Chapter 385 The Inexperienced Crown Prince

Chapter 386 The Inexperienced Crown Prince

Palace of Versailles.

In front of the Petit Trianon, thousands of nobles looked at the balcony of Queen Marie's tea room on the second floor, and cried out sadly from time to time, "Your Majesty, are you going to abandon us?"

"Please take a look at your loyal servants, they are begging for a little mercy from you."

"Your Majesty, we just need the most humble traditional income that has not changed for hundreds of years..."

"Your Majesty, please have mercy..."

Since the official announcement of the land redemption plan yesterday, these nobles took less than a day to complete the connection and started a massive petition.

Behind these more than a thousand petitioning nobles, there are more eyes staring here. Once Her Majesty the Queen shows signs of loosening her attitude, they will immediately come to reinforce.

They can be so united because the redemption plan really touches their interests.

According to the plan, the cost of the farmers' redemption of 8 years of annual tribute will be paid to the original lord of the land.

Although this was much better than the two-year redemption plan that had been rumored before, and those nobles with other income sources reluctantly accepted it, many "poor" nobles still began to worry about their source of livelihood.

In Queen Marie's reception room, there were several nobles of noble status who complained to her pitifully, even the king's brother, the Count of Artois, was among them.

Queen Marie kept comforting them, but was finally pestered by them and signaled to her maid De Berninac, whispering: "Please go find the prince. Oh, don't let him come here, go to the study and wait for me."

She guessed that it was probably because her son was eager to quell the riots that he was too biased towards the peasants in the redemption plan, which aroused the criticism of the nobles.

She needed to discuss this plan with her son first, and then find a way to compensate the nobles.

It is normal for young people to make mistakes when doing things, otherwise what else can parents do? Now it's time for me to help my son clean up the mess!

Countess de Berninac had just left the reception room for more than 10 minutes when she returned and whispered in the queen's ear: "Your Majesty, His Royal Highness the Dauphin is back."

The carriage slowly stopped in the marble courtyard. As soon as Joseph opened the door, he heard the noise of waves coming from the direction of the Petit Trianon Palace.

He just smiled indifferently. This situation was expected long ago. It would be abnormal if the nobles did not make a fuss.

Mirabeau, who had been looking forward to it for a long time, immediately came up to greet him. Behind him, there was a monk in black robes, about fifty years old, who was the Archbishop of Paris, Beaumont.

The two saluted Joseph one after another, and then followed his footsteps and walked towards the direction of the Petit Trianon Palace.

"Are you ready?" Joseph looked sideways at Mirabeau.

"Yes, Your Highness, make sure everything is foolproof."

"You did a great job." Joseph nodded and asked, "How many people came from the families of the more than 300 "prodigal sons"?"

"At least one person from each family was present. Among them was an influential person like Count Aunes."

"Well, that puts my mind at ease."

Joseph turned to Archbishop Beaumont again: "Thank you for coming all the way here in person."

The latter waved his hand with a smile on his face: "I will take your instructions seriously. Moreover, the things you said are also what the church should do..."

To get the old nobles to accept the land redemption plan, it is definitely not enough to rely on the pressure of the royal family alone, and it is even more impossible to support them with national finances.

Joseph knew very well that to play politics, he had to get as many of his own people as possible.

His most solid political team was undoubtedly the capitalist aristocracy. So as early as when he just came back from Luxembourg, he instructed Mirabeau to secretly contact important figures of the capitalist aristocracy to prepare to support the land redemption plan.

Moreover, according to his arrangement, the redemption plan was originally very beneficial to big capital. Mirabeau casually called for a meeting, and immediately responded in large numbers.

As for the church, Joseph had not touched the church's cake in order to reduce the resistance of the land policy, so this time facing the pressure of the old nobles, the church naturally had to contribute.

Similarly, he would not let the church work in vain.

If you want others to work hard, it is undoubtedly the most effective to drive them with interests.

The three of them talked in a low voice and soon came to the open space in front of the vegetable garden of the Petit Trianon Palace.

Of course, this place was not empty at all at this time, and even some nobles who came to petition were squeezed and stepped on the vegetables of Her Majesty the Queen.

The nobles immediately noticed Joseph and his party, and someone immediately shouted to him: "Your Highness, please help us persuade Her Majesty the Queen to revise the land redemption policy."

Joseph pushed through the crowd and quickly came to the stone steps in front of the main entrance of the Petit Trianon Palace, smiling at those people: "In fact, this land redemption plan was formulated by me. I don't think there is anything that needs to be revised."

Queen Marie just walked to the balcony and heard her son's words from below, and immediately thought it was not good. Joseph was still too inexperienced. For such things that caused dissatisfaction among the nobles, he should first put the responsibility on Brian and others, so that he could mediate on the side. It seems that I have to come forward and help him make up for it...

As expected, the petitioning nobles immediately caused a commotion.

Immediately, someone turned the spearhead to Joseph: "Your Highness, the nobility is the foundation of France, you can't abandon us like this!"

"You are so unfair to us!"

Joseph looked around at everyone, still smiling: "No, I always follow His Majesty the King's teachings and never forget you."

A nobleman said loudly: "Your Highness, your redemption plan will make our lives miserable!"

"Of course not." Joseph said in the direction of the man, "In fact, you will be richer than before!"

The noise of the nobles became a little louder, and the Crown Prince simply insulted everyone's intelligence. The annual tribute will be cut off after 8 years. How can we become richer?

Joseph said calmly: "Don't just focus on the land itself, it won't bring much profit.

“You need to look further afield. Once farmers get farmland, they will cultivate it more diligently than before and produce more.

"Farmers want to increase production, but they don't have enough livestock and fertilizers, and they can't afford to repair water conservancy. Oh, you should know that a common steam pump costs 6,000 livres.

“Also, advanced farming techniques are very difficult to master and require someone to teach them.

"The food grown also needs to be transported to big cities for sale. Even if farmers know that the price of food in Lyon is 40% higher than in Tours, they cannot afford to transport the food."

He paused to let the nobles digest what he just said, and then continued: "So, someone needs to help them do this.

"Of course, this cannot be done by one or two people, but requires a company, a large-scale company!"