The young man in the felt hat pointed at the street. "There used to be three ironworking shops in San Giovanni District. Now, not a single one remains.
"Cheap French iron goods keep pouring into the city and stealing all their business! The craftsmen can only make a living by polishing carriages for the nobles." He paused, recalled the script, and swung up an arm. "We must drive out the French! Only by banning them from selling goods here can we protect our pitiful scraps of bread!"
The stirred-up crowd nodded along. "That's right, it's all those French people's fault!"
"Only the shops selling French Goods are making money."
"The sofa workshop where my father worked went bankrupt too! Rich people nowadays only buy French Industrial Board Sofa..."
Seeing that the mood was right, the young man in the felt hat immediately lowered his voice. "I heard that at the beginning of next month, many people will be going to Pitti Palace to protest and demand that His Majesty the King order French Goods expelled. Everyone must come!"
"Alright, I'll go too!"
"Me too!"
In a room on the second floor of the elegant villa across the street, an Italian nobleman in a wig, with a harsh and mean-looking face, was speaking with spittle flying. "We are all children of Rome! We once led civilization across the entire world! Yet now, people seem to have forgotten all that.
"We are Dante's and Leonardo da Vinci's 'fellow countrymen,' with accents so alike. It is time to end this fractured state of affairs and restore the glorious Roman Empire!
"The Austrians have already rolled back to the other side of the Alps. This is a once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity!
"On the day we form the 'Italian Confederation,' we will possess a land area nearly