"Oh, beautiful France! Holy France! My ship at the port of Marseille pours out to you: your dreams, your romance; your nobility, your wisdom, will surely give me... (similar sentences omitted for 800 words)" — From 'The Diary of past Charles', pages 1-3.
When Charles was in elementary school, the most troublesome thing he found was writing a diary.
But today, after reading this diary, he discovered something even more troublesome: reading the diary of a so-called "romantic" like past Charles.
Those few notebooks were not all of past Charles' diaries from the first half of his life, but rather documented a period of just over a year, from when he landed in France to begin his studies until a year before his return home—a period that, though not long, left a profound impression on past Charles. It was a very exciting time.
Perhaps that life was too exciting, as our sir past Charles did not focus his records on trivial daily matters, but rather on expressing his feelings and sentiments.
The initial pages were filled with exclamations of "um" and "oh dear," and it wasn't until the last few lines of the third page that Charles found anything of real significance.
"...The chief examiner for the Paris Artillery Academy was the mathematician Laplace. Poor him, after he announced the start of the exam, the door suddenly burst open.
Standing in the doorway was a short man in peasant attire, wearing a pair of clunky, worn-out leather shoes, and carrying a wooden pole as a carrying stick.
I must confess, I was startled awake by the sound of the door opening, but at first glance at the man, I thought I had mistakenly wandered into the wrong place, having been so engrossed in composing poems to praise Paris on my journey.
So I immediately stood up and doffed my hat to apologize to that bumpkin.
Fortunately, I quickly realized my mistake, so I pretended not to care, smiled, and sat down; besides that bumpkin, no one else noticed.
But when that bumpkin said he was there to take the exam, the entire hall erupted in an uproar.
Finally, it was his turn to be examined, but unexpectedly, he was composed and confident, answering even the most difficult questions correctly.
He was even slightly better than me, and Chief Examiner Laplace was overjoyed, immediately declaring him first place.
The other nobles were very displeased and ignored him, but I was the only one who congratulated him.
Anyway, I don't care if I come in first or not; I came for the art of Paris.
Ah, Paris! You are that... (three hundred words praising Paris omitted below).
Oh, right, that bumpkin later specifically came over and spoke to me, saying his name was Drouot.
I must write it down so I don't accidentally call him a bumpkin if I meet him again." (Drouot, Napoleon's most trusted artillery marshal.)
Charles had seen the name Drouot in the Napoleonic chronicles; he seemed to be a very formidable old general.
The reason he remembered him was because during Napoleon's restoration, he did not heed Drouot's carefully arranged advice.
Napoleon only rallied the people's support, not the army's, especially the renewed loyalty of the treacherous generals, which some commentators believe was the main reason for his failure.
As for the Paris Artillery Academy, it was the best artillery school on Europe.
However, with constant conflicts between England and France in recent years, the fact that past Charles could attend there suggests he likely didn't take a conventional path.
From the few scattered sentences mentioned, Charles could only deduce that past Charles' mother, the old lord's wife, was a French noblewoman.
However, she also seemed to have a son and a daughter, past Charles' half-siblings from the same mother.
The diary did not explicitly state whether Charles' adoptive mother was a widow who remarried or had an illegitimate child with the old lord.
This greatly troubled Charles: if it was an illegitimate child, then past Charles would be a bastard, and at this time, whether in Europe or America, the status of an illegitimate child was very awkward.
However, from the meaning past Charles conveyed between the lines, he did not seem to have experienced any discrimination.
Yet, the diary's mentions of his mother and half-siblings were all very brief, which led Charles to inevitably harbor unfavorable suspicions.
Nevertheless, since past Charles could enter the artillery school founded by the French royal family, it indicated that his mother's identity was certainly not ordinary.
Moreover, the text implied that his relationship with his mother's side of the family was very good, so if Charles were to go to France in the future, his treatment should not be too bad.
What Charles found very regrettable, however, was that past Charles, after finally getting into the artillery school, did not cherish it at all.
The diary entries were either about romance, hunting, or parties, and even contained descriptions of encounters with ladies, but there was hardly anything about school events, let alone artillery instruction.
It recorded that he had heard the opinions of several famous philosophers and thinkers, including Diderot, Lessing, and others.
These remarks, which are now familiar to modern people and even seem a bit naive, made Charles laugh.
But past Charles took such remarks very seriously; at least, his comments on his artillery classes combined did not even fill three pages, while his comments on these philosophical remarks definitely exceeded thirty pages.
Of course, as a romantic "poet," what he described most were his praises for this country, this city, these great men, and the beautiful women with whom he had ambiguous relationships.
Undoubtedly, the descriptions of social interactions in these contents were of no substantial benefit to Charles, merely ensuring that when he met those people in the future, he wouldn't be at a loss for words after they introduced themselves.
Reading through the diaries also gave Charles a very deep understanding of the current social and cultural environment.
At least, he felt that if he read these damned diaries a few more times, he would be assimilated by past Charles' peculiar cadence.
He particularly noticed that if he immersed himself deeply in reading, vague impressions of people and objects would appear in his mind, as if they were the original past Charles' memories.
This made Charles struggle internally, wanting to gain some advantageous memories from past Charles, but also fearing that by gaining these memories, his own original memories would be assimilated, and he would completely become past Charles.
Looking at past Charles' performance in Paris, France, it was clear he was a very intelligent but pleasure-seeking and extremely debauched young nobleman.
His talent simply couldn't compare to Charles, a modern person with a doctoral education.
What past Charles had more of was merely his understanding of this society, his understanding of the people around him, and his understanding of things done in the past.
Finally, Charles suppressed the temptation and forcefully closed the diary.
No matter what, he couldn't believe that without past Charles' memories, he, a person who had received a complete higher education in the twenty-first century, would be unable to adapt to this still very barbaric and backward society.
Even if he couldn't create many advanced things or fully grasp many advanced concepts, he at least knew which direction of development was correct.
At the very least, he would save a lot of time that would otherwise be wasted, which would be enough for him to survive in this society and even firmly suppress his adversaries.
Those memories, he could do without.
Fortunately, the diaries also contained some fragmented but very useful occasional mentions of scientific and academic content.
Although many were just a few words or sentences, they allowed Charles to know what already existed, and that he could buy or hire people to create them if he had money, without a technological gap.
The few academic figures occasionally mentioned made Charles sigh with emotion; the 18th century was indeed an era when great men frequently appeared.
"...Poor Professor Lagrange, my friend, his mathematics lectures are very good, but I prefer his philosophy.
But after our exchange today, he finally has to leave.
I heard that the Turin royal Artillery Academy, where he is currently employed, doesn't care about the reward he received from France, while the Berliners have already extended an olive branch to him.
I truly hope he doesn't go to that rigid country.
Although our French friends also know that he solved the mathematical problem for which the Academy offered a prize, they did not retain him to work in France."
Charles hadn't expected past Charles to know Lagrange, who was one of the greatest mathematicians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and a symbol of 18th-century science, once called by Napoleon "the towering pyramid in mathematical science."
Charles remembered that he became a professor in his teens, truly a genius.
Unfortunately, Europe was too far from here; otherwise, Charles would even want to personally go and invite him to work for him.
"...Today, Academician Lavoisier explained the principle of gunpowder's action...
Not long ago, Mr. Priestley introduced his experiment to Academician Lavoisier: when mercury oxide is heated, dephlogisticated air can be obtained, which makes candles burn brighter and helps with breathing.
Academician Lavoisier repeated Mr. Priestley's experiment and obtained the same results.
However, Academician Lavoisier did not believe in the phlogiston theory, so he believed this gas was an element, which was very helpful for understanding the application of gunpowder..."
Lavoisier was also present; this chemist is considered the founder of modern chemistry.
Presumably, the element mentioned in past Charles' notes should be oxygen.
One of Lavoisier's famous achievements was identifying and naming oxygen.
If he could get this chemist to join, Charles firmly believed he could at least double the combat effectiveness of the current army.
The last notebook was past Charles' study notes, which greatly annoyed Charles because they were written in French.
The few mathematical formulas inside were very simple and easy to understand, but as for the French, Charles looked at it three times with a French dictionary and could only understand two-thirds of it.
In his original world, Charles majored in tourism management and had studied some French.
However, at that time, it was a second foreign language, an elective course, with only one textbook and a total of just over a hundred hours of classes.
If he hadn't later crammed for a while out of work necessity when receiving tour groups in the United States, he might not have even understood a third of it.
Adding to that, there were still differences in ancient and modern grammar; even his relatively standard British english was considered very Americanized by the butler, which greatly annoyed him.
He estimated that his current French level was only enough to chat about the weather and praise food, and to study those professional artillery courses, he would need to study for a few more years.
The rolling sound of carriage wheels echoed clearly on the country road outside Fort Pittsburgh. A vigilant guard at the fort's gate immediately strained his eyes to look in the direction of the sound.
Under the afterglow of the setting sun, a luxurious four-wheeled carriage, adorned with a noble crest, was rapidly approaching the fort.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Godfrey!" The guard eagerly helped Charles lift the wooden barrier. "If you were a few minutes later, we would have closed the gates."
"It seems I'm not too late," Charles said with a smile, touching the brim of his hat in thanks.
Jonathan, the butler, sitting opposite him, reluctantly pulled out a coin and tossed it to the guard as a tip. If Charles hadn't responded, he could have feigned ignorance, but once he replied to the guard and returned the courtesy, it meant he was very satisfied with the service, and Jonathan naturally had to offer a small tip as a gesture.
Ignoring the loudly thanking guard, the carriage continued forward.
At this time, Pittsburgh had only a little over a hundred residents. It wasn't a city, nor even a small town, but merely an ordinary Colony. It developed on the foundations of the original French army's stone fortress, serving as both a town and a fort.
The main gate of the fort was constructed from roughly processed thick logs, heavy but sturdy. Critical sections of the city walls were stacked with small stones over two meters high, with a few simple log platforms behind them for defenders to stand on when shooting, while less important sections relied only on moats and sharpened wooden stakes for defense.
The British army had long since vanished from Pittsburgh, but the neighboring Ohio area was largely controlled by the British and did not belong to the Thirteen Colonies of North America. They had no regular armed forces, but were friendly with the natives and had always been in conflict with the people of the Thirteen Colonies.
Of course, the real dangers to Pittsburgh were the wild beasts in the forest and the nearby native tribes. Just a few miles from Pittsburgh, fierce wild beasts were rampant, and dozens of miles away were native tribes. The wild beasts, needless to say, could not be cleared out within a few years by the mere hundred-plus people in the fort.
The natives, on the other hand, had always been targets of slaughter for the Colonists, and both sides harbored an irreconcilable hatred. Whenever one side grew stronger, it would attack the other. Previously, the colonists, being numerous, continuously drove the natives westward, but now, with many men from Pittsburgh having joined the Continental army, their strength was more than halved, and they no longer held an advantage over the natives.
For safety, everyone in the fort had to return to Pittsburgh before sunset. Once the fort gates closed, they would generally not be opened until dawn, unless for a very important reason.
After reviewing the documents in the study that morning, Charles had learned that white indentured servants were mostly for sale at the Pittsburgh trading center. To scout for talent, and combined with his existing plan to hold a council meeting in Pittsburgh, he still took the fast carriage to Pittsburgh that afternoon.
When Charles arrived at his place in the trading center, a large crowd was already waiting at the entrance. The leading middle-aged white man immediately stepped forward as the carriage stopped, opened the door, and doffed his hat to Charles.
"Welcome, sir!"
"Hello, Mr. Greenspan!" Charles returned the bow.
Is this my family's coachman? Charles looked at the refined middle-aged white man before him with a puzzled heart.
Aside from not possessing Jonathan's butler-like demeanor, Greenspan was clearly a servant from an old family with excellent upbringing. His naturally white hair, without a wig, and slightly dry sideburns, curled just like his own.
When he looked up, a pair of deep eyes were revealed. A dark brown butler's uniform was draped over his slender frame, and combined with his spirited demeanor, he didn't look like a coachman in the slightest.
When Charles first heard Jonathan say that the old lord had actually assigned a former coachman to manage all affairs here in Pittsburgh, he almost thought his ears were malfunctioning. But now, having met Greenspan in person, although he hadn't yet assessed his specific abilities, just from his words, actions, and appearance, he seemed not to be that kind of reckless, pure coachman.
Perhaps the old lord was poor at utilizing people, and had put a capable talent into the highly valued tasks of horse breeding and driving, which nobles considered very important.
He had already made up his mind: if this Greenspan truly had talent, then he would make good use of him.
He then glanced at the people standing behind Greenspan. Besides two seemingly thuggish black men, there were also three white people. To be precise, there was a middle-aged white woman, a young white man, and a slightly darker-skinned mixed-race woman. These were likely Greenspan's newly married widowed wife and her two children. Upon seeing Charles, they all bowed their heads in greeting.
"Good evening, sir!"
"Good evening!" Charles nodded.
His gaze involuntarily shifted to the mixed-race girl who had called him "sir Master."
Charles had already noticed the differences in how people addressed him. For example, ordinary colonists generally called him "Mister" or "Your Excellency," while the butler and free people in his household usually called him "sir," sometimes also "Your Excellency." However, slaves almost exclusively called him "Master" or "sir Master."
This girl called him "sir Master," and her wheat-colored skin exposed by her clothes, the fleeting glimpse of her blue eyes, and her slightly curly brown hair clearly indicated she was mixed-race. Recalling what Jonathan had mentioned yesterday, Charles immediately realized that this was the mixed-race child Greenspan had with a black female slave when he was an indentured servant. She should still be his female slave now.
Seeing the curvaceous, vibrant body of the young girl, and hearing her clear greeting, Charles couldn't help but ask further:
"What's your name?"
"Ah?" The girl looked up in surprise.
It was a very soft and round girlish face, with sparkling large eyes, a high and delicate nose, and slightly pouting small lips. Coupled with her still slightly sweaty youthful face, Charles almost drooled at the sight.
This is my beautiful female slave! A female slave, a female slave, this is a real female slave, so maybe I can...No, get your head out of the gutter Charles.
"Ahem!" Jonathan coughed heavily from behind, drawing everyone's attention. "The sir, due to... grief over the old lord's passing, has a bit of amnesia and has forgotten Charlotte's name."
"Oh!" The mixed-race girl let out a soft cry and turned her gaze from Jonathan back to Charles. "Sir Master, my name is Charlotte Greenspan."
Slaves were not supposed to take their father's surname, but Charlotte's status was special, and the old lord had agreed to let her use Greenspan's surname.
"Oh! Charlotte, a wonderful name, I like it," Charles nodded like a gentleman.
After Jonathan's interruption, he had already returned to his normal demeanor.
He was not a man who hadn't seen beautiful women. Just now, he had simply seen a female slave, something impossible in modern society, and couldn't help but have some lewd thoughts. But that was just a fleeting thought.
Charles was very realistic; if conditions were sufficient, and the circumstances different, he would be very happy to enjoy the services of a beautiful woman. However, at a time like this, when he was in danger and his future was uncertain, he absolutely shouldn't be preoccupied with such matters.
"Sir! Dinner is ready, would you like to eat first?" Greenspan spoke up to Charles.
He kept his head down, not daring to let others see his struggling, pained expression.
Although Charles had put away his lecherous gaze, he was still a bit worried that Charles might make a move on his daughter. Since Charlotte had grown up by his side, their father-daughter bond was very deep.
Regarding his daughter's future, Greenspan was very hesitant, both hoping she could foster a good relationship with Charles, her young master, to gain her freedom sooner, and fearing that Charles might take advantage of Charlotte and then abandon her, turning her into his temporary mistress.
But in reality, Charlotte was still Charles' female slave, and her fate could not possibly be controlled by him, her father. Whenever he thought about this issue, he couldn't help but regret why he had been so unable to control his lower half and had a child with a black female slave.
"Yes, good! Oh, Mr. Greenspan, could you send someone to invite all the respectable figures of Pittsburgh to gather here after dinner? I'd like to invite them for drinks." Charles walked inside, speaking with Greenspan.
He didn't mind Greenspan interrupting his appreciation of beauty at all, because he had already decided that he would only consider other matters once his own life and well-being were completely secured.