Chapter 242 If I Say You Are You, Then You Are It, and if I Say You Are Not You, Then

Chapter 243 If you are, you are. If you are not, you are not.

The sound of gunfire and the panicked shouts of servants kept scratching the nerves of the Marquis de Saint-Véran.

The servant was helping him change into his military uniform, and he shouted at the dusty Major Brune beside him: "You said that was the Berthier Army?"

The latter shouted loudly: "It's their flag... and the Paris Police Academy..."

It's not because he is confident, but if he doesn't shout, his voice will be covered by the gunfire.

"Is your brain broken?" The Marquis de Saint-Véran glared at him with a dark face, grabbed the telescope from the servant, and walked towards the roof with a curse, "So who is attacking me now? Berthier's three regiments, or some ridiculous police?"

He stepped onto the roof and immediately saw that the manor was surrounded by black smoke, and the sound of gunfire and bugles was clearer. Obviously, a fierce battle was going on.

"Who is it?" Marquis Saint-Véran opened the telescope and saw a line of infantry that was four or five hundred meters wide approaching this side.

Those soldiers were in neat formation, and they were very skilled in shooting while marching, and their pace was steady. The shooting on his side seemed to have no effect on them at all.

At the same time, there were several companies of skirmishers on both sides of the line, using the terrain to advance in a roundabout way, and soon approached some houses outside the manor.

His eyes twitched involuntarily.

The soldiers on his side defended the buildings, but were obviously at a disadvantage in the shooting. Two houses in very critical positions in the south had been lost.

Soon, those skirmishers planted flags on the roofs and began to shoot down at the defenders' lines.

When those flags were blown by the wind, Marquis Saint-Véran's expression was instantly as if he had seen a ghost - that was indeed the flag of the Paris Police Academy! Major Brune did not lie.

Then, he saw the flag of the Berthier Corps in the drifting smoke.

He immediately thought that only the royal family could mobilize these two forces at the same time. So, it was the royal family's troops attacking him?

Using Berthier's three regiments and the reserve police to attack the elite Montcalm Corps? !

He tried to dispel the absurdity in his heart, and then frowned deeply. The royal family's behavior at this time was equivalent to provoking a full-scale civil war-the military would never be indifferent to what happened today!

Is the Austrian cousin crazy?

Just as he was thinking about it, a muffled sound came from under the villa, and the whole building shook violently, causing him to stagger.

The attendant hurriedly stepped forward to support him and said anxiously: "General, the house was hit by a cannon. Please leave here quickly!"

When the Marquis of Saint-Véran realized what happened, his pupils shrank. This manor covers a large area, with a length and width of more than 4 kilometers. The cannons on the periphery of the manor cannot reach here at all.

And the fact that the shells can hit this house means that the enemy has approached within six or seven hundred steps!

He pushed the attendant aside and looked down at the villa. Sure enough, he saw more than a hundred enemy soldiers on the west side shooting at each other with his personal guards.

The door on the roof was pushed open. The legion staff stumbled in and shouted: "General, Lieutenant Colonel Berni surrendered to the enemy. The western line of defense has been lost..."

"I saw it." Marquis Saint-Véran interrupted him with a gloomy face. He didn't even have a reserve team in his hand, so what could he use to plug the gap in the defense line?

He saw more reserve police rushing up from the west, and his guards had been pressed to the flower bed in front of the villa by fierce firepower.

After a moment, he sighed and turned to the staff: "Order, the whole army stops resisting."

"Yes... General."

40 minutes later.

In the hunting lounge on the east side of the manor, Marquis Saint-Véran glanced at the young man in cavalry uniform in front of him, and said in a cold voice: "Your Highness the Crown Prince, I need you to explain this attack!"

He didn't worry about his own safety at all. In fact, he thought the royal family was in trouble, and it was a big trouble.

"Ah? Explain?" Joseph smiled, "Montcalm's army rebelled, and my soldiers bravely crushed the rebellion."

The Marquis of Saint-Véran glared at him angrily and said, "What rebellion? You are framing me!"

Joseph interrupted him, "No, this was seen by hundreds of reporters, and I believe it will be published in the newspaper tonight."

"Humph, don't you realize that you are provoking a civil war!" The Marquis of Saint-Véran still held his head high, "The king persecuted his army, do you think other generals will sit idly by?"

"It's just suppressing the rebellion, they won't have any objections."

"Who do you think you can fool with such a trick?!"

Joseph waved his hand, "Whether you rebel or not does not depend on what actually happened, but on whether the military leaders accept your conclusion of rebellion.

"Oh, I believe that the smart generals can definitely guess what happened here, but they will only choose to believe that you rebelled.

"Because it will separate your situation from theirs."

"Without the riots in the provinces and without a reasonable excuse, the military will not openly oppose the royal family." Joseph pointed to the battlefield outside the window, "Your army didn't even last two hours, which made them more aware of the royal family's combat effectiveness.

"Now you are a rebel, and they are not. The royal family will punish the rebels, and they are safe."

"Do you think that in this case, they will pull you back to the "non-rebel" camp, so that you have to stand on the same front with you?"

The Marquis of Saint-Véran's face suddenly turned pale.

He knew that the prince was right. As long as the other military leaders admitted that they were rebels, they would not have to risk being enemies with the royal family.

As for the facts? No one cares about the facts.

Especially when the newspapers drive public opinion, they will just go with the flow...

The Marquis of Saint-Véran swallowed hard and looked at Joseph nervously: "You, what do you want?"

Joseph stepped forward to help him brush off the dust on his clothes caused by the bombardment: "Don't worry, you cooperate with me, expose your conspiracy and testify against some people, then you can be exiled to Besançon and even keep some of your property.

"Or you choose to keep secrets for some people, and then your family will be exiled to Seychelles. ”

He knew that according to French tradition, even if the Marquis de Saint-Véran rebelled, he would be exiled at most. You know, the Prince of Condé, "The Great Condé", had joined forces with Spain to launch two rebellions, which made Louis XIV dare not return to Paris. In the end, he was exiled and even returned to France a few years later.

The Marquis de Saint-Véran nodded almost without hesitation: "Your Highness, please allow me to pledge my loyalty to His Majesty the King again! Oh, all this was instigated by the Duke of Orleans! Just two months ago, he told us that famine would break out..."