Flowers, Swords and France

Without a moment's hesitation, Charles gently knocked on the rather heavy door.

"Charles, is that you?" A voice came from inside.

The reason why he was so sure was that there were indeed not many people who could knock on this door directly.

"Yes, Minister, it's me." Charles quickly agreed.

"Oh, come in!"

After getting the minister's permission, Charles walked into the office of Viscount Dillion, the first minister of the Ministry of Railways.

Although the ministry was newly established and the office was only recently found, many decorations have not been completed, but as the head of a department, the staff of the department certainly have the responsibility and obligation to make the minister's office luxurious and magnificent, and must not lose the face of the department. So the viscount's office was extremely luxurious, comparable to his own living room.

Charles stepped on the thick carpet, walked quickly to the minister's desk, and bowed his head.

"Good morning, Minister."

"Good morning, Charles." Although he was middle-aged and had bags under his eyes and wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, Viscount Dillion was still very handsome. He smiled heartily, then threw the newspaper in his hand aside, and pointed to Shafang on the side of the room. "Sit down."

In the beginning, the fact that a person went from a court servant before the February Revolution to a minister of the Republic caused a lot of criticism both in Parliament and among the people, but after half a year, the outside world had become accustomed to this seemingly inconsistent fact, as if it was a matter of course. People's forgetfulness is always amazing.

Inadvertently. Charles glanced at the desk, and then he found that the newspaper the minister was holding happened to turn to the page with the results of the horse racing competition.

"Did you win?" He asked with a smile. It seemed like he was joking with the minister.

If there were other staff members, I'm afraid they would not dare to ask the minister in this tone.

"Oh! Big win! Earned thousands of francs with one ticket!" After hearing Charles' question, the minister laughed even more happily, "My premonition yesterday was indeed correct!"

"This is a good omen." Charles hurriedly complimented.

"Yes, a good omen, and it's not just for me." The Viscount also nodded, and then looked at Charles again. "My dear friend, you must have received the news? Your grandfather has led the army to defeat the Romans..."

"Yes." Charles nodded simply.

The minister suddenly took out a bottle of wine from his desk like a magic trick. Then he put out two glasses, "Then, come on, Charles. Celebrate. For you, for the Marquis de Treville!"

"Okay, thank you." Charles followed suit.

After drinking two glasses of wine, the two people became more relaxed.

"Charles, what do you want to see me today?" The minister finally asked Charles's purpose, as if he just remembered that he had something important to do.

"I heard that you will go to the parliament to be questioned tomorrow?" Charles avoided answering his purpose, "How are the materials prepared?"

"What else can it be? What's the use of preparing them well? Those guys can't get any benefits from it, so they just want to make trouble for us. No matter how well we do, they will keep making things difficult for us. My friend, this is inevitable, I am mentally prepared." Upon hearing this question, the minister seemed a little worried, and the smile on his face disappeared immediately. However, his tone was still very relaxed, and he took another sip of wine, "But don't worry, those people can only cause us some trouble in the parliament at most, and they can't stop us..."

"That's good. "Charles also breathed a sigh of relief, "As long as there aren't too many troubles."

"Well, after all, we're in this hot place now, how can we not arouse jealousy?" The Minister smiled again, "They only see the scenery in front of us, not the troubles we have behind us!"

"That's right!" Charles agreed with him, and then vented his anger, "Looking at the two of us looking so good on the surface, who could have seen that we would have so many troubles! It was so grand at the beginning, but after a long time of trouble, everything became difficult!"

As the two leaders complained privately, this newly established department is facing quite a lot of difficulties at the moment. Because of its inception, its entire framework has to be redesigned, and everything has to be slowly explored in the dark. Moreover, what is even more troublesome is that the division of responsibilities between it and other government departments is also unclear. Seeing so much oil and water, other departments will certainly try their best to dig a mouthful, and within this department, the current situation is also a myriad of things, and it is simply impossible to sort it out.

However, the most troublesome part is not here.

"You can see that we are surrounded by a bunch of idiots. They say nice compliments while treating us like thieves!" Charles continued to complain, and quietly provoked the minister, "In my opinion, they are just planning to treat us like the cross in the church, worshipping us properly at ordinary times, taking it out for use during ceremonies, and then ignoring us and not caring about us at all!"

"It would be fine if they were really idiots, but the problem is that they are all cunning." After hearing Charles' words, Viscount Dillion couldn't help but smile bitterly again, obviously empathizing with Charles. "Looking at this, you have suffered again at the hands of these officials?"

Looking at the minister's teasing smile, Charles couldn't help but sneer maliciously in his heart.

"I think, this time, it's you who will suffer, sir."

"What do you mean?" The viscount frowned.

"I just got the news that our dear Mr. Jean-Calvert is preparing to revise the salary subsidy regulations of the ministry..." Charles said, looking at his boss expectantly, "In other words, he intends to give the people in the ministry a raise in disguise..."

Sure enough. As Charles expected, after hearing his words, the minister's mouth twitched. Then it turned a little pale. Although he quickly regained his composure, Charles could see how angry he was.

"This guy...did he make the decision on his own without even asking me?" After a moment of silence, Viscount Dillion said with a hint of undisguised anger, "This bastard!"

No wonder he was so angry. The most important issue of a department is the salary issue. Since it is so important, it should be the responsibility of the head himself. However, the permanent secretary of the department acted so presumptuously, which was simply ignoring the existence of the minister.

But this is really difficult to deal with. If the minister agrees to this proposal, it means that Mr. Calvert is sympathetic to the people. He is asking for the people. He can win the hearts of the people; if the minister opposes, it means that the minister is mean and unkind to his subordinates. No matter how he responds, it seems to be in the interests of Mr. Jean-Calvert.

As for how to get this money from the department's budget, it is the minister's responsibility, and it has nothing to do with him.

The original text is in the six # 9 @book/bar!

"You see, we are now surrounded by such a group of bastards." Charles looked at the minister with regret. "How can we achieve anything if we continue like this?"

With Charles' question, the office fell into silence again.

After a long time. The minister took another sip of wine with resentment.

"Charles, let's promise him first. The department has just been established for a short time. We should give everyone more money, at least to stabilize morale." Then, his face became even tighter, "But we can't always let them do whatever they want? These bastards probably think they can completely ignore us and do whatever they want."

"That's the truth!" Charles quickly agreed. "How can we let this scum lead us by the nose?!"

"Charles, you can't say that." The Viscount suddenly smiled cunningly, "After all, we are all in the same department. Since we want to make some achievements, we must be united. We can't attack each other because of some trivial matters and make a fool of other departments..."

"Well, you are right." Charles agreed with him and waited for his next words.

Perhaps because they had been courtiers in the palace for a long time, Viscount Dillion and his friends had long developed a habit of only saying half of what they said, sometimes even only one half. When they talked to people, they often habitually nodded their heads to show their approval of what they heard, or to show a kind of style. They absent-mindedly agreed with everything they heard, as if they really understood what the other person was saying.

Accompanying their frequent expressions of approval is that their language is full of phrases such as "however", "but", "however", "if it were me, I would...", "if I were in your position...", etc. After getting used to it, Charles knew that when this person spoke, the approval in front was worthless, and the words after "but" were truly meaningful.

"But, of course, we can't just leave it like this. Are we, a future earl and a future marquis, going to be manipulated by a commoner and become his puppet? Hey, how can we do that?" The viscount laughed even more cunningly, "We have endured long enough, now we have to let these people know who is the boss."

"What do you think?" Charles asked hurriedly.

"They have a strong backer, and they are all people who have been in the government for a long time. We have to take it slowly." The minister whispered, "Charles, let's get some helpers first."

"What do you mean?" Charles seemed to understand something.

"Yes, don't we need to plan the route now? There must be some people who can explore and design? You go find some engineers, the more the better, I will also set up a few assessment committees and insert some people, let's find some of our own people to strengthen our momentum, we can't just fight them with a few people?"

Charles looked at the viscount, as if he didn't know him. "Good idea!"

Of course we need to find engineers, and of course we need to find confidants who can take over the white-collar salary.

"This is Matilda's idea." The minister shrugged, "She is very smart, but it's a pity that she can't come out to be my secretary..." (To be continued...)

PS: There were a lot of things to do during the holiday, so I didn't have time to write... But I finally caught up tonight...

Thanks to my book friends Dr. Baihechou and 28th Floor for the reward...