Joseph followed Armand into the courtyard of his house and up the steps. He noticed that this small building of Armand's house was typical of the rococo style. The walls are adorned with carvings of various shapes, decorated with gold paint and various other colors. A small building like this must have been full of pompous showmanship back in the day, but today, the gold and various other colors of paint are weathered and flaking off, splotching the entire wall.
Noticing that Joseph was watching this wall, Armand said: "This house is some years old, long overdue for a whole restoration, except that my dad, like me, is a hopeless playboy and couldn't care less about that. So, get this house ... what should I say?"
Armand frowned.
"I think that's actually not bad," Joseph said in a serious, aria-esque tone, "It has a special beauty to it. It is like an open scroll of time, full of the weight of history. When you see it, you see impermanence, you see destiny ..."
"Joseph, I'll take that ... as a real compliment." Armand said, "Anyway, you know, one of my greatest strengths is this. Also ..."
Armand paused and lifted his head, viewing the mottled wall in detail: "Joseph, you're right about one thing, it's impermanence, it's fate. The loneliness and despair underneath the prosperity, that's the true meaning of Rococo!"
"O Fortuna, velut Luna statu variabilis, semper crescis aut decrescis; vita detestabilis nunc obdurat et tunc curat ludo mentis aciem, egestatem, potestatem dissolvit ut" Joseph chanted in a low voice from the side. (This is a passage from the Latin work Carmina Burana's Poem, "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi." To the idea that: oh fate, like the moon, is unpredictable, alternating between surplus and deficit; that abominable life interweaves misery and happiness; that both the poor and the rich melt and perish like ice and snow.)
"Hell! You actually wrote a poem in Latin right away!" Armand feinted, "You've already crushed me in the natural sciences, and now ... you guys, do you expect anyone to live!"
"I didn't write this." Joseph shook his head and said, "I don't know who wrote it, maybe an unknown poet from the eighth century or earlier. Well, as I told you, my godfather was a bishop, and this is from a scrap of a scroll I saw in his church."
"The dreadful Medieval Ages, I wonder how many talented poets were buried." Armand shook his head, "Well, let's not keep standing on the steps talking. Let's go in together."
As the two entered, Joseph looked inside and saw a crystal chandelier in the middle of the living room with a dozen or so candles illuminating the hall, which was already at nightfall. There were a few chairs on either side of the hall and the ballroom floor in the center. The floor was plastered with marble. Only because of the age, all these marble floors had become dull and lost the splendor of those days.
There was no one on the couch in the hall. Armand said to Joseph: "We didn't invite too many people this time, just a limited number of friends, so they're all in the small parlor."
Following Armand to the right, he turned to the small living room. Just as Armand said, the people are in the small parlor.
Armand walked in with Joseph, then raised his hand and clapped it lightly twice, whereupon the men conversing in the chairs in the small parlor stopped and turned their faces toward it.
"Gentlemen, allow me to do you the honor of introducing my friend, the future great scientist of France, Monsieur Joseph Bonaparte ... an Italian Viscount, and let us welcome him. "
"Welcome, Mr. Bonaparte." A man of about forty stood up and greeted Joseph.
"Joseph, this is my father, Viscount Charles de Lavoisier." Armand introduced in a serious manner.
"Thank you for your hospitality." Joseph bowed as well.
"Come on, Armand, what's the point of making it so formal?" Viscount Charles shook his head towards Armand, "It's just a very casual family gathering."
Then he turned to Joseph and pointed to a high-backed chair, "Mr. Bonaparte, please sit here."
"Thanks." Joseph said, "I'm a friend of Armand's, you can just call me Joseph."
For his part, Armand continued to introduce the other family members off to the side.
"This is my mother, the Viscountess Lavoisier."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am." Joseph hurriedly nodded his head in greeting.
"I've enjoyed seeing all of you youngsters, too." The Viscountess replied, "It always reminds me of the good old days when I was young."
"Mom, you're young too." Armand said.
"This is my cousin Samuel de Fermat. He specializes in fencing and shooting, once fought in North America under the Marquis de Lafayette, and is a great guy." Armand introduces Joseph to another short man who is sitting there. Joseph noticed a long scar just below his right ear that ran all the way down to just below his lip. Perhaps to hide the scar, he intentionally grew a large Captain Haddock-esque beard from a later comic book, which made it difficult to judge his age.
"Hello." Samuel stood up and nodded.
"Nice to meet you." Joseph responded in return.
Then Armand introduced Joseph to a few more people, mostly relatives of the family and such. Finally, Armand brought Joseph to a girl in a pale yellow dress.
"This is the most precious pearl in our family, my sister Fanny." Armand said.
"It's a pleasure to meet you." Joseph rushed.
"So am I." That girl bowed her head slightly, her hands tugging at her skirts and bending her knees slightly in response. Then, looking up again, she gave Joseph a quick glance with her big turquoise eyes wide open before dropping her eyelids and saying: "I've heard a lot about you from my brother, and I've heard that you got the grand prize from the Academy of Sciences for your paper. Not only that, but my uncle says you've got a lot of important creations in math already. And with your recommendation, you'll soon have a professorship at the École Militaire in Paris. You must be under twenty years old nowadays, and getting such a recommendation is quite something!"
"Miss, it's really not as hard as you think." Joseph smiled and replied, "I just had better luck."
"My brother said that luck only belongs to those who are ready for it." Fanny whispered with a smile.
"Okay, everyone sit down. Don't stand and talk." Viscount Charles de Lavoisier said.
So Joseph sat down in a chair next to Armand. A servant brought up a cup of tea and placed it beside Joseph on top of the small coffee table.
Everyone then proceeded to chat.
"What was everyone talking about earlier?" Joseph asked.
"Before I went out, everyone was talking about The Marriage of Figaro that was on a while ago." Armand replied.
The Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais. However, later generations are more familiar with the version of the opera adapted by the musician Mozart. But the operatic The Marriage of Figaro would not be completed until 1786, and the most recent staging, which was not the operatic The Marriage of Figaro, as it will be better known in later years, but the play, The Marriage of Figaro.
"Mr. Beaumarchais' satire in this play is so biting and ironic. It's really rare that he has the guts to do that." Armand said.
"If you ask me, Mr. Beaumarchais is fine, those talents of the comedy troupe are really bold, they even changed the plot to include Her Majesty the Queen in the satire. Now that's really bold!" Viscount Lavoisier said.
"Isn't that so?" Fanny smiled back and whispered, "They actually made Count Almaviva say something like that. It's very bold as hell. And do they not fear for the Queen, who will not think it a sarcastic remark; perhaps she will think that what Count Almaviva said was a compliment to her!" Armand laughed with a scornful look on his face.
Because of her extravagant life, Queen Marie Antoinette spent money, countless expensive gems, and a fashion collection in her palace; the luxury fashion trend under her leadership swept the aristocratic circle of life in France. She is happiest when she invites the nobles she gets along with to all-night boozefests, orgies, and balls.
Folklore has it that whenever any new whimsical idea of spending money popped up, she would pout, whine, and cry like a child, forcing her husband to realize it for her. As a result, the royal family spent an increasing amount of money, and the fiscal deficit became more and more serious. Queen Marie was also nicknamed "Madame Déficit ".
"Armand, what did the Count Almaviva say?" Joseph asked.
"The Count said, 'What's the point of spending money? Even if it gets so full of deficits that you have to go around borrowing from Jews, that's fine. You know, since ancient times, how many kings have to be there, who can even abandon their kingdoms and mountains for the sake of a beauty's smile, and it's only right that a husband should be bankrupt even if he goes bankrupt in order to make his lady wear those glittering jewels that she likes.'" Armand then replied.
"Like this? Armand, you underestimate the Queen. The Queen, at any rate, was of Habsburg origin and must have been well educated. It was a simple metaphor that she understood perfectly. So it does take guts for those writers at the Comedy Club to change it like that. Honestly, though, they're not really risking as much as they think they are. Because even if they see the irony, the king and queen probably don't care." Joseph said.
"How can they not care when someone is accusing them in public?" Samuel interjected.
"Ah, well, that's a problem. Let me make the analogy that, uh, you fought in North America. I have heard that some of the Indians in North America at that time sided with the British against you. It is said that those Indians will curse you with their witchcraft. So Mr. Fermat, do you care about their curse?" Joseph asked rhetorically with a smile.
"Of course I don't care, because I know that those superstitions of theirs are of no use whatsoever. You should know that there is no sorcery that a bullet can't fix." Samuel replied.
"If one doesn't fix it, then another." Joseph laughed.
"You are right, Mr. Bonaparte." Samuel followed suit, "But generally speaking, it only takes one bullet to deal with an Indian."
"Such an accusation, in the opinion of the King and Queen, is no different from an Indian curse. They don't care."