Because of their wariness and fear of Mirabeau, the king and queen did not follow his advice. In hindsight, this may be their best chance.

Both Mirabeau and Lafayette reminded the king and queen of the same thing, that is, that their relatives were unreliable. When Mirabeau chose a place to escape, he also emphasized that the king must not run too close to the border. And one of the reasons for this was to avoid harm to the king by those who shed the same blood as the king.

It has also been suggested that the reason why the king and queen did not take Mirabeau's advice, in addition to their distrust of him, was that they were simply unwilling to accept a constitutional system. Fleeing to Lyon, Lyon's strength alone is not enough to confront Paris, let alone subdue it. Eventually, some kind of compromise may be reached, but it will still be a compromise in which Paris prevails.

However, in the matter of fleeing, the queen gradually persuaded the king that he must escape from Paris. It's just that all sorts of things keep postponing the escape.

Both Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette can be said to be typical of "born in the palace and raised in the hands of women". They had no experience in planning an escape. If they could trust Mirabeau, then the guy who often ran away for cheating and avoiding debts could be of great help.

However, the king and queen could not trust Mirabeau, and secondly, God seemed to no longer favor the French royal family, who had always been filial to him, and Mirabeau died suddenly.

Of course, Mirabeau was not poisoned with aconitum by Pierre Belek. But Mirabeau's death did have a lot to do with wine. It is said that in the previous period of hardship, he had overcome some of the bad habits that would destroy his health, but after receiving new financial resources, those bad habits became worse. For example, alcoholism, gluttony, and other things that are inconvenient to describe.

It is said that Mr. Mirabeau would spend the whole night feasting with some prostitutes. In order to continue to enjoy good food and wine without being limited by the limited capacity of the stomach, Mr. Camilla followed the example of the ancient Roman sages - when they were full of food and drink, they took a little emetic, and then vomited it out, and then they could continue to eat and drink.

In later generations, people with a modicum of health knowledge knew how devastating this practice was, but the people of that era did not understand this. So, after another all-night feast, Mirabeau suddenly fell ill. The condition deteriorated rapidly, and it didn't take long for the disease to overcome Mirabeau.

Mirabeau was a prodigal, but he was very knowledgeable, insightful, and good at reconciling all aspects of relations, and his death deprived the various factions in the parliament of a mediator who could be accepted by all.

However, Mirabeau's death did not have much impact on Joseph and them for the time being. During this time, Joseph and Napoleon spent almost all of their time building up their small army.

The size of this "Red Army" unit slightly exceeded the original estimates. Originally, Joseph and his family only planned to build a company-level team, but they soon found that because of the special nature of this team, this team needed more supporting personnel than expected. If you do a closer look, with these personnel, the number of people in the entire team will exceed six hundred anyway.

The first direct consequence of the increase in personnel is the increase in spending. Just like those stories, a project's budget at the beginning and its final cost can always be several times worse.

Fortunately, after carefully reviewing the project, Lafayette still believes that the money is still worth spent, and the project can be continued. But he still jokingly said:

"Joseph, your team of more than 600 people, the number of soldiers who can line up on the battlefield is just over sixty, plus artillery and cavalry, there are less than two hundred, but there are nearly four hundred logistics personnel. When the time comes, I will bring in a force of about 200 men to fight you, and you will defeat you, and they will say, 'You will fight us 200 with 600.' 'If I bring in a team of two hundred men, you will be such a warrior......"

Napoleon, who was following Joseph at the time, said: "Our team can fight at least a thousand men. ”

Lafayette listened, but only glanced at the young man, and it was obvious that he regarded Napoleon's words as the arrogance of ordinary young people. However, Lafayette was a very generous man, and he did not want to deal with the young man, so he just smiled, but did not say much.

With Lafayette's support, the formation of this army went smoothly. Two months later, most of the army's personnel and equipment were almost in place, and Joseph and Napoleon began to get into the intense work.

This army was a multi-branch army, and in addition to the infantry, there was also a relatively large artillery with eight cannons – according to both Napoleon and Joseph, modern warfare is artillery warfare. In most cases, the battle plan should revolve around how to effectively use artillery firepower.

Most of the soldiers and junior officers in this unit were also selected by Lafayette from the French army near Paris, so after more than a month of training, the entire unit was basically formed. However, what neither Joseph nor Napoleon expected was that their first combat mission was not to repair other troops, but to capture the king.

Joseph received the order in the morning. The order, issued by General Lafayette, to the effect that some revolutionary enemies had "kidnapped" the king's family and left Paris with them. So now the general ordered the army to immediately put on alert and be ready for battle at any time.

"The king has been kidnapped?" As soon as he received this order, Napoleon couldn't help but sneer and asked, "Who kidnapped him?" I'm afraid it's just him, right? ”

"Napoleon, this is not what we should be thinking about now." Joseph said as he winked at Napoleon.

Napoleon understood that Joseph must have something to say, but it was not easy to say it in front of other people. So he shut his mouth and said no more.

"Does anyone know which direction the king is going?" Joseph asked the herald.

"Some say they may have gone to Lyon, others say they went in the direction of Montmedy." The herald replied, "The council has sent representatives to chase it in both directions. The general asks you to be ready to respond at any time, and you will act at the first order. ”

"Okay, you go back and report to the general, we can be ready in ten minutes, and we can wait for his orders at any time." Joseph replied.

The herald saluted him, then ran out, jumped on his horse and went in the other direction.

Seeing that the herald was gone, Napoleon immediately said: "Joseph, there will be war soon!" Joseph noticed that Napoleon's face was flushed with excitement.

"Calm down, the king hasn't run out yet, maybe he will be caught." Joseph's history is not good, but he also knows that Louis XVI ended up guillotined. So he was not at all optimistic about the king's escape. The reason is simple, if the king really ran away so easily, then how could he be guillotined?

But Napoleon apparently did not see it that way, and he said, "Joseph, you fool! How can you still have such fantasies! You also don't want to think about how far a two-horse light carriage can go in one night. I believe that the king must have been prepared before this, and there must have been people to pick him up along the way. These men did not even need to do anything else but prepare another light carriage there, and as soon as the king arrived, he changed the carriage and ran as fast as he could, so that if he had set out in the middle of the night, he would have reached the border by now, and had made peace with the kings, and with the Austrians. Even if the deputies of the National Assembly break their legs, it is impossible for them to catch up. I guess this math problem is extremely simple, even for a dumb guy like you. I don't know how you can still have such fantasies......"

"I don't know," said Joseph, "that I have the feeling that our king, who does not seem to be able to do such a neat thing as you say. ”

"Our king is a guy who doesn't do it neatly, but, but he's not stupid enough to be that stupid, is he?" Napoleon said.

"Who knows?" Joseph spread his hands.

On the afternoon of the third day, however, a new order came, which confirmed Joseph's suspicion that the king had indeed been intercepted!

"The deputies of the parliament intercepted the king's family in Varenna. Some mercenary cavalry operated in the vicinity, and only a small number of the National Guard were responsible for the protection of the king. General Lafayette orders you to set out at once to protect the King's family and bring them back to Paris. ”

The herald gave Joseph the order signed by Lafayette and left. Joseph immediately ordered his subordinate cavalry captain Robert to take the lead with the cavalry, and he and Napoleon to walk behind with the infantry.

At one point, Napoleon wanted to follow the cavalry, but was stopped by Joseph. Because Joseph didn't want himself and his brother to be in the limelight at this time.

"The situation is still very chaotic, and at this time, we have to hide our political position as much as possible. We are not like everyone else. Others can only climb up by taking sides and corruption. But we are different, we can rely on talent and corruption. Therefore, we should avoid dangerous sides as much as possible. Joseph said to Napoleon.

"My brother, you're so steady." Napoleon said. From the slightly upturned corners of his mouth, Joseph could see that most of what he actually wanted to say was: "Joseph, you are really a coward." ”