Chapter 353: A Boundary is Bounded

Chapter 350 – A Beam is Bound

“This is ……”

Louis turned the title page of that book over and over again.

It wasn’t until this time that he finally understood why Arthur was interested in the history of the Napoleon family.

“He was friends with that Polish assassin?”

Arthur lit his pipe and puffed out smoke rings, looking at the pale Louis and comforting him, “Don’t worry, Louis, I’m not doubting you. You stayed by my side the day of the attack and almost put a bullet through your head. If the mastermind behind the attack is really you, then it means that you were even willing to put your own life on the line in order to assassinate me. I think, as a friend, I shouldn’t have failed as a human being to such an extent, right?”

“Of course not.” Louis vehemently denied, “But …… I don’t think Mr. Valevski should have a reason to assassinate you either.”

“Sir?” Arthur sipped his cigarette, “It seems that you cousins are not particularly close to each other!”

Louis took a sip of his wine, “I can’t say they’re close, and I can’t say they’re not. The main reason is that we weren’t together for too long, and we were too young at the time, so naturally we weren’t able to cultivate too deep of a bond. Besides, not to mention cousins like Mr. Valevski and I, even my own brother didn’t stay with me all the time.”

“Hmm?” Arthur asked, “How does that sound?”

A look of remembrance appeared in Louis’ eyes.

“In 1815, after my uncle’s defeat at Waterloo, the Bourbons were restored in France. Not long after they came to power, they announced that they would expel all members of the Bonaparte family.

Upon receiving the expulsion order, my mother hurriedly packed up some valuable belongings and took my brother and me in a car to leave France overnight for Switzerland. But no sooner had we established ourselves in Geneva than my father, who had already settled in Florence, claimed my brother from my mother under the procedural law ……

Since then, I have been separated from my own brother for seven or eight years. My brother grew up in Italy with my father. I, on the other hand, followed my mother back and forth between Germany and Switzerland, where I received my secondary education in Augsburg, Bavaria, and then entered the School of Military Engineering in Ahlenberg, Switzerland, to study artillery command.

I had just graduated from the military school when I received a letter from my brother from Italy inviting me to come to Italy and do great things together as brothers. And then what happened …… you should know ……”

Dumas reads, “The Charcoal Burners uprising in Rome was suppressed by a combination of forces sent by the Papal States and Austria, and your brother died while fleeing?”

“Well ……”

Dumas soothed, “Louis, relax. To be honest, if you didn’t have such an experience, I definitely wouldn’t have accepted you so quickly. You proved with practical actions that you and your uncle are not the same kind of people. Your brother who died in the course of the uprising is equally good.”

“Phew ……,” Louis smiled as if laughing to himself, “Alexander, thank you, I feel much better. Of course, it would be nice if my mother felt the same way, she didn’t understand our behavior and at one point tried to strong-arm me into taking me back to Switzerland from London. She always thought I could live with her on her estate in Arenberg, drinking wine every day and then going to the theater with her in the evenings, and she said, ‘Don’t you ever try to sneak away from me again unless I’m breathing my last’.”

Arthur asked, “In that case, how did you convince her to let you join Scotland Yard?”

Louis returned, “It was still all thanks to my uncle, who had a long talk with my mother in the Regency Crescent, and my uncle said, ‘Ottens, I understand your bereavement. For it was not only your eldest son who died in Italy; at the same time that was my son-in-law and nephew. But it can’t be helped, that’s the destiny of a Bonaparte, and you have to learn to understand and respect it.'”

Arthur sniffed, “Son-in-law and nephew? Looks like another case of a complicated relationship.”

Louis sighed, “It’s not that complicated, it’s just my brother marrying my cousin, my uncle’s daughter, Charlotte Bonaparte.”

“Okay.”

Arthur had to digress in order to avoid getting himself into a high school biology genetics question-like quandary, “Let’s talk about your cousin, Mr. Walewski. Hopefully, things won’t be too complicated in his case. Louis, can you tell me what makes you think he won’t be behind the attack?”

“It starts with his experience. When the Bourbon Restoration expelled all the members of the Bonaparte family, Valèvsky’s mother, Madame Marie, finally accepted the marriage proposal of Count d’Ornano, who had been courting her for years, after realizing that there was no hope for my uncle to return to Europe again.

Valefsky followed his mother, Madame Marie, and stepfather to Liège, Belgium, where, sadly, Madame Marie died in childbirth the following year. Fortunately, his stepfather was kind to him and insisted on raising him.

But the good times didn’t last long, and the Russians always saw my half-Polish, half-Bonaparte cousins as a thorn in their side. As I said before, Walewski was born out of the Polish Zionists’ desire to make a political marriage with the Bonaparte family and thus free Poland from Russian influence through the power of the French Empire.

So, as he grew up, Walewski was surrounded by patriots who wanted to revive Poland on the model of France. The Poles saw him as the destined king of Poland and longed for him to lead Poland to a state like the French Empire. Therefore, the Russians feared that once Walewski returned to Poland, the Poles would make him their king.

At that time, Belgium was still under the rule of the Dutch. So the Russians sent a diplomatic document to the Dutch government in which they demanded that Walewski be drafted into the Russian army on the grounds that he was a Pole. The Dutch government didn’t want to offend the Russians over this, but at the same time they didn’t want to offend the supporters of the Bonaparte family. So, they notified Walewski in advance and told him to pack his bags and leave Belgium as soon as possible.

So, under the arrangement of his stepfather, Walewski fled to London and lived there for several years. And after the outbreak of the July Revolution last year, he was authorized by the July dynasty to return to Paris ……”

Arthur raised an eyebrow at this and said, “You say the July dynasty granted him permission to return to Paris?”

Louis nodded, “That’s right. But, Arthur, don’t get the wrong idea. Just because Louis-Philippe tolerated Valefsky doesn’t mean he tolerated all Bonapartes. Although Valèvsky was Napoleon’s own son, he was ultimately an illegitimate son, so naturally, he was not qualified to inherit the title and proclamation of the Bonaparte family.

At the same time, he is interestingly enough, and a major reason why the July dynasty valued him was the Polish component in him. I heard from my uncle that Louis Philippe sent him secretly to Warsaw last year, not long after the Polish uprising.

And the Polish insurrectionary government was quick to entrust him with a great deal of responsibility; they appointed Waleski as a diplomatic envoy and sent him on a trip to Paris and London in the hope of seeking military allies from the Tuileries and Buckingham Palace who would work together against Russia.”

As Arthur heard this, he suddenly remembered the conversation he had had earlier while playing golf with Talleyrand.

He pursed his lips slightly, “It seems that Mr. Talleyrand is hiding quite a lot of things from me! If that’s the case, I can understand why Viscount Palmerston was so rude to him. It’s not just that His Excellency the Viscount won twenty thousand pounds at the casino by borrowing Mrs. Levine’s luck, it’s also because the French government intends to snub the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as if they were fools. Hypocritically inviting Britain to join France in helping the Poles to independence under the banner of liberty and progress, only to find, in the end, that the newly independent Polish government was a pro-French regime. If this had been done, the liberals at home would have sung its praises.

But alas, it is our Foreign Ministry that decides foreign policy. And to make matters worse, the Foreign Office is now led by the treacherous Viscount Palmerston. While he likes a good name just as much, he certainly won’t do business with such highly volatile returns.

Coming back to this, I find that Poland and France do seem to be quite close. I’ve often heard from Scotland Yard superintendents who retired from the Army that the most capable of all the French servant armies during the Napoleonic Wars were the Poles. Those Polish legions gave them a run for their money in battles of all sizes.”

Louis joked, “Don’t just envy France for having Polish auxiliaries, aren’t the King’s German Legions in Britain quite capable of fighting? Moreover, the Poles are not the most ruthless in dealing with the Britons, their favorite is to deal with the Russians. My uncle’s expedition to Russia had close to 100,000 Polish soldiers volunteering to join the fight. But you’re right about one thing: these Polish soldiers are very brave indeed. I even think that the reason why Marshal Dawu was able to be so successful in battle had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he had been the commander of the Polish Legion for a long time.”

Arthur also smiled, “Perhaps next time, we should let the King’s House of Britain’s German Legion and France’s Polish Legion pull out a separate fight. I think in four weeks at the most, the Germans could speed through Poland.”

Louis bristled, “I don’t think so, you underestimate the Poles.”

Dumas also tsked when he heard this, “What amazes me the most though is the existence of so many Bonapartists in Poland. But then again, it’s not like I can’t understand them, after all, compared to the Tsar, choosing a Bonaparte as king seems to be quite good. At least this Bonaparte has half Polish blood in him.”

Arthur spoke up, “Let’s get back to Mr. Walewski. Do you know where he is now?”

Louis returned, “That I really don’t know …… when I last heard from him, he was still fighting in Warsaw. However, after the fall of Warsaw, I haven’t received any information about him for a long time …… By the way, this book of yours. That Polish assassin, Mr. Kolwaczyk, got it right that it was during the Warsaw Uprising that he struck up a friendship with that cousin of mine.”

Arthur stared at the cover of the book for a while, then stood up and said, “I happen to be going back to London in a few days to report on recent developments in Liverpool to the Central Board of Health and the Chancery Office, among others. I should probably take this opportunity to have a chat with Mr. Talleyrand; I’m sure the old man knows the whereabouts of Mr. Valevski. If even he does not know, then your brother is more than likely in the hands of the Russians.”

Louis stood up as well, “Do you need me to come with you?”

Arthur shook his head, “No, Louis, you are too sensitive. If I took a member of the Bonaparte family to the French Embassy, the Foreign Office would more than likely think that the Superintendent of Scotland Yard had defected to the French government, and I don’t want to cause such a misunderstanding.”

“This ……” Louis asked with a frown, “You mean to say that the Foreign Office also has its own spies?”

“Woo hoo hoo ……”

Arthur laughed and raised his eyebrows, “Louis, what kind of delusion made you think that the Foreign Ministry of Britannia was doing all its business in an honorable manner? Not only does the Foreign Office have spies, but so does the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of the Interior has its own separate system of informants. But although they are all involved in domestic intelligence, they all have a different division of labor and a different focus. Of course, the Royal Navy and the Army have their separate sets of stuff too, but the army system is mostly responsible for foreign countries, so I don’t have much contact with them.”

“Even the Ministry of the Interior has a separate set?” Louis tapped his head, “Don’t they already have Scotland Yard?”

Arthur nodded, “That’s right, but Scotland Yard is only a new department after all, and the Home Office has a much longer history than Scotland Yard. And before Scotland Yard was established, they naturally had to fuck themselves to get intelligence.”

Louis asked, “Do you still think it was Valevski who did this to this day?”

Arthur shook his head, “I don’t think he did it. If he was keen on defending Poland, then he couldn’t have sent someone to put a bullet in me. And he’s a bastard, so taking you out wouldn’t have gotten him the Bonaparte family inheritance. But just because he has no motive doesn’t mean someone else won’t use his name to give orders to the Poles.

The Polish assassin, Mr. Kolwachik, was a participant in the Warsaw Uprising, and he was a friend of Mr. Walewski. If we assume he’s a Polish Bonapartist, then maybe it was the Russians who threatened Mr. Waleski’s life to make a big story in Liverpool.

It is also evident from the pages of the newspapers of the last few days that as a result of this assassination the English liberals who were inclined to support the Poles have become less determined. At present the Russians, on the one hand, have suffered a defeat on the question of Belgian independence, and on the other hand, are busy cleaning up the Polish mess. They would certainly be happy if they could straighten things out for Britannia at this time, so that the government and parliament would have no time to concern themselves with the Polish question.”

Dumas sniffed and pondered for a moment, “That’s quite a possibility when you put it that way, the Russians do have every incentive to do this. But how can we get the evidence that they committed the crime?”

Arthur just shook his head, “Alexander, this is no longer a simple law and order case, but a diplomatic and political issue. If the evidence does end up pointing to the Russians, it is still doubtful that the results of the investigation will be published. And I don’t know exactly what the Cabinet’s stance on this is, so I’m going to have to go and look more into other possibilities before I can figure out what the ministers are thinking.”

As soon as Louis heard this, he immediately understood what Arthur meant.

“Are you saying that even if this was done by the Russians, you still have to prepare a few that you can use to take the fall?”

Arthur corrected with a sniff, “Not ones that can be used to take the blame, but findings that meet the expectations of multiple parties.”

Dumas asked, “So do you have someone on hand?”

Arthur flipped through the thick stack of case files in front of him and casually read off a few names, “There are a few good choices, some that Parliament might like, some that Viscount Melbourne might like, and, of course, some that Viscount Palmerston might like, and so on ……”

“Which ones are you referring to?”

Arthur pointed to the names on the dossier and read them offhand, “Too many, the Liverpool Association, the East India Company, George Norton and Bernie Harrison to name a few ……”

Dumas frowned, “Are you prepared to force shit on them?”

Arthur sniffed and slowly wiggled his fingers, “Alexander, make no mistake. I will investigate all directions, all possibilities will be presented impartially on the ministers’ desks, and it is not for me to decide which one they choose to publicize.”

Dumas asked, “So, from what you’re saying, you’re just going to let the matter that you’ve opened people’s eyes to go away?”

“No, of course not.” Arthur held the documents and pushed the door open, stared at Dumas and opened his mouth, “Because, no matter who did it …… this beam has been knotted in my heart.”

(End of chapter)