Leave Nobel with No Chance (I)

Leaving the Academy, Lavoisier did not return home but took a carriage and went out of Paris toward one of the Duke of Orleans' estates. A few days ago, he borrowed a place from the Duke for a new scientific experiment.

Maybe it's because, for a long time, His Majesty couldn't produce a son. (Queen Marie Antoinette gave birth to her first son eleven years after her marriage to him.) This led many of the country's great nobles, who were close relatives of the king, to entertain the idea that the king might be extinct and that the crown might fall on their heads. The House of Orleans, a close relative of the King, may not have failed to entertain similar thoughts. A few years ago, after the Queen received one of his operations, down the line, she finally got pregnant and gave birth to two princes in a row. But ambition is something that, once created, is difficult to extinguish naturally. It is as if Macbeth, because of the witches' prophecies, has ambitions for the crown of Scotland. Although the old king has since made it clear that his crown will be given to his son, not Macbeth, Macbeth's ambition for the crown is not extinguished but rather becomes fiery. And eventually drove him down the path of regicide and taking over the throne. And some of the great nobles, including the House of Orleans, shared Macbeth's ambition, which did not disappear with the prince's birth. Coupled with the king's weak character and the queen, although her character was quite a bit tougher, as a woman, she had not received much education in politics and was quite naïve politically. This made the great nobles feel that "they could take their place".

In order to "replace" the king, the great nobles, including the Orléans family, have been working hard to make things difficult for the king, both openly and secretly. At the same time, there was a deliberate effort to create public opinion to discredit the royal family. Of course, they don't point the finger directly at the king - it would be too direct and too easy to reveal their ambitions. So they all coincidentally targeted Queen Marie. Queen Marie's strong character but lack of political wisdom, coupled with her love of vanity and lack of concept of money, made it easy for them to step into the trap.

On the one hand, they flattered Queen Marie, induced her to hold balls, and cheated her out of millions of francs of "gifts" every year; on the other hand, they denigrated her socially for her "wastefulness" and even nicknamed her "Madame Déficit". The recent revelation of the bizarre necklace incident has further discredited the Queen. (It's amazing that a conwoman can make her way out of a maximum security prison after directing such a drama that has trapped the Queen. Whether there's a problem here or not, that's really God knows.)

Of course, the nobles still have a sense of propriety. Their propaganda always insists on one point: the king is a good man, just too sweet-tempered, too afraid of his wife, that's why ... In a word, 'the current king is extremely holy and wise, but only held by a few traitors ... ...No, just being led by a woman.'

This kind of propaganda, which seems to excuse the king on the surface, is better than a direct attack on the king's greed and brutality as far as its effect is concerned. A greedy and brutal king is hated and feared, but a good and weak "honest man" who is ruled by his own wife is scorned.

According to Machiavelli, the kings whose position is weakest and most easily overthrown are not tyrants whom everyone hates but those who are universally despised by their subjects. By this propaganda, the great nobles directed the hatred of the people to the queen while leaving the most terrible thing of all - contempt - to the king.

If Louis XVI had been a sovereign, it need not even be a sovereign but a tyrant. He was also able to ruthlessly quell these murmurs by storming them or at least turning their contempt for him into hatred and fear. Relatively speaking, the crown of a feared tyrant is also worn more securely than a despised king's.

Louis XVI, however, was a man of weak character, hesitant and unable to make up his mind to cut off the heads of the great nobles. His concession, however, made the great nobles, including the House of Orleans, think increasingly that the crown of France naturally belonged on their own heads.

In his theory of kings, Machiavelli also suggested that the king should make the people grateful and expectant of him by giving them a little favor. So while giving the king all sorts of tripwires, the great nobles competed to present themselves as "friends of the people", "enlightened gentlemen", and "pioneers of democracy". In the words of a later great mentor, "In order to draw the people in, the aristocrats waved the proletariat's begrudging sack as a flag." Of course, the end result of this for the great nobles must have been that "whenever the people followed them, they found them with the old feudal coat of arms on their hips, and laughed and dispersed." But at least for the time being, these tactics are still getting the people to come behind them.

In order to be "friends of the people", "enlightened gentlemen," and "pioneers of democracy", the great aristocrats all acted as if they loved science, the motherland, and the people. The more they support academic research and freedom, the more it becomes something these great aristocrats compete to boast about. Supporting the research of Lavoisier, who had become the pride of France, was naturally the right thing to do for a "friend of the people," an "enlightened gentleman," and a "pioneer of democracy."

His Royal Highness Duke Philippe happened to have nothing to do, so he waited for Lavoisier there as well. He was also interested in Lavoisier's experiments, so he asked Lavoisier about the contents of his experiments.

"You know, Master, I didn't mean anything by it other than simple curiosity. Can you tell me what experiments you are going to do here?" Duke Philippe used to ask this when he lent out this field.

"Oh, a letter came to me from Joseph. The letter mentions that he obtained a very powerful liquid gunpowder by carefully treating glycerin with concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids in a special way. Well, maybe it's like Joseph said, it shouldn't be called gunpowder, but dynamite. There's a lot more to this liquid explosive, it's just that Joseph is busy with math stuff right now, and he's not particularly well versed in this sort of thing, so he told me about it with only preliminary experiments under his belt. I tried it and it was indeed as powerful as he said it would be. It is at least several dozen to a hundred times more powerful than brown gunpowder."

"That powerful?" Duke Philippe was taken aback.

"Isn't that right?" Lavoisier said, "You know, Joseph talks about the power of that thing as if it were the thunder of Zeus. He suggested that when I experimented on my own, I should not experiment with more than a gram at a time. Then I got a gram to try and it really exploded. And it's far more powerful than I expected. Well, Mr. Duke, this stuff is pretty dangerous. To conduct a full-scale test, that's certainly no way to do it in the city of Paris."

"It seems like something like this should be studied by the military, right?" Duke Philippe said.

"Ah, Your Highness the Duke, you may not realize that as powerful as this thing is, it really isn't suitable for military use, at least not at the moment." Lavoisier looked at Duke Philippe and said, "As you may not know, this thing is very unstable. A little shock, or light, or a little heat, and the thing explodes. Think about it, Your Highness, if it is used for military purposes, when this thing is in transit, as long as the wheels of the wagon bump inside a small pit, an entire wagon of explosives will explode with a loud explosion, and the power is equivalent to more than a hundred wagons of gunpowder exploding together."

"My God!" Duke Philippe said, "If this is so dangerous, how does this thing work?"

"The military is out of the question." Lavoisier said, "It's not easy to transport, and many times it needs to be concocted at the site where it's being used. For military use, how could it be made on the spot on the battlefield? Instead, for civilian use, say for mining, we could just prepare the stuff at the mining site and use it immediately, which would be relatively safe. Your Highness, this stuff is actually very useful. Mining, for example, can come in handy for projects such as digging canals, and in many cases even revolutionize them. And the cost of the ingredients used isn't too high, so if the preparation problems can be solved, this thing should make a lot of money. Is His Highness the Duke interested?"

"If the preparation problem can be solved? My Master, so there is still a problem with the making of this stuff?" Duke Philippe asked.

"Yes, it can only be made in the lab at the moment, and the amount that can be made at one time is quite limited. If it is to be applied on a large scale, the way it is prepared will certainly have to change somewhat. And this stuff is quite dangerous even when prepared. For large-scale preparation, the environment is again different from a laboratory, so meticulous research is still needed." Lavoisier explained.

"So, Mr. Lavoisier, can I participate in this study?" Duke Philippe asked.

"Of course, you are more than welcome to attend. In the future you will be able to name such products, in addition. What about signing your name as author of future papers." Lavoisier said.

The Duke laughed, "Ah, that won't do, people will say I'm unashamedly pursuing my own unearned honor. That's why the author of the paper must never have my name on it. But I would be very happy if you could mention in your paper that I provided a little insignificant help with this research."

"It's not a problem." Lavoisier laughed, "Besides, this research is somewhat dangerous. So although you may participate, Your Highness the Duke, please keep a safe distance when performing some dangerous maneuvers."