For some time afterward Paris seemed to settle down. One by one the barricades were dismantled, and some of the stores that had been closed were opened, and nothing seemed to have changed except that the merchandise was a little less and the prices a little higher than before.
Aunt Sophie was back again, and Louis was at last freed from the drudgery of housework. Louis had recently learned to play chess, and was addicted to it, but because the school was temporarily closed, he could not go out, so he could only drag Lucien to play chess.
Lucien took this opportunity to use his chores as a bet, and Louis on the chessboard, and then successfully passed the chores that should have been done by himself to his brother. The Bonaparte family is full of good brothers.
Now, however, the school is returning to normal one after another. It is also funny to say, Louis and Lucien's school have resumed classes, but Joseph's Paris Officers' School is still closed.
But this is not surprising. Louis and Lucien's schools were private schools, while Joseph's school was a financial institution, and one that ate from the kingdom's coffers. These types of institutions were always going to be much slower to respond. Even more so, when the king is quite unhappy with the army these days.
So now that Joseph was free, he took a look at Sophie, who had just finished cleaning and cleared out for the moment, and made small talk with her.
"Aunt Sophie," Joseph said, "It's been a messy few days, is everything okay at your house?"
"What's good." Sophie shook her head, "The days are just as hard, and even getting harder. The price of bread has gone up again, and there's something even worse than that, and that's that it's hard to buy bread anymore, even if you have the money."
"Looks like some people can't sit still." Joseph thought this in his heart, but opened his mouth and asked, "Aunt Sophie, is it hard to buy bread now?"
"Sir, you are a decent person and don't need to be concerned about such things. You may not know that I ran four whole blocks to buy today's bread. And squeezed my apron while grabbing the bread. God, I don't understand what's going on! Didn't they say that everything was all right, and that things would get better for everyone in the future?"
Joseph shook his head; ever since the beginning of the Tertiary Conference, more and more people had been coming into Paris. In addition to the delegates from all over the world (which wasn't really much of a crowd), there were tons of peasants and vagabonds all arriving in Paris. This made Paris's already meager food supply tighter and tighter.
In such a situation, there was another revolution. Instead of turning out more food, the revolution itself would bring about the destruction of the existing order. When the existing order is destroyed and the new order has not had time to be effectively established, the transportation and sale of grain will certainly be disturbed and its efficiency will certainly be reduced. Therefore, it is only natural that the price of food will rise, and even that it will be unavailable even after the price has risen.
And in such a case, there will naturally be a rush to buy and hoard, and then the price of grain will further rise and further become unavailable. And if there are people who intentionally take advantage of this situation to artificially increase the panic even further, the problem will become more and more serious.
Joseph suddenly remembered a piece of history of the Eastern Great Eating Country in later times. At that time, the most important city of the Eastern Great Eating Country, Magic Capital, had just been liberated, and a similar problem of skyrocketing prices and economic chaos had immediately occurred. How did Chen Leshan, the first mayor of Mordu in the Eastern Great Eating Country at that time, solve the problem?
Mayor Chen solved the problem with nothing more than two tricks. One move is economic means, you raise food prices, I will be from the food origin of large-scale import of food, see how much you can eat into, hold you up; another move is a political means, play the securities trading of those guys to buy silver dollars, pulling up inflation, I do not have so many silver dollars in my hands and you play, I'll just directly send troops, the whole of your exchange are seized.
Relying on these two tricks, Mayor Chen quickly stabilized the situation. However, these two moves were difficult to implement in Paris at this time. The large-scale transfer of grain from the grain producing areas requires a national machine that can control the whole country and efficiently mobilize all kinds of resources. If France had such a thing in this era, would there have been a revolution? In the Seven Years' War, the French would have "executed the kings of England and Prussia and asked for the punishment before", and gained what Genghis Khan called the greatest joy in life. (Genghis Khan said: "The greatest joy in life is to hunt down your enemies, invade their lands, plunder their wealth, and then listen to the cries of their wives and children.") Where would there be any revolution?
As for the second move, it requires just as much a strong state apparatus. Nowadays, although the Marquis de Lafayette controlled the National Self-Defense Army and a part of the French army, his control over these forces was not firm, and thus, he was not in a position to resort to such a tactic.
Thinking of this, Joseph then said to Sophie, "Aunt Sophie, I reckon that I am afraid that the price of grain will be even higher for some time to come, so if you still have savings, exchange it for more grain as far in advance as possible."
"Alas, sir, as you know, where would a family like ours have any savings." Aunt Sophie said with a sigh.
...
Just at the same time, there was a person who was just as worried as Aunt Sophie about the rising food prices. This person was the Marquis de Lafayette, who had gotten the upper hand in the previous political turmoil.
The Marquis de Lafayette had considerable influence in the army, which gave him a lot of the upper hand in the revolution. But his power in the economic sphere was quite limited. Marquis de Lafayette's title wasn't low, but he wasn't the kind of old aristocrat with deep roots. He didn't have much financial power and didn't have many channels to get money in his hands. In this regard, the gap between him and the Duke of Orleans was as large as the gap between the Duke of Orleans and him in military matters.
However, as a famous general, Marquis de Lafayette remained quite calm even in the face of such trouble. The experience of many years of war had made him understand that when he could not solve the problem of obtaining victory, it was time to consider how to retreat.
"The various atrocities in Paris must be brought under control, we can't tolerate those innocent blood to continue to flow any longer. Some people, they are not revolutionaries, they are just thugs! They shout about democracy with their mouths, but what they're really interested in, what they're really doing, is looting and massacring! In the name of revolution, they arbitrarily accuse others of being 'enemies of the people' and then kill and loot. How many merchants in the city of Paris, who were operating in their own right, were hung from street lamps by those thugs. And the purpose of those thugs has nothing at all to do with democracy, all they do is rob others of their legitimate property. This disorder must be stopped! Marquis, the people of Paris entrusted you with the command of the Self-Defense Forces for one purpose, to stop possible looting. Does it follow that the plunder of the mercenaries is plunder, but that the plunder of those thugs is not?" In a lounge next to the council chamber, Delegate Banav waved his arms and said this to Marquis Lafayette, who was sitting across from him.
"You have a good point, but this matter cannot be rushed." Marquis de Lafayette leaned back a little, "You know, there are still quite a few weapons in the hands of those thugs. There are also still a certain number of gangs. There are even a number of people in the National Guard who are sympathizers or even simply part of them. Today we have not yet had time to remove all of these people from the National Self Defense completely."
"How much longer will it take to remove all these guys?" Sierras, who was on one side of the room, also asked.
"Soon. I don't want to remove these guys by violent means, but the economic conditions of these guys don't allow them to participate in military activities without working for a long time." Marquis Lafayette said, "The National Self-Defense Army has already set up disciplines, and those who are constantly absent from their activities will be expelled. That way, it won't be long before the hooligans themselves won't be able to stay in the National Self Defense."
"These people are a threat to order even if they are removed from the National Self Defense Army." Banav said.
"Do you expect us to move to suppress them immediately?" Lafayette said, "That would really play right into some people's hands. The real threat to us has never been the condomless pants men."
"So are we just going to let ... it go?"
"Don't do what we can't do, it'll just depreciate our power for nothing." Lafayette said, "It's not unacceptable to back down a bit when necessary. My lords, His Majesty is still hesitant to give up all that is old and accept the new system; and he is afraid to follow the path of Charles I. categorically. Having said that, is it not because of this that we think that His Majesty the King is a fit Majesty for constitutional government? But there are those who would deliberately send His Majesty to the guillotine. But that His Highness, although he looks revolutionary, is not a suitable monarch for constitutional rule."
Several people nodded darkly as they listened, knowing who the Marquis de Lafayette was talking about.
"In today's situation, I'm afraid that that person can't sit still any longer than we can. Let's just quietly watch him perform first. We can use him to put pressure on the king while also using the king to irritate him. I know him well. He'll definitely reveal his weaknesses. At that time, we can then take measures, which is quite a bit better than just rushing into it now."
After Marquis Lafayette said this, he looked at his friends again, and seeing that they were all silent, as if they had been convinced by himself, he nodded and added, "In fact, there's one more thing that I'm inviting you all for today."
"What is it?" Sierras asked.
"To introduce everyone to a new friend." Marquis de Lafayette said, "An archbishop who tends to be progressive."