Chapter 14: Chapter 14 The Roundup
Gizo’s face stiffened as he looked at Vallian, “Control your man! What is he babbling about?”
The carriage suddenly stopped, and the latter revealed a smile uglier than crying. An awkward twist of his body allowed Gizo to see a dagger pressed against his lower back.
Gizo’s pupils shrank, and he sprung up, reaching for the carriage door handle. But the gaunt man was quicker. The moment Gizo’s rear left the seat, the man’s right hand had already clasped his neck, pinning him against the backrest.
Gizo struggled fiercely and hysterically began to shout:
“Let go of me! I am the Director of Paris Police! You don’t have proof, you can’t arrest me!”
The man who had been silent, sitting to Vallian’s right, suddenly spoke:
“I am Ambroise de Hermann, representing Her Majesty the Queen, and I have witnessed everything just now. I can prove your guilt.”
The carriage door was opened from the outside, and Alden along with a police officer pointed their guns at Gizo, furiously declaring, “I was driving just now. We heard everything, and we can testify!”
Gizo suddenly went limp…
On the precinct grounds of the Saint Antoine District, Joseph watched as a large number of police officers ran past, nodding to them. The officers responded with loud slogans.
Alden, still buzzing with excitement, continuously rambled to the Crown Prince about what happened that morning, unable to stop:
“Viscount Antony’s men were waiting at the corner and took Gizo away directly. I think they must have taken him to the secret police… ahem, the interrogation room of the Royal Police. I followed another team to search Gizo’s house, and when I noticed something bulging at the head of the bed, I felt something was off. I smashed it open and, sure enough, I found a hidden compartment…”
Joseph had already heard the story once and now smiled, “Then you found that notebook; you’ve made a significant contribution this time.”
In Gizo’s notebook was recorded information about the main gangs in the Saint Antoine District and many dangerous criminals. The last few pages detailed how Gizo provided protection for these people and the ill-gotten money he received in return.
Joseph immediately mobilized all his police forces and, with the support of his own Royal Guard, followed the leads, heading straight for the criminals’ lairs.
The Saint Antoine District experienced a particularly tumultuous day. Gang members and criminals, caught off-guard, were chased through the streets, but were soon tackled to the ground by riot gear or shot when they resisted.
The arrest operation lasted two days. When the citizens heard the news, they consciously stayed at home to cooperate with the police operation. Even some bold individuals took up clubs and helped the police block the criminals at the street corners.
Cells at the Saint Antoine District police station quickly filled up, and the subsequent criminals were sent to the Bastille.
Such a significant commotion attracted nearly all of Paris’s reporters to investigate.
On White Iris Street, a middle-aged man with disheveled hair, deep wrinkles, and thoughtful expression frowned as he looked across the street where a group of Royal Guards, leading seven or eight handcuffed, disheartened, and bloodied individuals, was passing by.
The young man by his side said nervously, “Mr. Mara, you really didn’t need to come here in person. It seems rather dangerous…”
“It’s okay,” Mara gestured dismissively, “Without being on the scene, one can never know the real truth!”
He quickly stepped into a grocery store, made a small purchase, and pointing to the distant Royal Guards, asked the shopkeeper, “Do you know what they’re doing? Arresting political prisoners?”
The shopkeeper gave him a disdainful look and said irritably, “Political prisoners? Those tied up are members of the Viper Gang; they’ve done nothing good!”
While saying this, he rolled up his sleeve to reveal a scar, “Look, I was beaten by the Viper Gang last year. Before the Crown Prince brought the new police force, I had to pay them five livres every month! God bless the Crown Prince, now these despicable people have finally been caught! I’ll have money to buy butter for my children!”
Mr. Mara habitually took out his notebook and began recording, “Could you tell me about that new police unit?”
“Of course,” the shopkeeper put down what he was doing and sized him up, “You’re a journalist, aren’t you? Haha, can you put my words of thanks to the Crown Prince in the paper?”
“Ah? I can…”
After a while, Mr. Mara left the grocery store filled with praises for the Crown Prince, skeptically stopped a passerby on the street, and once more asked what the police and guards were up to.
Then, he received almost the same answer as from the shopkeeper.
After interviewing seven or eight people and visiting the police station on White Iris Street, and even directly questioning the arrested criminals, he finally began to believe that the Royal Family had actually done something beneficial for the common people!
This was too abnormal!
In his mind, the Royal Family and those nobles had always only exploited and bullied the common people, but to eradicate harm for the people and not even charge them for it was definitely a first.
But as someone who respected facts, after acquiring a considerable amount of firsthand interview materials, he immediately returned to his hotel and wrote down the headline for tomorrow’s news report — “The Crown Prince’s Police Reform Achieves Remarkable Success, Eradicating the Criminal Foundations of the Saint Antoine District”.
…
Several grey-black carriages traveled along the north bank of the Seine River towards the Palace of Versailles.
In the middle carriage, Joseph coughed fitfully, feeling like he was riding on a pile driver, almost shaken to pieces.
He rubbed his aching forehead and thought to himself, I need to quickly come up with spring suspension, and preferably tires too. There will be many more days of carriage rides ahead, and I don’t want to be jostled into any mishaps by this contraption.
Yesterday, he had received a letter of commendation from the Cabinet praising his feat of clearing out the criminals in the Saint Antoine District, asking him to return to Versailles Palace to report on his duties, with the King and Queen’s signatures at the end.
Joseph laughed and shook his head inwardly. Reporting on duties just over twenty days since taking office, this must be a record, he thought. Probably the King and Queen were missing their son and found an excuse for me to come back.
Yet, this coincided perfectly with his own plans.
Joseph had no intention of staying at Police Headquarters indefinitely. His primary objective was always to rescue France’s finances, to prevent national bankruptcy and the risk of being decapitated by an angry mob.
This was the perfect opportunity to leverage his success in fighting crime to ask the Queen for the position of assistant to the Finance Minister, to see what excuses those in the Cabinet could come up with to oppose him.
In fact, if it weren’t for Gizo and the tens of thousands of livres he threw into creating chaos, he wouldn’t have been able to pull off the bold “sweep-black” operation that electrified all of Paris.
Joseph’s gaze swept over the few sheets of paper in his hand.
Those were the transcripts of Gizo’s testimony and interrogation records sent from the Secret Police.
From them, he learned that his overhaul of the police force had affected the Police Headquarters’ profit from selling police jobs, which in turn provoked such a frenzied retaliation from Gizo.
Under the impetus of those twenty thousand livres, gang members in the Saint Antoine District killed over a dozen citizens and wounded even more within a few days, nearly causing the situation to spiral out of control.
Joseph took a deep breath involuntarily. Had it not been for Similion’s lack of anti-financial crime awareness, he would surely have been overwhelmed with trouble, and his police reform might even have been aborted midway.