Chapter 21 The Gathering

　Joseph followed Armand into the courtyard of his house and up the steps. He noticed that the small building that housed Amand's family was a typical rococo style building. The walls were adorned with carvings of various shapes, decorated with gold paint and various other colors of paint. A small building like this must have been full of ostentatious flair back in the day, but today, the gold and various other colors of paint were weathered and flaking off, speckling the entire wall.

　　Noticing that Joseph was watching this wall, Amang said, "This house is a bit old, and it should have been repaired in its entirety a long time ago, but it's just that my father, like me, is an incorrigible playboy, and couldn't care less about that. So, get this house ... What should I say?"

　　Armand frowned.

　　"I think it's actually quite nice this way," Joseph said in a serious, aria-like tone, "It has a special beauty. It's like an open scroll of time, full of the weight of history. When you see it, you see impermanence, you see destiny ..."

　　"Joseph, I'll take that ... as a real compliment." Armand said, "Anyway, you know, one of my greatest strengths is this. Besides ..."

　　Armand paused, raised his head, and watched the mottled walls intently, "Joseph, you're right about one thing, it's impermanence, it's fate. The loneliness and despair beneath the prosperity, this is the true meaning of Rococo!"

　　"O Fortuna, velut Luna statu variabilis, semper crescis aut decrescis; vita detestabilis nunc obdurat et tunc curat ludo mentis aciem. egestatem, potestatem dissolvit ut glaciem," whispered Joseph on the side. (This is a passage from the Latin work, "Fate, Queen of the World," in the Bran Psalms. To wit: O Fate, like the moon, is fickle, and alternates between surplus and deficit; abominable life interweaves misery and happiness; and both the poor and the rich melt and perish like snow and ice.)

　　"Hell! You actually wrote a poem in Latin right away!" Armand feinted, "You've already crushed me in the natural sciences, and now ... you, you guy, do you want anyone to live!"

　　"I didn't write it." Joseph shook his head, "I don't know what kind of person wrote it, maybe it's the work of an unknown poet in the eighth century or earlier. Well, as I told you, my godfather was a bishop, and this is from a scrap of a scroll I saw in his church."

　　"Terrible Middle Ages, I wonder how many talented poets were buried." Armand shook his head, "Well, let's not keep standing on the steps talking. Let's go in together."

　　The two of them entered the door and Joseph looked inside, there was a crystal chandelier in the middle of the living room with more than a dozen candles on it illuminating the hall which had already reached the night time. There were a few chairs on either side of the hall, and in the center, was the dance floor. The floor was plastered with marble, but because of the age, these marble floors had become dull and lost the splendor of those years.

　　There was no one in the couches in the hall, Amang said to Joseph, "We didn't invite too many people this time, just a limited number of friends, so, they are all in the small living room."

　　Following Amang to the right, he turned to the small living room. Just as Amang said, the people were all in the small living room.

　　Amand walked in with Joseph, then raised his hand and lightly clapped it twice, so the people who were talking in the chairs in the small living room stopped and turned their faces toward this side.

　　"Gentlemen, allow me to do you the honor of introducing my friend, the future great scientist of France, Monsieur Joseph Bonaparte ... an Italian Viscount, and let us welcome him. "

　　"Welcome, Mr. Bonaparte." A man of about forty stood up and greeted Joseph.

　　"Joseph, this is my father, Viscount Charles de Lavoisier." Amand introduced himself in a serious manner.

　　"Thank you for your hospitality." Joseph bowed and curtsied as well.

　　"Come on, Armand, what's the point of making it so formal?" Viscount Char shook his head towards Armand, "This is just a very casual family gathering."

　　Then he turned his head and pointed to a high-backed chair and said to Joseph, "Mr. Bonaparte, please sit here."

　　"Thank you." Joseph said, "I'm a friend of Armand's, you can just call me Joseph."

　　Amang then continued to introduce the other family members on the side.

　　"This is my mother, Viscountess Lavoisier."

　　"Pleased to meet you, ma'am." Joseph hurriedly nodded in greeting.

　　"I also enjoy seeing you young people." The Viscountess replied, "It always reminds me of the good times when I was young."

　　"Mom, you are young too." Armand said.

　　"This is my cousin Samuel de Fermat. He specializes in fencing and shooting and once fought in North America after the Marquis de Lafayette, a wonderful fellow." Amand introduced Joseph to another short man sitting here. Joseph noticed a long scar just below his right ear that extended all the way down to just below his lip. Perhaps to cover the scar, he had deliberately grown a large Captain Haddock-style beard from a later comic book, which made it difficult to tell his age.

　　"Hello." Samuel stood up and nodded.

　　"Nice to meet you." Joseph responded in return.

　　Amand then introduced Joseph to a few more people, mostly relatives of their family and such. Finally Amang brought Joseph to a girl in a pale yellow dress.

　　"This is our family's most precious pearl, my sister Fanny." Amand said.

　　"It is a pleasure to meet you." Joseph rushed to say.

　　"Me too." The girl bowed her head slightly and held her hands by her skirts bending her knees slightly in response. Then raising her head again, she opened her big turquoise eyes and gave Joseph a quick glance before dropping her eyelids and saying, "I've heard a lot about you from my brother, and I heard that your thesis received the Grand Prize from the Academy of Sciences. Not only that, but my uncle says that you've made a lot of important creations in math already. Moreover, you have been recommended, and will soon be able to obtain a teaching post at the Ecole Officielle in Paris. You must be less than twenty years old nowadays, and to receive such a recommendation is quite remarkable!"

　　"Miss, this is actually not as hard as you think." Joseph smiled and replied, "I'm just a bit more lucky."

　　"My brother said that luck only belongs to those who are ready." Fanny whispered with a smile.

　　"Okay, everyone sit down. Don't stand and talk." Viscount Charles de Lavoisier said.

　　So Joseph took a seat in one of the chairs next to Amand. A servant brought up a cup of tea and placed it on top of the small coffee table beside Joseph.

　　Everyone then proceeded to chat.

　　"What was everyone talking about just now?" Joseph asked.

　　"Before I went out, everyone was talking about The Marriage of Figaro that was on a while ago." Amand replied.

　　The Marriage of Figaro was a production of Beaumarchais. But for later generations, they are more familiar with the operatic version adapted by the musician Mozart. But the operatic Marriage of Figaro wasn't completed until 1786, and the most recent staging of it was not the operatic Marriage of Figaro, as it is more familiar to later generations, but the play, The Marriage of Figaro.

　　"Mr. Beaumarchais's satire in this play is so biting and ironic. It's so rare that he would have the guts to do that." Amand said.

　　"If you ask me, Mr. Beaumarchais is fine, those people from the comedy troupe are the ones who are really bold, they even changed the plot and satirized Her Majesty the Queen as well. That's what's really ballsy!" Baron Lavoisier said.

　　"Isn't it?" Fanny also smiled and whispered, "They actually had Count Almaviva say something like that. It's very bold as hell. Aren't they worried about the Queen, she won't think it's sarcastic, maybe she'll think that what Count Almaviva said was a compliment to her!" Amand laughed with a scornful air.

　　Queen Marie Antoinette, because of her extravagant life and love of spending money indiscriminately, countless expensive gems and fashions were gathered into her palace, and the luxurious fashion trend swept through the noble life circle in France under her leadership. She was happiest when she invited the nobles who got along with her to participate in all-night gambling, revelry and balls.

　　Folklore has it that whenever any new whimsical idea of spending money popped up, she pouted and cried like a child, forcing her husband to realize it for her. As a result, the royal family spent more and more, and the deficit became more and more serious. Queen Mary was nicknamed "The Deficit Queen".

　　"Amand, what did Count Almaviva say?" Joseph asked.

　　"The count said, 'What's the point of spending money? Even if it gets so full of deficits that you have to go around borrowing from the Jews, that's nothing. You know, since ancient times, how many kings there have to be, who for the sake of a beauty's smile, would even abandon their kingdoms and mountains, and in order to be able to make the lady wear those sparkling gems she likes, it is right for a husband to go even bankrupt.'" Amang then replied.

　　"So yeah? Amang, you underestimate the Queen too much. The Queen is, in any case, from the Habsburg family and is certainly well educated. This kind of simple metaphor is completely understandable to her. That's why those writers of the comedy troupe did need guts to alter it like that. But honestly, the risk they took wasn't really as big as they thought. Because even if they saw the irony, the king and queen probably didn't care." Joseph said.

　　"How could they not care when someone is accusing them in public?" Samuel interjected.

　　"Ah, well, that's a good question. Let me draw an analogy, uh, you fought in North America. I heard that some Indians in North America at that time sided with the British against you. It is said that those Indians would curse you with their witchcraft. So Mr. Fermat, do you care about their curses?" Joseph asked rhetorically with a smile.

　　"Of course I don't care, for I know that those superstitions of theirs are of no use whatsoever. You must know that there is no witchcraft that a bullet can't solve." Samuel replied.

　　"If one won't solve it, then another." Joseph laughed.

　　"You are right, Mr. Bonaparte." Musial laughed along with him, "But generally speaking, it only takes one bullet to deal with Indians."

　　"To the King and Queen, such an accusation is no different from an Indian curse. They don't care."