I Am the Crown Prince in France

Chapter 233 Abyss

A skinny old man wearing a thin linen coat, pulling a sallow and skinny teenage boy, struggled to squeeze in front of the grain depot official, lowered his head, caressed his chest and said:

"Master, kind master! Bread in the city is sold for 22 sous per pound. We really can't afford it... Please be kind and send some food! Otherwise, we really won't be able to survive." !”

Generally speaking, bread in Nice does not exceed 10 sous per pound. For citizens who are struggling to survive on every sou of wages, this means that they will have no money to buy food for more than half a month.

Immediately, there were waves of pleading all around:

"Please distribute affordable food! His Majesty the King said in the notice..."

"The child has only eaten one meal in the past two days, please!"

"Master, many bakeries in the city are out of flour. Everyone is counting on stocking up on grain..."

"For God's sake, have mercy on us..."

The grain depot officials just said perfunctory words.

In the crowd, a man with three moles on his face sneered and nodded to the twenty or so people around him. The leading man with a scar on his face immediately strode towards the grain depot guards and shouted at the same time:

"We can't starve to death and get food ourselves!"

His accomplices immediately shouted:

“We have a right to bread!”

"That's right, we just bring some food to our family and children, and God will forgive us!"

"Everyone, please do it!"

When the hungry people outside the grain depot heard this, they were a little afraid and did not dare to step forward.

Scarface had already smashed open the door of the granary wall, and a guard pointed a gun at him and shouted:

"return to!"

Someone nearby waved to the crowd and shouted:

"Look! These brutal guards are about to shoot!"

Scarface took advantage of the guard's dazed moment and snatched his gun away. The other guards did not expect that things would turn out like this. After a moment's hesitation, they were surrounded by more than twenty of Scarface's accomplices.

When some brave hungry people saw that Scarface had rushed into the grain depot, they immediately followed him and rushed in, followed by more people.

Just over ten minutes later, nearly a thousand hungry people flooded into the grain depot. Seeing that the guards had been beaten to bruises and bruises, the officials in charge hid in their offices and did not dare to come out.

Soon, the hungry people in the grain depot took out bags to pack wheat. Those who didn't bring bags took off their coats to carry grain regardless of the severe cold.

Within an hour, more than 20,000 pounds of wheat were cleared from the grain depot.

Most of the hungry people left "payment" for the wheat they took at the "people's tax" price of 2 soudans and 6 deni per pound.

The so-called "people's tax" is a "tradition" in France. People think that as long as they pay what they think is a reasonable price, it can only be considered a sale and not a robbery.

The officials in charge of the grain depot waited for the hungry people to disperse and looked at the empty warehouse like it had fallen into an ice cave.

It was originally used to supply the city of Nice with food for a week, but now there is nothing. This means that soon all grain stores and bakeries in the city will have to close...

The next day, in a wooden house on the outskirts of Nice, a man with three moles on his face counted more than 80 silver coins to Scarface.

The latter immediately nodded and bowed to compliment him, and then distributed the money to his subordinates. He is the leader of the "Howell" gang, the largest gang in Nice.

The "Three Moles" is a spy raised by the Duke of Orleans. Following the instructions of the Duke of Orleans, he came to Nice a month ago and hired people from the "Howell" gang to incite riots with him at a sky-high price of 4 livres per person per day.

After planning for a long time, their operation yesterday was a great success.

After paying out their "wages", the "Three Moles" immediately took the gang members to the grain reserve to wait.

As he expected, citizens who heard the news about yesterday's grain grab soon came to try their luck, but without exception they found that the grain depot had been emptied.

The man with Scarface would then come forward and tell them that everyone was going to "get" the grain stores and bakeries in the city this afternoon.

By three o'clock in the afternoon, the city of Nice was already filled with rain and storms.

As Scarface took the lead and rushed into the largest bakery in the city, the whole city fell into madness - people who had been hungry for a long time and anxious about the food supply smashed open the doors of grain stores and bakeries, trying to save money. Take away food wherever possible.

At first, people followed the rules and left the "people's tax", but by the second half, it had turned into simple robbery.

By dusk, the city's normal bread supply had completely collapsed.

Those who did not grab food were destined to be unable to buy even a crumb of bread tomorrow morning. And such people make up the majority of the citizens.

The next day, the door of the devastated "Markman" bakery was crowded with desperate citizens - the owner and chef had long since run away, and there was nothing in the store. Although people know it, they still linger here habitually.

Just when they fell into despair, Scarface led thousands of people through the street, and bursts of shouts came from the crowd:

"Viscount Slielt's family has a lot of food. Let's go ask him for some food."

"If you don't want to starve to death, come quickly!"

"There is no food in the city, don't hesitate!"

The people in front of the bakery were stunned for a moment, and then immediately joined the team heading to Viscount Slielt's house.

Although some people feel that Viscount Sliet and his family are quite good people, at this time, people are like a flock of panicked sheep who will blindly follow the leader, completely losing their ability to think.

Before noon, Viscount Sliet's villa was robbed. Scarface followed the requirements of his "employer" and rushed towards Baron Abella's house with the hungry people.

…

At the same time, in the center of Montpellier, the spies sent by the Duke of Orleans also had dozens of gang members as the core, leading a large number of citizens to rob food everywhere.

Just as the leading gang member invited the hungry people to rob a noble's house in the south of the city, a hungry person loudly suggested:

"Why don't we go to Count Serurier's house? His manor is so big, there must be a lot of food..."

Before he could finish his words, he was kicked secretly, and two gang members pushed him to the ground as if they were casual.

Count Serurier was an ally of the Duke of Orleans, and it was necessary to avoid fire on his head. In fact, the Marquis de Saint-Villan's Montcalm Legion is currently stationed in his manor, with more than 17,000 people. Even if the hungry people go there, they will definitely be kept out.

The little episode passed quickly, and the crowd began to shout and flock to the south of the city.

In just a few days, the hungry mob had swept through most of Montpellier, but the Marquis de Saint-Villan, who was responsible for the security here, just watched with cold eyes and allowed the riot to spread...

Due to the malicious and indiscriminate transportation of strategic grain reserves, the grain reserves in the entire central and southern provinces of France have bottomed out one after another.

After Nice and Montpellier, food shortages began to gradually appear in other areas, and the spies sent by the Duke of Orleans also began to act stupidly.

However, due to the poor information transmission capabilities of this era, the news has not yet reached the Palace of Versailles.

…

Paris.

The moment the two guards lowered their heads to light their cigarettes, Sorel ducked behind them and slipped into the west corridor on the second floor of the Royal Palace.

She pressed her back against a statue, took a deep breath, looked at the door of the document room not far away, and secretly rejoiced in her heart: she finally got in!

After the "jail robbery" that day, she divided the work with her fellow brothers, each of whom was responsible for investigating a suspected duke. And she focused her attention on the Duke of Orleans.

She had originally heard that the Duke of Orleans had traveled to the south recently, and thought that this was a God-given opportunity, and that it would be easy to find some useful evidence. However, she did not know that the security at the Royal Palace was extremely tight, even higher than that of the Bastille!

She came several times, but could only wander around the perimeter. Today she finally caught the guard's slack and finally reached the document room.

After a group of patrolling guards passed by, she quietly came to the door of the document room. She first took out an earpiece and pressed it against the door to listen for a moment. After confirming that there was no movement inside, she skillfully used a wire to unlock the door.

She muttered in her mind, "It's much easier to open than the lock in the Bastille." She carefully pushed the door in, then turned back and closed the door gently.

However, when she turned her gaze to the rows of bookshelves, she was stunned - there was nothing on them!

Previously, these bookshelves were full of documents neatly arranged by time and type.

She cautiously drew out her swift sword and walked around the room to make sure there was no ambush, and then she breathed a sigh of relief.

Sorel left the archives in confusion, and went through a lot of effort to sneak into the Duke of Orleans' study. She found that although the furnishings were the same as before, there was no paper left. Even the door of the safe was open and there was nothing inside.

Afterwards, she searched the Duke of Orleans' bedroom, conference room and other places, but she also did not see any documents or files.

She was greatly surprised. The Duke of Orleans went on a trip without guards, but took all the documents away?

Suddenly, her pupils shrank, and a thought appeared in her mind: The Duke of Orleans fled in fear of crime! The Duke mentioned by the Maletdu brothers is probably him!

The more she thought about it, the more she felt that her guess was definitely not wrong, so she immediately slipped out of the Royal Palace and rushed to the Crown Prince's office overnight.

On the second floor of the Tuileries Palace, a sleepy Eman looked at the clock on the table - ten minutes past ten.

He wanted to send this girl with no sense of time away and ask her to come back tomorrow, but suddenly he remembered the scene when His Royal Highness the Crown Prince directly summoned her into the office last time.

He glanced at Sorel's curvy waist and her long, straight and slender legs, who was wearing a black night jacket, and suddenly understood something. No wonder she came so late. Well, it was probably the agreed time. .

Joseph was awakened from his sleep, looked at Emang dissatisfied, frowned and said:

"Sorel? What time is it?"

However, he woke up, so he waved drowsily:

"Since she said she has something important...well, please ask her to go to the reception room."

After a moment, Joseph, who was wearing a nightgown, motioned for Sorel to sit down opposite the sofa, yawned and said:

"What's the rush for you to come so late?"

Sorel nodded vigorously and said seriously:

"Your Highness, I have found the mastermind behind the Maletdu brothers!"

"Oh?" Joseph immediately cheered up, "Please tell me in detail."

Sorel immediately recounted the story of how the Brotherhood went to the Bastille to extract confessions, and how the Mallet brothers accidentally said that their boss was a Duke.

"Duke?" Joseph was no longer sleepy now. He pointed at Sorel and criticized in a deep voice, "You are so brave that you dare to rob a prison. Aren't you afraid that I will imprison you too?"

"This is all for justice..." Sorel puffed up her chest, glanced at the dark-faced Joseph, swallowed, and whispered, "Your Highness, you won't really let people arrest me, will you? "

Joseph waved his hand: "Tell me what you found first."

"Oh, okay." Sorel continued hurriedly, "I went to search the Duke of Orleans' house, and I found that all the documents in the Royal Palace were missing..."

By the time she finished speaking, Joseph's face was as dark as water.

During this season, nobles really like to travel to the south to escape the cold. No one would care if the Duke of Orleans said he wanted to go. But I didn't expect that he took away all the important information. It must not be as simple as traveling.

However, he did not think that the Duke of Orleans was "fleeing in fear of crime" - he just burned a small nobleman to death, and it was not his own doing. Given his status, he would not care at all.

Something big must be happening here!

Soon, Fouche was also dragged out of bed, and he and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince rushed to the Bastille overnight to interrogate the Mallet brothers.

After obtaining the important clue of the Duke of Orleans, the experienced interrogators of the Police Intelligence Department defrauded the two brothers' confessions without much effort.

Joseph frowned as he listened to Fouche's report on the case, and couldn't help frowning:

"But why did the Duke of Orleans put so much effort into plotting against Monod?"

He looked at the candlelight dancing on the wall and muttered:

"If the Duke of Orleans is planning some conspiracy, and Monod is an indispensable part of it, then it all makes sense..."

He suddenly turned to Fouche and said:

"Quick! Send someone to Mono's house!"

However, by the time the police intelligence officers arrived at Monod's residence in the Palace of Versailles, he had long since disappeared.

According to Monod's servant, he took his son to the south to "bathe in the sun" on the day of Sorel's prison robbery.

"Traveling to the south again?" Joseph ordered Fouche with a cold face, "Check immediately to see who else has traveled recently."

"Yes, Your Highness!"

Joseph analyzed what the Duke of Orleans was going to do, but he still couldn't figure it out, so he had to start from the existing breakthrough.

He had all the main officials in the internal affairs system wake up and asked them to compile all the orders that Monod had recently issued.

Fortunately, most of the nobles lived in the Palace of Versailles, and these officials were basically nobles, so it was very simple to assemble them.

When the first ray of sunlight in the morning shone into the Palace of Versailles, a thick stack of documents had been sorted out and piled in front of Joseph.

"Pick the important one." Joseph looked at the Assistant to the Interior Secretary with panda eyes.

The latter hesitated and said: "Your Highness, Count Monod has not done anything important in the past two months, but... seems to be very concerned about food mobilization."

The transportation and allocation of food are originally the work of the internal affairs system, but these are usually done by officials below. It is a bit strange for the interior minister to personally intervene in these trivial matters.

Joseph narrowed his eyes and asked him to find all the transfer documents issued by Mono.

But when Joseph saw the dozens of disorganized and confusing transportation instructions, his anger instantly surged to the top of his head.

Orleans, this bastard, is going to push the whole of France into the abyss!