Chapter 174: No Way Out
"Oh?" Joseph looked at Fouché and said, "Do you know who is looking for Necker?"
"That's not certain yet. But our informant at the Clasenne Bank reported that the bank recalled all the commercial spies, and there should be other important tasks. And the Paris Bank also reported that they are hiring a large number of private detectives."
"It's really someone from the banking industry." Joseph nodded slightly. It seems that what Kalona said is right. There must be a lot of shady dealings between Necker and the major banks. These people want to find him before the government.
He tapped the armrest of the chair and felt a little strange. Necker is the spokesperson of the big bank and a senior member of the banking association. If something goes wrong, he should immediately ask the banking industry for help, but he chose to hide at the first time.
Then there is only one possibility-Necker does not trust the people of the banking association.
This is normal. Necker himself is a Swiss and has a shallow foundation in France. Now that something has happened, it is difficult for him to be sure that the French bankers will not kill him to prevent the news from leaking.
Thinking of this, Joseph was more certain about mobilizing the secret police to search door to door, and even mobilized the army - Necker must be found before the Banking Association!
Joseph told Fouché to speed up the search, and then rushed directly to the Palace of Versailles, ready to discuss with Brian and Robert of the secret police about launching a large-scale search throughout Paris.
In the car, Clementine looked at the Crown Prince with a serious expression and a slightly frowned brow, and asked carefully: "Cousin, have you encountered any troubles? Tell me, many things will not be so annoying if you say them out."
Joseph sighed and said casually: "Clementine, if you want to find a missing person, how would you find him?"
Little Loli thought about it and said seriously: "Well, I will first ask his friends or servants where he might have gone, and then..."
Joseph was suddenly stunned when he heard this, and was shocked to realize that he had overlooked a very important thing before - the people of the Banking Association knew Necker much better than himself!
Even Necker's men might have been recommended by a big bank.
With clues provided by people around Necker, even if he mobilized more people, it would be difficult to guarantee the first move...
What to do?
Clementine talked to herself for a while, but saw her cousin frowning even more, and hurriedly comforted him: "Is one of your friends missing? In fact, you don't have to worry too much, maybe he just has something to do, and he will come back after a while."
Joseph forced a smile at her: "Thank you for your comfort, but that person will not appear by himself..."
Wait!
He was halfway through his speech, and suddenly felt that he had grasped something.
Since he couldn't find someone better than the Banking Association, why not let Necker show up by himself?
Just like the ancients who attacked the city, they must surround three sides and leave one side, so the enemy will inevitably flee to the side that was not surrounded.
If Necker's other roads can be blocked, then he can only take the way he left for himself!
Joseph followed this idea and carefully perfected it, and a plan of "surrounding three and leaving one" gradually emerged in his mind.
He thanked Clementine very sincerely: "You are definitely an expert in finding people, thank you so much!"
The little girl blushed when she was praised, took out a piece of vanilla mint candy and threw it into her mouth to reward herself, and then stuffed another piece into her cousin.
The carriage stopped at the marble square of the Palace of Versailles, and Joseph got off and went straight to the office of the Minister of Finance.
The most critical part of this "surrounding three and leaving one" plan is "leaving one", and the difficulty lies in that it requires the cooperation of the queen.
Not long after, Interior Minister Monod and Justice Minister Breteuil gathered in Briand's office, all looking at Joseph with surprise.
"Your Highness, I don't quite understand. Shouldn't we do our best to capture Necker?"
"But why did you withdraw the arrest warrant and let Her Majesty the Queen announce a pardon for him?"
These people, as Joseph's political team in the cabinet, have naturally heard about Calona's exposure of Necker's corruption evidence.
Joseph looked around at them and said, "When a person is facing a situation where he is doomed to die, if he is given the hope of living, he will definitely choose this path without hesitation. I want the royal family to become Necker's only way to survive."
Breteuil immediately said, "Your Highness, but Necker's serious corruption crime should be strictly tried. I'm afraid it's not appropriate to pardon him."
Joseph said, "Necker himself is not important. What I want is what he knows!
"As for the pardon, haha, although His Majesty the King has pardoned him, if someone else wants to punish him, we can't do anything about it."
Brian looked at Joseph, "Your Highness, what does Necker know?"
"It is likely to involve hundreds of millions of livres of government debt! "
The room suddenly fell silent.
In the afternoon, several cabinet ministers led a large group of prestigious nobles to the Petit Trianon Palace to persuade Queen Marie to announce the cancellation of Necker's court trial and promised that he would never be sentenced to death or even a long-term imprisonment.
The queen had read Brian's report on Necker's corruption before. Although she did not understand the behavior of the ministers and nobles, she was soft-hearted.
After everyone advised them to "show the tolerance and kindness of the royal family", "show His Majesty's consideration for the ministers", "recovering the stolen money is the most important thing", and "give the former minister a chance to change his ways", Queen Mary It seemed to make sense, so I agreed in a daze.
Early the next morning, Queen Mary announced in public that Necker would be given a lenient sentence in front of a large number of nobles and reporters, and showed the document signed by the king.
At the same time, several pamphlets began to circulate wildly in Paris.
Most of the content of the pamphlet is still the usual aristocratic erotic stories, but there is a piece of news in the middle: someone has offered a reward of 150,000 livres for Jacques Necker's head. Even if you provide information, you can still get 100,000.
Then, the underworld forces in Paris received an even more astonishing price: 180,000 for Necker's death and 120,000 for the information.
On the major newspapers in Paris that day, the first half of the front page read "Necker may be suspected of corruption, the royal family decided to exempt him from heavy fines", and the lower half read "Unknown forces are offering a huge reward to kill Necker." .
The secret police and the Police Intelligence Service received new orders to move a large number of people searching for Necker to the surrounding areas of Paris, and surrounded Paris to prevent Necker from escaping.
The next day, the mysterious forces raised the reward for Necker to 200,000.
Various newspapers and pamphlets also obtained information from different channels, and began to analyze who wanted Necker's life in a serious manner.
Of course, under Joseph's deliberate guidance, all the articles invariably pointed to the Banking Guild.
…
In an inconspicuous residence on the north side of Paris, Necker's housekeeper Alonck carefully observed the street through the gap in the curtains for a while to confirm that there were no suspicious people, and then came to the bedroom with a tray of food.
He closed the door and moved the bedside and dresser one after another. A slight "click" sound came from behind the closet.
Elonke uncovered the floor behind the closet, bent down and walked into the exposed square entrance.
On the second floor of the basement, under the dim candlelight, Necker took the tray with a haggard expression, and first distributed the food to his wife and two children, but he skipped lunch and grabbed the newspaper on the tray.
It was the "Paris News" newspaper. He only glanced at the article on the front page and felt his heart tightening.
Although it is not stated explicitly in the article, it is expressed both inside and outside that the person who offered a reward of 200,000 livres for his life is a banking giant, and their credit is absolutely reliable. Even if the person who killed him dies, he will hand over the reward to In the hands of his relatives.
"These devil-possessed bastards!"
Necker suppressed his voice and slammed the newspaper to the ground.
The Paris News is the newspaper of the Duke of Orleans, one of the giants behind the Banking Guild.
Even his newspaper said so, that he wanted to die without leaving any room.
These guys, who have helped them make so much money, will abandon them without hesitation when something happens!
How did he know that the "Paris News" newspaper in the past two days had been rejected by the Press and Publication Bureau for various reasons and could not be published at all.
The "Paris News" newspapers now on the market were all produced by Joseph's "Paris Merchant" newspaper and then handed over to newsboys for sale.
As for infringement? Haha, after the Necker incident is over, you can sue the "Paris News" newspaper to the court, and they will pay you ten times the loss at most. Do you still want to shut down the Dauphin's newspaper?
Necker picked up several pamphlets brought by the butler and was surprised to see that the reward amount had been increased again, reaching a terrifying 300,000 livres.
He knew very well what this number meant.
Not to mention that the entire Paris underworld will go crazy for it, even an ordinary citizen will immediately turn into the most cold-blooded murderer when he sees this amount!
At the same time, this also means that everyone he meets is no longer trustworthy. Those who had arranged to help him escape must never have contact with him again. 300,000 livres would allow them to betray him at any time.
You know, although he has tens of millions of assets, most of them are deposited in various banks using anonymous accounts, most of which are foreign banks. He only had 2,000 Ecu gold coins in his hand - it was impossible for him to carry too much heavy cash with him.
So he was simply unable to bribe those greedy people who wanted to offer rewards.
And even if he could come up with a large sum of money, he wouldn't dare to gamble - who knows if those guys would turn around and cut off his head in exchange for 300,000 livres after receiving his money.
After all, that’s 300,000!
All credibility and morality will become a joke in the face of this huge sum of money.
Mrs. Necker looked at the newspaper in her husband's hand and asked in a trembling voice: "My dear, are we still leaving tomorrow?"
Necker suddenly grabbed her arm and said angrily: "Go! You know how to leave! Do you want to kill us?!"
He pointed towards the entrance of the basement: "I swear, before I even get on the carriage, the driver will stab me twice from behind! It's over, everything is over..."
He slumped down on the bed, but the corner of his eye happened to glance at the open newspaper. There was a piece of news that he had read yesterday - the queen announced in public that he would save his life and would not even be sentenced to more than five years in prison.
The newspaper also speculated that as long as Necker handed over the stolen money and paid some fines, he would probably be sentenced to exile.
He began to struggle fiercely in his heart. After a long time, he suddenly stood up from the bed, his eyes filled with hatred.
Since those people from the Banking Guild want me dead, don't blame me for cooperating with the French royal family!
That night, the butler Alonque quietly disappeared into the night...
About an hour later, hundreds of police and secret police surrounded the hut where Necker was hiding.
Fouche personally led his men in, but found that there was not even a shadow of a person in the secret basement.
Just when he was extremely anxious, several men ran in and reported to him that Necker had been caught.
"Where did you catch him?" Fouche glanced at the empty basement and asked in confusion.
"He got out of the sewer on the street by himself."
How could Fouche know that the 300,000 bounty made Necker unable to trust even his most trusted butler, who was afraid that he would bring back the killer, so he left the house in advance and hid.
Fouche finally completed the task and immediately escorted Necker to the Bastille.
...
Royal Palace
The bigwigs of the banking industry association all looked at the Duke of Orleans anxiously.
Originally, their people had already found out a little about Necker's whereabouts, but unexpectedly, a sky-high reward suddenly appeared in the past two days, disrupting their pace.
"I didn't expect the royal family to pardon him." The Duke of Orleans also frowned, "With this 300,000 reward, Necker is likely to surrender to the royal family."
Count Capefair said: "We must let Necker know as soon as possible that the reward was not ours!"
Count Isaac glanced at him with contempt: "If we can find him, why do we need to go through so much trouble?"
The Duke of Orleans shook his head: "Now publications are controlled, even my newspapers are counterfeited, it is difficult to pass the news to him."
At this moment, the Duke of Orleans's butler hurriedly trotted in and whispered a few words in his ear.
"What? This idiot was caught!" The Duke of Orleans stared at the butler, "Is the news reliable?"
"The news from our people in the secret police is now on the way to the Bastille."
Everyone in the room was in a panic.
The Duke of Orleans stared at them and shouted: "Calm down! Before, we couldn't find Necker, so we had to let the royal family spread rumors. Now that he has appeared, it may be a good thing."
He thought for a moment and said to the butler: "You immediately go to Colonel Lavière and ask him to find Necker and tell him..."
Two hours later.
Necker was imprisoned in a cell in the Bastille as he wished.
Unlike what people imagine, this cell is a suite with a toilet and a dining room. It is very clean and tidy, and even has a sofa and a large bed with cushions.
Fouche was afraid of another accident, so he personally brought more than a dozen men to keep an eye on Necker's family at all times, even when they went to the toilet.
At this moment, a tall officer came over with his guards, exchanged polite greetings with Fouché, and gestured to Necker, "You know, the prisoners who come here must undergo routine inspections. I have to go through the formalities."