent a telegram quickly, saying that it was expected to arrive on a certain day next week.

The next week Philip went to Le Havre, received the Robillards, and, with such meticulous arrangements that no one could fault them, returned to Paris, where he arranged for his parents-in-law to live in a neighboring villa.

Emile was very satisfied, "Philip is really impossible to find a single fault."

John C. Robillard was also quite satisfied, "If you want me to say, he must love our daughter deeply. You have to know the virtue of a man. If he loves a woman, he will definitely arrange everything for her. Well, let her be happy all day long."

The servants were busy packing their luggage, and Emile urged the maid to change her clothes, prepare the carriage, and then went to visit her daughter and grandson.

Josephine looked fine and was leading Victor in a game of skittles in the games room.

As soon as the maid reported that Mrs. Robillard was coming, Victor turned his face to look at Emile who hurried in from the door, and rushed towards his grandmother cheerfully, "Grandma!"

"My dear child!" Emile bent down with a smile and hugged Victor, "Show grandma, you have grown taller!"

Victor was overjoyed, "I've grown an inch!"

"Mother." Josephine stood up carefully.

"How are you, my baby?" Emile gently kissed her daughter's cheek.

"I'm fine. How about you? How are you after all this time on the boat?"

"I'm fine, I don't get seasick. But you, when I thought about your seasickness..." She touched Josephine's face distressedly, "Thank God! The child is fine."

"He's fine, he's fine!" She is now 5 months pregnant, and she can already feel the fetal movement. The fetus is still small, and the fetal movement is not obvious. It is a bit strange. A little life is in her body, with its own heartbeat , The small arms and legs will move.

"sleep well?"

"It's not very good. I'll get up at night." She was a little annoyed. With the increase of pregnancy, she now has to get up at least once in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

"No way, it's inevitable. You can bear it for a few months and wait until the baby is born. How is the food? Is Philip treating you well?"

"He was very kind to me. I wanted to visit you and your father tomorrow. Where's your father?"

"He was talking to Philip outside."

"I have seen the house he prepared for you, what do you think, are you satisfied?"

"I can't be more satisfied." Emile flicked her daughter's blond hair casually, "I'm very glad that he loves you so much, your happiness is my wish. This time I have to watch you have a baby, and you decide to have a good baby." Got a name?"

"Not yet. He said Joseph for a boy and Cynthia for a girl, he said."

Interestingly, the eldest son usually has the same name as his father or grandfather. It is more common for their firstborn son to be called Philip or Henry. Joseph is the male name of Josephine, which is not common for the firstborn.Cynthia is the name for Moon Girl, which is a common name for girls.

"These two names are very good. Let the child's father decide on the child's name."

Josephine nodded.Both names sounded nice, and she had no problem with that.And Philip named his eldest son Joseph, which proved that his relationship with his father, Henry Talent, was not very good.

"He can arrange the baptism as he pleases. I don't have to ask my child to be baptized in a Catholic church."

"Okay, mother."

The Robillards came and went in a hurry. They arrived in Paris very late, and they entered Paris after dinner time. Emile coaxed Victor to sleep, and then left.

The Robillards brought a great deal of news from America.First, the southern slave states held people's congresses one after another and passed a resolution to secede from the Union, that is, they decided to secede from the United States of America.However, the opinions within the slave-holding states were not unified. Some people believed that they should immediately secede from the Union and declare independence. These people were called "separatists"; called "collaborators".

After the New Year, the seven lower southern state congresses began to vote on the secession decree one after another. Regardless of whether it was a state dominated by "separatists" or "cooperatives", all states passed the secession decree.

In this way, when the Robillards arrived in France at the end of January and the beginning of February, all the seven slave-holding states in the lower south decided to secede from the Union, and the civil war was ready to break out.

News from the United States reached France one after another. Five upper southern and three border states began voting in February, all of which rejected the decree of secession.

The Confederate Provisional Congress was formed on February 2, and the Confederate President Jefferson Davis was elected, and Davis was sworn in on February 4.

Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as president on March 3.

Civil war was imminent.

Charles boarded a passenger ship bound for France on Lincoln's swearing-in day and arrived in Paris at the end of the month.

"I can't stay in the United States anymore, but I don't know if I will be called a 'traitor' or a 'coward'." Charles said anxiously: "I tried my best to arrange the company's affairs and rushed to come I fear, Paris, that no ship will leave the port of Savannah if the war breaks out. Father and mother should come to see you in Paris, and I, I should enlist at once."

"You would be a fool if you joined the army." Josephine disagreed.

Philip smiled aside.

"You don't understand." Charles sighed, "I think it's pointless to join the army and die on the battlefield, but I should join the army for Georgia."

"I don't see it that way. Shouldn't I join for Massachusetts too?" Philip said.