Chapter 532: Taxpayer Lavoisier
As the peasants on the execution platform continued to narrate, the tens of thousands of people in the square clenched their fists angrily and gritted their teeth.
Especially when he said that after his sister died, the shameless tax collector actually forced him to pay the fine for that year, including interest, and the amount was as high as 80 livres. The crowd could no longer hold back and erupted like a tsunami. roar:
"Execute this devil!"
"Kill him, I don't want to wait a moment longer!"
"Let him go to hell!"
However, the nobles who came to watch were not very excited - a countryman's pitiful life could at most make them shrug with regret, but it was difficult for them to resonate with him.
There are even some guys with bad character who have done this to seize girls from poor families, and they are still whispering to each other and making obscene laughter.
The prison officer waited for the peasant to finish speaking, and when the atmosphere in the square reached its highest point, he read the judgment of the High Court aloud, and then signaled the execution to begin.
A drum beat sounded, and the angry people immediately quieted down, all looking towards the tall execution platform.
First, the priest came to the tax collector, performed some routine prayers, and asked him to confess.
Then, the priest made the sign of the cross and stepped aside. An executioner wearing a black mask and whose arms were thicker than the legs of an ordinary person picked up the "long guillotine" placed aside and strode to the criminal's side.
Only then did Joseph see that the "guillotine" was a very wide two-handed heavy sword. The hilt and the sword were as tall as an adult, shining with a dazzling cold light in the sun.
Berni, the tax collector, who was lying on a crossbar with a wooden shackle stuck in his neck, suddenly became frightened and began to wail loudly. But the next moment, the executioner swung the heavy sword like a windmill, and no one could see clearly what was going on. What happened was that the blade of the sword had swept past the wooden shackle, and a column of blood suddenly shot out, and Berni's head rolled to the ground like a fallen coconut.
The executioner stepped forward and picked up the head, holding it high to show the crowd, which immediately attracted deafening cheers.
People waved their hands and screamed heartily. The long-standing depression, resentment and unwillingness in their hearts were all released with the gushing blood.
The tax collector system has been a disaster to the country for too long. Almost everyone has been poisoned by them, and they have taken the last penny out of their pockets. They hate them deeply, but they can do nothing about them.
And from the moment this head was chopped off, people knew that the group of tax collectors would no longer exist in the future!
The future life will become more and more full of hope!
The farmer who had previously denounced Berni's crime was now in tears. He murmured his sister's name and walked off the wooden platform with the help of the executioner's assistant.
Later, another tax collector was led to the execution platform.
Just like the previous process, first the sufferer came on stage to denounce his crimes.
However, what came up this time was a middle-aged woman whose clothes were old but neat and well-educated. She was obviously a noble.
She glared hard at the death row inmate behind her and began to tearfully talk about how the latter had used the trap of "delayed tax payment" to gradually saddle her husband with heavy debts and eventually had to sell off the family business.
Even her daughter, who was engaged to a young and handsome lawyer, had her engagement broken off due to family ruin. In the end, their little aristocratic family, which had been passed down for hundreds of years, had no choice but to move to the slums of St. Anthony District. There was foul-smelling sewage everywhere around the house. The husband had to copy documents for others for more than 10 hours a day to barely make ends meet. Due to overwork and illness, he would suffer from back pain until midnight every night.
This time, although ordinary people also shouted "execute him", their voices were much softer than before. After all, this lady's family could at least have enough to eat.
But the nobles present fell into great anger - these dirty, shameless tax collectors actually used despicable means to persecute a decent and long-standing nobleman into such a miserable situation and plunged into the abyss of suffering! Damn it!
They suddenly acted like other civilians, cursing in the most vulgar language, waving their arms desperately, and their faces flushed with excitement.
After the tax collector was beheaded, the nobles jumped and cheered regardless of their appearance.
Next, another civilian sufferer came to power...
In this way, the victims who publicly recounted the crimes of the tax collectors switched back and forth between commoners and nobles. Soon, the onlookers had forgotten their respective identities and began to denounce the tax collectors in unison.
As the guilty heads were chopped off one by one, the crowd in the square became more united and even began to dance to the beat of the execution drum.
This was Joseph's plan. Let the victims who have been persecuted by the tax collectors for a long time complain in public, arousing people's sympathy and anger, and directly increasing the rationality of this purge of the tax collectors.
At this time, no one, whether civilians or nobles, would have any sympathy for the tax collectors. The excited and crazy crowd in the square is proof of this.
From now on, no matter how he deals with the tax collectors association, there will definitely not be much resistance. No, it should be said that the cleaner he is at cleaning up the tax collectors, the more support and support he will receive from everyone!
It was not until near dusk that the execution scene finally came to an end, and the two executioners left the scene tiredly. Since it took a lot of time to accuse the tax collectors of their evil deeds, they only chopped off 19 heads throughout the day and piled them bloody in the corner of the execution platform.
Joseph also watched here all day. Fortunately, he had seen more tragic scenes on the battlefield, but he could still maintain his emotional stability. However, despite this, he decided not to participate in subsequent executions. After all, this primitive execution method was still a bit too bloody. He was not a pervert who would be excited by watching such things - at the current execution speed, You may continue to chop off your head here for more than half a month.
…
Two days later.
Joseph was looking through the documents submitted by the tax bureau on the assets of the convicted tax collectors and the verified illegal income, but suddenly he frowned slightly.
He suddenly saw a familiar name - Lavoisier.
Documents show that during the more than ten years that this university contracted the tobacco tax in Paris, he had been adding water to the tobacco he handled, thereby obtaining huge illegal profits - approximately between 80,000 and 100,000 livres per year.
Joseph couldn't help but rub his forehead. The historical information he had seen before said that Lavoisier's beheading by the Jacobins was a huge mistake, which caused French chemical research to stagnate for decades.
Now it seems that although his beheading was an excessive sentence, it was by no means completely innocent. The tax collector is a big dyeing vat, and it will be difficult for anyone with high moral character to stay clean after entering it.
(End of chapter)