"Arrogance! What cursed arrogance." Amand had understood Joseph's words.
"Maybe it's not arrogance," Joseph said thoughtfully. Joseph thought for a moment, "but just isolation - isolation of the top from the bottom. The people of France were angry with the upper classes, but the upper classes didn't necessarily feel it or even feel it at all. The king and queen were surrounded by flattering ministers and lived in a place where they could not see the bottom and no other voices reached their ears, so they did as they pleased. This is bad because it can lead to explosive consequences. If the accumulated anger is not channeled, when it explodes, it will have devastating consequences. It's like a flood breaking down a dam. Art should serve two purposes at this time. One is to warn the hierarchy of the danger. One is to warn them of the danger because art is one of the few ways to get the attention of the lower echelons. The other is to pacify the lower levels. For example, Mr. Beaumarchais' "The Marriage of Figaro" actually tries hard to accomplish this task. His satire of the Count of Almaviva is a warning to the upper classes, and his making Figaro happy in the play is, in a sense, a pacification of the lower classes. But today, it seems that his warning does not carry enough weight to alert the upper echelons, and it is hard to say how effective the pacification is. So the comedians have increased the power of satire, but from what we can see, it's been several months since the play was performed and nothing has happened to the comedy troupe, so I guess it's still not effective.
Everyone nodded at that. Only Fanny didn't seem to understand, so she asked.
"So, Mr. Bonaparte, if something happens to the comedy troupe, what does that mean it's working?
"No matter what happens, even if all the people in the comedy troupe are arrested and stuffed under the bus and fed to the rats, or even if their brains are chopped off one by one, it at least shows that the top management cares about these things. Now, after all this time, nothing has happened, which only means that the top does not care at all. Joseph replied.
"So, "The Marriage of Figaro" is still not scathing enough," Samuel said. Samuel said.
"Joseph, maybe we should write a more exciting script, let's see, what should we write ．．．．．．" Armand thought about it.
"How about the story of Charles I? The king of England who had his head chopped off." Joseph said. Joseph said. He knew that if history did not change drastically, King Louis XVI of France, like Charles I, had his head chopped off for treason.
"That's too revealing." Samuel shook his head and said, "If we write this, you and Amand could be fed to the rats in the Bastille. Besides, not many theater companies would dare to perform such a scathing thing. I think, if you want to write, you should write about North American independence. That would also be anti-kàngbào."
"This seems good," Armand said, "Samuel, you've had your own experience and you can help us.
"But North America is alone overseas. And considering the role that France played in the independence of North America, if we write this, maybe the king will think we're gēgōngsòngdé. Joseph said.
"How is this possible? The king is not a fool." Samuel said.
"There is nothing impossible, the king is not, but some of the people around him will confuse him and mislead him. Even the scripts His Majesty sees, the performances he sees, are not necessarily normal. Joseph shook his head and said. This kind of trick to fool the above, in his opinion, is too simple.
"Jesus, how did you come up with this? Joseph, you have a chance to be a traitor." Amand looked at Joseph and kept shaking his head.
"You can't insult me like that." Joseph's eyes widened and he retorted with a very angry look, "You know, how can a man like me be a traitor? At least he should be a great traitor.
Everyone laughed at this remark, even Fanny, who was a little worried at first because of Joseph's harsh tone of voice, laughed out loud despite her image.
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While pressing his hand on his stomach, Armand pounded his hand on the arm of the chair and said after a while, "Joseph, I apologize to you, you will not be a traitor, you will be a big clown ．．．．．． Hahahahahaha!"
Everyone laughed for a while, and then Amand said, "Stop laughing, seriously, do you have any other suggestions? I mean about my new play.
"How about Spartacus?" Fanny suddenly began, "Well, Spartacus is the underclass rebellion, that can not be changed, and ．．．．．． And his history is very brief, so there is plenty of room for creative freedom, it should be a good choice!
Since Fanny opened her mouth, Armand immediately expressed his support: "I think it's good. I almost immediately came up with a series of exciting scenarios. Well, like how Spartacus fights a tiger in a gladiatorial arena, or ．．．．．．"
"For example, we can have Spartacus, who has already gained the status of a free man through his victory in the gladiatorial arena, but he believes that all people should be born free. He believed that it was the duty of every good man to overthrow the slavery system in which man oppressed man and man exploited man. Therefore, although he had already won freedom for himself, he was not satisfied with it, but devoted himself to the struggle to free all slaves! Joseph added, in the spirit of watching the fun.
"Yes, yes, yes! We can also say, through the mouth of Spartacus, that "all men are created equal, that the pursuit of freedom and happiness, and resistance to oppression are divine and inalienable rights. Samuel also hurriedly interjected.
"Are you going to have Spartacus recite the North American Declaration of Independence thousands of years ago? That's too much." Fanny began.
"What else could you do? You're going to make him recite the Gospels?" Samuel said. Samuel said, "Even though Spartacus is thousands of years old, we wrote him to give him the voice we need in our modern age.
"Mr. Fermat is right." Josephus agrees, "All history is contemporary history. The interpretation of history has always been in the service of reality. Perhaps we could be bolder, if I may say so, when, after the battle of Apulia, Crassus crucified more than 6,000 captive slaves. We could stage this scene and make the crucified slaves look like Christ on the cross, and even prepare a choir to sing a hymn to the rebels at this moment.
"This ．．．．．． Joseph ．．．．．． I remember your godfather was a bishop." Amand was a bit dumbfounded.
"The bishop agreed that the Church today has departed from the spirit of Christ in many ways. Joseph said without changing his face.
"I think this is a very original idea of Monsieur Bonaparte's. I think that if Monsieur Voltaire were still alive, he would like it very much. Well, Mr. Bonaparte, are you good at music?" Fanny asked with a twinkle in her eye.
Joseph laughed at this and said, "I am almost illiterate in music.
"So." Fanny said with a little disappointment, "We're all musically illiterate here too, so who can we get to write this Resistance hymn?
"Fanny, it's not hard. We just have to write the lyrics and find a musician to set it to music. Of course, good lyrics and a good tune are not easy to come by," Amand said. Well, I'm full of creativity now.
"Brother, your desire to create won't last even a week. Fanny smiled and said.
"You're right, Fanny. If I didn't have this problem, I'd be the new Sophocles. But I will try to control myself. And, Joseph, you have to help me, too. Amand said.
"If I'm free, I'll do my best," Joseph said. Joseph said, "But I'm afraid I can't be of much help, at least lately. You know, I'm rather busy these days."
"What have you been up to, Mr. Bonaparte?" Samuel asked.
"Joseph has an important experiment to do recently. It seems to be about how to determine the speed of light. My uncle praised the cleverness of the design of the experiment. In addition, he had to make some preparations to become a mathematics teacher at the Ecole Militaire in Paris. Well, Joseph, your brother is studying at the Ecole Militaire in Paris. How did he react when he found out you were going to be his teacher?
"I haven't told him yet," Joseph said. I haven't told him yet," Joseph said, "because I want to see how he reacts when he suddenly finds out in class that his math teacher is me.
"I can imagine that would be very interesting." Fanny laughed.
So the conversation turned to how to tease his brother. Fanny was very helpful with suggestions, many of which she said her brother had used to tease her in the first place.
Everyone was energized and offered Joseph suggestions on how to tease his brother. If the housekeeper hadn't come by and reminded him that dinner was ready, the guys would have come up with more bad ideas.
"Well, let's go to the dining room. Viscount Lavoisier stood up and said, "I just got some nice bottles of wine. ．．．．．．"
The Amand family's dinner routine was completely different from Joseph's. There were no stereotypes at all, and even during the meal, everyone could still laugh. We went from the red wine of the Vicomte de Lavoisier to the black tea of Ceylon, then to the mackerel of the Mediterranean, and then somehow to the crocodile and hippopotamus of the Nile. But the French are worthy of being European foodies, and although there are many things to talk about, there are always only three topics: Is it edible? Is it tasty? How to eat? I have to say, in this respect, the French are very much like the Chinese.