CHAPTER 501: CHAPTER 495 BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

After nearly an hour, the night banquet ended, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, De Luyis, who had drunk half a bottle of wine, was supported by servants of the Tuileries Palace as he staggered out, descended the steps, and lay in the carriage specially prepared for him by Jerome Bonaparte.

The carriage slowly accelerated, and De Luyis, whose central nervous system was dulled by excessive drinking, leaned against the carriage, gazing drowsily at the empty compartment, muttering, "This is our monarch!"

It was evident that De Luyis himself had quite a few complaints about being transferred from the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs by Jerome Bonaparte.

After all, his relationship with the Emperor was nowhere near as intimate as Valerovsky’s! Valerovsky had made such significant contributions in the Near East, so naturally, his position had to be moved up a bit.

Thus, for him, the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs was the most suitable one!

Of course, even in his drunken state, De Luyis only dared to grumble to himself about these matters.

As the Minister of Foreign Affairs, De Luyis was acutely aware of the iron rule of the Emperor, who resided in the Tuileries Palace. Just observing the nobles of the Orthodox and Orléans factions leaving Paris recently was enough to know that beneath the seemingly calm surface of the city, countless bloody upheavals might have already occurred secretly.

The Director of the National Intelligence Bureau, Marcel Yale, and the Emperor’s Aide, Edgar Ney, were the two sharpest knives for the Emperor to oversee the political and military realms of France.

De Luyis certainly didn’t want to be targeted by the mysterious National Intelligence Bureau. He had heard rumors that once someone was targeted by the National Intelligence Bureau, they were not far from death.

Although De Luyis scoffed at such exaggerated claims, there were times he had to tread carefully.

However, De Luyis was unaware that a certain servant in his household was an informant planted by the National Intelligence Bureau, tasked with reporting his every move back to the Tuileries Palace. Everything about him was under Jerome Bonaparte’s control.

...

The carriage quickly accelerated and promptly arrived at Minister De Luyis’s residence. The coachman sitting upfront shouted into the carriage, "Your Excellency, we are home!"

Hearing the coachman’s shout, Minister De Luyis opened his eyes in a daze and then slowly leaned his head against the glass window, seeing an apartment building outside through the glass.

"Hmm! Home!" De Luyis had a silly smile on his face as he staggered to push open the carriage door, stepping down and missing the steps, falling to the ground.

The coachman sitting upfront was startled when he saw Minister De Luyis tumble to the ground. He quickly jumped down from his seat, came to De Luyis’s side, helped him up, and inquired if De Luyis was hurt.

"No... nothing! I just... hic... wasn’t careful!" De Luyis replied intermittently to the coachman, reeking of alcohol.

"You’re like this already! And you say you’re fine!" The coachman supported De Luyis to sit on the steps, then approached the apartment door, knocking on the door of De Luyis’s mansion.

The servant inside opened the door, looking puzzled at the coachman before him.

The coachman informed the servant about Minister De Luyis’s drunken state. Seeing this, the servant quickly ran to De Luyis, supported him into the mansion, and expressed gratitude to the coachman.

Watching De Luyis enter the mansion, the coachman returned to the Tuileries Palace, coincidentally encountering Mokar, who had just returned from outside. The coachman shared with Mokar the incident of De Luyis muttering in the carriage.

"Alright! I understand!" Mokar nodded to the coachman without showing any emotion and then added, "Do not tell this to anyone else!"

"Rest assured, Chief Steward!" the coachman replied to Mokar with a nod and a bow.

He knew the basic principle of keeping this job was to speak less and do more. Those who didn’t understand this would eventually become corpses floating on the Seine River.

Moreover, the King and Queen had treated them kindly enough. Naturally, he also knew which things should be said and which ones should not!

"Alright then! Go to Taylor to claim your reward!" Mokar nodded with satisfaction and responded to the coachman.

"Thank you, Chief Steward!" The coachman expressed his gratitude to Mokar after hearing this.

Watching the coachman gradually disappear into the night, Mokar’s face revealed a hint of a smile. He turned and entered the Tuileries Palace, knocking once more on the door of Jerome Bonaparte’s study.

"Come in!" Inside the study, Jerome Bonaparte was organizing the completed documents while speaking to Mokar outside the door.

Mokar entered Jerome Bonaparte’s study and respectfully said to Jerome Bonaparte, "Your Majesty, you should rest now!"

"Wait a little longer!" Jerome Bonaparte replied to Mokar, then inquired again, "By the way! How is the matter with the newspapers being handled?"

"Rest assured, I’ve already informed all the newspaper offices in Paris! By early tomorrow morning, all the front pages of the Paris newspapers will be proclaiming the Empire’s army’s fierce battle with the Russian Empire at the Silestra Fortress and winning over the Russian Empire!" De Luyis reported to Jerome Bonaparte.

"Very good!" Jerome Bonaparte nodded and then handed a stack of documents to Mokar: "Pass these to the Secretary’s Office to forward to the various departments!"

"Yes!" Mokar responded to Jerome Bonaparte after taking the heavy document.

"Yawn!" After handling official duties, Jerome Bonaparte suddenly felt drowsy, "I’m going to sleep first! You should rest early too!"

"Yes!"

Mokar watched Jerome Bonaparte leave the study, then turned to look at the candle almost burnt out and the sky about to dawn outside the window.

"Forget it!" Mokar sighed and said to himself, before extinguishing all the candles and leaving the room.

The room plunged into darkness once again.

...

Early the next morning, the cry of newspaper boys selling papers echoed on the streets of Paris.

"Extra! Extra! The latest Observer! The Anglo-French Alliance Army in the Silestra Fortress killed tens of thousands of Russian invaders, the Russian invaders fled north in panic... Nicholas I’s days are numbered..."

The Parisians on the street, upon hearing the newspaper boy’s report, their first reaction was disbelief, they stopped the newspaper boy: "Wait a minute!"

"Sir, would you like another newspaper? The latest Observer!" the newspaper boy stopped and asked the Parisian who had halted him.

"Who taught you to say this?"

"The gentlemen in the newspaper office told me that saying it like this would attract more buyers!"

"Do you know what the newspaper is talking about?"

"Of course! Our army defeated the Russian Empire, just like the Emperor conquered the Russian Empire back then!"

"And do you know what happened to the Emperor afterward?"

"Sir, how would I know so much! I’m just a newspaper seller, are you going to buy a paper or not! If not, I’ll be on my way!"

"If what’s on the paper is true, I’d definitely buy it!"

"Here’s a copy, see for yourself!"

The newspaper boy handed a copy to a gentleman, who, upon receiving the newspaper, looked at its contents, while the gentlemen around him leaned in to see it with him.

The gentleman hastily covered the contents of the paper and told them to buy their own if they wanted to see, then half-jokingly said, "Don’t say I didn’t help your business! These are all your customers!"

"Sir, do you need a newspaper? I have the Observer, the Bonaparte Newspaper, the Reuters..." the newspaper seller enthusiastically introduced his papers to the gentlemen present.

The gentlemen all bought a newspaper from the boy, who handed them out with a broad smile.

"Give me one too!" A man in a black coat and top hat appeared before the newspaper boy, prompting the surrounding gentlemen to show an unwillingness to engage with him.

"Hmm! Okay!" The newspaper boy nodded and handed the paper to the young man in front, who pulled out a one franc silver coin and handed it to the boy, saying, "Keep the change!"

"You truly are a generous man!" The newspaper boy expressed his gratitude to the young man.

After the newspaper boy left, the nearby gentlemen began to mock the young man in front, imitating sarcastically: "Mr. Rastigne, you are truly a good person! Hahaha... That’s the funniest joke I’ve ever heard, a guy who only knows how to flatter is now a good man... Your master probably has long forgotten you!"

"Exactly! Exactly! You worked hard to squeeze into a circle that doesn’t belong to you, only to be kicked out in the end. Not everyone has the ability to become the late Thiers!"

...

The object of the gentleman’s ridicule was Rastigne, who had once, with just an article, entered Jerome Bonaparte’s circle, and like Thiers back then, had half a foot into high society.

However, Rastigne’s luck seemed to run out after he squeezed half his body into high society. Currently, he remains a clerk in a subordinate department of the Secretariat, with an annual salary of around 3,000 francs.

This was a significant gap compared to Rastigne’s ambitions, but he was not discouraged and continued to work methodically, waiting for an opportunity.

Confronted with the gentlemen’s ridicule, Rastigne merely frowned and disdainfully said, "Sometimes, the eagle flies lower than the chicken, but a chicken can never become an eagle!"