Paris.
In the first-class dining room of the Engineering Design Institute, Queen Mary glanced at the fish soup in front of her, then looked up at Louis XVI sitting across from her. "Well, Joseph told me to exercise more, so I jogged over from the Petit Trianon just now."
The King nodded in relief. "That is no short distance. Thank God, your health is much better than before."
"Especially after I went to Brest," Queen Mary said in a boastful tone. "That place was simply paradise, with beautiful beaches and moist air, and crabs and razor clams everywhere. I went beachcombing every day.
"Right, do you know what beachcombing is?"
"Er, what is that?"
"Receiving nature's gifts by the sea! It truly was terribly interesting..."
A little over ten minutes later, Louis XVI toyed with the roasted oysters on his plate with his fork and asked, somewhat inattentively, "So, it was catching crabs and shrimp like fishermen do?"
"And octopus, catshark, barnacles—so many things. And grilling freshly caught seafood right on the beach, with the sea breeze blowing and the setting sun dyeing the sky red—oh, it was wonderful!"
"That sounds, mm, not bad." Louis XVI answered perfunctorily, while ideas for improving the forging machine's gearbox had already welled up in his mind. Queen Mary seemed to have expected this reaction from her husband long ago and was not discouraged in the slightest. Instead, she leaned forward a little and smiled. "Do you know about the automatic seaming machine?"
Louis XVI's fork stopped. "It sounds like some kind of mechanical device."
"You guessed correctly." Queen Mary recalled the knowledge about the seaming machine she had learned on the return journey and said, "It is a machine used to seal cans. It is truly marvelous."
"Oh? Tell me quickly."
"You know