Make France Great Again-Chapter 762 - 753 Albert’s "Knock
As the date of the Paris Peace Conference gradually approached, the attendance numbers of the Century Exposition didn’t decrease. Instead, they steadily climbed.
In just the first three days after opening, the total attendance had already exceeded 180,000, which meant about 60,000 people were visiting the Century Exposition daily.
This kind of data not only shocked all of Paris, but also made Jerome Bonaparte, who initially didn’t expect the Century Exposition to be profitable, feel the possibility of making a profit.
Seeing such impressive figures, the Paris City Hall began to feel slightly dissatisfied with the ticket prices, considering the price of 2 francs per ticket to be a bit too low.
With 180,000 visits, after deducting maintenance costs, the total profit was only about 300,000 francs.
The entire investment in the exhibition was 10 million francs, so it would take a long time to truly make a profit.
If they could set the prices a bit higher, wouldn’t they be able to recoup the funds more quickly?
Jerome Bonaparte, who was setting the ticket prices, also momentarily wondered if he had set the price too low and whether he should reconsider the pricing.
After carefully weighing the pros and cons, Jerome Bonaparte decided to maintain the current prices without any changes.
He ordered Mokar to publish an article titled "Tickets and France," which explained the reason for setting the ticket price at 2 francs for the Century Exposition (to allow more people the opportunity to closely understand and engage with the entire world, to see the progress of the world—the Century Exposition was not just for a handful of people but for the vast majority), and the government’s firm commitment to maintaining this ticket price, under the pseudonym Joseph Stalin.
Once the article was published, it immediately sparked a heated discussion both domestically and internationally, with many people agreeing with the exposition serving the majority.
Some foreigners who originally had no interest in the Century Exposition began to develop a slight interest in France’s exposition.
Subsequently, some "sharp" individuals noticed that the article’s signature was the same as one published in Britain a few years ago (in 1848), and the author behind that signature was Emperor Jerome Bonaparte. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖
Therefore, many speculated that the author behind this signature was also the emperor from the Tuileries Palace, while some onlookers speculated that Jerome Bonaparte might have said this to indirectly criticize a certain Prince at Buckingham Palace.
After all, Prince Albert’s Expo ticket prices were several times higher than Jerome Bonaparte’s current prices.
As the saying goes, where there’s traffic, there’s heat.
In today’s world, no one has more traffic than the monarch.
Thus, in Britain, small and medium-sized newspapers instantly turned into some unscrupulous marketing accounts of later generations, crazily hyping the issue.
Within 48 hours after Jerome Bonaparte’s article was sent out, rumors spread throughout Britain that the French Emperor criticized Prince Albert.
The originally hot topic was pushed to a climax again; probably even Jerome Bonaparte did not expect that merely publishing an article would be interpreted in such a way.
The entire Britain began to debate the matter intensively, and amid this sensationalism, more and more British gentlemen decided to visit the French Century Exposition to see for themselves.
[Note: Later generations recorded this unintended act by Jerome Bonaparte as a means of hype.]
Influenced by public opinion, Queen Victoria also felt some dissatisfaction toward Jerome Bonaparte, far away in Paris.
In Windsor Castle, the Queen crumpled the newspaper in her hand and threw it aside, muttering, "What on earth does that Jerome Bonaparte want? Does he intend to make an issue out of this?"
Prince Albert, sitting next to her, looked at the pouting, angry Queen and responded gently, "Probably not!"
"What are those articles about?" Queen Victoria asked Prince Albert.
"Those articles, ah!" Prince Albert smiled wisely and said, "They are merely articles based on rumors!"
Then Prince Albert pointed to the paper in his hand and said to Queen Victoria, "I do have the actual article by Joseph Stalin here. Do you want to take a look?"
Queen Victoria took the newspaper for a glance and sure enough, there was no content remotely dissing Prince Albert, and the article had nothing at all to do with Britain.
After reading the paper, Queen Victoria curiously asked Prince Albert, "Albert, you just said those articles were just rumors, then is this Joseph Stalin Jerome Bonaparte?"
"Judging by the style, it should be him!" Prince Albert said to Queen Victoria decisively, "On this point, the papers were not wrong! But they did manage to dig up a signature used by Jerome Bonaparte for an article seven years ago, which really surprised me!"
"Seven years ago!" Queen Victoria subconsciously trembled slightly, "How did they dig up the previous article?"
"I don’t know about that!" Prince Albert shook his head and replied to Queen Victoria.
"Then... Albert, should we also go to the World Exposition to take a look?" Queen Victoria turned to inquire of Prince Albert.
"What? You want to go too?" Prince Albert asked Queen Victoria.
"I’m just curious! How their exposition differs from the one we held before!" Queen Victoria replied to Prince Albert.
"Since you want to go, let’s find a time to go there!" Prince Albert answered Queen Victoria.
"Can’t we go recently?" Queen Victoria asked slightly disappointedly.
"It’s best not to go during this period, unless you want to squeeze in with those people!" Prince Albert told Queen Victoria, "I dare say that the number of people this time will be more, not less than when we were there!"
Recalling the crowded scene of the previous World Exposition, Queen Victoria gave up the idea of going to Paris in the short term.
That afternoon, the French Ambassador Vallette appeared at Windsor Castle!
"Your Majesties, just now I received a telegram from my monarch, His Majesty Emperor Jerome Bonaparte, who expressed his deep apologies for the negative impact of the article ’Tickets and France’ on Your Majesties! His Majesty himself did not realize that this article would cause so many problems!" Ambassador Vallette immediately apologized to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert upon sitting down.
"It’s nothing!" Prince Albert graciously waved his hand and replied to Vallette, "You can tell Jerome Bonaparte that these groundless things will not affect the sentiments between England and France!"
"Your Highness, thank you for your graciousness!" Vallette breathed a sigh of relief and then said to Prince Albert, "I believe that after the Crimean War, the two countries will certainly be closely united and assist each other!"
Subsequently, Vallette and Prince Albert began to speak some insignificant idle talk, chatting about British culture to French culture, and from French culture to pan-Germanic culture and more.
When Prince Albert talked about pan-Germanic culture, he immediately changed the topic and asked Vallette, "By the way, Ambassador Vallette, I heard that your country intends to sign a Customs Union with the Kingdom of Sweden, is there any truth to this?"
Vallette’s expression paused, and then he regained his smile and said to Prince Albert, "Your Highness, I don’t know where you heard this news from!"
"Ambassador, I have no intention of interfering with your country’s diplomacy, but I only hope that we can be more honest with each other on certain issues!" Prince Albert threatened, "After all, only by being honest with each other can the two countries trust each other!
The Crimean War post-processing conference is less than 4 days away, some things must be agreed upon before the conference begins!"
Realizing that he couldn’t hide it, Vallette had to tell Prince Albert that the French Empire was indeed preparing to sign a Customs Union treaty with the Kingdom of Sweden, but the treaty had not yet been completed.
"Your Highness, please understand that France is currently on a fast track to industrialization, so we need a large amount of iron ore and coal, and our homeland lacks these resources, so we have no choice but to sign a Customs Union with the Kingdom of Sweden!" Vallette said sincerely to Prince Albert, "We didn’t mean to withhold information from you, but our Customs Union with Sweden hasn’t been fully implemented yet!"
Faced with Vallette’s explanation, Prince Albert was evidently unconvinced.
"Britain can also be an excellent commercial partner for France! We can have closer commercial ties between our two countries!" Prince Albert said to Vallette.
Vallette replied to Prince Albert that the factory owners in the French Empire did not agree to closer ’ties’ between England and France, because they couldn’t beat British capital in terms of cost.
And the capital from the Kingdom of Sweden couldn’t beat them, so they preferred to engage with Sweden.
After hearing Vallette’s reasoning, Prince Albert reluctantly accepted his explanation.
After all, every family has its own difficult book to read, didn’t Britain also worry about India’s textile industry dumping on them, and therefore restricted Indian textiles from entering the UK by raising tariffs?
The Customs Union between France and the Kingdom of Sweden, though established privately without informing Britain, did not touch Britain’s sensitivity.
Prince Albert was dissatisfied with the French Empire’s sneaky actions behind their back.
Finally, Prince Albert told him that he and Queen Victoria would visit Paris again in about a month.
Vallette immediately expressed his warm welcome to Prince Albert for visiting Paris.
