Chapter 410: A Potent Export
Joseph immediately frowned. Although he hadn't seen clearly what had happened, Alexandra had been walking perfectly fine, not veering towards the "extras." Why would she step on that person's foot?
It could only be that the other person had deliberately extended their foot.
He frowned and shook his head, ignoring the provocative noble young lady.
"Your Highness..."
Seeing that the Crown Prince had no intention of reprimanding the little Russian girl, and knowing they couldn't possibly argue with a seven or eight-year-old child—it would likely be an exercise in futility—the noble young ladies huffily rose. They helped Terese and started walking out of the theater, murmuring quietly:
"There's no way we can perform on the same stage with such a vulgar girl!"
"Let's help Terese back to her room to rest."
"I'm going to tell everyone about her uncouth behavior..."
Alexandra watched them make a show of leaving, knowing they intended to ostracize her.
"Esteemed ladies, are you throwing a tantrum because you wished to attract the Crown Prince's attention but failed to do so?"
If an adult had said this, it would have sounded sarcastic, but coming from a child, it carried an air of innocence and sincerity.
"You! You're talking nonsense!" one noble young lady immediately denied, agitated.
"Oh? So you don't want the Crown Prince to notice you?"
"No, no..." The noblewomen's faces flushed purple as they hastily turned and fled the theater.
Joseph, watching the scene unfold, nearly burst out laughing. He thought to himself, 'This little girl is quite interesting, isn't she? She definitely doesn't back down when she's in the right. Are all Russian women so sharp-tongued?'
'Hmm, it really seems so. Russia was quite prosperous when Elizabeth and Catherine were Empresses, but it went to chaos when Peter III and Paul I were in power.'
Seeing the women leave, Alexandra couldn't help but sigh. She turned back, curtsied to Joseph, and apologized:
"Your Highness, I apologize. I shouldn't have argued with them and disrupted your rehearsal."
"It's not your fault," Joseph waved his hand. "You performed admirably, and you were very brave. I'll figure out what to do about the missing actors."
In truth, he didn't have to do anything at all. The line of people eager to perform alongside the Crown Prince stretched long, and the rehearsal resumed half an hour later.
...
Northern suburbs of Paris.
Antoine Industrial Development Zone.
Indeed, relying on the booming paper-making industry, Antoine's workshops and artisans had grown in number. So, Joseph simply designated this area as a new development zone.
In a factory covering over ten thousand square meters on the southwest side of Antoine, Lavoisier gazed at the mechanical kiln spewing white smoke before him. He firmly embraced his wife's shoulders, who stood beside him, and exclaimed from the heart:
"My dear, how did you manage to create this in just a month? You truly are... a favored child of the god of chemical experimentation!"
Marie-Anne smiled faintly:
"Actually, I just drew up the specifications, had someone draft the blueprints, and then handed them over to the ironworks in Saint-Étienne. They completed the manufacturing in just over twenty days; much of the time was spent on testing and transport. Their equipment and management are far superior to what they used to be."
"I originally thought I'd have to help out to get this work done," Lavoisier said, looking at his wife with affection. "I never imagined you'd handle it all yourself."
As he spoke, he looked towards the massive equipment inside the workshop—rotary furnaces, centrifuges, evaporators, reaction vessels, and the most complex piece of all, the gas scrubber.
Marie-Anne had essentially overseen the construction and testing of all these. Before she married him, she hadn't even known what chemistry was.
She was undoubtedly a genius in the field of chemical experimentation. And, of course, it couldn't have happened without his excellent guidance.
After receiving the Royal Soda Process, invented by the Crown Prince, Lavoisier completed the laboratory preparation in less than a week. As long as the principles were correct, it presented no difficulty given his experience.
The real challenge, however, lay in mass production.
In the chemical industry, the preparation process changes entirely once the quantity of reactants increases. For instance, in a test tube, a simple shake is enough to mix the reacting substances evenly, but when that quantity becomes one metric ton, merely mixing them can drive one mad.
Ensuring such a large volume of materials reacts completely, how to purify them, and how to preserve them, all pose significant problems. If even one step in the process isn't perfected, mass production becomes impossible.
This was especially true for soda ash production. Consider that, according to the Crown Prince's requirements, the daily output of soda ash was 1.66 metric tons, meaning the raw materials mixed would be several times that weight.
The core of this reaction was the recycling of ammonia gas, which placed extremely stringent demands on equipment sealing and gas collection.
The scrubbing of ammonia gas was particularly challenging. Ammonia isn't just toxic; it's corrosive and flammable, making large-scale scrubbing incredibly troublesome, and it nearly drove the Lavoisier couple mad at the time.
Ultimately, it was the Crown Prince who proposed a general outline—Joseph only remembered seeing gas scrubbers mentioned in documentaries, along with their basic principles, but he couldn't recall the specific details—and then Marie-Anne worked day and night for three and a half months, and astonishingly, she truly managed to design it!
It could be said that as long as the gas scrubber alone was kept secret, even if the entire soda ash production technical manual were given to other countries, they wouldn't be able to replicate it.
Lavoisier looked at the complete set of soda ash production equipment before him and turned to his wife, asking, "My dear, how are the trial production results?"
"The raw material utilization rate is still a bit low. The Crown Prince said it could reach around 70%, but I've only managed 50%," Marie-Anne said, her eyes lighting up with excitement. "However, the trial run the day before yesterday produced 700 kilograms of soda ash in just six hours. And the purity is exceptionally high."
Though Lavoisier had mentally prepared himself, he still inwardly gasped at the figures. Currently, the market price for soda ash was approximately 33 livres per 100 kilograms.
This meant that the casual startup of the equipment the day before yesterday had already generated over 230 livres.
Moreover, soda ash had always been a product with demand but little supply; buying a few dozen kilograms was easy, but exceeding 100 kilograms would require a long wait.
"We won't have to ration soap anymore, my dear," Marie-Anne said with a smile, before he could utter a word.
Among the raw materials for soap production, fats and Soda Ash were the most expensive. With the ability to mass-produce Soda Ash, France could even monopolize the global soap industry.
Though this product seemed insignificant, if the worldwide market were combined, it would exceed ten million livres!
Lavoisier nodded vigorously. "And glass, paper, and dyes—all of them will become much cheaper from now on."
For France, this meant a significant reduction in production costs for these industries, transforming them into powerful export assets.
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