"Joseph, the Constituent Assembly has passed a new decree." As soon as Joseph got home, Lucien waved a newspaper in his hand and shouted to him.
Lucien's been getting more and more interested in politics lately. Joseph asked, "Did they pass the Declaration of the Rights of Man?"
Joseph had learned history from his PE teacher in his previous life. (Which was only natural. As far as Joseph was concerned back then, he only needed to pass the high school exams. History wouldn't be on the college entrance exam, so why study so much? He might as well spend the time solving a couple of math problems to calm his nerves.) So when it came to documents from the Revolution, the only one Joseph knew about was the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
"No, no!" Lucien said. "It's a decree declaring the abolition of all feudal rights."
"What? Let me see." Joseph was startled. He knew that uprisings and riots had recently been breaking out in the countryside all over the country. (Whether you called the peasants' actions uprisings or riots depended on whose side you were on.) As far as he knew, France had fallen into something close to anarchy, and the government had few ways of dealing with the peasants. The Constituent Assembly had indeed been planning to appease them. But to have a decree ready so soon—and one with such sweeping measures?
"This makes no sense!" Joseph said. "This kind of thing involves all sorts of interests and is as complicated as the Gordian Knot—a legendary knot so complex that whoever untied it would become king of Asia. Alexander the Great eventually solved it by simply slicing through it with his sword. Without Alexander's sword, it would have been impossible to untie. But there's no Alexander