Chapter 248: French Terrier Encyclopedia (K2)

Chapter 247 The French Terrier Encyclopedia (5K2)

London, Taulhamletts, in the interrogation room of the Whitechapel Borough Police Station.

Alexandre Dumas and Arthur were sitting at the interrogation table, left and right, while across from them sat Louis Bonaparte, who had pulled on a surplus Scotland Yard police officer’s uniform.

With a pen in his mouth, Dumas first looked down at the paper in front of him, which was filled with questions and whose ink had not yet dried, and then craned his head to look at Arthur, raising an eyebrow at his roommate.

In response to the fat man’s little expression, Arthur just nodded slightly to signal that the exam could begin.

Seeing this, Dumas first cleared his throat, then pulled out the print of Napoleon’s portrait in his pocket that he had just bought from a nearby store and compared it to Louis Bonaparte, before he opened his mouth and asked, “This gentleman, I don’t know what to call you?”

Louis Bonaparte rubbed his calves and said with an annoyed look, “How many times have I said that I am Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte! I don’t ask you Brits to be as efficient as you can be, but at least improve your memory!”

Hearing this, Dumas could not help but slap the table angrily, “Monsieur, please take back your insulting words about me, the only people sitting in front of you in this office right now are an authentic French gentleman and an English bald man who has not yet lost his hair.”

When Arthur heard this, he just took a sip of tea, “Alexander, you’ve been spending all your time outside lately, I shouldn’t have time to offend you, right?”

When Dumas heard this, he hurriedly changed his words, “Let me correct myself, what I just said is all hypothetical situations! There are also some Englishmen who are not bald by nature.”

Louis Bonaparte, sitting across the table, heard this and naturally picked up on it, “I assume you mean the ladies of Britain, after all, they make up half of them as well.”

No sooner had he said this than a heartfelt smile immediately appeared on the faces of the two Frenchmen, and the cold interrogation room was melted by their merry laughter.

Arthur just looked at both of them and coldly came up with, “Although you can’t give proof of nationality documents, you should be a Frenchman right, at least in spirit. Well, Alexander, on to the next topic.”

But although Arthur said so, Dumas was still not satisfied, “Arthur, what’s the hurry, it is possible that he has only lived in France for a while, I have to continue to test him.”

Without waiting for Arthur to speak, Dumas hurriedly asked again, “Listen well, sir, if you are a genuine Frenchman, then you are sure of the answer to this question. Listen, please, what begins with warmth and comfort as if wrapped in the sun, goes through a narrow, damp, soft, bumpy course, and ends with an exclamation of wonder at the sight of thousands of little fools?”

When Louis Bonaparte heard this, he gave a bad laugh, and pointing to Dumas, he spoke, “Aha! Man, if I wasn’t a proper Frenchman, I might have really given you a hard time.”

Dumas said in a serious manner, “So what, what’s your answer?”

Louis Bonaparte held his head up and said, “That’s easy, I bet you’re talking about crossing the English Channel from France!”

“Absolutely right!” Dumas rushed up to shake Louis Bonaparte’s hand with one strong step, shaking the other’s arm while still not forgetting to turn back to Arthur to prove, “Arthur, I can now confirm that this guy should be my compatriot, and there can be no mistake.”

When Arthur heard this, the pen he held in his hand spun even harder, “Alexander, are you sure you have to come to this with me? Have you two French frogs had enough fun?”

Dumas returned to his seat and coughed twice before picking up the test paper he had just prepared in his hand.

“Monsieur, although I am willing to testify that you are an authentic Frenchman, I still have some misgivings about the fact that you are a relative of Napoleon. To tell the truth, my father actually has some working connections with Napoleon, so I happen to know some Napoleonic secrets that others do not …… know.”

Louis Bonaparte couldn’t help but shiver when he heard this, and he probed, “You are the son of Fouche?”

“Fouche?” Dumas coughed, “My father didn’t know it to that extent, but sir, please pay attention, this is Superintendent Hastings of the Greater London Police Department next to me, and he is the Fouche of Britain. That is to say, in his presence, you had better be truthful and not try to play any tricks, or if he finds out that you are lying, you know …… it.”

Louis Bonaparte was so alarmed by Dumas’ false words that he opened his mouth and asked, “You …… guys aren’t going to shell me, are you? I’m a fucking victim!”

Arthur rested both arms on the tabletop and folded his hands together over his mouth, “Sir, as much as I want to take your word for it. But as you know, you have no proof of nationality, no other identification, not even a passport to enter the country. If this were the Napoleonic wars, we could have sentenced you to death by hanging for being a foreign spy based on the above points alone. Not to mention, you just proved yourself to be a Frenchman, which is simply an added offense.”

“But I’m not a spy, and this isn’t during the Napoleonic Wars!”

“Exactly.” Arthur nodded, “So that means we won’t have you cannon-executed, Britain is still very humane in that respect. But while we won’t execute you, we can’t rule out that you are one of Fred’s crime syndicate’s accomplices. So until the truth is found out, we are inclined to take you into custody for the time being, and you’d better hurry up and give a full account of what happened if you don’t want to be locked up in an electrified little cage.”

Dumas sniffed and agreed, “Yeah, that’s right, man. Judging from your answer just now, you shouldn’t be a bad person, but bragging about being related to Napoleon can be your fault. It’s not too late for you to admit your mistake if you do it in time, and I can warn you that the next question I’m going to ask is not one that the average Frenchman can answer; my father is really related to Napoleon.”

Louis Bonaparte was not clear of fear, but as soon as he heard that Dumas had dared to question his pedigree, the lad, who was twenty-three years of age, sank down, “Then you may ask! Men of the Bonaparte family are not scared to death! Our nobility is innate!”

“Good! Have backbone!” Dumas couldn’t help but look at him appreciatively, “With those words, you are at the very least of noble birth, even if you are not of the Bonaparte family. Then please listen to the question …… Who is the meritorious general of the First French Empire who once served as the commander of the Alpine land corps and once followed Napoleon on an expedition to Egypt?”

Louis Bonaparte heard this, first stared, then fell into a deep thought, “This …… Jean Rana?”

When Dumas saw this, he just threw the pen in his hand, “Come on, Arthur, you can’t even do the basic questions, this is a fake, drag it out and shoot it.”

When Arthur heard this, he just clenched his chin, “The French do things efficiently indeed!”

Hearing this, Louis Bonaparte hurriedly got up and said, “Can you give some hints? There are so many generals from the First Empire period, you have to give some characteristics!”

Dumas was all set to push the door out, when he heard this he couldn’t help but frown and hinted slightly, “Black Devil.”

Louis Bonaparte got up with a slap on his thigh at that, “General Thomas Alexander Dumas!”

“Huh?” Dumas’ eyes widened at his words, “It seems you really do know something about that part. But that doesn’t prove that you’re from the Bonaparte family, at most it counts you as a learned man.”

After saying that, Dumas was about to return to the table to continue with the next question.

To his surprise, before he could stand, Arthur spoke up, “Then I’ll ask one as well; I heard about this matter from the French ambassador, Mr. Talleyrand. If you can answer it, it will be counted as a plus, and if you can’t, no points will be deducted, so this should not be too much to ask, right?”

Louis Bonaparte breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Go ahead and ask then, although I don’t know everything, but what if ……”

Arthur leaned back in his chair and spoke, “At a meeting during the First Empire, Mr. Talleyrand drew Napoleon’s ire for a remark, may I ask what he said?”

“This ……”

Louis Bonaparte meditated, he guessed: “Is it the time when Paris was crazy rumor Talleyrand and Fouche conspired to depose my uncle? At that time, my uncle put down the war and rushed back from Spain overnight, called Talleyrand to the Tuileries Palace and scolded, I remember my father and I said this thing, scolding very hard.

If I remember correctly, what my uncle yelled at Talleyrand was: ‘You thief! Bastard! Shameless man! You listen! I’m going to smash you like glass …… You’re a fucking – strand of stinking mud in a stocking! Stinking mud!’

I am told that Mr. Talleyrand behaved calmly after the scolding; he merely took out his handkerchief and wiped the spittle from his face, and coldly remarked: ‘What a pity that such a great man should be so uneducated.’ Then he limped out of the palace with his cane, and my uncle was so furious at his reaction that he immediately announced that he had revoked all his posts.

At that time, my uncle had wanted to put Talleyrand in the name of treason execution to come, but why have not been able to find evidence of Talleyrand’s guilt, and finally can only be left unsettled. But looking back now, Talleyrand began to sell military intelligence of the First Reich to Austria after he was scolded, and he was not caught because Fouche, the Minister of Police, was helping him to cover up. Alas …… these two guys, really fucking not a thing!”

Arthur heard here, looked at this young man’s face indignation performance, coupled with this vivid story, the heart for the identity of the young man in front of him can not help but be convinced of a few points.

Could it be that Fiona has really captured an emperor back for me?

However, regardless of whether this emperor is true or false, the procedures that should be followed should still be followed.

If this guy in front of me is a real one, then the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will definitely need to verify his arrest procedure, as long as Arthur is able to keep them from picking out the faults, then this matter is not only not too much, but also have to be credited for it.

When he thought of this, the smile on his face couldn’t help but thicken for a few minutes, and he spoke briskly, “Mr. Bonaparte, you have to be glad that you fell into the hands of the British; if you had fallen into the hands of the Prussians, you wouldn’t have been so lucky.”

Louis Bonaparte hadn’t yet realized the change in Arthur’s address to him, he was still curious about what was going on in the meeting between Talleyrand and Napoleon that Arthur had just mentioned, this second generation of the Emperor was interested in everything about his uncle.

“So, Mr. Hastings, what exactly did Mr. Talleyrand say at that meeting you mentioned?”

Arthur spoke, “As I recall, Mr. Talleyrand said at the meeting, ‘For the past several years, the Empire has been on the precipice of collapse due to His Majesty the Emperor’s overreach.’ But after the Battle of Leipzig, I can proudly announce to everyone that His Majesty has now taken a huge step forward!'”

As soon as Arthur said this, Dickens, who was waiting outside the door of the interrogation room, leaning against the door panel and preparing to ask Arthur to go fishing with him after the interrogation was over, and Sergeant Jones, who was standing next to him and chatting with him, laughed out together.

Judging by the amount of vibration in the door panel, they were both obviously laughing hard.

Inside the interrogation room, the two Frenchmen, who had been so happy just a few moments ago, had lost their smiles as if by appointment.

Of course, the joy couldn’t have disappeared out of thin air, it had merely shifted.

Dumas, his whole face almost suffocated into a pig’s liver color, asked, “Did Talleyrand really say that?”

Arthur sipped his tea, “How could it be, I made it up.”

“What are you making this up for nothing?”

“I wasn’t thinking of livening up the atmosphere?” Arthur smiled and patted Dumas’s shoulder, “Alright, Alexander, my words have been asked, it’s your turn next.”

Dumas glared at him fiercely, if it was normal, he might have just pushed his chair and walked away.

However, from the words of Louis Bonaparte just now, the French fat man also felt a hint of something wrong, without clarifying this matter, he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to sleep for a few days in a row, so he could only hold his nose and let Arthur win a small game.

Alexander opened his mouth and asked: “Just now those routine even if, the next I want to ask are some more private things, must be close to people can understand. First, I’d like you to list some of Napoleon’s lesser known quirks from which I will randomly come up with questions.”

“Quirks? That’s a lot.”

Louis Bonaparte said confidently, “First of all, my uncle was quite a cultivated man, he went to the theater and only applauded when the performance was over, but this is basically known to all Parisians and is not much of a secret. My uncle was also extremely fond of spraying himself with perfume, and he used dozens of bottles of cologne every day, which is a not-so-secret secret that anyone who was close to him could learn about. But what I’m about to tell you has to be known only by the closest of people …… It’s about the love letter he wrote to my first aunt and queen, Josephine ……”

“Oh?” Dumas couldn’t help but lean forward, “What are you talking about?”

Arthur couldn’t help but put down his cup of tea as well, “Go on.”

Louis Bonaparte lowered his voice, “This is something I will only tell you guys too, for the purpose of proving my identity. But after that you guys don’t spread it outside!”

Dumas patted his chest and assured, “That’s for sure, I’m a playwright with integrity. Do you know Vidocq? Although he is not comparable to Napoleon, he is also a legend in France, and I have buried a lot of Mr. Vidocq’s affair in my stomach.”

Arthur also nodded in agreement, “That’s true. Although I don’t know how the French police intelligence agency works. But I must emphasize that as a reasonable person, you should trust the secrecy of the official intelligence agency of Britain.”

Louis Bonaparte received assurances from both of them before he reddened and mustered up enough courage to say, “The general public does not know why my uncle was so infatuated with Josephine that even after he had to divorce her for the sake of a political marriage, he still corresponded with her for a long period of time and always provided her with care in his life. As a woman, my aunt Josephine was certainly beautiful, but my uncle had seen many women, so why did he love this one alone?”

Dumas nodded his head with wide eyes and asked, “Yes? Why?”

Arthur also asked, “Why?”

Louis Bonaparte said triumphantly, “Why? The secret lies in the fact that my uncle worshipped the unique scent of Josephine’s body, a fascination that even went so far that my uncle wrote her a special letter praising – it is not only your love that I crave, but also your scent, your laughter, and even your imperfections.

Perhaps this is not strong enough evidence, but when Josephine was ill and died, my mother went to her residence to help her sort out her belongings, and inside her belongings was a love letter, which, according to the date, was written when my uncle had just won a great victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, and which I had expected to be full of words about you and me, or bragging about his own triumph, but which in fact contained only the words But in fact the letter contains only one very short line, and what do you suppose it is?”

“What?”

Louis Bonaparte couldn’t help but give the brightest smile of the day, “Josephine, don’t take a bath, I’ll be here in three days.”

Hearing this, both Dumas and Arthur couldn’t help but suck in a breath of cool air, and both of them reached out and cupped their jaws in unison, “Kind of interesting.”

Seeing the two of them like this, Louis Bonaparte couldn’t help but ask, “So what, have I told you all this to be able to prove my identity? When will you release me?”

Dumas pursed his lips, “I really don’t know about this kind of thing, but I can’t say that you are wrong about this ……”

He turned his head to look at Arthur, “What do you think should be done about it?”

Arthur nodded slightly, “In terms of the content of that letter just now, this is indeed quite French. But whether it’s true or not, I’ll have to forward it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs first, so that they can verify it with Mr. Joseph Bonaparte, who resides in the Regency Crescent.”

When Louis Bonaparte heard this, he was so startled that he rose to his feet, “Don’t! If you go and ask him, then won’t he know that it was me who spread this story? Besides, to verify the identity, wouldn’t you just take me to him directly, why bother?”

Hearing this, Arthur couldn’t help but smile a little, “It’s certainly not impossible to take you there, but you have to sign a waiver of liability for Scotland Yard first. Because if this involves the issue of fraud, then we will not be able to explain to Mr. Joseph Bonaparte.”

“Letter of liability?” Louis Bonaparte waved his hand and said, “That kind of thing, you guys can’t just take it out earlier.”

When Arthur heard this, it was like a magic trick to pull out the document that had been prepared long ago in advance, turning the front side that was densely written with words, turning it to the reverse side where only the signature column was left, Arthur pointed to the blank part of the above and opened his mouth and said, “If that’s the case, you can just sign here.”

(End of chapter)