Saint Juste stared at the flimsy piece of paper in the mounted policeman’s hand, where he could vaguely see his own handwriting.
His complexion instantly turned ghastly pale, and his heart started to beat uncontrollably against his chest.
How did that letter fall into the hands of the French police?! Did Josen betray the club? Impossible, he was a student of Mr. Rousseau...
The letter was personally delivered to Brussels by Josen, if it wasn’t him, then it could only an there was a traitor within the South Netherlands "Committee"!
Saint Juste glared fiercely at Yeskut who was standing not too far away, then pointed at the captain of the Mounted Police, shouting at the surrounding farrs, "They are lying, don’t be deceived by them!"
While the hundreds present were montarily stunned, he suddenly leapt down from the stone platform and desperately ran towards the path leading out of the village.
anwhile, the liaison of the South Netherlands "Committee" hesitated for two seconds, but then violently lunged at the mounted policeman, attempting to snatch the letter from his hand.
The mounted policeman was not as clumsy as he usually appeared—police reform had not touched the rural mounted police, so of whom belonged to the tax system, so most of them seed like they lacked proper training—he deftly dodged Yeskut’s attack and managed to kick him in the shin.
Yeskut instantly lost his balance and tumbled to the ground. Two other mounted policen imdiately rushed over and pinned him down firmly.
The farrs watched the scene before them in shock, then turned their heads to look towards Saint Juste, who was now just a retreating figure in the distance. Without needing the mounted policen to say anything further, they were almost certain in their hearts, and imdiately started whispering among themselves.
The captain of the Mounted Police still passed the letter to the farrs, waited for them to read it, and then pocketed it again.
In fact, the letter was completely forged. The real one was still locked in the drawer of a South Netherlands "Committee" official.
Among those "Committee" mbers caught by the intelligence bureau, so had seen a few of the letters. Therefore, Fouche had it roughly copied. Then, they took letters from mbers of the French Liberals from the postal system to mimic the handwriting.
Of the more than ten mounted policen, in fact, more than half were intelligence agents in disguise. They had shaken the full-of-holes letter in Saint Juste’s face, and he had guiltily fled.
Of course, if he hadn’t run, then the "mounted police" wouldn’t have actually handed him the letter to "confront," they would have arrested him on the spot. How could those farrs tell if the letter was real or not?
Even if Saint Juste had reacted properly, exposing the agents and managing to escape successfully, it wouldn’t have mattered. Because the sa scene was being enacted in more than ten other places like Lille and Reims at the sa ti.
Among the high-level Liberals who were causing trouble, there would always be those who were not ntally strong enough and would run. As long as soone guilty ran away, it would be tantamount to admitting the accusations, and the farrs present would beco witnesses.
In fact, nearly all the Liberals who incited trouble felt guilty, the only difference was whether they would run imdiately, or continue to resist, trying to incite the farrs to confront the police.
The captain of the Mounted Police had his n lift Yeskut up, then gestured to a man with tied hands behind him to step forward, "Do you recognize him?"
The man imdiately nodded, "His na is Yeskut. He is one of the seven representatives of the ’Committee’."
The captain of the Mounted Police then waved towards the farrs, "Tell them, who are you?"
"My na is Henri Belwin. The Committee sent to spread rumors and incite clashes between French farrs and nobles, in order to alleviate the military pressure on Brussels..."
The captain of the Mounted Police nodded satisfactorily and signaled his n to take him away, then said to the farrs present, "As you can see, you have all been deceived by the South Netherlanders, and of course, those so-called Liberals. They are just using you to cause trouble, and whether you get arrested or even lose your lives, they couldn’t care less."
The farrs imdiately stirred uneasily, and the timid ones had already quietly slipped back to their hos.
Two more farrs murmured to each other nervously before cautiously approaching the Mounted Police, each taking several silver coins out of their pockets and, pointing to Yeskut, stamred, "Sir, he, he said this was a ’freedom allowance,’ and we only..." Explore stories on .Côm
"We truly didn’t know he was here to incite rioting, we’ve handed over all the money, and we dare not do it again..."
While a large number of mbers of the "committees" from Reims, Lille, and other places in the Southern Netherlands were being arrested by the intelligence services, in a cell at the Reims Police Departnt, about thirty young nobles were cursing under their breath:
"These foolish police, they have the audacity to slander us as rioters!"
"They won’t dare to keep us locked up for long. Many at the Palace of Versailles must surely be rushing about and extolling our heroic actions."
"Once I get out of here, I’ll teach those wretches a lesson! They indeed try to swindle land by threatening the governnt; we cannot let them succeed!"
Though called a prison, the conditions here were quite decent, with every five people sharing a suite complete with a living room and bathroom, and there were even musical instrunts hanging on the walls.
Intense boot steps echoed through the corridor between cells. Monts later, a squad of prison guards escorted three handcuffed, dispirited individuals inside.
The door of the cell at the very end was opened. The guards threw the three n in roughly and said coldly, "Good luck, you bastards!"
The iron door slamd shut with a bang, and the guards turned to leave.
In the cell across, a nobleman peered through the small window in the door and called out to the three n, "Hey, gentlen, what ’glorious deeds’ have brought you here?"
The three glanced at him moodily, but remained silent.
Laughter from the prison guards could be heard outside the cell, with one tapping the cell door with his baton and saying to the three, "Dutchman, why not answer him?"
"Oh, you’re from the Netherlands?" Another noble swiftly joined in, "Being locked up here, you must have done sothing quite significant, huh?"
The new inmates glimpsed the threatening eyes of the prison guards through the small window and reluctantly whispered to the noble, "We are... ’commissioned’ by the Committee."
"The Committee?" The other nobles beca more intrigued, "The River Transport Committee or the Geological Committee?"
"It’s, it’s the ’Free Alliance Committee’..."
"Ah? What is that? I’ve never heard of it."
One of the Dutch spoke with difficulty, "We liaise with the French Liberals, seeking to stir up rebellion in France... The farrs of Reims were incited, ah, no, encouraged by our call, to siege the courthouse..."
The faces of the nobles in the surrounding cells imdiately turned pale with rage:
"Scoundrels! So it was you who were inciting from behind the scenes!"
"No wonder those lowlifes had flintlock guns; it was the South Netherlanders who supplied them!"
"Dammit! Let out, I want to duel with these fellows!"
However, the prison guards did not give these nobles a chance to duel; instead, they were released two days later.
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