Chapter 147: William in English, Guillaume in French (1) Mid-September, 1792.
London, Kingdom of Great Britain.
"Good heavens, they say France has freed the blacks!"
"What? What? How could that possibly make sense!"
"Well… it's not entirely impossible, is it?"
"Just because you once spent some time in Paris when you were young, you're taking France's side again. Are you a Londoner or a Parisian?"
"That's right. You're not secretly a French spy, are you? Tell me where His Majesty the King resides."
"Of course it's Buckingham! Honestly, what nonsense are you people talking about!"
The scandal that had set all of France ablaze—Toussaint Bréda, or rather, now that he had taken a new name, the Toussaint Louverture ("the one who opens the way") affair—had become a hot topic even for the English across the Dover Strait, who usually drifted through the peculiar boredom of the eighteenth century.
Or rather than a hot topic, it was more accurate to call it an excellent piece of gossip to chew on comfortably.
—Long live the Enlightenment! Long live the Revolution! Long live reason and the citizens!
—Be quiet!
—Gah!
That was hardly surprising. Since 1789, every domestic "subversive element"—written that way but read as intellectual—had experienced having their heads struck at least once by police batons. What better subject could there be than a foreign affair one could discuss without looking over one's shoulder?
As a result, news crossing the Dover Strait daily from the French Pas-de-Calais to the English ports of Portsmouth and Brighton created a strange spectacle: every newspaper office in London scrambling desperately for it.
"Pant… pant… Editor! I beat those rival magazine bastards in a bloody struggle and brought back the news!"
"Faster! Faster! We must print before the other papers!"
"Damn it, we lost again? We published the news a full day late! Send the entire reporting department to Brighton Harbor! Don't even think of returning to London for a while!"
[Maximilien Robespierre delivers a grand speech!]
[The unprecedented Saint-Domingue corruption scandal—are the French truly lazy and incompetent?]
[Exclusive report from the Essex Chronicle! Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—what do those three words the French shout actually mean?]
The reporting departments collapsed from travel exhaustion, the printing departments collapsed from overwork, and the business departments collapsed from stress. A dreadful competition for scoops had begun.
Everywhere except one place.
London, Kingdom of Great Britain.Blackfriars.
The Times printing house.
Guillaume de Toulon—Is he a god??
Guillaume de Toulon—Is he a god?!
Guillaume de Toulon—He is a god!!
Only a year earlier, John Walter had been groaning in a dark holding cell with cold iron bars and barely any light. Now he was laughing so hard the corners of his mouth nearly split.
"Idiots! No matter how clever you think you are, you can't beat our Times! Hahahaha!!"
The Times, the only newspaper in Britain with a close partnership with the French magazine Forbes, was achieving astonishing circulation numbers.
Forbes gathered news material and sent over a draft magazine article. All that remained was translating the French into English, editing a few words, and printing it.
How simple and efficient.
"God helps those who help themselves—so it seems that truly is the truth!"
Search every business in Britain and you would still find only one that had formed an alliance with a French company: The Times. Surely it was divine grace bestowed upon poor John Walter, who had once been unjustly imprisoned.
Think about it. Why would the Controller-General of Finance of France summon the owner of a small London newspaper to Paris for a personal meeting and propose a business deal?
A business with enormous advantages—selling British newspapers in America, where anti-British sentiment was fierce, and receiving European news faster than anyone else.
Of course, in exchange, The Times and Forbes of the Nations of Isaac formed a permanent partnership, and Forbes received a share of royalties from American and British sales. But for the small newspaper The Times, this was nothing less than a stroke of incredible fortune.
Frankly speaking, John Walter was no Jewish moneylender building wealth across generations. How many generations could a small newspaper like The Times even survive? It would be fortunate if it lasted as far as his son.
So no matter how he thought about it, Walter could not understand why Guillaume de Toulon treated him with such generosity—almost like a fool.
In the end he simply decided it must be divine grace.
"Wahahahaha! Money is rolling in like vines! William! If this isn't a gold mine, what is?!"
"Father! This is no time for jokes! We have to send three thousand copies to Norfolk by tonight, ten thousand to Manchester, and fifteen thousand to Liverpool!"
"Hah! Hah! Wahahaha!"
"Damn it, he's gone mad."
While John Walter—the father of The Times and William Walter's own father—pressed his nose into the piles of pounds and shillings stacked on the desk and inhaled their scent, William Walter, the eldest son and heir to the newspaper's management, bundled up the freshly printed newspapers from the rotary press.
His white hands were long since stained black with dried ink, but no matter how thoroughly he washed them, touching the press a few times dirtied them again.
"Bloody machine, splattering ink everywhere."
Walter glared once at the advanced printing machine provided by the Nations of Isaac, whose head might be Wilhelm, William, or Guillaume—who could even tell.
When the rotary press first arrived, it had seemed wonderful.
—Yes, Father. In a modern age where machines spin thread for us, isn't it terribly outdated for printers to spend all day pulling down presses with their arms, filling ink, and aligning plates?
—Indeed! Now we'll be able to print with the tiniest effort!
—Exactly! I might even start courting someone in Piccadilly!
—Hm? What do you mean? One printer—William, you—will be enough.
—Father… what… are you saying?
—Think about it. If we fire all the other printers, how much of their wages become our profit? Doesn't that make you feel full just thinking about it? Wahaha!
"…Bloody hell."
London, Kingdom of Great Britain.10 Downing Street, Prime Minister's Residence.
He had burst into the Prime Minister's residence the moment he heard that the French had emancipated the blacks. Just like in their university days, if there was a righteous cause, this friend of his would throw himself into it with passionate enthusiasm.
"Ha, ha! Hahaha!!!"
The young Tory member of Parliament, reading the newspaper with the enormous five letters T I M E S printed across the front page, turned to the friend seated opposite him with a radiant smile.
"Pitt! This is one of the greatest events in human history!"
"…Wilberforce. In case you didn't know, your friend William Pitt has not yet gone deaf."
Prime Minister William Pitt sipped expensive tea imported from China and spoke in a refined voice.
"We should abolish slavery like the French immediately! You know it as well as I do. How long will we keep this rotten institution in Great Britain? Slavery itself is a kind of original sin!"
"Hm."
Pitt was certain he had just said he was not deaf, yet his friend seemed to ignore him.
Setting down his teacup with gentlemanly composure, Pitt spoke calmly.
"My friend Wilberforce."
"I'm listening, Pitt!"
"The Prime Minister of Great Britain already has more than enough work to kill him. Please don't create more."
"Pitt!"
"We are no longer hot-blooded university students but politicians responsible for an entire nation. I understand your sense of justice, but the world requires a sense of reality."
"Guillaume de Toulon accomplished it in reality!"
"In the reality of France, not the reality of Britain."
Slave emancipation—yes, it was a noble idea. Who did not know slavery was a vile institution?
But if the slaves were freed, would the proud aristocrats and slave owners remain quiet?
"Wilberforce, I have no desire to be remembered like Cromwell, the man who split England in two."
"…Very well. I understand."
"I don't fail to understand your heart. Someday it will be achieved. As people's reason and education rise, surely it can be accomplished within ten years."
"Yes… yes. Forgive me. I got carried away."
Wilberforce—such a good man.
"But perhaps you should head home now. Ever since I took the office of Prime Minister, the work has piled up endlessly."
"Ah, my apologies. I knew your situation but got carried away and detained you. I'll visit again another time."
"Very well. Take care."
After seeing his friend off, Pitt climbed into the carriage waiting behind the residence.
"Prime Minister, have you finished your conversation?"
"Yes. Though I kept you waiting too long. My apologies."
He placed his coat and umbrella inside the carriage and spoke.
"Driver, to the Foreign Office."
"Yes, Prime Minister."
As the carriage rattled along, Pitt rested his chin on his hand.
His mind was full of thoughts.
The year 1792 seemed cursed: Kaiser Leopold II of the Holy Roman Empire had died suddenly, France had emancipated the blacks, and Russia and Prussia were devouring Poland.
But among all these developments, there was one he considered the most alarming.
"Is Guillaume de Toulon trying to become the dictator of France?"
That young man's name appeared in every major event unfolding in France.
Pitt wanted very much to know what lay in his mind.
That was precisely why he was heading to the Foreign Office—to discuss how to respond to the person of interest: Guillaume de Toulon.
"Well, the reports brought back by our spies should give us some answers."
Yet the information brought by those spies diverged greatly from Pitt's expectations.
"…What do you mean by that!? Guillaume de Toulon resigned from the position of Controller-General of Finance!?"
"Ah, haven't I done enough already! I'm quitting!"
"Come now, Minister! Just one more year! Just one more!"
"I said I'm not doing it, damn it!"
Let go of me, you leeches!
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