The small town square was crowded with people today.
The small square was crowded with 8,000 peaceful infantrymen, almost all of them except for the wounded. More than 1,000 cavalry were lined up on the surrounding roads, and the remaining space was filled with civilians.
Lafayette was sent directly to the stage set up overnight in the square and tied to the whipping rack.
Originally, An Ning wanted to repeat the caning punishment on Lafayette, that is, tie him to a wheel and beat him to death with a stick, but Lazar Cano stopped him.
What Lazar Cano meant was that it would be enough to hang him in the end and let him pay for it with his life. Before that, he would have to make some decisions. In the end, he would still have some dignity for the people, and he could not offend all the nobles to death at once.
An Ning thought for a while and felt that what Lazar Carnot said made sense. He couldn't tell Carnot that the French nobles were rabbits whose tails couldn't grow anymore. In a few years, the Jacobins would come and chop them all off, so he could only agree. This is a reasonable suggestion from the Chief of Staff.
After Lafayette was tied up, An Ning walked up to the execution platform and snapped his fingers.
So Lana led two surrendered soldiers from Lafayette's troops onto the execution platform.
Of these two people, one is the person Rana told An Ning yesterday, whose younger brother was beaten to death with a stick, and the other is a "righteous man" carefully selected by An Ning.
An Ning glanced at Lana and the two people, then turned to the audience.
"Everyone! In 1789, that is, two years ago, I personally led the citizens of Paris and stormed the Bastille to start this era of the Great Revolution!"
As soon as An Ning finished speaking, the soldiers below began to shout: "Long live your Excellency General!"
An Ning had to stop his speech and made several gestures to suppress the crowd's voices.
He continued: "But two years have passed, tell me, are your lives better than before the revolution?
“During the revolution, you, as citizens, were at the forefront, but your sisters and your wives had to sell themselves in order to survive!
"Obviously we have got rid of feudal obligations, but we are still impoverished! Correspondingly, those superior gentlemen are full of food and drink, and their mouths are full of fat! They embezzled the fruits of the revolution, and then put them We kicked it away!
"Not only that, they also want to deal with us! Let us ask the first one! This is a surrender of Lafayette's army, and now they are members of the glorious Conta National Guard! Let us ask Ask him what Lafayette did to his brother!"
As An Ning said this, he grabbed the sleeve of the first surrendered soldier and pulled him forward to face the tens of thousands of fiery eyes below.
The man stuttered a little: "My name is Martz. My brother and I served in the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of the 5th Brigade of the National Guard in Paris. Shortly before the expedition to Konta, my brother was not paid enough because of insufficient military pay. , protested to the superiors!
"As you know, our military pay is paid with coupons. In fact, coupons are nothing. The coupons can still be used in Paris, but they are not useful! I don't know what to say. Anyway, the price of bread has increased many times. Sometimes there is an increase every three days, but our military pay is still the same as a year ago!
"So my brother went to protest, protesting with many soldiers. Then, this man! This man pointed his riding crop at my brother! Then my brother was arrested, and they tied my brother to the wheel. , beaten to death!"
An Ning: "Before beating your brother to death, did General Lafayette explain what the crime was?"
Malz: "No! I definitely didn't!"
"What about the trial?"
"No, absolutely not!"
Lafayette said angrily: "You are a soldier, and you actually mutinied! Do you still need to give a reason to deal with you? Mutiny is the reason! Is there a trial for this?"
An Ning took the executioner's whip and struck Lafayette with a firm whip.
Lafayette howled in pain.
An Ning: "They are your soldiers, but they are also citizens! No one can torture a citizen without trial!"
After cracking the whip a few times, An Ning returned the whip to the executioner and turned to the crowd gathered in the square.
"This is not all of Lafayette's crimes! Let's bring in a second witness!"
Lana then murmured at the second surrender.
The surrendering soldier immediately took a few steps forward, walked to An Ning, and said loudly: "I am the Paris National Guard, Corporal Defoe, 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment, 3rd Brigade!"
An Ning: "What do you want to accuse?"
Corporal Defoe: "I want to accuse something that happened in July of this year! In July of this year, the citizens of Paris gathered at the Mars Campus to celebrate the second anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. This was a completely peaceful celebration!"
An Ning: "Are you sure this is a peaceful celebration?"
"I swear, General Frost! Many people even bring picnic baskets and tablecloths with the idea of going on an outing!"
An Ning: "Are there any ladies here?"
"That's a lot, half of them are ladies!"
An Ning: "What did Lafayette order you to do?"
The sergeant stared at Lafayette, raised his finger to point at his nose, and shed two lines of hot tears from his eyes: "He, he ordered us to use bayonets and bullets to disperse the crowd!"
Lafayette roared: "That was a riot!"
An Ning: "Are you going to riot with a picnic basket? Damn it, smoke it for me!"
The executioner raised and lowered his whip, and Lafayette let out a scream, which made people think of a certain ancestor of the beast.
After the whip was struck several times, An Ning raised his hand and asked the executioners to stop. After Lafayette recovered, he immediately said: "Maybe, maybe there was some misunderstanding, but the situation in Paris was very urgent at that time! Moreover, the Parliament
Gentlemen also asked me to take decisive action to maintain order in Paris!"
An Ning: "Are you saying that the gentlemen of the parliament are also at fault? Who asked you to take measures?"
Lafayette: "It was decided by a vote of the Parliament! Who voted specifically, it was a secret ballot so no one knows."
An Ning: "Then we will replace the parliament later and let more qualified gentlemen enter the parliament! But you, you are unpardonable! You must be responsible for the ladies and gentlemen who died tragically in the Mars campus tragedy today!
"Everyone here is a jury! If they want you to die, they will all shout for death!"
An Ning stopped, scanned the entire venue, and then his eyes fell on Napoleon below.
Napoleon understood instantly and immediately shouted: "Death penalty!"
Then the whole square erupted into an overwhelming roar: "Death penalty!"
In fact, if you take a closer look, you will find that it is An Ning's troops who are shouting that these people have just won a battle and are willing to hang the enemy's coach to cheer up.
Amidst the overwhelming sounds of "death penalty", Lafayette turned pale and stared at An Ning: "You can't do this! There has never been a battle where the commander on one side was hanged after the battle!"
An Ning: "Then start from here! First of all, you are responsible for the death of Marz's brother! You murdered him with a lynching! Thirty lashes!"
The executioner dipped his whip into the salt water and began to whip.
During the flogging, An Ning turned to everyone. Amidst the sound of the flogging, he said coldly: "Now is the time to completely change everything. In the fields of France, I have seen enough scenes of people dying of hunger. I have seen enough."
Got it!
"France is the France of all citizens, the France of the trousers, and the France of the farmers! If their lives have not improved, then it is wrong and we have not done our part!
"Just now, Louis XVI has also gone abroad, exposing his traitorous nature! It's time for us to build a country that doesn't want a king!
"A republic! A country for all French people! A country of liberty, equality, and fraternity in the true sense!"
An Ning announced this amid Lafayette's screams.
As soon as he finished speaking, Napoleon, who understood him well, shouted from below: "Long live the Republic!"
Then the overwhelming Long Live the Republic surged across the square.
An Ning always feels that this square will be called Republic Square in the future.
After the crowd became quiet again, the executioner said to An Ning: "The whipping is over."
An Ning nodded: "Choose a street lamp and hang Mr. Lafayette on it."
At this time, there was no such convenient thing as the guillotine.
Executioner: "Just street lights?"
An Ning: "Yes, this can be considered a tradition. Two years ago, farmers in the countryside hung their noble masters on street lamps to send them away."
Several executioners with big muscles and round waists immediately started to take down Lafayette from the flogging stand and dragged him towards the street lamp beside the square.
Lafayette screamed: "You can't do this to me! I'm a marquis! A marquis registered with the Quanxu Bureau! I still have territory! You can't do this to me!"
The executioner put the rope around his neck and then hung it up to the lamppost little by little.
At first the Marquis struggled, but soon he stopped moving.
An Ning turned to Lazar Cano and said: "Have you written down the speech I just made? Find a painter to sketch the picture of Lafayette hanging on the street lamp, and then send it to the mailbox together with my speech.
Go to every big city and publish it in newspapers!"