Before long, vast quantities of Lyon silk—or rather, imitation Lyon silk—had captured the American market.
This directly ruined the French plan. They had intended to use the opportunity to raise prices and make up for the losses from the Great Fire of Lyon. Yet before prices could reach their expected level, enormous quantities of Lyon silk suddenly appeared on the market.
The tycoons of the French silk industry immediately guessed at one possibility: someone had begun unloading their stock early.
Napoleon III, who had already harbored suspicions about the Great Fire of Lyon, immediately sent men to arrest Pierre Magne. After a round of cordial and friendly exchanges with the Paris police, they successfully recovered more than half the silk that should have been destroyed in the fire.
Pierre Magne was, after all, the Finance Minister of the French Second Empire, and he had rendered Napoleon III the service of helping him ascend the throne. Naturally, he could not be dealt with publicly.
After all, when the Finance Minister was the biggest embezzler, it would be a colossal scandal in any country—let alone the French Second Empire, which was already swaying amid wind and rain.
After learning the full sequence of events, as well as information on the assets concealed by Pierre Magne and his accomplices, Louis Napoleon carefully arranged an accident.
This time, even those who had previously looked down on Napoleon III had no choice but to applaud his bold decisiveness. Everyone firmly believed that Pierre Magne had deliberately shipped the silk to South America for sale in order to reduce suspicion.
Yet the French soon discovered a problem. The Lyon silk on the South American market had not disappeared, and contrary to Pierre Magne's testimony, people were also dumping Lyon silk in North America.
Napoleon III was