Rumors and the National Self-Defense Army (2)

Just as Armand was floating a new rumor—that he himself had suddenly vanished, perhaps dragged off to the Bastille—an even more shocking piece of news arrived: the King's Minister of Finance, Necker, had been dismissed and exiled.

Necker's departure was seen as a sign that the King was about to launch a full-scale crackdown on the resistance of the Third Estate; he had, after all, served as France's Minister of Finance on two separate occasions.

During his first term as Minister of Finance, he had won widespread favor among the urban poor by opposing the free trade of grain. (If grain were traded freely, the rise in prices against a backdrop of consecutive natural disasters would have been almost inevitable, which would naturally have severely harmed the interests of the most impoverished.)

He pioneered the method of maintaining national finances through borrowing, thereby avoiding tax increases, which also made the wealthy elite of the Third Estate quite satisfied with him.

However, in 1781, in order to defend his fiscal policies, he took the unprecedented step of publicly releasing the French government's financial report, in which he revealed the budget deficit and the annual stipends of the privileged classes. The disclosure of these two figures triggered a political firestorm. Those poor souls who had never touched a single Louis d'or in their lives saw the astronomical expenses of the great nobles—especially Queen Marie Antoinette, who had spent 766,000 francs just to redecorate her Petit Trianon! And the Queen had bestowed 500,000 francs upon her favorite, Madame de Polignac, in a single year! When they looked at these numbers and then at their own empty grain sacks, they were naturally filled with fury.

Thus, Marie, who had won the cheers of all Paris when she first became Queen, earned the nickname "Madame Deficit." And Necker, who had sparked this storm, was naturally dismissed.

But later, the fiscal deficit grew increasingly severe, and borrowing became ever more difficult (at the time, the interest rate on French national debt had reached nearly twenty percent, yet they still could not borrow money), while the pressure to repay debts became a bottomless pit in the national budget. Meanwhile, the privileged classes stubbornly refused to pay taxes. (One might say this situation is somewhat similar to that of the United States today.) Louis XVI had no choice but to reappoint Necker. Yet, Necker was no God; he could not simply say "let there be gold Louis" and have them appear.

Therefore, Necker could only propose taxing the privileged classes. The clergy and the nobility naturally used tradition as a shield, declaring that to tax the privileged, they must obtain authorization from the Estates-General. The privileged classes had assumed that Louis XVI would never dare to convene the Estates-General. But they never expected that Louis XVI, driven mad by poverty, would actually convene it.

During the Estates-General, Necker helped the Third Estate successfully increase its number of representatives and gain the power to vote by head rather than by order on financial matters. Consequently, in the hearts of the Parisians, Necker's dismissal meant that the King had made up his mind to stand in opposition to the Third Estate. In everyone's eyes, this was a signal that the King was preparing to suppress the people by force.

"We cannot sit here and wait for death; we cannot wait for the King's foreign mercenaries and those bandits to come and slaughter and plunder us. We must stand up, take up arms, and prepare to fight. We must wear cockades so we can recognize one another. We must defend ourselves, defend our wives and children, and defend our own property!" In front of a cafe at the Palais-Royal, a man was delivering an impassioned speech.

"How strange. Doesn't Desmoulins usually have a stutter? Why isn't he stuttering today?" The man speaking was clearly very familiar with Desmoulins, who was giving the speech.

"Indeed, it used to be such a chore to talk to Desmoulins. He would even prefer to find a piece of paper to write on rather than speak with his mouth. Today... let's hear what he has to say first," another man added.

"This dismissal is the alarm bell for a St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of patriots! And just today, the playwright who created the immortal Spartacus, our friend Armand, has vanished! We all know what this disappearance means. He isn't anywhere else; he must have been dragged to the Bastille by the King's secret agents, those vicious dogs!" the agitated Desmoulins continued to shout. He pulled two pistols from the pockets of his green coat at once. "Follow me, let us arm ourselves!"

The crowd responded with a roar.

"To arms, to arms!"

And so, they went.

Where to? Naturally, to the weapon shops. Desmoulins led these people to the nearest one. The shopkeeper, seeing so many people approaching with such menacing intent, hurriedly tried to close his door. But Desmoulins was faster; he leaped forward, stretched out his hand, and blocked the closing door panel, and the crowd surged in.

"Boss, are you a member of the Third Estate? Are you a citizen of Paris?" Desmoulins asked loudly.

"Of course, I certainly am," the pale-faced shopkeeper replied.

"Good!" Desmoulins said. "The tyrant is conspiring to use force to suppress the resistance of the Third Estate, to sack and slaughter Paris! Should you not do your part to defend the people of Paris?"

Everyone stared at the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper glanced furtively at the two pistols in Desmoulins' hands, then at the crowd behind him, and replied in a trembling voice: "Of course... what you say... of course... I..." Compared to Desmoulins, he sounded more like the stutterer.

"Well said." Desmoulins patted the shopkeeper on the shoulder and turned to shout to the crowd, "You see, how enlightened this citizen is! He is willing to support us, he is willing to join us! Come, everyone, let us arm ourselves! We must fight for Paris, for liberty!"

And so, everyone scrambled to grab the weapons in the shop. One person took a hunting rifle, another took a spear... The shopkeeper watched them, wanting to stop them but not daring to, and could only look on. At this moment, Desmoulins shoved a hunting knife into his hand: "Citizen, thank you for your generosity! Let's go, let us go defend Paris together!"

The shopkeeper, clutching the hunting knife, was swept along by the crowd toward the street ahead. As they walked, they shouted to others, inviting them to join, and the ranks swelled rapidly. After walking about half a street, the shopkeeper began to understand.

"Citizens, citizens! If you turn right here, there is another weapon shop. Many of us still don't have weapons; let us go there and arm ourselves!" the shopkeeper shouted, holding his hunting knife high. It went without saying that the owner of that shop was surely his bitter rival.

And so, a group of people without weapons, along with a few citizens carrying hunting rifles, followed the shopkeeper.

Sure enough, after turning the corner and walking less than a hundred paces, they saw a weapon shop. However, by this time, the shop's doors had already been shut.

"Open up, open up!" The shopkeeper stepped forward, pounding on the door with the hilt of his hunting knife, shouting repeatedly.

"We are not doing business today..." a trembling voice replied from behind the door.

"Open up, open up! Citizen, you have an obligation to support the people in defending Paris!" someone shouted.

"That's right, we need weapons to fight the tyrant! Open the door quickly!" another shouted.

"No... I won't open the door... this is my hard-earned money inside, I cannot just give it to you!" the voice behind the door cried out.

"Are you going to stand with the tyrant against the people?" someone scolded loudly.

"Smash the door down, let's smash the door down!" another said.

And so, people began to smash the door.

"Stop!" the voice inside shouted. "If you don't stop, we will fire!"

However, the people did not stop.

"Bang!" A gunshot rang out from inside the house, and a man who was smashing the door collapsed, clutching his leg.

The people smashing the door immediately scattered.

"This damn fellow must be a supporter of the tyrant!" someone shouted.

"Kill this piece of filth!" more people cried.

Several hunting rifles were fired blindly toward the door. The door was instantly riddled with holes. Someone crept around to the side and kicked the door, and it flew open—the previous shots had broken the bolt behind it.

Everyone rushed in together and saw a middle-aged man frantically trying to load his hunting rifle with trembling hands. His hands shook so violently that the gunpowder spilled outside the muzzle. Seeing the crowd rush in, he dropped the rifle, stood up, and turned to flee. But a spear thrust forward from behind, pinning him to the wall in an instant.

"Damn lackey of the tyrant!" someone cursed as he rushed up, grabbed the man by the hair, and swung a long blade, hacking at the man's neck. His technique was truly poor, and the blow failed to sever the cervical spine or take the head off. Perhaps feeling embarrassed by this, the man swung the blade frantically, hacking at the man's neck several more times until he finally managed to decapitate him.

The man lifted his blood-stained face and, with his blood-soaked hand, held the head high, just as Perseus had held the head of Medusa.

"Look! This is the fate of those who serve as lackeys for the tyrant!" the man shouted with the delirious fervor of a drunkard.

"He deserved it!"

"That is what happens to the tyrant's lackeys!"

The crowd responded in the same tone.

In truth, one does not need to drink alcohol or use other substances to reach a state of delirious intoxication; all that is required is a great crowd of people and a lofty cause.

"This kind of lackey and his entire family deserve to be slaughtered!" someone shouted again.

"Over here, there seems to be more people over here!" another person cried out.

The crowd surged toward the inner room, but the innkeeper remained behind, hearing someone inside scream, "God, save us!"

Then, someone else shouted, "This kind of lackey has women and children, too!"

"Kill them all! It's what they deserve!"

There followed a few shrill screams, and then several men emerged from the inner room with faces smeared in blood, looking triumphant as they roared, "Take up arms! Defend Paris!"