Chapter 622: Chapter 531: The Dye Vat and the Great Scholar
With the farmer continuously narrating on the execution platform, the tens of thousands of people in the square clenched their fists in anger, their teeth gritting audibly.
Especially when he mentioned that after his sister’s death, the shameless Tax Farmer even forced him to pay the fine for that year, with interest, amounting to 80 Levas, the crowd could no longer contain themselves and erupted in a tsunami-like roar, “Execute this Devil!”
“Kill him, I don’t want to wait a moment longer!”
“Send him to hell!”
However, the nobles who came to watch were not very excited. The pitiful life of a countryman could at most make them shrug in regret, but it was hard to evoke any empathy.
Even some of the villainous individuals, who had themselves committed the act of seizing poor girls, were whispering and emitting sleazy laughter.
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After the farmer had finished speaking, the Executioner Officer, taking advantage of the peak of the atmosphere in the square, loudly read the verdict of the High Court and then signaled to start the execution.
A burst of drumming sounded, and the furious people immediately quieted down, their gazes collectively directed towards the large execution platform.
First came the Priest to the Tax Farmer, conducted a routine prayer, and allowed him to confess.
Then the Priest, making the sign of the cross, moved to the side, and an executioner, wearing a black mask with arms thicker than the average person’s legs, picked up the “long pole guillotine” beside him and strode over to the side of the criminal.
It was at this point that Joseph realized that the “guillotine” was actually a very large two-handed greatsword, as tall as an adult man including the hilt, flashing a blinding cold light under the sun.
The Tax Farmer Bernie, neck locked in pillory and lying on a horizontal beam, suddenly became terrified and began to wail loudly; but the next moment, the executioner swung the greatsword like a windmill. Before the crowd could see clearly what was happening, the blade had swept past the front of the pillory, and instantly a pillar of blood shot out, Bernie’s head rolling to the ground like a falling coconut.
The Execution Officer stepped forward, picked up the head, and held it high to show the crowd, immediately drawing a deafening cheer.
People waved their hands, shouting with all their might, all the long-accumulating sorrow, indignation, and resentment bursting forth with the spewing blood.
The Tax Farmers had plagued the nation for too long. Almost everyone had suffered at their hands, being robbed of the last coin in their pockets, despising them to the bone yet powerless against them.
From the moment this head was severed, people knew that the group of Tax Farmers would no longer exist!
The future was filled with more hope!
The farmer who had previously vehemently denounced Bernie’s crimes was now tearfully incoherent, murmuring his sister’s name, and with the help of the Execution Officer’s assistant, he descended from the platform.
Then another tax collector was brought up to the execution platform.
Just as before, the victim came up first to denounce his crimes.
However, this time the one who came up was a middle-aged woman, her clothes old but neat and proper, and her movements showing refined manners, clearly a noblewoman.
She glared fiercely at the death row inmate behind her, beginning to weep as she recounted how he exploited the “delayed tax payment” scheme to gradually burden her husband with overwhelming debts until they had no choice but to sell the family business.
Even her daughter, who had been engaged to a promising young lawyer, had her engagement broken off due to their ruined family.
In the end, their noble family, which had lasted for hundreds of years, was forced to move to the slums of the Saint Antoine District. The area stank of sewage. Her husband had to copy documents for others for over ten hours a day just to scrape by, and every night he would be tormented by back pain until midnight.
Though the common people also shouted, “Kill him,” their voices were much quieter than before, after all, the lady could at least feed her family.
But the nobles present were engulfed in immense rage—these filthy, shameless Tax Farmers used despicable means to persecute a decent and long-established noble into such a plight, into the abyss of suffering! It was simply unforgivable!
They suddenly cursed in the coarsest language like any other commoner, wildly waving their arms, their faces flushing with excitement.
After the Tax Farmer’s head was chopped off, the nobles also jumped and cheered without regard for decorum.
Another common victim took the stage…
In this manner, victims reciting the crimes of the Tax Farmers switched between commoners and nobles. Before long, the crowd, having forgotten their own statuses, began to unanimously denounce the Tax Farmers.
With each sinful head chopped off, the crowd on the square seemed more united, even starting to dance to the rhythm of the execution drums.
This was Joseph’s plan. By having those long-oppressed by the Tax Farmers publicly indict them, he provoked people’s sympathy and anger, thus maximizing the justification for this purge of the Tax Farmers.
By now, neither commoners nor nobles harbored any sympathy for the Tax Farmers Association. The excited and frenzied crowd at the square was proof.
From now on, no matter how he dealt with the Tax Farmers Association, there would hardly be major resistance. No, rather, the cleaner he swept the Tax Farmers Association, the more support and endorsement he would receive from everyone!
It was near twilight when the execution event finally came to an end, and two worn-out Executioners left the scene. Since denouncing the Tax Farmers’ crimes took a lot of time, they had only managed to chop off 28 heads that day, which lay bloodily piled in a corner of the scaffold.
Joseph had also watched the entire day’s proceedings here, but fortunately, having seen more ferocious scenes on the battlefield, he managed to remain emotionally stable. Nevertheless, he decided not to attend the subsequent executions—given the current rate of execution, heads might be chopped here for the better part of a month.
…
Two days later.
Joseph was browsing through the files submitted by the tax office detailing the assets of the convicted Tax Farmers and the illicit gains identified when he suddenly furrowed his brows.
He was startled to see a familiar name—Lavoisier.
According to the documents, over the many years that this scholar handled the tobacco tax contract in Paris, he had been diluting the tobacco with water, amassing tremendous illegal profits—about 100,000 to 150,000 levas each year.
Joseph couldn’t help rubbing his forehead. Previous historical records had claimed that Lavoisier’s beheading by the Jacobins was a huge mistake, causing the stagnation of France’s chemical research for decades, among other things.
Now it seemed that although his beheading was excessively severe, he was certainly not entirely innocent. The corrupt cesspool of the Tax Farmers, it seemed, made it hard for any person of integrity to remain clean.