Internal benefits

On the third day after Pius VI's speech on the "new Holy See," more than a hundred members of Cologne's House of Magnates and House of Commons gathered in the Parliament hall.

At the podium in the middle of the hall, a middle-aged man with prominent cheekbones and dry, shriveled skin pumped his right fist, shouting himself hoarse. "The French have clearly come to sell us their 'market invasion plan.'

"No matter how flowery the language they use to dress it up, that Trade Alliance is really out to control our market!

"Our precious city of Cologne is still under their occupation. We cannot let them plunder our domestic market as well!"

Several Hardline Faction members immediately rose and shouted along with him. "Protect our market!"

"Never bow to a great power!"

"Take back Cologne-"

The Church Party members seated below showed little reaction, while the Liberals sneered at this performance.

The Hardline Faction had the fewest members, but they often used this sort of exaggerated, highly inflammatory rhetoric to draw attention.

With the Holy See's Trade Advisor, Colin Sussy, coming to address Congress, they had seized the time before his speech to play to the crowd.

Parliament's Vice Speaker, Kolkirk, turned to another member and whispered, "That fool Drost will sooner or later

"bring disaster upon Cologne by offending the French."

The other man nodded. "Their slogans do nothing but excite young officers. Cologne? Hah, even if we wanted to send troops there to die, we couldn't cross Nassau's territory."

Düsseldorf lay between Münster and the city of Cologne on the Rhine's west bank, and at the Stuttgart Conference a few years earlier, France had advocated assigning it to the County of Nassau.

After shouting at the top of his lungs for a while and finding few willing to