Inspiration

"Arrogance! Truly, it's a damnable arrogance." Armand had clearly understood Joseph's point.

"Perhaps it isn't arrogance," Joseph said after a moment's thought. "Perhaps it's simply a divide—the divide between the upper and lower classes. The people of France are full of rage toward the upper class, but the upper class may not even realize it. They might not feel it at all. The king and queen are surrounded by flattering favorites and live in places where they can't see the lower classes. No other voices reach their ears, so they carry on as they please. That's terrible, because it can lead to explosive consequences. If pent-up anger isn't given an outlet, then when it erupts, it will bring destruction in its wake, like a flood bursting through a dam. Art ought to serve two purposes at a time like this. One is to warn the upper class and make them recognize the danger, because art is one of the few ways to make them pay attention to the people below. The other is to soothe the lower classes. Beaumarchais's The Marriage of Figaro, for example, was actually trying to do just that. His mockery of Count Almaviva was a warning to the upper class, while Figaro's happy ending could, in a sense, soothe the lower classes. But looking at things now, the warning wasn't strong enough. It doesn't seem to have made the upper class truly wary, and it's hard to say how much the play's soothing effect achieved. So the comedy troupe increased the force of its satire. Yet from what we've seen so far, the play has been running for months and nothing has happened to the troupe. I'm afraid it still hasn't had much effect."

Everyone nodded as they listened. Only Fanny seemed not to understand, so she asked:

"Then, Mr. Bonaparte, what would have to happen to the comedy troupe for it to show that the play had an effect?"

"No matter what happened—even if they rounded up the entire troupe and stuffed them into the Bastille to feed the rats, or chopped off their heads one by one—it would at least show that the upper class cared about these things. But now, after all this time, there hasn't been a peep. That can only mean the people at the top don't care at all," Joseph replied.

"Then The Marriage of Figaro still wasn't sharp enough," Samuel said.

"Joseph, perhaps we should write a more provocative play. Let me think—what should we write about..." Armand fell into thought.

"How about the story of Charles I? The English king who was beheaded," Joseph said. He knew that unless history took a dramatic turn, the French king, Louis XVI, would also be beheaded for treason, just like Charles I.

"That's too blatant." Samuel shook his head. "If you wrote that, you and Armand really might be tossed into the Bastille to feed the rats. Besides, hardly any troupe would dare perform something that biting. If we really have to write about something, I think we should write about North American independence. That was a revolt against a tyrant too."

"That does seem promising," Armand said. "Samuel, you've experienced it firsthand, so you could help us."

"But North America is isolated across the ocean. And given France's role in North American independence, if we wrote about it, the king might think we were singing his praises," Joseph said.

"How could that be? The king isn't a fool," Samuel said.

"Anything's possible. The king might not be, but some of the people around him could mislead him and lead him astray. Even the plays His Majesty sees and the performances he watches might not be the real thing." Joseph shook his head. To him, this sort of trickery was all too easy.

"My God, how did you think of that? Joseph, you could become a treacherous minister one day." Armand stared at Joseph, shaking his head again and again.

"You can't insult me like that." Joseph widened his eyes and put on an angry face as he retorted, "A man like me could never be a treacherous minister. At the very least, I'd have to be a great treacherous minister."

Everyone burst out laughing. Even Fanny, who had been a little worried by Joseph's stern tone at first, laughed without a care for appearances.

Armand pressed one hand to his stomach and pounded the armrest with the other. It took him a while to speak. "Joseph, I take it back. You won't become a treacherous minister. You'll become a great big clown... Hahahaha!"

After they had laughed for a while, Armand said, "All right, stop laughing. Seriously, do any of you have other suggestions? I mean for my new play."

"Why not write about Spartacus?" Fanny suddenly suggested. "Spartacus was a revolt by the lower classes. That can't be changed, and... and the historical records about him are brief, which gives us plenty of room to create freely. It should be a good choice!"

Now that Fanny had spoken up, Armand immediately agreed. "I think it's a good idea. I can already think of a whole series of exciting scenes. For instance, Spartacus fighting a tiger in the arena, and then..."

"And we could have Spartacus win his freedom in the arena, but decide that everyone ought to be born free. He could believe that overthrowing a system where people oppress and exploit one another is the duty of every decent person. So even after winning his own freedom, he wouldn't be content. Instead, he'd join the struggle to free all the slaves!" Joseph added, eager to see how far they could push it.

"Exactly! We could also have Spartacus say, 'All people are born equal. The pursuit of freedom and happiness, and resistance to oppression, are sacred and inalienable rights.'" Samuel hurriedly joined in.

"Are you planning to have Spartacus, who lived thousands of years ago, recite the Declaration of Independence? Isn't that taking it a bit too far?" Fanny asked.

"Then what else could we do? Have him recite the Gospels?" Samuel said. "Spartacus lived thousands of years ago, but we're writing about him so he can give voice to what we need to say today."

"Mr. Fermat is right," Joseph agreed. "All history is contemporary history. Interpretations of the past have always served the present. If you ask me, we could be even bolder. After the Battle of Apulia, Crassus crucified more than six thousand captured slaves. We could stage that scene and arrange the crucified slaves in the same pose as Christ on the cross. At that moment, we could even have a choir sing a hymn of defiance."

"Th-that... Joseph... I remember your godfather is a bishop." Armand was practically gaping.

"Even the bishop thinks the Church today has strayed from the spirit of Christ in many ways," Joseph said without batting an eyelid.

"I think Mr. Bonaparte's idea is very imaginative. I'm sure that if Mr. Voltaire were still alive, he'd love it. Hmm, Mr. Bonaparte, are you good at music?" Fanny asked, her eyes sparkling.

Joseph smiled at her. "When it comes to music, I'm practically illiterate."

"Oh." Fanny sounded a little disappointed. "We're all a bunch of musical illiterates here, too. Who could write this hymn of defiance?"

"Fanny, it isn't difficult. We just need to write the lyrics, then find a musician to compose the tune," Armand said. "Of course, good lyrics and a good tune are both hard to come by. Hmm, I'm bursting with creative inspiration right now."

"Brother, your creative urge won't last even a week," Fanny said with a smile.

"You're right, Fanny. If I didn't have this weakness, I'd be the new Sophocles. Still, I'll try to keep it under control. Also, Joseph, you have to help me," Armand said.

"If I have time, I'll do my best," Joseph replied. "But I'm afraid I won't be able to help much in the near future. You know I've been rather busy lately."

"Mr. Bonaparte, what have you been busy with lately?" Samuel asked.

"Joseph has an important experiment coming up," Armand said. "It's something about how to measure the speed of light. My uncle praised the design as very ingenious. Besides, he has to prepare for a post as a mathematics teacher at the Paris Military Academy. Hmm, Joseph, your younger brother studies at the Paris Military Academy, doesn't he? How did he react when he heard you were going to be his teacher?"

"I haven't told him yet," Joseph said. "I want to see his reaction when he suddenly realizes in class that I'm his math teacher."

"I can imagine. That'll be quite a sight," Fanny said with a laugh.

The conversation then turned to how to play pranks on their own siblings. Fanny offered quite a few suggestions, many of which, she said, her brother had once used to tease her.

Everyone got into it too, eagerly offering Joseph ideas for pranking his younger brother. If the butler hadn't come over to remind them that dinner was ready, who knew how many more wicked schemes they would have come up with?

"All right, let's go to the dining room," Viscount Lavoisier said as he stood. "I've just acquired a few bottles of excellent wine..."

The rules for dinner at Armand's house were completely different from those at Joseph's. There were none of those rigid formalities. Even during the meal, everyone could chat and laugh to their hearts' content. They rambled from Viscount Lavoisier's red wine to Ceylon tea, then to mackerel from the Mediterranean Sea, and somehow from there to the crocodiles and hippos of the Nile. But the French truly deserved their reputation as Europe's gourmands. They touched on all sorts of things, yet their conversation always circled around the same three questions: Could you eat it? Did it taste good? How did you cook it? In that respect, the French were a lot like the Chinese.