The red sunset shines on this ancient building with a history of more than a hundred years, making this ancient building particularly sacred.
In this building that once represented the center of French power, a discussion involving the direction of France's economy is about to begin.
One of the two parties responsible for the discussion was Count Argu, the current president of the Bank of France (part of the financial faction), who expressed the interests of the Bank of France, and the other was the French Emperor Jérôme Bonaparte, who represented the interests of the government.
At this time, Count Argoux, who represented the interests of the Bank of France, was already ready in a room in the Elysée Palace, and Emperor Jérôme Bonaparte never showed up.
Time gradually came to about 5:20, and a carriage, escorted by French dragoons wearing breastplates, stopped at the gate of the Elysee Palace. Jérôme Bonaparte appeared in the carriage.
As soon as Jérôme Bonaparte got off the carriage and stepped into the Elysee Palace, the steward responsible for guarding the Elysee Palace hurriedly came to him.
"Which room is Count Argoux in now? Take me there quickly!" Jerome Bonaparte said to the butler at a slightly faster speed than usual.
"Your Majesty, please come with me!" the steward hurriedly responded to Jérôme Bonaparte.
Under the leadership of the housekeeper, Jérôme Bonaparte quickly arrived at the door of a room.
"Your Majesty, the Count of Argou is inside!" the steward said to Jerome Bonaparte, while opening the door for Jerome Bonaparte.
The door slowly opened, and Jerome Bonaparte looked into the room. As expected, Count Argoux was inside.
"Your Majesty!" After seeing the arrival of Jérôme Bonaparte, Count Argoux in the room quickly stood up and walked towards the door.
Jérôme Bonaparte entered the room unhurriedly. When he came to Count Argu, he stretched out his hand and said to Count Argu: "Count Argu has kept you waiting for a long time!"
"No! No!" Count Argu shook his head and responded to Jérôme Bonaparte: "Your Majesty, actually I just came here and I didn't wait long!"
"That's it!" Jerome Bonaparte said, glancing at the cup on the table.
There was no heat escaping from the cup, so it could be concluded that Count Algu had been waiting for a long time.
"Sit down!" Jérôme Bonaparte let go of Count Argu's hand and invited Count Argu to sit down.
"Thank you, Your Majesty!" Count Argoux sat back in his original position, while Jerome Bonaparte sat directly opposite Count Argoux.
"Mr. Argu, you should know the purpose of calling you here!" Jerome Bonaparte asked Count Argu as soon as he sat down.
"Your Majesty, please take a look at this first!" Count Argu said as he opened the backpack on the table and took out a piece of information, and then presented the information with both hands.
"What is this?" Jérôme Bonaparte, who received the information presented by Count Argu, pointed at the information and asked Count Argu.
"Your Majesty, this is the price situation in Paris in the first half of this year, as well as the number of banknotes issued by the Bank of France." Count Argu replied.
"Oh!" Jerome Bonaparte nodded, lowered his head and read the contents inside carefully.
After a while, Jerome Bonaparte raised his head again and said to Count Argoux: "Yes, yes! The situation in the Paris area is generally developing steadily and for the better! This shows that our policy is still very successful!"
"Good? Success?" Count Argou was stunned for a few seconds. He really couldn't believe that this sentence came from the mouth of Jerome Bonaparte.
"Look!" Jérôme Bonaparte held up Count Argu's information, pointed to the bread and meat column and said: "Look, the value of bread in the first half of this year has only increased compared to the first half of last year.
At about 3%, the price increase of meat is only about 4%."
"Your Majesty, a 3% growth is enough for some Parisians to live frugally!" Count Argou couldn't help but said to Jerome Bonaparte: "And this is only one area of Paris. The growth rate in other areas of France may be higher.
It’s even higher than this!”
"So what?" Jérôme Bonaparte asked rhetorically: "During the war, price growth is inevitable! Moreover, some areas of the empire suffered from extremely severe weather last year. Even if
There will be a wave of small-scale growth without war!"
"Your Majesty, I understand that price growth is inevitable, but the situation the empire is facing now is not just excessive price growth, but inflation! If this continues, workers will not be able to buy bread with the money they have! Excessive
Inflation will cause the empire to face a huge political crisis!
Up to now, the entire Bank of France has issued a total of nearly 300 million francs of small-denomination banknotes. If this continues, I am afraid that the Bank of France will face the risk of a run and bankruptcy!" Count Argoux pleaded to Jérôme Bonaparte.
: "Your Majesty, the Bank of France is the lifeblood of the whole of France! Once there is turmoil in the Bank of France..."
"Unrest?" Jérôme Bonaparte showed a faint smile. He knew the strength of the Bank of France very well, and naturally he would not believe the lies of Count Argu.
Sixteen years later, the Bank of France was able to raise 45 billion gold francs in a very short period of time, but now the Bank of France is at risk of collapse because of the issuance of an additional 300 million francs of banknotes.
No matter how you think about it, it is an impossible thing.
The only possibility is that the Count of Argoux himself did not want to see the reserves stored in the Bank of France diluted.
After all, even if only a small number of people exchange paper money for gold, it is still a large amount of money.
Count Argu was very afraid that paper money would be like the original revolutionary government's certificates, which would become waste paper because of the excessive issuance by the government.
The French Revolution not only affected French politicians, but also affected some old banking families.
After the fathers of bankers who had experienced the Great Revolution saw the revolutionary government's unscrupulous use of radical monetary strategies to cause huge inflation, the vast majority of them became believers in conservative financial rest. Under their influence
The bankers who were born around the time of the Revolution rejected all radical strategies and only wanted to build a sustainable and profitable institution.
For bankers who cannot even tolerate Saint-Simonism, Jérôme Bonaparte’s reduced version of Keynesianism is simply destroying a country!
Jerome Bonaparte even believed that if he himself were not the emperor, the theory he pursued would not be implemented by the Bank of France.
To put it bluntly, Count Argoux can be regarded as showing enough respect for Jerome Bonaparte for being able to tolerate it for so long before attacking him.
"That's right! Your Majesty, 300 million francs is already the limit that France can bear! If this continues, prices will rise sharply! The market will also fall into chaos!" Count Argoux told Jérôme Bo.
Nabal said.
Jerome Bonaparte pondered for a moment, spread his hands and said: "Count Argu, what do you think we should do now?"
Upon hearing Jérôme Bonaparte's inquiry, Count Argoux thought that the emperor had accepted his suggestion, and he quickly revealed his "life-saving prescription": "Your Majesty, I suggest that you stop adding new products from now on.
The issuance of currency, the government trying to reduce unnecessary expenditures, and canceling agricultural subsidies...Only in this way can we curb malicious inflation and return our economy to its original healthy value."
As soon as Count Argoux finished speaking, Jérôme Bonaparte looked at Count Argoux with wide eyes.
"Your Majesty, am I right?" Count Argoux looked at Jérôme Bonaparte in confusion. He didn't understand why the emperor looked at him with such an expression.
Isn’t that right? You fucking want to harm me!
At this time, Jerome Bonaparte roared in his heart.
Jérôme Bonaparte was all too familiar with the "good medicine" that Count Argoux described as a cure for economic expansion.
This containment method had an elegant name in later generations, that is, "shock therapy."
All countries that have used shock therapy in later generations will, without exception, fall into chaos for a period of time, and the size of this chaos depends on the degree of market economicization.
For a country like France that has not even established a unified market (at this time, most countries, including the UK, have not established a unified market), using "shock therapy" is simply no different from committing suicide.
Jérôme Bonaparte didn't know whether the French market could withstand the life-saving medicine given by Count Argoux. Anyway, the seat under his butt certainly couldn't bear it.
Jérôme Bonaparte was certain that once he stopped issuing additional currency and cut government spending on projects, deflation would be waiting for him.
Deflation will lead to massive unemployment. The angry people of Paris may not be able to wait for Count Argu's regulation before they go to the Tuileries Palace and drag him to the guillotine!
"Count Argoux, do you know what you are talking about?" Jerome Bonaparte couldn't help but said in a stern tone: "What you do will cause the whole of France to face massive unemployment! The angry people of Paris will kill both of us.
Straight up to the guillotine!"
"No...no! Your Majesty, I have calculated that as long as we..." Count Argoux wanted to explain to Jerome Bonaparte that his policy would not lead to mass unemployment.
"Calculation? If economic problems can be solved by simple calculations, then the people who know the most about economics in the world should be mathematicians!" Jerome Bonaparte said to Count Argoux with a straight face: "You just said that
Yes, inflation will cause turmoil, so let me ask you, will austerity not cause turmoil! (Jérôme Bonaparte paused and shook his head) No, it will cause turmoil on a larger scale!"
"Your Majesty, the bank no longer has enough reserves! If this continues, the Bank of France is very likely to..." Count Argu replied to Jérôme Bonaparte.
"Reserves? I remember, hasn't the Bank of France already reserved enough British bonds? Just ask the Bank of Britain to discount them!" Jérôme Bonaparte said to the Count of Argou: "And haven't you and the Bank of England negotiated with the Bank of England?
Did they jointly attack the gold in the hands of the United States and Russia? Could it be said that it failed?"
"Your Majesty, just a few days ago the Bank of England raised the discount rate for bills from the previous 4.5% to 5.5%! If we exchange the English bills we hold now, we will be at a huge loss!!" Al
The ancient Count responded to Jérôme Bonaparte.
"Four and a half to five and a half!" Jérôme Bonaparte couldn't help but raise his voice, "Why doesn't the Bank of England rob it?"
For a bank like the Bank of France, which holds a large amount of debt from the Bank of England, every percentage point increase in discount means that a huge amount of money is swallowed up by the Bank of England!
Like England, which has grown by 10 percentage points in one breath, it is simply determined not to allow the Bank of France to convert.
"Your Majesty, this is actually faster than robbing money!" Count Argu replied to Jérôme Bonaparte.
"Don't worry! I will personally take care of this matter!" Jérôme Bonaparte replied to Count Argu: "By the way, you haven't told me what happened to the matter of sniping at the gold market in the United States and Russia.
?”
"Your Majesty, we are currently in an ongoing stalemate with the Bank of England and the United States and Russia. It is expected that it will take half a year to decide the outcome! It is precisely because of this that the bank's reserves will flow to the market like water.
"Flow." Count Argoux expressed his dissatisfaction to Jerome Bonaparte in a subtle way.
"Okay! I already understand what you mean!" Jerome Bonaparte nodded, stood up and walked to the window sill, looking at the setting sun, and slowly said: "Count Argu!"
"Your Majesty!" Algu responded quickly.
"Do you know why I chose this place to serve as a place for dialogue between the two of us?" Jerome Bonaparte turned his back to the window and said with a fake smile.
Count Argoux shook his head. He really didn't understand why Jerome Bonaparte went to the trouble of calling him to the Elysee Palace for a conversation.
Obviously the Tuileries Palace is a good place for conversation.
"Five years ago!" Jérôme Bonaparte held out five fingers, then pointed to the room in front of him and said to Count Argu: "The two of us met in this room. You were more energetic than you are now!"
After Jérôme Bonaparte said these words, an ominous premonition poured into Count Argoux's heart.
Your Majesty doesn't mean to...
"Your Majesty, of course I remember you at that time..." Count Argou wanted to play the emotional card with Jerome Bonaparte.
"Hey! Five years have passed in the blink of an eye!" Jérôme Bonaparte sighed, pointed at Count Argu, and said: "We are all old!"
As soon as Jérôme Bonaparte finished speaking, Count Argoux felt dizzy.
If he hadn't been sitting on the sofa at this time, he might have fainted and fallen to the ground.
To Count Argou, His Majesty the Emperor's intention was already obvious.
