“What are you spouting?” The steward of the Duke of Durelph’s estate looked at Scarface with haughty eyes, “The Duke has never known anything about the reserve grains!
“This is the Duke’s territory, you’d better leave quickly, or wait for the troops to come and arrest you all!”
Immediately, a spy from the Police Affairs Department turned his head to the crowd and shouted: Enjoy exclusive adventures from empire
“Did you hear that? They’re guilty and now they threaten to have the troops take us!”
An incensed roar erupted from the crowd of over a thousand demonstrators:
“Beat up this noble’s lackey!”
“Don’t waste words with him, let’s go in and retrieve our grains!”
“Everybody rush in!”
The steward was startled by the ferocity of the crowd; he only had ten guns, and should the rioters surge forward, the manor’s guards would stand no chance of resisting.
He hid his trembling hands behind his back and said with fierce bravado:
“You dare to threaten a noble, that’s a serious crime!”
A gang member, mixed within the crowd, threw a clod of earth at the steward:
“It’s the grain thieves who are the criminals!”
Taking the hint, a hail of stones and trash immediately followed, nearly submerging the few guards at the steward’s manor entrance.
The steward retreated inside the main gate, and instructed the guards in terror:
“Take up your guns, and if anyone else takes a step closer, shoot them dead!”
The Police Affairs Department spy, responsible for the Nice region, signaled people to stop the attack and looked at the steward with a friendly smile:
“You see, everyone is saying that the Duke has taken the reserve grains. If you let us inspect the manor, perhaps we could prove the Duke’s innocence.”
Scarface and his henchmen also began shouting:
“Right! Inspect the manor!”
“Prove your innocence!”
According to “the boss’s” rule, just entering the estate would reward them with 20 livres.
Seeing that the rioters were eager to scale the wall, the steward hesitated for a moment and finally nodded helplessly:
“Go ahead and look then, I’ve already told you there’s no reserve grain here. But only three people can come in at most.”
Scarface immediately shouted loudly:
“No way! You can’t thoroughly check such a large manor with just three people, we need at least twenty!”
“That’s right, only three people could be bribed!”
“We need thirty people. I want to go check!”
Finally, under the crowd’s threats, the steward allowed Scarface and twenty others, including the Police Affairs Department spy, into the estate.
The Police Affairs Department spy made a show of inspecting several cellars before quickly discovering a trash-burning furnace and signaled to Scarface with his eyes.
The latter immediately followed the “script” and ran over to the furnace, picking up a piece of torn cloth from the weeds behind it, and exclaimed:
“Isn’t this a grain sack from the reserve granary?”
The people who had entered the estate gathered around and, upon seeing the half-burnt sack, couldn’t contain themselves anymore:
“It’s them, they stole the reserve grains!”
“This is the evidence!”
“Those damn people, they still deny it!”
In the face of the steward’s astonished gaze, Scarface dashed back to the entrance of the manor and tossed the “evidence” to the demonstrators:
“Look what we found?!”
Of course, this thing had been placed in the manor by the Police Affairs Department spy the night before. There were two more pieces of “evidence” like this.
Scarface waved to the crowd energetically:
“What are we waiting for? Take back our grains!”
His underling immediately took the familiar path forward and shoved those guards aside—this trick was still the one originally taught to them by the Duke of Orleans’ spies.
The angry protesters’ eyes instantly reddened with blood, and they surged into the manor, screaming.
People inside the manor were terrified and shivering, huddled in corners, utterly afraid to intervene.
Scarface led the crowd to a cellar, smashed the door open with a few strikes, and gestured inside:
“Our grain is right here!”
Similar scenes unfolded throughout the estate. The throng, numbering in the thousands, quickly unearthed tens of thousands of bushels of grain from the manor’s cellars and storerooms, naturally assuming these were the stolen reserves.
Later, more evidence was discovered, such as torn halves of grain reserve withdrawal slips, which further confirmed the Duke of Durelph’s grain theft.
The old man, looking at the mountainous grain before him, covered his face, crying out loud:
“If only we had this food, my wife wouldn’t have starved to death…”
Others were immediately reminded of their painful memories and began to loudly curse the Duke of Durelph.
Scarface continued his mission, pointing towards the luxurious villa in the middle of the estate:
“Everything there was bought with the money from selling reserve grain; we have the right to take them!”
Someone immediately echoed loudly:
“Right! My sister’s death deserves compensation!”
“And my father!”
“And my twin sons!”
The dense crowd stormed into the villa, and almost instantly, everything of value and even items of no value were swept clean—the doors, windows, and even the roof were dismantled. Whatever could be carried was taken away, and what couldn’t be carried was smashed.
It wasn’t until near twilight that the vengeful people finally began to leave the manor one by one.
The troops stationed in Nice, despite having received more than a dozen pleas for help from the manor, did not deploy a single soldier. All their officers at or above the rank of captain were at the Palace of Versailles seeing the King and hadn’t returned, and no junior officer dared to independently mobilize hundreds of soldiers.
Moreover, even the soldiers had heard of the Duke of Durelph stealing the reserve grain, and many of them had relatives who died in the previous famine. If not for military discipline, even they would have wished to join in demolishing the manor.
The next day, the angry mob came to the Duke of Durelph’s manor once again, just to hear a man with a scarred face loudly saying:
“The Duke of Durelph has another villa in Villerfa town, we cannot let him off so easily!”
The people immediately responded with a roar:
“Yes! To Villerfa town!”
“To avenge our loved ones!”
“The devil must pay the price!”
Even more protesters than yesterday thus marched mightily towards Villerfa town…
Hatred-driven riots swept across the entire western and southern parts of France, with incidents similar to what happened in Nice seen everywhere.
In Montauban, the three villas of Duke of Mushi were consumed by fire, set ablaze by the furious citizens…
In Ouche, after smashing the Duke of Brisac’s villa, the people shaved the heads of everyone inside, man or woman, to vent their anger…
The most tragic were the nobles like Earl Dimonzo, Duke of Novaye, and others who happened to return to their homes in the south to escape the cold. They were directly caught by the mob and beaten to death in their homes. Some even had their entire families eradicated by the enraged crowd…
These noblemen of the Assembly of Notables had probably never imagined, not in their wildest dreams, that the starved people, whom they had meticulously conspired to create, would one day turn into “monsters” that would turn back and consume them all!
…
Brittany, northern province.
Amor.
Fouche’s eyes were filled with excitement and madness as he stared out the carriage window at the bare tree trunks, murmuring incessantly under his breath:
“You’d better not run away… Yes, you’re right here, waiting for me…”
Half an hour later, the carriage stopped in front of a small house on the northern outskirts of Amor.
The welcoming officer from the Police Affairs Department eagerly opened the carriage door, only to hear Fouche’s impatient voice:
“Is he still there?”
The officer quickly leaned in, lowering his voice to reply:
“Yes, Chief. The Duke of Orleans has been in that estate for the past few days…”