After leaving the Academy of Sciences, Lavoisier didn't go home. Instead, he took a carriage out of Paris and headed for an estate belonging to the Duke of Orleans. A few days earlier, he had asked the duke to lend him a plot of land for a new scientific experiment.
Perhaps because, for a long time, His Majesty the King had been unable to father a son (Queen Marie Antoinette didn't give birth to her first son until eleven years after marrying him), many great nobles closely related to the king had begun to think he might die without an heir, leaving the crown to fall into their hands. The Orleans Family, being close relatives of the king, might well have entertained similar thoughts. A few years ago, after the king underwent an operation, the queen finally became pregnant and went on to give birth to two princes in succession. But ambition, once it takes root, is hard to quench. It was just like Macbeth, who grew ambitious for the crown of Scotland because of the witches' prophecy. Although the old king later made it clear that his crown would go to his own son, not Macbeth, Macbeth's ambition wasn't extinguished. On the contrary, it burned all the more fiercely, and ultimately drove him down the path of regicide and usurpation. Some of the great nobles, including the Orleans Family, were just like Macbeth: the birth of a prince hadn't made their ambition disappear. And the king had a weak character, while the queen, though much more strong-willed, was a woman who had received little political education and was politically quite naive. This only made the great nobles feel all the more that "what he has, they could take."
For years, in order to "take what he had," the great nobles, including the Orleans Family, had worked both openly and behind the scenes to undermine the king and make sure he couldn't get anything done. At the same time, they deliberately stirred up public opinion against the royal family. Of course, they didn't directly target the king—that would have been too obvious and too likely to expose their ambitions. So, without exception, they made Queen Marie their target. Queen Marie was strong-willed but lacked political savvy. She was also vain and had no sense of the value of money, so they led her into their trap with ease. They ingratiated themselves with her, coaxing her to hold one ball after another, and swindling more than a million francs a year in "gifts" from her. Meanwhile, they slandered her in society as "extravagant," even giving her the nickname "Madame Deficit." The bizarre Affair of the Diamond Necklace that had recently come to light had further ruined the queen's reputation. (A female swindler had staged an elaborate scheme that implicated the queen, yet still managed to walk out of a heavily guarded prison. Whether there was something fishy about that, heaven alone knew.)
Naturally, the nobles still knew where to draw the line. Their propaganda always stuck to one point: the king was a good man, but he was too easily swayed and too afraid of his wife, so... In short, "His Majesty is wise and virtuous, but he's being led around by the nose by a few treacherous ministers... no, by one woman."
On the surface, this propaganda seemed to let the king off the hook. In effect, however, it was better than attacking him directly as greedy and tyrannical. A greedy, tyrannical king might be hated, but he would also be feared. A kind, weak "good man" ruled by his wife, on the other hand, would be despised.
Machiavelli believed that the most vulnerable and easiest-to-overthrow ruler wasn't a tyrant hated by everyone, but a ruler universally scorned by his subjects. With this propaganda, the great nobles directed people's hatred toward the queen while leaving the most terrible thing of all—contempt—for the king.
If Louis XVI had been a powerful ruler—no, he didn't even need to be powerful, merely a tyrant—he could have used a tempest of ruthless measures to crush these rumors, at the very least turning people's contempt into hatred and fear. By comparison, the crown of a fearsome tyrant sat more securely than that of a king who was despised.
But Louis XVI was weak-willed and hesitant, and he simply couldn't bring himself to have the great nobles beheaded by the dozen. His concessions only made the great nobles, including the Orleans Family, feel ever more certain that the crown of France naturally belonged on their own heads.
In The Prince, Machiavelli also argued that a ruler should win people's gratitude and keep them hopeful by granting them favors bit by bit. So while tripping up the king at every turn, the great nobles competed to present themselves as "friends of the people," "enlightened gentlemen," and "champions of democracy." To quote a great mentor from a later age: "To win the people over, the nobles waved the proletariat's beggar's sack like a banner." Of course, the ultimate result of their efforts was bound to be that "whenever the people followed them, they found old feudal coats of arms on their backs, and burst out laughing before scattering." But for the time being, these tactics could still make the people fall in behind them.
To play the "friend of the people," the "enlightened gentleman," and the "champion of democracy," the great nobles all pretended to love science, their country, and the people. Supporting academic research and academic freedom became something they competed to boast about. And supporting Lavoisier's research, which had already become a source of pride for France, was naturally something a "friend of the people," an "enlightened gentleman," and a "champion of democracy" ought to do.
His Highness the Duke of Phillips happened to be free, so he was waiting there for Lavoisier. He was also quite interested in Lavoisier's experiment, and asked him what it was about.
"Master, you know I mean nothing by it. I'm simply curious. Could you tell me what experiment you're going to conduct here?" the Duke of Phillips had asked when lending him the plot.
"Oh, Joseph wrote me a letter. He mentioned that, using a special method, he had carefully treated glycerin with concentrated nitric acid and concentrated sulfuric acid, producing a very powerful liquid explosive. Well, perhaps, as Joseph said, it shouldn't be called gunpowder, but an explosive. This liquid explosive still has many problems. Joseph is busy with mathematics at the moment, and he isn't particularly expert in this kind of thing, so he told me about it after conducting only preliminary experiments. I tried it myself, and it was just as he said: the stuff is incredibly powerful. It's at least dozens, even more than a hundred times as powerful as brown powder."
"That powerful?" The Duke of Phillips was startled.
"Indeed," said Lavoisier. "You know, Joseph described its power as being like Zeus's thunderbolts. When he advised me to test it myself, he said not to use more than one gram at a time. So I tried one gram, and it really did explode. Its power far exceeded my expectations. Well, Your Grace, this stuff is extremely dangerous. There's no way to conduct comprehensive experiments in the city of Paris."
"Something like this seems like it should be studied by the military, shouldn't it?" the Duke of Phillips asked.
"Ah, Your Highness, you may not know this, but although it's powerful, it really isn't suitable for military use—at least not yet." Lavoisier looked at the Duke of Phillips. "You may not know that it's extremely unstable. The slightest vibration, exposure to light, or even a little heat can make it explode. Your Highness, just imagine: if it were used by the military, a carriage wheel would only have to bounce over a little pothole during transport, and an entire carriage full of explosives would go off with a bang, with a force equivalent to more than a hundred carriage loads of gunpowder exploding at once."
"My God!" the Duke of Phillips exclaimed. "If it's that dangerous, how can it be used?"
"It's no good for military use," said Lavoisier. "It's difficult to transport, and often has to be prepared at the site where it will be used. How could it possibly be prepared on a battlefield? But it could be used for civilian purposes, like mining. We could make it right at the mine and use it immediately, which would be relatively safe. Your Grace, this stuff is actually very useful. It could be put to great use in mining, digging canals, and other projects, and could even bring about revolutionary changes. The raw materials aren't too expensive, either. If we can solve the problem of production, it should make quite a bit of money. Would Your Grace be interested?"
"If the problem of production can be solved? My master, does that mean there are still problems with making it?" the Duke of Phillips asked.
"Yes. For now, it can only be made in the laboratory, and the quantity produced each time is quite limited. If it's to be used on a large scale, the production method will certainly have to change. And this stuff is quite dangerous even while it's being made. Large-scale production would take place in an environment very different from the laboratory, so it will need to be studied carefully," Lavoisier explained.
"Then, Mr. Lavoisier, may I take part in this research?" the Duke of Phillips asked.
"Of course. I'd be delighted to have you take part. In the future, you could even name the product, and your name could be listed as a coauthor on the paper."
The duke laughed. "Ah, I couldn't do that. People would say I was shamelessly claiming honors that weren't mine. So my name absolutely cannot appear among the paper's authors. But I'd be very pleased if you mentioned in the paper that I'd provided a little, insignificant assistance to the research."
"That's no problem," Lavoisier said with a smile. "Also, this research is somewhat dangerous. So although Your Highness may take part, please keep a safe distance during any hazardous operations."
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