Duke of Durelph’s nephew, Rolle, forcefully slapped the armrest of his chair, glaring at the disheartened nobles before him. “Complaining here is of no use at all!”
He pointed toward the window at the assembly of new nobles in the square, “We cannot let those people destroy our ancient traditions, deceive Her Majesty the Queen!”
“We must fight back against them to ensure that our innate rights are not compromised!”
He stood up and beckoned, “Don’t be cowards here, follow me to the Queen, she will listen to us.”
After all, their own interests were at stake, so immediately more than a dozen people also stood up, “Yes, let Her Majesty decide for us!”
“We can’t let the youngsters mess around!”
“Let’s go, I want to scold them…”
Rolle took the lead out of the banquet hall and headed downstairs, followed by a stream of Old Nobility.
By the time they reached the Marble Courtyard, a crowd of three to four hundred people had already gathered.
Rolle and his group collided head-on with the new nobles who were listening to a speech. He immediately shouted, “What on earth are you trying to do?”
“You are nobles yourselves, why degrade the glory of nobility?”
The young man making a speech next to a lion’s head statue on the palace wall countered loudly, “Decrepit privileges should have been abolished long ago!”
“What nonsense are you talking? Do you want us nobles to be like the pantless plebeians in the streets?”
“The nobles have been comfortable enough, go look at the miserable peasants…”
“Their poverty stems from laziness and stupidity, what does that have to do with us…”
“It’s precisely you people who are lazy and stupid!”
“You dare insult me! I challenge you to a duel!”
“Then bring it on!”
Soon, debating turned into cursing and then escalated into a physical confrontation.
Neither side was willing to show weakness and began to call for reinforcements. The battlefield gradually shifted from the confined Marble Courtyard to the Versailles Palace Square.
Before long, the numbers on both sides had exceeded a thousand and were still increasing.
Although serious bloodshed was prevented by the intervention of the guards, the shouting had already spread throughout the whole Palace of Versailles. Some even took to throwing rotten vegetables and chunks of dirt at each other like commoners.
Joseph stood at the ground-floor window of the South Hall, watching the distinctly French-style fray on the square with great interest.
If this had happened in Russia or Prussia, anyone daring to create such an uproar at the royal palace would have been dispersed by the guards, with the leaders thrown in jail. But at the Palace of Versailles, this was just standard political activity.
Eman also came over and looked out the window, “Your Highness, it seems our side isn’t faring too well.”
Being the one closest to the Crown Prince, he naturally knew what this was all about.
Joseph smiled slightly, “Don’t worry, Mr. Mirabeau’s main force hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Main force?”
Eman’s confusion was soon resolved. As carriage after carriage stopped at the edge of the Versailles Palace Square, a large number of well-dressed but not as lavishly as those from the Palace of Versailles, people poured into the square. Guided by a dozen or so young people, they quickly joined the side of the emerging nobility.
Joseph took the teacup from Eman, gesturing toward the new arrivals, “Look, everyone has forgotten that even those nobles without robes are still nobles.”
The so-called “robe nobility” refers to those who paid money for their noble titles, while the hereditary nobles were known as “sword nobility”.
The former have always been looked down upon by the latter, branded as upstarts, and the vast majority couldn’t reside in the Palace of Versailles. Thus, they rarely had the chance to get involved in the kind of “collective political activity” that took place at Versailles.
But when it comes to sheer numbers, there were many more of them than there were sword nobility.
Others might have overlooked them, but Joseph had not forgotten. Historically, the core backbone of the French Revolution was these people, and their fighting spirit was not to be underestimated.
So, more than half a month before, he had dispatched Mirabeau to mobilize the robe nobility, ready to provide reinforcements for the standoff at Versailles.
In just over an hour, the “battle group” of the emerging nobility had grown to more than double, perhaps triple, the size of their opponents, and people were continually arriving to join.
Moreover, most of these robe nobles had experience in law and commerce, and both their eloquence and physical dexterity far surpassed those of the lords within the walls of Versailles.
The tides of battle swiftly turned, the Old Nobility were pushed back steadily, eventually cornered into an area of the Marble Courtyard, backed against the walls of the Palace of Versailles, barely holding on as their presence diminished.
Finally, when Rolle was hit in the forehead by a clod of earth, wincing as he left the fray, the Old Nobility began to disperse.
Half an hour later, only those of the emerging nobility were left in the square. They cheered excitedly as they surrounded several leading nobles and surged towards the Petit Trianon Palace to express their full support of Viscount Chantal’s proposal to the King.
This is the political tradition of France—deciding who has the say based on who makes the biggest fuss. This was proven time and again during the French Revolution.
Clearly, in the battle that had just taken place, the Old Nobility were completely defeated.
Of course, this was a scenario that had unfolded under Joseph’s deliberate indulgence. If the momentum had been off, he would have immediately ordered the guards to disperse the gathered nobles.
He was not as easygoing as Louis XVI and Queen Mary.
In fact, despite the nobles’ raucous scene, just a few hundred guards would have been enough to send them all home to rest.
Outside the gates of Petit Trianon Palace, Queen Mary was surprised that there were so many supporters for abolishing noble privileges. She quickly promised in public to approve the proposal and enact it into law as soon as possible.
The crowd immediately erupted into cheers, and then they began to bow and sing praises to the Queen, bestowing lofty accolades like “Savior of the suffering,” “Angel-like kindness,” and “The people will forever remember your grace,” almost drowning her with their flattery.
That evening, in the salon of Duke of Mushi on the second floor of the Versailles Palace, over a dozen high-ranking nobles discussed with heavy hearts.
“They actually brought so many low-born scoundrels to make a scene at Versailles!”
“But Her Majesty the Queen seems to have promised them to abolish the traditional rights of the nobility.”
“Their presence was overwhelming; the King could not withstand the pressure…”
These leaders were not ones to directly engage in daytime petitions and confrontations, but they were always paying attention to how the situation unfolded.
A middle-aged noble spoke up, “We must find more people to balance the situation!”
“Right! I can go to my hometown to mobilize the local nobility…”
However, Duke of Durelph shook his head in contemplation, “No, we will have a hard time outnumbering the Liberals. They just need to make a speech on the streets, and they can gather thousands.”
“What do you suggest, then?”
“We must play to our strengths,” Duke of Durelph looked around at the others, “Though we are fewer in number, we have more influence inside the Palace of Versailles.
“Those people can only petition in the square, while our letters end up on the Queen’s desk and we can even go directly into her tea room to speak with her.”
[Note1]Sans-culottes: During the French Revolution, this term referred to the common city dwellers. The sans-culottes primarily consisted of small-scale craftsmen, vendors, shopkeepers, and other laboring masses, including some wealthy individuals. They were the main force of the urban revolution, participating in several armed uprisings during the Revolution.
At the time, French noble men frequently wore tight-fitting knee breeches with long stockings underneath; commoners, on the other hand, wore long trousers without the breeches, hence the term sans-culottes. It was originally a term of derision used by the nobility against commoners, but soon it became synonymous with revolutionaries.