I Became A Genius Of The French Royal Family [EN]: Chapter 77

The Frog in the Well

A grand mansion located north of the Louvre Palace.

The Palais Royal [Royal Palace], where Louis XIV briefly resided and which bears the name of the royal family, was renowned as the residence of the Orleans family.

As befitting the residence of France’s highest nobility, the Palais Royal was always bustling with visitors.

However, recently, it had undeniably lost some attention to the Tuileries Palace, where Prince Christian resided.

The Duke of Orleans, the owner of the mansion, appeared outwardly uninterested in such worldly matters.

Rather, he leisurely enjoyed his hobbies, as if relieved to be away from the bustling attention.

Of course, that was only his superficial stance; the Duke of Orleans was secretly meeting only with his closest confidants under the guise of rest.

“…So, you’ve concluded that Prince Christian is conceited?”

“That’s the only way I can see it.”

The Duke of Chartres conveyed everything he had observed while sticking close to Prince Christian.

“There are no particularly noteworthy actions. From the start, the fact that he continues to meet with me so openly is a manifestation of the Prince’s confidence, wouldn’t you say?”

Prince Christian hadn’t shown any signs of displeasure recently, even though the Duke of Chartres had been visiting so blatantly.

His attitude was completely different from when they had first met.

Rather, it seemed he enjoyed humiliating him and flaunting his position while taking him around.

“I’ve been receiving reports on his activities as well. He enjoys playing chess with nobles and often makes appearances at soccer tournaments in Paris.”

“Yes, I was there in person.”

“Considering the Prince’s background, it’s understandable that he likes soccer. His skill at chess was a bit unexpected, though.”

“It wasn’t just that he was good; his skill was unbelievably high. No, it wasn’t just skill; it felt like a completely different concept. He kept making moves I couldn’t understand, and I couldn’t counter them at all.”

The Duke of Chartres originally expected that Christian wouldn’t want to play chess with him.

Given his background, he wouldn’t have enjoyed games like chess, and he himself was quite skilled among the nobles.

But the result was a one-sided defeat.

By the third consecutive loss, he even felt a kind of wall.

It wasn’t just that he was outmatched in skill; it was even more shocking that he couldn’t understand the opponent’s moves at all.

The established orthodoxies he knew were meaningless.

At first, he thought it was a shallow improvisation that ignored the basics, but after being beaten a few more times, he realized.

“Chess is a game that contains many strategies. The fact that he defeated so many nobles with unfamiliar moves makes me think he’s similar to Prince Christian himself.”
The Duke of Chartres agreed with his father’s words.

However, one thing he still couldn’t understand was where he had developed such skills.

At first, he even suspected some kind of cheating.

It wasn’t just because he was completely defeated without winning a single game.

“Prince Christian is an amazing person who keeps revealing new things the more you dig. His current momentum is indeed astonishingly good. But as I said before, it’s also certain that a conceited attitude is sprouting within him.”

“His recent behavior certainly shows a lack of tension.”

“That’s right. Frankly, being so engrossed in a sport like soccer and even trying to create an association is proof that he’s distracted by other things, isn’t it?”

“Is there a possibility of a feint? That the soccer officials are hired people, for example.”

Perhaps he was deliberately acting careless to induce their own carelessness.

“That’s absolutely not the case. Prince Christian’s passion for soccer was extraordinary. He personally met and shook hands with each member of the winning team in the game, and he offered warm comfort to the losing team. The atmosphere at the discussions to create unified rules was also intense. In my opinion, it was definitely not an act.”

“…I can’t understand it. What’s so great about soccer?”

“I agree. After hearing the story, I couldn’t understand it either. They were arguing heatedly about strange things like whether to allow forward passes or how much to use their hands.”

What was surprising was Christian’s knowledge of soccer was extraordinary.

Not just because he was royalty, but he logically convinced the representatives of his arguments.

In the end, most of the rules were agreed upon as Christian had hoped.

The Duke of Chartres couldn’t understand any of it, even while watching the whole process.

And the Duke of Orleans’ reaction to this story was, as expected, not much different.

“Is he going to enjoy his hobbies now that there’s no one to threaten him? Even if I try to consider other possibilities, I can’t think of anything.”

“Yes, that’s the conclusion I’ve come to.”

“Good work. That’s the kind of information I wanted from you.”

The Duke of Orleans smiled contentedly.

The Duke of Chartres, inwardly pleased to see his father’s bright expression for the first time in a while, left the room.

As soon as his son left, the Duke of Orleans changed his expression as if he had never smiled and looked back at the next room.

“What do you think?”

“The conclusion is obvious, isn’t it? Your Excellency’s thoughts are the same as mine.”
The Director-General of Finance, Teres, who had been listening to the conversation, sat across from him with a bitter smile.

“Is there a possibility of a trap?”

“If you think about it the other way around, it’s simple, isn’t it? What kind of trap would you set with that, and who would you catch?”

“Well, Prince Christian doesn’t even know what we’re trying to do.”

“What did Countess Lamotte say?”

The Duke of Orleans was maintaining a distance from the con artist Countess Lamotte to maintain strict security.

If she frequently visited the Palais Royal, it could later be used against him.

“I told her to stay close to the Princess until there were instructions. She sent a report last time saying there wasn’t even a hint that she was being suspected.”

“That’s right. In the first place, she’s not trying to directly scam the Princess herself, so she wouldn’t be able to notice. But have you found a poor victim to buy the necklace?”

“Yes. It’s Cardinal Louis René Édouard de Rohan. He’s someone who recently made a mistake and earned Austria’s hatred. But now that Prince Christian and his wife are rising with tremendous momentum, he seems to be getting impatient. He won’t be able to take on any position in the future, so he’ll want to reconcile somehow.”

“I know that person. Isn’t he the one who openly opposed the alliance with Austria and openly slandered Empress Maria Theresa? Indeed, so he’s trying to win the Princess’s favor by offering diamonds.”

With such a perfect motive, there was no better person to exploit.

The Duke of Orleans approached Cardinal Rohan with Countess Lamotte.

She had recently attended several events with the Princess and, as a member of the royal family, was able to easily gain the Cardinal’s trust.

“Countess Lamotte has created numerous fake letters by imitating the Princess’s handwriting. Cardinal Rohan already mistakenly believes that his relationship has progressed to the point where he’s exchanging letters with the Princess.”

“But the price of that diamond is beyond imagination. Can the Cardinal afford it?”

“It’s impossible. So I’ve come up with a plausible excuse. The Princess wants the diamond but it’s too expensive to buy publicly. So she wants the Cardinal to secretly act as an intermediary and handle the transaction on her behalf.”

He showed the jeweler the Princess’s power of attorney and told him that he would pay in installments with the Cardinal’s check.

The jeweler, seeing the perfectly forged power of attorney, agreed to the sale without much suspicion.

He also had to sell this troublesome diamond somehow.

“Then what will you do after you get the diamond?”

“I told Countess Lamotte to run away to England as soon as she gets the diamond without contacting anyone. She’ll sell the diamond there and live well on her own. And we’ll start the operation right away.”

He had already recruited several newspaper presidents he knew well.

Who would refuse a journalist who gives them a huge scoop faster than anyone else?

No one was afraid because the Duke of Orleans had promised to support them.

“Have the Director-General of Finance publicly question this. The price of the diamond is a staggering amount, roughly 2 million livres [French currency].”

“Then the Princess will just deny that she knows anything about it, won’t she? She can just say that the documents were all forged.”

“Before that, we’ll mobilize the newspapers. Prince Christian isn’t the only one who can use the media. First of all, we’ll set the diamond transaction on a day when the Princess has no schedule, so it will be difficult for her to prove that she didn’t do it. It’s also difficult to know right away because the document forgery has to be compared in detail.”

“So you’re saying you’re going to quickly create public opinion.”

“Yes. Moreover, the Prince is currently preoccupied with enjoying his hobbies. We’ll insert this and form public opinion in the form of exposing the reality of the Prince and Princess. That they pretend to care about the citizens while living luxuriously and enjoying everything they want.”

The Duke of Orleans didn’t think he could deal a fatal blow to the other party with this one move.

What he wanted was to create a crack in the Prince’s prestige, which was now solid.

That alone was enough.

“Still, considering how popular the Prince is in Paris right now, it seems that public opinion will form that he was unfortunately scammed.”

“Fortunately, the Prince is not paying attention to other things because he is focused on his hobbies. In other words, it will also be possible to argue that this accident occurred due to the Prince’s negligence.”

What matters is not the truth.

All you need is plausible propaganda and a tiny fact to support it.

Once a crack appears in a solid fortress, it becomes easier to strike later.

That’s when we’ll appropriately use the information that he’s trying to wage war with England.

There’s no need for France to suffer a defeat.

All we have to do is appropriately adjust the timing in the middle to prevent France from starting a war.

In that case, the Prince’s prestige, who took the lead in preparing for the war, will fall to the point where it cannot be recovered.

If the Prince is so battered, he can be sufficiently covered up even if he points to himself as an assassin.

“Your Excellency, shouldn’t we hurry now that the Prince is off guard?”

“That’s what I’m going to do anyway. Let’s decide to fight this week.”

The Duke of Orleans wrote the instructions to be given to Countess Lamotte and handed them over to his most trusted aide.

“Next week, Paris and Versailles will be greatly shaken.”

※※※

···The meeting ended smoothly.

The representatives who came from all over were satisfied and returned with the agreement.

In the future, the rules of French soccer, which had been scattered in various ways, will change to be closer to modern times.

The official establishment of the association will also be completed within this year, and the first president will of course be me, Louis Christian.

The nobles, who still haven’t escaped from the medieval way of thinking, can’t even imagine how much power this will have.

This isn’t just because they’re stupid or short-sighted.

Something new that didn’t exist until now is an area that even the wisest people can’t easily imagine.

“It seems like the work you went to was resolved well? You look very bright.”

Marie, seeing my expression rolling around on the bed, approached me slyly.

“Fortunately, things are going as planned.”

“Soccer… I’ve never seen it before, but is it that fun?”

“It’s a sport that has something that drives people crazy. Would you like to go see it together sometime?”

“Then I’d love to.”

She lay down next to me and snuggled up close.

Then she opened the calendar with the schedule marked.

“I’m free because you told me to keep all my evening schedules open this week and next week. I can go see it anytime. How about we set up an official schedule right away, even tomorrow?”

Certainly, as I had told her, Marie had not attended any official events in the evening for the next two weeks.

The reason was that she had been active a lot so far, so it would be good to take a break at least in the evening.

I closed my eyes for a moment and organized my thoughts, then wrapped my arms around her shoulders and said.

“No. Let’s refrain from official visits. Let’s do this for now.”

She tilted her head for a moment after hearing my story, but soon smiled and nodded.

Then, she snuggled in my arms and fell asleep.