I Became A Genius Of The French Royal Family [EN]: Chapter 17

The Guillotine Is Premature

Two months after Louis XV’s sudden visit.

I took the thesis members to a villa outside Paris.

The closest thing to a vaccine had just been completed recently.

I was the first to be inoculated, wrote a detailed report over a month, and now all the red spots that had appeared on the inoculation site have subsided.

Except for the tiny scars where the scabs fell off, it was so clean that no trace could be found.

It was proven that inoculating with the cowpox virus did not cause any harm to the human body.

Now, the most important effect.

All that remained was to verify whether I had become immune to smallpox after being inoculated with the cowpox virus.

This experiment was absolutely impossible in downtown Paris, so I had no choice but to go outside.

Guillotin, Jenner, and Lavoisier were all staring at the pus extracted from the smallpox patient in my hand with anxious eyes.

“Young master, even so, I don’t think you need to be the first test subject. You should reconsider…”

“I told you before. Each and every one of these actions affects my reputation later on.”

“But we must also consider the possibility of one in a million. Inoculation with cowpox does not absolutely guarantee immunity to smallpox.”

“Even if I’m unlucky enough to get it, I’ll only get a slight rash. There’s no chance of it developing into a severe case, so that in itself will be useful data.”

The power of a vaccine is not just about blocking the disease.

Even if immunity is not fully developed and the disease is contracted, it usually does not become life-threatening.

Others may be anxious because they have not yet seen the results with their own eyes.

But I already knew that this would succeed, so I had nothing to worry about.

Who would be foolish enough not to buy all the shares of a company knowing that Phase 3 will pass?

Still, I had to follow the procedure, so I decided to self-quarantine at Lavoisier’s villa outside Paris.

Since the incubation period for smallpox can be longer than fifteen days, I brought enough food and water to last for 20 days.

Of course, I’m not just holed up in the villa for 20 days.

I was planning to record the changes in my body after being inoculated with the smallpox virus.

“Then, young master, we will proceed according to the subsequent plan.”

“Yes. The court has already been informed, so they will provide the necessary expenses and manpower.”

Preparations to sway public opinion are still underway behind the scenes.

As soon as the effectiveness of the vaccine is proven, we will gather volunteers from all over France and inoculate more than 100 people with cowpox.

Since the High Court has agreed to cooperate, I should be able to handle things much faster than Jenner in the original history.

I inoculated myself with the pus from the smallpox patient in front of everyone and went inside the villa.

At first, I didn’t feel anything unusual other than a physiological aversion.

I didn’t doubt that there would be any problems in the first place, so I didn’t feel any particular emotion.

I just lay down in the empty villa, emptied my head for the first time in a while, and stared at the ceiling.

“Haa… but I can’t help being bored.”

Even though the plan was perfectly laid out, it doesn’t change the fact that I have to be holed up in the villa for 20 days.

At first, I was excited because it felt like I was enjoying a vacation for the first time in a while.

But that was only for three days.

After that, my body was twisted with boredom.

I had never self-quarantined in my previous life, but I would have to do it in modern times.

Thanks to this, I had time to revise the speech about twenty times and organize the major events that would happen in the future.

Just when the patience I was barely maintaining was reaching its limit.

Finally, the long period of isolation came to an end.

Jenner and Guillotin, who had returned to the villa with nervous hearts, clenched their fists and cheered as soon as they saw my healthy face.

Of course, I didn’t get smallpox or anything.

There was only one small bubble on the inoculation site, but even that subsided the next day.

I handed over the detailed report to Guillotin and Jenner, and then headed straight to the pre-arranged farmhouse with Lavoisier.

There was no time to enjoy the joy of being released from isolation.

As soon as I arrived, the people who had been waiting immediately began preparing for the inoculation.

The fact that I showed up with a healthy face was proof of the vaccine’s efficacy.

Now, all that’s left is to increase the number of inoculations and extract reliable data.

But there was one thing I didn’t expect.

I honestly wondered if there would be many people who would come forward to have smallpox injected into their bodies, even if the vaccine was effective.

In fact, they said they would give a large reward if you got smallpox, but if you died, the reward would be meaningless.

You can receive a small reward even if you don’t get smallpox.

Still, I thought there would be many people who wouldn’t think it was worth it.

Unless it’s completely verified, people are psychologically reluctant to be the subject of clinical trials.

In addition, the source of the vaccine is cow pus, not somewhere else.

I told them to gather volunteers in advance, but I thought it might take some time.

But the sight I saw completely ridiculed my prediction.

“There are so many people…”

“Yes. I didn’t even need to send people to the outskirts. I was able to gather 100 volunteers quickly just by touring the villages near Paris. Rather, too many people flocked to us, so we accepted 48 more people.”

“…The more cumulative samples, the better. But aren’t these people scared? Or do they trust our words that much…”

I was seriously trying to consider whether this was the difference in perception between modern and pre-modern people when I took a deep sigh after seeing the appearance of the people gathered in one place.

Just looking at their appearance, I understood why they suppressed their anxiety and volunteered.

Lavoisier chimed in with an explanation from the side.

“For them, it’s the same whether they die from smallpox because something goes wrong or starve to death before the end of the year. If they’re lucky enough to survive even if they get smallpox, they can get a reward, so there’s no reason to refuse.”

“I see. It’s a bitter reality.”

Even if you don’t get smallpox, you can get a certain amount of money.

It seems that even that was a blessing to them.

I knew it in my head, but seeing it in person felt different.

While I was watching the farmers being inoculated with a heavy heart, I noticed a little girl circling around this way, seemingly wanting to talk to me.

No matter how I looked at it, she had an expression that desperately wanted me to talk to her.

It seems that she had picked up somewhere the etiquette that people of low status should not speak to people of high status.

“Do you have something you want to say to me?”

“Ah, yes. I heard that I could get a reward if I participated in this experiment, so I came.”

“Yes. That’s right. Did you not receive the money?”

“Ah, no. Um… if possible, I was wondering if I could receive bread or wheat instead of money right away. I don’t have enough food to eat at home today, and it’s hard to even go back and forth to buy wheat…”

So. In a word, this is the reality of present-day France.

No matter how much the economy has expanded and the overall wealth of society has increased since the beginning of the modern era, the situation of farmers has hardly improved.

Almost all farmers in France had their own land, but they had to pay tithes [taxes to the church], taxes to the king, and rent to the lord.

However, it is too obvious that there is nothing left in their hands after paying taxes three times.

In years like this year, when the harvest is not so abundant, people often starve to death without being able to do anything.

Perhaps the girl’s family will have a hard time getting through this year.

Even if I knew that, there was nothing I could do.

I just gave her a little more bread than she was supposed to receive.

“Th-thank you. Monsieur [Sir]. Thank you so much!”

“…”

Even with just that little bit of kindness, the girl bowed so deeply that her nose almost touched the ground.

As I was watching her disappear with the food, Lavoisier asked in a subtle tone from the side.

“That’s unexpected. Is it okay to just send her away like that?”

“Then, instead of sending her away like that, do I have a reason to hold her back?”

“No. I was wondering if you would show more mercy to her. You seemed shocked by the impoverished state of the farmers.”

“That’s that, and this is this.”

It’s not like I enjoy watching people living under the weight of a hopeless and difficult life.

My past self, who struggled to survive in my previous life, was exactly like that.

But even if I try to be nosy here, it’s just self-satisfaction and has no meaning.

Cheap sympathy is only temporary.

If you really want to change the world, you have to change the system.

In the first place, I’m not in a position to worry about anyone, having died not just once but three times.

Even if this goes well, I’m still not sure about the future.

“Young master.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s time to look at the other side. Let’s go.”

“Then let’s go. What’s important to us now is the vaccine thesis. We mustn’t confuse our priorities.”

I coldly turned my gaze away from the farmers and turned my steps.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I erased the scene I just saw from my mind.

My heart was heavy, but I could say that I had a good experience at an unexpected time.

Things had been going so well that I had been a little lax since some point.

The place I’m living in now is by no means an era full of hope and happiness.

It was a period of great chaos in which the accumulated contradictions of the system piled up and exploded, causing the system itself to collapse.

Even if you search through world history, it’s hard to find a case where the bourgeois [middle] class exploded and nobles and kings were executed one after another.

Moreover, the farmers of France were people who believed that status was determined by heaven and accepted discriminatory treatment.

In other words, the privileged class really oppressed and trampled on the ruled class to an extraordinary extent.

What I witnessed today was a cross-section of the reality in which the current system is accumulating karma in real time.

You could say it’s an hourglass slowly falling towards destruction.

“…”

After that, my thoughts continued endlessly.

Even if the plan succeeds and I am incorporated into the royal family, the revolution will happen if I don’t stop this crazy flow.

If it’s just to save my life, I can just join the revolutionary faction.

But that’s just a bad idea.

The best way is to fix it before society is driven to the point where it can no longer endure it.

The important thing is how to do it.

In other words, it’s a matter of method.

The reason why the French old regime collapsed was not because society was poor or because the national power was weak.

You could simply say that society was rotten, but if you look at it in detail, it’s a headache that all sorts of problems are intricately intertwined.

Then, specifically, what measures should I take to end this evil?

Should I cut off the heads of all the obstructive people with the guillotine and push them through by force?

“Hey, are you crazy? What nonsense…”

I shook my head with a hollow laugh, having briefly entertained radical thoughts.

I’m not an idiot, and if I did that, my head would fly off before the nobles’ heads.

Instead of wasting time on vain delusions, it would be better to refine the speech I’ll be giving later in a more sophisticated way.

I shuddered at the thought that I had such radical thoughts and reviewed the speech I had completed during my isolation once again.

※※※

The number of institutions that led the development of science and scholarship in 17th and 18th century Europe is countless.

Still, if you were to pick a few of the most influential organizations, there are always two places that are named as regulars.

These are the Royal Society of England and the Royal Academy of Sciences of France.

When you think of an academy, you often have a strong image of learning something.

However, the French Academy of Sciences was an academic institution where the best experts in the field gathered.

If you were appointed as a member of the Academy, you would receive a lot of support as well as a pension.

In order to become a member of an institution with so many privileges, you naturally needed to have academic achievements commensurate with it.

Even Lavoisier had to write several papers to get into this place.

As the most prestigious academic institution in France, the papers recognized here had great value.

If it is judged that you have made truly outstanding achievements, the Academy may award a prize to the author of the paper in its name.

The greatest honor that many scientists desire is for this Academy to recognize their research.

And now, the medical field of the Academy is in the midst of a debate over a brand-new paper that has just arrived.

“Let me reconfirm. What do you think of this paper that claims to have discovered a way to completely prevent smallpox without worrying about side effects?”

When the paper first arrived, the members who were reviewing it were indifferent.

They thought it was just a ridiculously flawed method or something that they already knew, like inoculation, written in a fuss.

But what.

When they opened it up, wasn’t it a feast of methods they had never seen before?

Due to the conservative tendencies of the reviewers, a proper review may not have been conducted, but this time it was different.

It was thanks to Lavoisier and Guillotin, who were listed as co-authors.

Lavoisier is already a genius chemist who is raising his stock as a member of the Chemical Academy.

Guillotin was also a talented person who had written several useful medical papers.

There was no way they could roughly review a paper with the names of those two on it.

The reviewers carefully examined the contents and soon couldn’t hide their excitement.

Even Geoffroy, the highest-ranking of the reviewers, showed deep interest.

“It’s an interesting idea that smallpox can be prevented by simply inoculating cowpox. And it’s already been verified?”

“According to the paper, the author himself has been inoculated and has completed the experiment. He must have been very confident.”

“If this is true, it could have a huge impact on France, no, the whole world. So we need to be even more careful in our examination. We can’t just pass it because it’s been effective on one person. At least more numbers need to be accumulated…”

The paper persuasively argued why cowpox is safer and more efficient than inoculation, citing various reasons.

However, the matter was too big for the Academy to officially recognize it.

Considering the impact this method would have, they had no choice but to approach it conservatively, and that was actually the right decision.

Geoffroy stared intently at the names of the authors written at the very front of the paper and tilted his head.

“But I’ve never heard of the name of this person who is listed at the very front of all the authors. Does anyone know about this Louis Christian?”

“I heard he’s a student at Lycée Louis-le-Grand [a prestigious secondary school].”

“What? Not a graduate, but a student?”

Geoffroy and the other reviewers were dumbfounded.

Originally, it was something that would have greatly lowered the credibility of the paper, but Lavoisier and Guillotin’s names were too big to do so.

“Not only is there a young student, but there’s even the name of an Englishman at the very end of the co-authors… Well, this is a first for me.”

“What should we do?”

After thinking for a while, Geoffroy made a decision not long after.

It was impossible to pass it right away, but the credibility of the paper was too high to send it back right away.

“In this case, we have no choice but to do additional verification. Fortunately, the other side expected that we would do so, and they say they will provide inoculation records for more than 100 people if we do additional verification.”

“That’s enough to secure public confidence. Let’s do that.”

“But you know. I’ve never received such a strange request in my life.”

Geoffroy showed the separately attached requirements to the other reviewers.

There was nothing strange in the front part.

It was just common sense, such as that they would be happy to provide additional data if requested, and that they could confirm the identities of all the inoculated citizens.

The part that Geoffroy was suspicious of was the last paragraph.

They could only be puzzled because they did not know what Christian was aiming for.

But there was no reason to refuse to do a public verification.

Christian had even planned to mobilize the High Court in case the Academy did not grant his request, but there was no need to do so.

The additional verification of the paper will be held in fifteen days.

It was decided to be held at the Place Louis XV [now Place de la Concorde], north of the Seine.