Life of Being a Crown Prince in France-Chapter 955 - 863 Rest Day

The wind blew the drifting snowflakes askew.

The world seemed to be sprinkled with a layer of sparkling crushed diamonds.

The marble square was covered in snow deeper than the boots, reflecting the glow of the gas lamps, like everything was smeared with smooth, sweet cream, while the ice crystals on the eaves resembled decorative frosting.

Joseph picked up a snowball and dashed to the frozen fountain, turned, and threw it behind him.

A dozen trusted aides and maids, wrapped in thick cloaks and pure white cashmere scarves, gathered around giggling, like a large group of bouncing "Snow Treasures."

The snowball in Joseph’s hand had just landed on Kesode’s back when a burst of silver flakes erupted on his own shoulder.

Seeing this, the maids immediately chirped as they surrounded the Guard Captain to avenge the Crown Prince with a flurry of snowballs...

After the Iberian-Apennine summit ended, Joseph finally had a rare moment of leisure. Having just returned from winter fishing at Blue Lake, he coincidentally encountered heavy snow and whimsically decided to play in it.

After running around for quite a while, Joseph was rubbing his frozen hands and blew on them when Camellia quickly ran over, took off her gloves, held his hand to warm it against her chest, and smiled, "Your Highness, I made pine nut pumpkin soup, it’s almost ready. Drinking it will warm you up quickly."

Not far away, Veronique saw the Crown Prince chatting and laughing with the maid, and suddenly felt envious, squinted her eyes, pretended to dodge a snowball, and ran sideways toward them.

She estimated the distance was about right, then suddenly her foot gave way, and she exclaimed, "Oh," as she fell towards the Crown Prince.

Joseph caught sight of someone "crashing" towards him in the corner of his eye, instinctively wrapped his arm around Camellia’s slender waist and pulled her back to dodge.

Veronique thought she’d be caught by the Crown Prince, but it was too late to stop now, and she was practically falling horizontally towards the ground.

"Ah—"

Amid her scream, a white figure suddenly flashed by her side, reaching out to catch her just as she was about to hit the ground no more than 30 centimeters away.

Veronique was still recovering from the shock when she looked up and saw the face of trusted aide Raymond.

Just as he was about to ask if she was hurt, he suddenly felt that what he held in his hands was two large bundles of soft sensations, causing his heart to race wildly.

Veronique noticed Raymond blushing, realized something was amiss, and immediately felt a mix of embarrassment and anger. She grabbed his shoulder trying to stand up but didn’t expect to pull too hard, causing the guard to bend down, his face just brushing her lips.

Laughter from the maids echoed around them.

Veronique finally struggled to stand firmly, not bothering to brush off the snow on her clothes, and hurriedly fled towards the main gate of the Palace of Versailles.

Raymond touched the spot on his face where he had been "kissed," gazing at her back and finding his heart was beating even faster, murmuring to himself, "Is she, is she confessing her love to me..."

Joseph was completely unaware of what had just happened, sipping pine nut pumpkin soup as Eman spoke beside him, "Your Highness, according to the schedule, you are meeting with Archbishop Brienne and the others in 15 minutes."

"Alright, I understand." Joseph sighed, handing the unfinished soup to Camellia, "Ah, even on a day off I have to ’work overtime’..."

He had just returned to his reception room when he saw Court Food Director François Bena, and then Eman came over and bowed, "Your Highness, Mr. Bena asks if your main course for dinner should be roasted peacock or red wine braised venison?"

Joseph rubbed his forehead and shook his head, "Does he want to wipe out all the animals in the Versailles Palace zoo?

"Please tell him not to make those expensive and not-so-tasty things anymore. Stew ordinary venison will do."

He still remembered the peacock meat from the last banquet — it was dry and tough, not as tasty as roasted pigeon, but for the royal family’s status, the Imperial Chef frequently made such things.

The Court Food Director shrunk his head and left as Brienne, Mirabeau, and Venio brushed past him and entered.

The three approached and saluted, "Crown Prince."

Joseph smiled and nodded, then gestured towards the sofa, "Please have a seat."

Brienne and the others were already very familiar with the Crown Prince’s style and got straight to the point, laying a document on the table in front of him, "Your Highness, this is this year’s estimated financial report, and the government expenditure plan for next year you requested."

Joseph nodded, picked up the document and flipped it open, secretly nodding. Thanks to Brienne’s continuous improvements at his direction, the efficiency of France’s financial system had become increasingly higher.

Previously, it took until March or April of the following year to calculate last year’s financial situation, but now most reports can be submitted before February.

This year, a large-scale war broke out, so he particularly requested early financial statistics. As a result, it’s only early December and Brienne has already completed the task.

Of course, this did not include the data for November and December. Joseph mainly wanted to see the impact of the war on the country’s economy.

Brienne peered at the spot where the Crown Prince was flipping to and explained beside him:

"Your Highness, excluding the last two months, the total fiscal revenue last year was 6.4 billion francs. If there are no surprises, the annual income will reach 7.7 billion francs."

Joseph was still relatively satisfied with this number.

Last year’s total revenue was 7.6 billion, and this year, even though it appears there is almost no increase, but it’s important to know that this is an achievement under the eruption of a national war.

According to data submitted by the Intelligence Bureau, this year’s Austrian fiscal income will decrease by about 11%, while Prussia and other participating German states even drop by more than 17%!

Even England, in its prime, has fiscal revenue 4% lower than last year.

Joseph knew this was the result of England beginning to increase personal income tax, otherwise, just this year’s subsidy on cane sugar would have caused their revenue reduction to reach the Austrian level.

France’s ability to maintain income growth is greatly due to the high profits from sugar beet production, offsetting the enormous military expenditure.

Of course, another important factor is that the proportion of the army France engaged in war compared to national power is much smaller than those of Austria and Prussia.

France only deployed its standing army, while Austria initiated a total mobilization, consuming a large amount of social labor force in the war, inevitably impacting domestic production.

Moreover, this impact is not very pronounced this year because many factories still have reserves and can tough it out.

By next year, Austria will experience greater decline.

As for Prussia, it has been consistently in a state of national mobilization, maintaining a standing army of nearly 200,000 with a mere 8 million plus population, with military expenses accounting for more than half of the fiscal revenue.

Therefore, once Prussia goes to war, it must achieve gains from it, otherwise, the national economy will immediately face problems.