Fox of France

Although Joseph's history is not good, he also knows that Aunt Sophie's thoughts are too optimistic. There's still more to come.

On the 19th, the Constituent Assembly also left Versailles and returned to Paris.

As soon as the Constituent Assembly returned to Paris, Congressman Mirabeau put forward such a proposal: "Let the king abdicate and pass the throne to the prince. Considering that the prince is still young, according to the French tradition, a noble The great nobleman acts as the regent and handles government affairs for him."

Everyone knew who the great nobleman Mirabeau was referring to was. Both of the king's younger brothers were already in exile, and given their attitude to the revolution, they were naturally unlikely to occupy this position. Therefore, there is only one candidate, and that is the Duke of Orleans.

This proposal was supported by many members of parliament, because the parliament did not believe that the king, who was forced to return to Paris, would sincerely support constitutionalism. They felt that having such a person on the throne would introduce all sorts of uncertainties into constitutional government.

For a time, the throne of Louis XVI became in jeopardy, and people could even hear people shouting "Long live Louis XVII" on the street.

It is said that the Duke of Orleans has been waiting for this day for a long time, but things suddenly changed. The Duke of Orleans suddenly accepted the suggestion of the Marquis of Lafayette, left France, and went to London to serve as the ambassador to England.

According to general thinking, it is absolutely impossible for the Duke of Orleans to leave France at this time, because this is almost equivalent to a kind of exile. But it is said that after a secret meeting with Lafayette, the Duke of Orleans accepted the request. Then there were rumors that the Duke of Orleans accepted such a request because he had done some shameful things secretly and was discovered by the Marquis of Lafayette. A clerical friend of the Marquis Condorcet is said to have discovered evidence of some of his not-so-good activities and told Condorcet this, and Condorcet gave the news to the Marquis de Lafayette. It's just that Lafayette is a kind person, and he is unwilling to disclose these things in public, and ruin His Royal Highness the Duke. But he also believed that His Royal Highness the Duke's continued stay in the country would endanger the country, so he forced the Duke to leave France.

Of course, there are other rumors. For example, His Royal Highness, the Duke, knows his identity and influence. If he serves as the regent, it may interfere with democracy, so he left France on his own initiative.

However, Joseph still felt that the first rumor might contain more truth.

After dissuading the Duke of Orleans, Lafayette then attacked Mirabeau. Using the same means, he tried to get Mirabeau to leave France and go to Constantinople as ambassador to Turkey. But Mirabeau stood his ground, and he refused the request. However, Lafayette still gave Mirabeau a heavy blow. He encouraged the parliament not only to reject Mirabeau's suggestion that members of the government serve as ministers, but also passed a resolution prohibiting members of the government from serving as ministers. It completely blocked Mirabeau's way to concurrently serve as minister.

By this time, Lafayette seemed to have complete control over the situation. It seems that there is only one difficult problem to be solved before him, and that is finance.

At the beginning, an important reason why the king convened the three-level meeting was because of unresolvable financial problems. Today's social situation is completely different from the original, but financial problems are still very prominent.

Now that the royal family has left Versailles, some of the nobles attached to the royal family have also fled abroad. The overhead spent on them is greatly reduced. If in the early years, the royal family's expenses could be compressed to where it is today, then there would really be no financial crisis in France. However, the current situation is very different. Although the royal family's expenditure has been reduced, new problems have emerged.

Just like the problems revealed by the second law of thermodynamics summed up by later generations of Clausius and Kelvin, there is no way in the world that can reduce the entropy of a part of the system without increasing the entropy of the entire system. Royal expenses were squeezed, but other expenses suddenly increased.

First, the conservative aristocrats, unwilling to lose their past status, are instigating rebellions everywhere. In order to suppress them, more money is needed. For many years, France has been the leader on the European continent, but there are not a few countries that covet France's status.

For example, the Habsburg family in Austria has always wanted to restore the glory of the so-called "Holy Roman Empire". Although their empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, except for the abundance of various princesses, there was no glory at all.

Although in the Seven Years War, Austria and France "turned their enemies into friends", (as a result, France suffered a lot in this war. What is particularly interesting is that before this, whether France was allied with the pagan Turkey to deal with the pious The Catholic Habsburgs, or the alliance with the Protestants against the Catholic Habsburgs in the Thirty Years' War, have achieved great success. However, once the Catholic Habsburgs joined forces, the I lost a complete defeat. It can be seen that God’s will indeed wants France to attack Catholicism. Well, although France imprisoned the Pope, made an alliance with heretics to fight Catholics, and formed an alliance with Protestants to fight Catholics, I know that I am God’s Good boy.) But the Habsburgs would be more than happy to take advantage of France if it showed a hole.

And those low countries, and Prussia and Russia... On the European continent, which country doesn't want to take advantage of France's problems? Not to mention that there is a European shit stirrer in the west-Britain. If they don't take the opportunity to pounce on France and tear a few pieces of flesh off France, then they don't deserve to be called Never trouble John Bull.

So in order to guard against these neighbors, France must rectify the army. And the French army, well, just like King Louis XVI thought the army was very unreliable, the Parliament couldn't trust the French army.

The senior officers in the French army are all aristocrats, and they are all relatives of the nobles who have gone abroad and are ready to lead the Austrian, Prussian or British armies at any time, just like the later Hugo in his "Nine Thirds" As described in "The Year", Guo Wen, the commander of the Republican Army, is the grandnephew of the Marquis of the Marquis of Landenac, the commander of the rebel army. In 1993, Guo Wen was very loyal to his ideals and to the revolution. But in reality, who can guarantee that those noble officers in the army are really loyal to the parliament? Who can guarantee that once the Earl of Provence or the Earl of Artois come back with foreign troops, they will not turn against each other?

Some impatient MPs even proposed that all noble officers be replaced by officers of the third rank. However, such a mindless proposal is simply not feasible. Because the number of so-called third-rank officers is not only too small, but most of the time, they are at most a lieutenant-in fact, there is no "de" in their names, and it is very difficult to become a second lieutenant. It might be okay for these people to command a platoon or a company, but if they were to suddenly command a legion and go to war, it would be like sending them to death.

In fact, even the congressman who put forward this motion understands that this is an extremely stupid motion. However, the congressmen who proposed this motion are not fools. When they proposed this motion, they knew that this motion would definitely be rejected. (If this were not the case, they would not have proposed such a motion at all.) Such a motion was proposed just to let the people who support them see how loyal they are to the people.

It's also a general problem with electoral systems that you have to be more radical than others in order to get the support of voters, even in future generations. For example, if people care about environmental protection, you must support shutting down dangerous nuclear power, dismantling thermal power that pollutes the air, blowing up hydropower that disrupts fish migration and changing the stress on the ground, and cutting off infrasonic pollution that can threaten birds Wind power... In the end, you can only support the pure natural and pollution-free "power generation with love".

To solve the problem of the unreliability of the army, it still needs to spend money. First of all, the income of the army must be guaranteed. It is said that the reason why the king gradually lost control of the army is not because he often owes the army wages? If the parliament wants to truly control the army, at least it cannot starve the army.

The second is to establish a truly loyal military force. The British parliament in the west can control the overall situation, isn't it because they have a "parliamentary" army? (The British navy, police, and later the air force are all called royal or something. Only the army is not preceded by the word "royal", because the army belongs to the parliament.) The British army is derived from Cromwell's new Developed by the Model Army. Today's National Assembly is also very eager to have a new model army of its own.

The closest thing to the "New Model Army" today is naturally the "National Self-Defense Force." But the National Guard was still only a militia. Although Lafayette worked very hard, his time was limited. To be honest, at least for now, the National Guard is still just a bunch of rabble. To turn these mobs into a "new model army" will not only require time, but also money.

There are also various new and old national debts, which together amount to 4.5 billion livres. The interest alone is a huge number, all of which are overwhelming Congress.

It is impossible to pay off the debts, which are borrowed from the wealthiest third-order decent people who are now the foundation of this country.

Facing the dilemma, some congressmen have been discussing in private whether it is not politically correct to increase taxes. But no one has really raised this point. But Lafayette is not in a hurry, because his friend Bishop Talleyrand already has a solution.