Chapter 46: Rumors and the National Guard (2)

　Just as Amand had thrown out a new rumor - that he himself had suddenly disappeared, perhaps taken to the Bastille - a more startling news came: the king's finance minister, Necker, had been dismissed from his post and expelled from the country.

　　Necker's departure was seen as a sign that the king was about to fully suppress the revolt of the Third Estate, who had twice served as France's Chancellor of the Exchequer.

　　During his first term as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had gained the general favor of the urban underclass for his opposition to free trade in grain. (If there was free trade in grain, an increase in the price of grain was almost a certainty against a background of successive natural disasters, which of course would have been seriously detrimental to the interests of the lowest class of poor people.)

　　He pioneered the method of keeping the country's finances running by borrowing, thus avoiding tax increases, and this made even those rich people in the upper third class happy with him.

　　However, in 1781, in order to justify his fiscal policy, he actually publicly released the report on the finances of the French government, in which he revealed the budget deficit and the amount of the annual salaries of the privileged classes. The disclosure of these two figures created a political furor, as the poor, who had never touched a single Louis gold coin in their lives, saw the astronomical expenditures of the great aristocrats, in particular Queen Marie-Antoinette, who spent seven hundred and sixty-six thousand francs on the redecoration of the Petit Trianon, where she lived! And the queen rewarded Madame Polina, a favorite around her, by giving her half a million francs in just one year! They looked at these figures, and then at their own empty rice bags, and were naturally furious.

　　So Queen Marie, who had won the cheers of Paris when she became queen, was nicknamed "Madame Deficit". And Necker, who had caused this fiasco, was naturally removed from office.

　　But later, the fiscal deficit is more and more serious, borrowing is more and more difficult, (at that time, the French national debt interest will be as high as nearly 20 percent, but still can not borrow money) debt pressure is getting bigger and bigger, almost become a bottomless pit of financial expenditures. And the privileged class is dead and refuse to pay taxes. (To say that this situation, and nowadays you see a sister is a bit like) Louis XVI had no choice, then once again enabled Necker. However, Necker was not God, and he could not say that there should be a golden Louis as God did, so there was a golden Louis.

　　So Necker could only propose to tax the privileged as well. The clergy and nobles then used tradition as a shield, claiming that the privileged could only be taxed with the authorization of the "three councils". The privileged thought that Louis XVI would not dare to convene the Council of the Third Estate. But they never expected, poor crazy Louis XVI actually held a three-level meeting.

　　And in the three-level conference, Necker helped the third level successfully increase the number of representatives, and in the financial issues related to the number of representatives, rather than the rank of the power to vote. Therefore, in the minds of the Parisians, Necker's resignation meant that the king had made up his mind to stand against the Third Estate. To everyone, it even signaled that the king was ready to suppress the people by force.

　　"We cannot sit back and wait for the king's foreign mercenaries to come along with the brigands to massacre and pillage us, we must stand up, take up arms and prepare to fight, and wear our caps for identification. We must defend ourselves, our wives and children, and the property that belongs to us." In front of a café in the Royale Palace, a man was making an excited speech.

　　"How strange, doesn't Demuran usually have a stuttering problem? How come he's not stuttering today?" The man who was speaking was obviously very familiar with Demuran, who was giving a speech.

　　"Yes, it used to be a pain in the ass to talk to Desmoulins. He even preferred to find a piece of paper to write on rather than speak with his mouth. Today ... let's hear what he said first, right?" Another man chimed in.

　　"This removal is a wake-up call for patriots to carry out the St. Bartholomew's massacre! And just today, the playwright who created the immortal Spartacus, our friend Amand Lavoisier, disappeared! We all know what this disappearance is all about, he wouldn't be anywhere else, he must have been captured by those King's spies, those vicious dogs, in the Bastille!" The agitated Desmoulins continued to shout. He pulled two pistols at once from the pockets of his green blouse, "All follow me, let us go armed!"

　　The crowd roared in response.

　　"Go with me, go with me!"

　　And so together they went.

　　Where to? To the weapons store, of course. Desmoulins led these people to the nearest weapon store. The owner of the store saw so many people coming over aggressively and hurriedly tried to close the door. But Demuran was a bit faster than him, he jumped over with a single stride, stretched out his hand, and blocked the door panel that was closing, so everyone poured in together.

　　"Boss, are you a member of the third class? A citizen of Paris?" Desmoulins asked aloud.

　　"Of course I am." The dirt-faced boss replied.

　　"Good then!" Desmoulins said, "The tyrant is plotting to suppress the resistance of the third class by force, to sack and massacre Paris! Shall you do what you can to defend the people of Paris?"

　　All looked at the shopkeeper.

　　The shopkeeper stole a glance at the two pistols held in Desmoulins' hands, and at the men following him, and then answered in a trembling voice: "Of course ... you said ... of course! ... I ..." He was more of a stutterer compared to Demuran.

　　"Well said." Demuran patted the shopkeeper on the shoulder and turned his head to shout to everyone, "You see to it, what a deep sense of justice this citizen has! He's willing to support us, he's willing to join us! Come on, everybody, arm yourselves! We will fight for Paris, for freedom!"

　　So they all took up the weapons in the store with their hands and feet. This man took a shotgun, that man took a spear ... The shopkeeper looked at everyone, wanting to stop them, but not daring to do anything but watch. At this time, Demoulan shoved a hunting knife into his hand: "Citizen, thank you for your generosity! Let's go, let's go defend Paris together!"

　　With that, the shopkeeper carried the hunting knife and, wrapped up in the group, marched towards the neighborhood in front of him. As the group walked, they called out to the others, inviting them to join them, and the group grew rapidly. After about half a block, the shopkeeper gradually came to some understanding.

　　"Citizens, citizens! One turn to the right from here, there's another weapons store, many of us are still unarmed, let's go there and get armed!" The store owner shouted loudly, while raising the hunting knife in his hand high in the air. Needless to ask, the owner of that one weapon store was definitely his enemy.

　　So a group of people who didn't have weapons in their hands yet, as well as a few citizens with shotguns followed the store owner over.

　　Sure enough, after turning the corner and walking no more than a hundred or so steps, they saw a weapon store. But by this time, the door of the weapon store had already been closed.

　　"Open the door, open the door!" The store owner walked forward and used the hilt of his hunting knife to continuously knock on the door while shouting in a stack of voices.

　　"We're not doing business ... today," behind the door, a trembling voice responded.

　　"Open the door, open the door! Citizen, you have a duty to support the people in the defense of Paris!" A man shouted.

　　"Right, we need weapons to fight the tyrants! Open the door!" Another shouted.

　　"No ... I won't open the door ... It's all my hard earned money in here, I can't just give it to you!" The voice behind the door shouted.

　　"Are you going to side with the tyrant against the people?" A man chided loudly.

　　"Break down the door, let's break it down!" Another man shouted.

　　Then someone started to smash the door.

　　"Stop!" The voice inside shouted, "If you don't stop, we'll shoot!"

　　However, the people didn't stop.

　　"Bang!" A gunshot came from inside the house, and a person who was smashing the door, covered his leg and fell down.

　　The people who were smashing the door immediately scattered.

　　"This damn guy, must be a supporter of the Tyrant!" A man shouted.

　　"Beat this bad thing to death!" More people shouted.

　　Several shotguns were fired towards the back of the gate even haphazardly. Several holes were instantly opened in the gate. Someone touched the door from the side and kicked at it, and it was kicked open - the few shots that had just been fired had broken the bolts behind it.

　　Everyone then rushed in together and saw a middle-aged man loading his shotgun with trembling hands. Only his hands were shaking so badly that the powder spilled outside the muzzle, and when he saw everyone rushing in, he threw down the shotgun, straightened up and turned to flee. But a spear stabbed him in the back and nailed him to the wall floor in one fell swoop.

　　"Damned tyrant's lackeys!" A man cursed and rushed up, grabbing the man's hair and waving the long knife in his hand, he slashed at the man's neck. It was just that his maneuver was really not very good, and the slash didn't manage to break the cervical vertebrae and cut off his head. Perhaps because he felt that he had lost someone with this slash, the man then frantically swung the knife and slashed at the man's neck several more times before finally cutting his head off.

　　The man raised his blood-stained face and with his blood-stained hand, he lifted the man's head high in the air, just as Perseus had lifted Medusa's head high in the air.

　　"Behold, this is what comes of being a lackey to a tyrant!" The man shouted with the usual drunken ecstasy.

　　"He deserves to die!"

　　"This is what a tyrant's lackey deserves!"

　　The crowd responded with the same accent.

　　In fact, for a person to get drunk to ecstasy, they didn't necessarily need to drink or use some other things, all they needed was a large group of people with you and a noble reason.

　　"The whole family of such goons should be killed!" Another person shouted.

　　"Over here, there seems to be someone else over here!" Another person called out.

　　Everyone went over toward the inner room, but the shopkeeper stayed behind, and he heard someone inside shout, "O God, save us!"

　　Then someone else shouted, "This kind of lackey has women and children too!"

　　"Kill them all! They deserve it!"

　　Then there were a few screams, and then a few men, with bloodstained faces, emerged triumphantly from the inner room, shouting: "Armed for the defense of Paris!"