Joseph's history is not good, but he also knows that Aunt Sophie's ideas are overly optimistic. There's more to come.

On the 19th, the Constituent Assembly also left Versailles and returned to Paris.

No sooner had the Constituent Assembly returned to Paris than the MP Mirabeau made a proposal: "Let the king abdicate and pass the throne to the crown prince." Considering that the crown prince was still young, according to French tradition, a noble nobleman could be appointed as regent to handle government affairs for him. ”

Everyone knows who the noble nobleman mentioned by Mirabeau is. The king's two younger brothers were already in exile, and given their attitude towards the revolution, it was naturally impossible for them to take up this position. Therefore, there is only one candidate, and that is the Duke of Orleans.

This proposal was supported by a number of parliamentarians, who were not convinced that the king, who was forced to return to Paris, would genuinely support constitutional government. They felt that keeping such a person on the throne would bring all sorts of uncertainties to the constitution.

For a time, the throne of Louis XVI became so precarious that people could even be heard shouting "Long live Louis XVII" on the streets.

It is said that the Duke of Orleans had been waiting for this day for a long time, but things suddenly changed, and the Duke of Orleans suddenly accepted the advice of the Marquis de Lafayette and left France for London to serve as ambassador to England.

According to the general idea, the Duke of Orleans could never have left France at this time, for it would have been almost an exile. However, it is said that after a secret meeting with Lafayette, the Duke of Orleans accepted the request. Then rumors spread that the Duke of Orleans accepted such a request because he had done something shady behind his back and had been discovered by the Marquis de Lafayette. It is said that a certain clerical friend of the Marquis de Condorcet discovered some evidence of his not-so-good activities and told him about it, and Condorcet provided the news to the Marquis de Lafayette. It's just that Lafayette is a kind-hearted person, and he is unwilling to make these things public in public, so that His Royal Highness the Duke will be discredited. However, he also believed that if His Royal Highness remained in the country, it would be harmful to the country, so he forced the Duke to leave France.

Of course, there are other rumors, such as His Royal Highness the Duke, who knows his identity and influence, and if he becomes a regent, it may be a disturbance to democracy, so he voluntarily left France.

However, Joseph still felt that the first rumor might contain more truth.

After dissuading the Duke of Orleans, Lafayette then attacked Mirabeau. He used the same means, trying to get Mirabeau to leave France and go to Constantinople as ambassador to Turkey. But Mirabeau stood on his feet, and he refused the request. Lafayette, however, dealt Mirabeau a heavy blow, and he instigated the parliament to not only reject Mirabeau's proposal for parliamentarians to serve as ministers in the government, but also to pass a resolution prohibiting parliamentarians from serving as ministers. completely blocked Mirabeau's path as a minister.

By this time, Lafayette seemed to have completely grasped the big picture. There seems to be only one problem in front of him, and that is finance.

One of the main reasons why the king convened the Estates-General was because of unsolvable financial problems. Today's social situation is completely different from what it was back then, but the financial problems are still very prominent.

Now that the royal family has left Versailles, some of the great nobles attached to the royal family have fled abroad. The cost of spending on them is greatly reduced. If in the early years, the expenses of the royal family could have been reduced to the point where they are today, then there really would be no financial crisis in France. However, the situation is very different now, although the expenses of the royal family have been reduced, but new problems have emerged.

Just as the second law of thermodynamics summarized by Clausius and Kelvin of later generations revealed, there is no way to reduce part of the entropy without increasing the entropy of the entire system. The royal family's expenses were reduced, but other expenses suddenly increased.

First of all, the conservative aristocracy, unwilling to lose its former position, instigated rebellions everywhere. In order to suppress them, more money is needed. France has been the leader of the European continent for many years, but there are many countries that covet France's status.

The Habsburgs of Austria, for example, have always wanted to restore the glory of the so-called "Holy Roman Empire". Although their empire was neither sacred, nor Roman, nor imperial, it had no glory at all except the abundance of princesses.

Although during the Seven Years' War, Austria and France "turned enemies into friends," (as a result, France suffered a great loss in this war.) It is particularly interesting to note that France had previously achieved great success in alliing with the pagan Turks against the devout Catholic Habsburgs and with the Protestants in the Thirty Years' War. However, once he joined forces with the Catholic Habsburgs, he lost completely. It can be seen that God's will was indeed for France to fight against Catholicism. Well, although I, in France, imprisoned the Pope, and made alliances with the infidels against the Catholics, and with the Protestants against the Catholics, I know that I am a good child of God. But if France showed its flaws, the Habsburgs would have been happy to take advantage of France.

And the Low Countries, and Prussia and Russia...... On the European continent, what country would not want to take advantage of France's problems? Not to mention that there is a European-stirring stick to the west - the United Kingdom. If they don't take the opportunity to pounce and tear off a few pieces of meat from France, then they don't deserve to never mess with John Bull.

So in order to guard against these neighbors, France had to reorganize its army. And the French army, well, just as King Louis XVI found the army very unreliable, the parliament could not trust the French army.

The high-ranking officers of the French army were all aristocrats, and they were relatives of the nobles who had gone abroad and were ready to lead the way for the Austrian, Prussian or British armies, just as Hugo later described in his "Ninety-Three Years", the commander of the Republican Army, Guo Wen, was the nephew of the Marquis de Landenac, the commander of the rebel army. In the ninety-three years, Guo Wen was very loyal to his ideals and to the revolution. But in reality, who dares to guarantee that those noble officers in the army are really loyal to the parliament? Who can guarantee that once the Count of Provence or the Count of Artois returns with a foreign army, they will not turn against each other?

Some of the anxious councillors even came forward to demand that all the noble officers be replaced with officers of the third rank. However, this kind of brainless proposal is not feasible at all. Because the so-called third-rank officers are not only too few in number, but most of the time, they are at best a lieutenant - in fact, there is not a single "de" in the name, and it is very difficult to become a second lieutenant. These people, commanding a platoon and a company may be fine, but if they suddenly go to command a regiment and go to war, it is simply going to die.

In fact, even the legislators who introduced the bill themselves understood that it was too stupid to be stupid. However, the legislators who introduced this motion were not fools, and when they introduced it, they knew that it would definitely be vetoed. (If it weren't for that, they wouldn't have made such a bill at all) just to show the people who support them how loyal they are to the people.

This is also a common problem with the electoral system, which is that in order to gain the support of the electorate, you have to be more radical than others, even in future generations. For example, if people care about the environment, you have to support shutting down dangerous nuclear power, dismantling coal-fired power plants that pollute the air, blowing up hydropower that destroys fish migration and altering strata stress, and cutting down wind power that causes infrasonic pollution and threatens birds...... In the end, you can only support the all-natural, pollution-free "power generation with love".

To solve the problem of the unreliability of the army, it still costs money. First of all, it is necessary to guarantee the income of the army. Isn't the reason why the king gradually lost control of the army because he often owed the army wages? The parliament wants to really control the army, at least not let the army starve.

The second is to build a military force that is truly loyal to itself. Isn't it because the British parliament in the west can control the overall situation because they have an army of "parliamentarians"? (The British navy, police, and later the air force were all called royal or something, except that the army did not add the word "royal" in front of it, because the army belonged to parliament.) Britain's Army grew out of Cromwell's new Model Army. Today's National Assembly is also very eager to have a new model army of its own.

Today, the closest thing to the "new model army" is naturally the "National Guard." But the National Guard was still only a militia. Lafayette worked hard, but time was limited, and to be honest, at least for now, the National Guard was still a rabble. And to turn these rabble into a "new model army" will take not only time, but also money.

There are also various old and new national debt, which together amount to 4.5 billion livres. Interest alone, a huge number, weighs down Congress almost breathlessly.

It is impossible to get rid of the debts, because they are borrowed from the richest of the decent people of the third estate, who are now the foundation of the country.

In the face of the dilemma, some lawmakers have been privately debating whether it is politically incorrect to raise taxes. But no one really raised the point. Lafayette was not in a hurry, though, because his friend Bishop Talleyrand already had a solution.