Chapter 677 French Coup—Your Emperor is back!
The birch logs crackled in the fireplace, and the cold Moscow wind lashed against the cast-iron window frames as Arthur poked the silver letter opener into the wax.
He recognized the hand-painted emblem on the letterhead; it seemed familiar even to him—the golden bee of the Bonaparte family fluttering in the candlelight.
"Sir?" Blackwell held the Turkish coffee pot in his hand, ink dripping from the tilted spout onto the Persian carpet. "Is this an urgent dispatch from Paris?"
Arthur did not answer. The scribbled French on the parchment smelled of gunpowder. He seemed to see Louis Bonaparte in his Scotland Yard uniform, running around the office with a stack of documents in his arms.
Unfortunately, the sender of this letter was not Louis, but another old friend of Arthur in Paris, the Paris detective Mr. François Vidocq.
Although Arthur had been away from Paris for a year, the two still maintained close private correspondence.
On the one hand, this was due to the mutual admiration between the two police experts, and on the other hand, before Arthur left Paris, he had ordered an annual intelligence service from Victor's detective agency.
Perhaps the term intelligence service is still too mysterious. To be precise, Arthur simply asked Victor to send him noteworthy Paris news on a monthly basis and paid him to help compile a summary.
Although Dumas would write to him from time to time and mention some interesting things in the letters.
But for Arthur, Dumas's thoughts were not suitable for analyzing intelligence.
He knew Dumas very well, just as Dumas knew him very well, so he deeply understood that the fat man could not reveal too many political trends to him in private letters. Even if he occasionally let something slip, they were fragmented and difficult to restore to their original state.
Vidocq was much more insightful than Dumas. For such a legendary figure who had experienced the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, there was no intelligence that could not be discussed. If he said it could not be discussed, it was purely because your offer was not high enough, just as Talleyrand, who completed Arthur's diplomatic enlightenment, did.
Victor's letterhead gets straight to the point, and the first thing that catches the eye is a clipping from the Paris Journal.
Louis Bonaparte launched a coup and the French emperor almost returned
According to shocking news sent back by reporters on the front line, an absurd drama comparable to "The Queen's Comedy" was staged in the Strasbourg military camp yesterday!
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, a descendant of the Bonaparte family who was once exiled abroad and nephew of Napoleon the Great, was so bold as to imitate the feat of his uncle the "little emperor" and tried to give a speech in front of the artillery regiment of the Strasbourg garrison in a Napoleonic three-cornered hat, a gray military uniform and an eagle flag (this flag has been used exclusively for His Majesty the Emperor to wipe his butt since 1804), calling on the soldiers to overthrow our civilian king Louis Philippe and support him as the "Emperor of the French"!
He thought he could become the master of Strasbourg in one fell swoop, holding the legacy of Emperor Napoleon in one hand and the sword of Austerlitz in the other. To this end, he even spent a lot of money to recruit several capable helpers, including: Louise Cocheret's husband, the old imperial soldier Parquin, his mother's distant relative of the Beauharnais family, Major Letty, and even the supporter and leader of the orthodox faction, the traitor Marquis Grigour who participated in the rebellion of the Duchess of Berry a year ago!
Between 6 and 8 in the morning, the gloomy sky of Strasbourg was drizzling. However, Louis Bonaparte resolutely implemented the plan. Under the illegally worn military uniform, his figure was obviously lacking in grace. The members of his small group also changed their clothes and formed a temporary staff under his leadership.
Bonaparte appointed Parquin as general, and his adviser Persigny and Marquis Grigour as captains. This group of people in strange costumes came to the artillery camp in Strasbourg with the imperial eagle flag. Colonel Vaudrey, who had been in contact with him for a long time, immediately handed over his artillery regiment to Louis Bonaparte. It must be mentioned that there is a dirty detail worth noting: they immediately distributed 60 francs to each artillery group of the regiment!
Immediately, Louis Bonaparte also promised the soldiers and junior officers of the regiment ranks and medals. Then, the artillery regiment left the city and headed for the infantry camp. At the same time, they also learned the lesson of Marais's failed coup in 1812 and sent some officers to capture the government officials of Alsace and the commander of the garrison, General Valor.
When Arthur saw this, he wanted to slap himself in the face.
Although he noticed that something seemed to be wrong with Louis when he parted with him in Paris.
Ever since the young Bonaparte learned that Napoleon's son, the King of Rome, had died of tuberculosis in Vienna, and that he himself had a great chance to become the leader of the next generation of the Bonaparte family, a fanatical and unrealistic enthusiasm began to burn in him.
It was a feeling Arthur had never seen before during his time as Louis's police secretary. The down-to-earth, studious young man had suddenly disappeared, and in his place was a potential claimant to the throne of France.
The friends around Louis also changed from old acquaintances to some unfamiliar faces that Arthur had never seen before.
The last time he met Louis in Paris, he advised Louis to properly consider the influence of the royalists. Now it seems that he must have listened to his words, otherwise he would not have approached the royalist leader, Marquis Grigor.
However, Louis probably didn't listen to the rest of Arthur's words.
Although Arthur understood that this boy was eager to become the republican emperor in his mind, it would be too hasty to take action now.
Over the past year, Louis had written a few letters to Arthur sporadically, most of which talked about how unstable Louis Philippe's July Monarchy was, how unpopular it was, and how he was dissatisfied with the current state of the great country of France.
At the time, Arthur regarded it as just a few complaints from an ambitious young man, and he comforted him briefly and left it at that.
Who would have thought that when he was still struggling in the mud of Russia, burning incense and praying to Buddha that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would not abandon him to an overseas colony, his former subordinates had already dared to say to Louis Philippe, "He can replace him."
Louis' progress was much faster than Arthur had expected. Generally speaking, if something happened to his friends, Arthur would try to help them no matter what.
When in London, Arthur did his best to suppress the trouble, whether it was Elder's petty theft or Alexandre Dumas' one-night stand.
But as for the charge of 'treason', you know what, Arthur had never dealt with it before.
Moreover, this was not British treason, but French treason.
Arthur really didn't know which way the door of the Paris Appeal Court opened.
Arthur tapped the tabletop with his fingertips in annoyance, muttering in a low voice: "Why didn't that fat guy Alexander persuade him..."
But it didn't take long for Arthur to figure it out on his own.
Even he didn't know about this big news that Louis had made, so it was even more impossible for Louis to tell Dumas.
After all, according to Dumas' republican stance, although this loyal fat man is unlikely to report Louis directly, if he knew, he would definitely write to Arthur to complain about Louis' recent ideological decline.
Blackwell thought Arthur was grieving over the news that the Grey cabinet might fall at any time. He put down the file bag in his hand and said comfortingly, "Every coin has two sides. You can think of the bright side. Actually... I think as long as you don't go to Canada and Australia, if you are transferred to India, there is nothing wrong with it. Don't people say that India has a lot of money? Whether it is the Governor of Bombay or the Governor of Madras, the fixed salary alone exceeds 6,000 pounds. In addition, it seems that there are commissions and so on. It should be a foregone conclusion that the annual income will exceed 10,000 pounds. Even if you can't be the Governor, you can be the Mayor of Calcutta. That's much better than staying here and freezing to death, isn't it?"
Arthur saw through Blackwell's little trick at a glance. For a diplomatic officer like him with neither background nor resume, promotion was a very illusory thing, but going to India to become a millionaire was a high-probability event.
Although the East India Company is no longer the corrupt business company it was a century ago, the company's contract officials are also prohibited from engaging in commercial activities and can no longer serve as both referees and athletes as they did in the past.
However, as Blackwell said, in order to clarify administration and improve administrative efficiency, the East India Company's successive Indian governors-general all pursued a policy of high salaries to maintain integrity.
Those employees who had worked for the East India Company for more than 20 years could easily earn more than 600 pounds.
What kind of concept is this?
When Arthur was Assistant Commissioner of Police at Scotland Yard, his income was not that high.
The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!
Not to mention that the East India Company also has various welfare benefits that the Scotland Yard police do not enjoy, such as pensions, hardship allowances and various work injury compensation.
In just the previous two years, the East India Company had paid out pensions and annuities totaling £80,000 to hundreds of its former employees.
With such generous economic returns and living security, it is no wonder that many people tried their best to get their children to work for the East India Company so that their children and grandchildren could have this golden rice bowl.
Moreover, even if the East India Company is now fighting corruption, it does not mean that you will have no off-site income.
Because the employees of the East India Company were mainly divided into two types: one was the senior indentured civil servants of British nationality, and the second was the local Indian non-indentured civil servants who assisted the senior indentured civil servants.
This means that as long as you are a British person working for the East India Company, you are a leader with a certain position, and you must have many Indian subordinates under you.
There is an ancient custom in India that if a subordinate wants to get a favor from his superior, he should give him a Nazir (gift). If the gift is rejected, they do not doubt that the superior refuses it out of integrity, but only think that the gift is not big enough, so they will come back with a bigger gift later.
Although the East India Company had clear regulations prohibiting indentured officials from accepting gifts worth more than 4 rupees from their Indian subordinates.
But regulations are dead, and people are alive, so there is actually quite a lot of room for maneuver here.
Anyway, most of the gifts received by the contract civil servants are rupees. As for how this value is calculated, it’s best not to ask.
If Arthur had no intention of going further, he would naturally become a rich man by going to India.
But for this shareholder of The Brit, The Economist, and Nature, and an investor in the Great Western Railway and the Hanover Railway, the rupee, no matter how tempting it is, is not as good as the pounds, francs, and thalers in his hands. Even if we take a step back, the rupee is not as good as the ruble!
Although Arthur had no intention of going to India, Blackwell's words inadvertently reminded Arthur.
He was planning to do something "well-intentioned but bad" to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If this guy carried out his plan with the mentality of going to India by lottery, Arthur might end up falling into his gutter.
He suddenly seemed to have thought of something, and asked Blackwell: "This letter in my hand should have been delivered through the normal channels, right?"
"Of course." Blackwell nodded. "Except for the letterhead sent through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the others are all civilian channels."
Arthur pondered for a moment: "In other words, it is not ruled out that the third game has read this letter?"
"Uh..." Blackwell paused, "I think it's highly likely. You may not know that the letters between Pushkin and his wife were just opened privately by the Third Bureau a while ago. The great poet was very angry about this and even raised the issue to the Tsar. He originally thought that the Tsar would deny it, but the Tsar actually admitted to Pushkin that he had indeed read those letters."
"Hmm..." Arthur casually pulled out a tin cigar cutter from the bottom of the drawer. Under the cigar cutter were records of the activities of the Tsar's secret police in Poland, news of exchanges between the French Orleanists and the Russian aristocracy, and even Sir David Urquhart's activities in the Caucasus.
Arthur's eyes swept over the documents and then he caught a glimpse of the letter from Vidocq in Paris.
Outside the window, moonlight is streaming over the nine-colored domes of St. Basil's Cathedral.
"Oh! Louis is really lucky. Well, I'll do him one more favor this time."
The birch logs crackled in the fireplace, and the cold Moscow wind lashed against the cast-iron window frames as Arthur poked the silver letter opener into the wax.
He recognized the hand-painted emblem on the letterhead; it seemed familiar even to him—the golden bee of the Bonaparte family fluttering in the candlelight.
"Sir?" Blackwell held the Turkish coffee pot in his hand, ink dripping from the tilted spout onto the Persian carpet. "Is this an urgent dispatch from Paris?"
Arthur did not answer. The scribbled French on the parchment smelled of gunpowder. He seemed to see Louis Bonaparte in his Scotland Yard uniform, running around the office with a stack of documents in his arms.
Unfortunately, the sender of this letter was not Louis, but another old friend of Arthur in Paris, the Paris detective Mr. François Vidocq.
Although Arthur had been away from Paris for a year, the two still maintained close private correspondence.
On the one hand, this was due to the mutual admiration between the two police experts, and on the other hand, before Arthur left Paris, he had ordered an annual intelligence service from Victor's detective agency.
Perhaps the term intelligence service is still too mysterious. To be precise, Arthur simply asked Victor to send him noteworthy Paris news on a monthly basis and paid him to help compile a summary.
Although Dumas would write to him from time to time and mention some interesting things in the letters.
But for Arthur, Dumas's thoughts were not suitable for analyzing intelligence.
He knew Dumas very well, just as Dumas knew him very well, so he deeply understood that the fat man could not reveal too many political trends to him in private letters. Even if he occasionally let something slip, they were fragmented and difficult to restore to their original state.
Vidocq was much more insightful than Dumas. For such a legendary figure who had experienced the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, there was no intelligence that could not be discussed. If he said it could not be discussed, it was purely because your offer was not high enough, just as Talleyrand, who completed Arthur's diplomatic enlightenment, did.
Victor's letterhead gets straight to the point, and the first thing that catches the eye is a clipping from the Paris Journal.
Louis Bonaparte launched a coup and the French emperor almost returned
According to shocking news sent back by reporters on the front line, an absurd drama comparable to "The Queen's Comedy" was staged in the Strasbourg military camp yesterday!
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, a descendant of the Bonaparte family who was once exiled abroad and nephew of Napoleon the Great, was so bold as to imitate the feat of his uncle the "little emperor" and tried to give a speech in front of the artillery regiment of the Strasbourg garrison in a Napoleonic three-cornered hat, a gray military uniform and an eagle flag (this flag has been used exclusively for His Majesty the Emperor to wipe his butt since 1804), calling on the soldiers to overthrow our civilian king Louis Philippe and support him as the "Emperor of the French"!
He thought he could become the master of Strasbourg in one fell swoop, holding the legacy of Emperor Napoleon in one hand and the sword of Austerlitz in the other. To this end, he even spent a lot of money to recruit several capable helpers, including: Louise Cocheret's husband, the old imperial soldier Parquin, his mother's distant relative of the Beauharnais family, Major Letty, and even the supporter and leader of the orthodox faction, the traitor Marquis Grigour who participated in the rebellion of the Duchess of Berry a year ago!
Between 6 and 8 in the morning, the gloomy sky of Strasbourg was drizzling. However, Louis Bonaparte resolutely implemented the plan. Under the illegally worn military uniform, his figure was obviously lacking in grace. The members of his small group also changed their clothes and formed a temporary staff under his leadership.
Bonaparte appointed Parquin as general, and his adviser Persigny and Marquis Grigour as captains. This group of people in strange costumes came to the artillery camp in Strasbourg with the imperial eagle flag. Colonel Vaudrey, who had been in contact with him for a long time, immediately handed over his artillery regiment to Louis Bonaparte. It must be mentioned that there is a dirty detail worth noting: they immediately distributed 60 francs to each artillery group of the regiment!
Immediately, Louis Bonaparte also promised the soldiers and junior officers of the regiment ranks and medals. Then, the artillery regiment left the city and headed for the infantry camp. At the same time, they also learned the lesson of Marais's failed coup in 1812 and sent some officers to capture the government officials of Alsace and the commander of the garrison, General Valor.
When Arthur saw this, he wanted to slap himself in the face.
Although he noticed that something seemed to be wrong with Louis when he parted with him in Paris.
Ever since the young Bonaparte learned that Napoleon's son, the King of Rome, had died of tuberculosis in Vienna, and that he himself had a great chance to become the leader of the next generation of the Bonaparte family, a fanatical and unrealistic enthusiasm began to burn in him.
It was a feeling Arthur had never seen before during his time as Louis's police secretary. The down-to-earth, studious young man had suddenly disappeared, and in his place was a potential claimant to the throne of France.
The friends around Louis also changed from old acquaintances to some unfamiliar faces that Arthur had never seen before.
The last time he met Louis in Paris, he advised Louis to properly consider the influence of the royalists. Now it seems that he must have listened to his words, otherwise he would not have approached the royalist leader, Marquis Grigor.
However, Louis probably didn't listen to the rest of Arthur's words.
Although Arthur understood that this boy was eager to become the republican emperor in his mind, it would be too hasty to take action now.
Over the past year, Louis had written a few letters to Arthur sporadically, most of which talked about how unstable Louis Philippe's July Monarchy was, how unpopular it was, and how he was dissatisfied with the current state of the great country of France.
At the time, Arthur regarded it as just a few complaints from an ambitious young man, and he comforted him briefly and left it at that.
Who would have thought that when he was still struggling in the mud of Russia, burning incense and praying to Buddha that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would not abandon him to an overseas colony, his former subordinates had already dared to say to Louis Philippe, "He can replace him."
Louis' progress was much faster than Arthur had expected. Generally speaking, if something happened to his friends, Arthur would try to help them no matter what.
When in London, Arthur did his best to suppress the trouble, whether it was Elder's petty theft or Alexandre Dumas' one-night stand.
But as for the charge of 'treason', you know what, Arthur had never dealt with it before.
Moreover, this was not British treason, but French treason.
Arthur really didn't know which way the door of the Paris Appeal Court opened.
Arthur tapped the tabletop with his fingertips in annoyance, muttering in a low voice: "Why didn't that fat guy Alexander persuade him..."
But it didn't take long for Arthur to figure it out on his own.
Even he didn't know about this big news that Louis had made, so it was even more impossible for Louis to tell Dumas.
After all, according to Dumas' republican stance, although this loyal fat man is unlikely to report Louis directly, if he knew, he would definitely write to Arthur to complain about Louis' recent ideological decline.
Blackwell thought Arthur was grieving over the news that the Grey cabinet might fall at any time. He put down the file bag in his hand and said comfortingly, "Every coin has two sides. You can think of the bright side. Actually... I think as long as you don't go to Canada and Australia, if you are transferred to India, there is nothing wrong with it. Don't people say that India has a lot of money? Whether it is the Governor of Bombay or the Governor of Madras, the fixed salary alone exceeds 6,000 pounds. In addition, it seems that there are commissions and so on. It should be a foregone conclusion that the annual income will exceed 10,000 pounds. Even if you can't be the Governor, you can be the Mayor of Calcutta. That's much better than staying here and freezing to death, isn't it?"
Arthur saw through Blackwell's little trick at a glance. For a diplomatic officer like him with neither background nor resume, promotion was a very illusory thing, but going to India to become a millionaire was a high-probability event.
Although the East India Company is no longer the corrupt business company it was a century ago, the company's contract officials are also prohibited from engaging in commercial activities and can no longer serve as both referees and athletes as they did in the past.
However, as Blackwell said, in order to clarify administration and improve administrative efficiency, the East India Company's successive Indian governors-general all pursued a policy of high salaries to maintain integrity.
Those employees who had worked for the East India Company for more than 20 years could easily earn more than 600 pounds.
What kind of concept is this?
When Arthur was Assistant Commissioner of Police at Scotland Yard, his income was not that high.
The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!
Not to mention that the East India Company also has various welfare benefits that the Scotland Yard police do not enjoy, such as pensions, hardship allowances and various work injury compensation.
In just the previous two years, the East India Company had paid out pensions and annuities totaling £80,000 to hundreds of its former employees.
With such generous economic returns and living security, it is no wonder that many people tried their best to get their children to work for the East India Company so that their children and grandchildren could have this golden rice bowl.
Moreover, even if the East India Company is now fighting corruption, it does not mean that you will have no off-site income.
Because the employees of the East India Company were mainly divided into two types: one was the senior indentured civil servants of British nationality, and the second was the local Indian non-indentured civil servants who assisted the senior indentured civil servants.
This means that as long as you are a British person working for the East India Company, you are a leader with a certain position, and you must have many Indian subordinates under you.
There is an ancient custom in India that if a subordinate wants to get a favor from his superior, he should give him a Nazir (gift). If the gift is rejected, they do not doubt that the superior refuses it out of integrity, but only think that the gift is not big enough, so they will come back with a bigger gift later.
Although the East India Company had clear regulations prohibiting indentured officials from accepting gifts worth more than 4 rupees from their Indian subordinates.
But regulations are dead, and people are alive, so there is actually quite a lot of room for maneuver here.
Anyway, most of the gifts received by the contract civil servants are rupees. As for how this value is calculated, it’s best not to ask.
If Arthur had no intention of going further, he would naturally become a rich man by going to India.
But for this shareholder of The Brit, The Economist, and Nature, and an investor in the Great Western Railway and the Hanover Railway, the rupee, no matter how tempting it is, is not as good as the pounds, francs, and thalers in his hands. Even if we take a step back, the rupee is not as good as the ruble!
Although Arthur had no intention of going to India, Blackwell's words inadvertently reminded Arthur.
He was planning to do something "well-intentioned but bad" to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If this guy carried out his plan with the mentality of going to India by lottery, Arthur might end up falling into his gutter.
He suddenly seemed to have thought of something, and asked Blackwell: "This letter in my hand should have been delivered through the normal channels, right?"
"Of course." Blackwell nodded. "Except for the letterhead sent through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the others are all civilian channels."
Arthur pondered for a moment: "In other words, it is not ruled out that the third game has read this letter?"
"Uh..." Blackwell paused, "I think it's highly likely. You may not know that the letters between Pushkin and his wife were just opened privately by the Third Bureau a while ago. The great poet was very angry about this and even raised the issue to the Tsar. He originally thought that the Tsar would deny it, but the Tsar actually admitted to Pushkin that he had indeed read those letters."
"Hmm..." Arthur casually pulled out a tin cigar cutter from the bottom of the drawer. Under the cigar cutter were records of the activities of the Tsar's secret police in Poland, news of exchanges between the French Orleanists and the Russian aristocracy, and even Sir David Urquhart's activities in the Caucasus.
Arthur's eyes swept over the documents and then he caught a glimpse of the letter from Vidocq in Paris.
Outside the window, moonlight is streaming over the nine-colored domes of St. Basil's Cathedral.
"Oh! Louis is really lucky. Well, I'll do him one more favor this time."
