London, Westminster, 4 Whitehall Street, Greater London Metropolitan Police.

Louis Bonaparte busily walked from the halls of Scotland Yard with a stack of papers, and his colleagues who passed by would occasionally raise the brim of their hats to greet him.

Although it had been a month since he arrived at Scotland Yard, the officers' curiosity about him continued unabated.

Every young police officer who joins Scotland Yard will always inquire about him, intentionally or unintentionally, and it is enough to say that someone from the Bonaparte family came to Scotland Yard to be a policeman, not to mention that Louis Bonaparte is still a strong contender for the next generation of the Bonaparte family.

Because Louis Bonaparte's own brother, who had participated in the charcoal uprising with him, had died in Italy, and his uncle, Joseph Bonaparte, the former king of Spain, was already dying.

The current patriarch of the Bonaparte family, Napoleon's own son, has always been frail and sickly. Therefore, this young man, who has always been ignored in the Bonaparte family, quietly came to the position of the second heir of the Bonaparte family.

In other words, as long as he can stay healthy and live a long time, then he has every hope of ascending to the position that will lead the Bonaparte family forward.

One by one, the officers of Scotland Yard passed by Louis Bonaparte, who seemed to them to be no different from usual, gentle and gentle, although there was a vague sense of aristocracy in his gestures, but he did not feel domineering at all, so that people occasionally forgot that he was actually a member of the royal family.

But what the officers didn't know was that the young man had a hot letter in his tuxedo pocket that he had just received this morning. The letter was addressed to Vienna, the capital of Austria, to his cousin, François Joseph Charles Bonaparte, the grandson of Emperor Franz I of Austria, the sole legitimate heir of Napoleon, and the Duke of Lechstad of the Austrian Empire.

Dear Louie,

How are you doing?

It's a little ridiculous to say, when we first separated, you were 7 years old and I was 4 years old, and to be honest, I can't even remember what you looked like.

But I don't know why, maybe it's a blood connection, but I still remember you in my heart, and I remember everyone in the Bonaparte family.

My uncle and uncle wrote to me a while ago that they had found you in London. God forbid, thankfully you were not buried by the sound of Apennine fire. Although I am younger than you, it is not appropriate for me to say that, but I still hope that you will live a long time.

Louie, from the point of view of defending the members of the family, I think you are too impulsive to rush into the charcoal uprising. But from a young person's point of view, I can fully understand your impulsiveness.

Louis, I even feel a little jealous of you about this, and you can stand under the Apennine sky and claim that you are a proud Bonaparte, but I can't do that.

There had always been a very ambivalent attitude towards me at the court of Vienna, who thought that I had the blood of the noble Habsburgs and the Bonapartes, and on the other hand, they did not want to mention my father's deeds before me.

Yes, they almost never mentioned to me the great deeds of Napoleon, and from a very young age I was taught to be a member of the Habsburg family, and they taught me to be hostile to France and to be hostile to France.

I was confused for a while, and I thought about embracing the identity they had given me, but when I really wanted to fit in, I suddenly realized that they didn't really think of me as a noble Austrian Habsburg family.

They flatteringly called me the prince of Austria, but behind the scenes, they called me little Napoleon.

It was as if my heart was going to be torn apart, and I felt like I heard my soul roaring. From that moment on, I finally understood that I was not part of the Austrian royal family, much less of the Habsburgs, but a noble Habsburg prisoner bound in chains.

From then on, I was mad to make up for what had been missing, and I longed to know more about my father and to know more about the land of France. But they wouldn't let me get in touch, and they wouldn't even let me go in and out of the Royal Library in Vienna, in case I saw the truths I wanted to know.

In order to be able to obtain this, I began to take the initiative to receive military training and began to ask my grandfather to join the Austrian army. I was finally able to see the past of the French Empire from the examples taught by the army, and I finally learned about the glorious achievements of the Bonaparte family on the sand table.

After completing a full year of military education, my grandfather appointed me as the commander of the 16th Hungarian Company, but Metternich was still not worried about me, my troops were in Hungary, but they had their headquarters not far from the Imperial Palace in Vienna.

But I am not discouraged, I do my best to prove to them that my efforts are working, and you may know, my body is weak, but I can compensate for my physical weakness with mental strength. I fell ill several times, but each time I recovered, I rushed back to take care of military affairs as soon as I recovered.

When Austria intervened in the recent Charcoal Revolt in Rome, my uncle, who had learned that you and your brother were in the middle of the war, sent me a letter asking for help.

I offered to ask my grandfather to take my troops to free you from the quagmire of Rome, but Metternich directly complied with my request.

Metternich said: "Prince, your body has become so emaciated that anyone who sees it will feel abnormal, and you can't even make a normal sound, so how can you give orders to the army?" With all due respect, anyone like you will be worried. For your sake and for Austria's sake, let's take a good rest.

He lightly removed my military power, plucked my feathers one by one, and made me a harmless mascot in the Viennese court again. My doctor said that the Viennese winter was too cold and recommended that I be sent to sunny Naples for recuperation, but Metternich also bluntly refused.

I knew what was fearing beneath his calm exterior, he was afraid of my heroic bloodlines, he was afraid that as soon as my feet stood on the land of the Apennines, there would be a cry for Napoleon II as king. Such a situation had already arisen in France during the July Revolution last year, and he could not under any circumstances allow my imprisoned canary to leave his cage in Vienna.

I am writing this letter from my hospital bed in Vienna, my body is very bad, my heart is bleeding, but I know that they will not be able to knock me down.

In the depths of my soul, in my blood and bones, there is always a fire of France that cannot be extinguished.

Louie, my aunt asked me to write to you in the first place, so that I might dissuade you from being cautious in your future actions.

But when I wrote this, I realized that I couldn't do it after all. I understand your actions, because I also know what the name Napoleon represents.

Louis, the political mission left to us by the Bonaparte family was too heavy.

Your unsuccessful brother, François Joseph Charles Bonaparte.

Sickbed in Vienna on September 20, 1831.

From time to time, Louis Bonaparte's mind flashed a fragment of this letterhead, and he still had a bright smile on his face, but no one could understand the rain in his heart. He stopped outside the door of the Criminal Investigation Department's office and looked up at the window by the side of the aisle, where it had been raining for days, and the pedestrians on Whitehall Street were wrapped tightly in their coats.

Louis Bonaparte held the papers to his chest, and he could not help muttering in a low voice: "Who is colder in the winter in Vienna than in London?" Charles, is it right or wrong that we are doing this? ”

He lowered his head, as if thinking about something.

However, behind him, he suddenly remembered a gentle voice: "Right and wrong are all footnotes written by God, and for a person's life, as long as they live a wonderful life." Although I don't like Hegel, there is one sentence of him that is still very charming. Louie, you know what? Minerva's owl only flies at dusk. ”

Louis Bonaparte shuddered, and he turned his head to look, and Arthur had crept up behind him at some point, with a book under his arm and a steaming coffee cup in his hand.

Louis hurriedly turned to salute him, and then handed over the document in his arms: "Superintendent Hastings, the minutes of yesterday's meeting and the crime statistics of Scotland Yard last month have been sorted out. ”

Arthur glanced at the cover of the document, nodded slightly, and said, "Good job, it seems that you have adapted well in Scotland Yard, and you can be called a pretty good police secretary." So ......"

Arthur pushed open the office door, smiled and leaned over and asked, "Come in and have a cup of tea, it's not good to be nervous all the time." Working at Scotland Yard is not going to jail. ”

Arthur lifted the teapot on the table and poured him a cup of tea, and brought out a plate of snacks from the cabinet next to him, but before he could put them on the table, he saw that a few pieces of puff pastry biscuits in the snack box seemed to be missing.

Arthur glanced at Agareth, who was lying on the office couch with his stomach covered and burping, and quietly picked out the cookies, then turned around with a smile and put on the snacks, and asked, "What's wrong?" Get up on the wrong side of the bed? In fact, when I first came to Scotland Yard, I was like you, I put on a stinky face every day at work, and this place can really always find ways to make people blocked. ”

Louis Bonaparte took the teacup and smiled a little, then shook his head, "No, sir." After the failed uprising, I felt that this kind of life was not easy, but it did not make my face sad. Even sometimes I feel that it is quite easy to have nothing to do, and I have things to do and a full schedule, so that I am not easy to think about, and I am much more relaxed mentally.

Take the fact that you asked me to gather information on Bernie Harrison's case, and although it may seem like a small thing, I really feel that my efforts have paid off. I'm a little embarrassed, but this is probably the first thing I've done in years.

It makes me feel very satisfied, and I feel as if I have really done something on my own, even though my contribution is very small. ”

When Arthur heard this, he only quipped: "Louie, this is not a small matter, for Scotland Yard, this is a big thing. In addition, the information you gather is not insignificant, and only those who are truly capable can do it. Naturally, a big man with the power to make policies will give him ideas, and as for himself, he only needs to choose one of these options, and even if things go wrong in the future, he only needs to put the blame on the person who made the idea. But we, as the executive and the one who made the suggestion, if we mess things up, who can we let carry this black pot for us? ”

When Louis Bonaparte heard this, he was stunned for a moment, and then asked, "Did you think of this yourself?" ”

Arthur blew on piping hot coffee: "No, but I have found many practitioners in history. You may not know that when I was a student at the University of London, I was in the history department. ”

When Louis Bonaparte heard this, he couldn't help but put down the papers in his hand and asked with a wry smile: "Sir, to be honest, although I have been with you for more than a month. But the longer I spend with you, the less I can see what kind of person you are. Newspapers and magazines, police officers' evaluations, street news, practical practices, in different sources, your image is completely different, sometimes diametrically opposed, contradictory.

If all this is true, you are both an upright police officer who zealously helps the weak and an expert in trapping and plotting. You are both a police thug defending Tory interests and opposing reforms, and a progressive who is passionate about Whig values. You're both an impassioned pianist and a Frankenstein who loves solitude and seclusion. You're an arrogant scholar who can come out of his mouth with a few philosophical quotes from time to time, or a local scoundrel who can squeeze into a tavern with London's dirtiest riffraff. ”

At this point, Louis Bonaparte sighed and asked, "So, sir, are you so fickle?" ”

Arthur just took a sip of hot coffee when he heard this: "Louie." ”

"Well, what's wrong, sir."

Arthur raised his eyes and smiled at him, "I have never changed, what has changed is this era." ”

When Louis Bonaparte heard this, he was stunned for a moment, and then he was stunned: "What has changed is the times? ”

Arthur leaned back in his chair and crossed his fingers, "Anyway, I also received a letterhead from a friend from South America yesterday, and he is a very good naturalist. Although he is not a philosopher, I think that sometimes the terms that naturalists use to explain the world are more desirable. ”

"Did he say anything?"

Arthur looked at the drizzle outside the window and said: "Louie, this world is not the survival of the strong, let alone the survival of the wise, but the survival of the fittest. ”

Louis heard this and was only pondering, but before he could think clearly, there was another knock on the office door.

"Enter."

Tom pushed the door in, and he saw Louis and then at Arthur, and his face suddenly became a little ugly, and he looked like he wanted to say something.

Arthur asked, "What's wrong?" ”

Tom thought for a while, and then said vaguely: "Arthur, at the Foreign Office, Viscount Palmerston has summoned you to come over, and he seems to have something to talk to you about. ”

Arthur picked up the hat in front of the table and buttoned it on his head, straightened his clothes and said, "Did you say what happened?" ”

Tom glanced at Louie, hesitated for a long time, and then reminded: "It seems to be about a magazine article, and something else." I heard from the Courier that Viscount Palmerston seemed to be a little unhappy with the recent pro-Polish rhetoric on the ground in London. ”

(End of chapter)