I Reincarnated as Louis XVI to Stop the Revolution and Be Happy with Antoinette

Enriching Meals

(149)

"Industrial"

☆　☆　☆

October 6, 1772

Good morning, everyone.

I'm Louis XVI, and I write letters to the Paris newspapers almost every day. The day before yesterday, it was the Paris Industrial Gazette, yesterday it was the Champs-Elysées Weekly Newspaper, and today I'm sending an article to the Paris University Science Column. Writing column articles is quite enjoyable, I must say.

It has become a daily routine for me, and it seems that there are quite a few readers who appreciate it. The newspaper even thanked me, saying, "Your Majesty, please continue to write your columns as everyone is reading them!" So, I continue to send my thoughts, which take about an hour, after reading the newspaper. If this encourages more people to learn to read and write, it's a wonderful thing.

Lately, many articles in the newspapers are about new things like steam engines. France is finally making significant progress towards modernization, as expected. The Bourbon reforms aimed to start testing steam engines within three years, and it seems we are on track to achieve that.

First, they conducted a trial run of Watt-style steam engines that were prototyped for coal mining in France. The results of the trial run showed that it could move a large amount of drainage in a short time, making it easier to transport heavy materials like coal, which had previously been a labor-intensive task.

According to the report, there were often places where they encountered water veins while breaking down the rock in the coal mines... They managed to successfully use the drainage function in such places to pump water out. While a bucket relay with manpower might have been faster, this method reduced a task that took an hour to about 15 minutes. After discussions between coal mine operators and government officials, it was decided that three such steam engines would be put into operation in French coal mines by the end of the year.

But that's not all; they also decided to construct large factories near Paris that would utilize steam engines. It will likely be the first factory zone in the world built using steam engine technology. When asked what they plan to produce, the answer is glass bottles. The raw material for these bottles is glass, and the production of glass requires industrial components like boilers. In essence, until the construction of the second factory begins, it will primarily serve as a glass factory. This factory is intended to produce bottles, which are considered the next best option after canned goods for storing food and preparing for the potential cooling of the Northern Hemisphere due to the eruption of Mount Laki in the future.

While bottles have the disadvantage of being fragile, they can be disinfected and reused with alcohol and can be produced using current technology. Canned goods have the advantage of being durable and resistant to shock, but once opened, they need to be consumed immediately... The advantage of producing with bottles lies in the fact that it is feasible with existing technology.

To compensate for the fragility of glass bottles, it was decided to enclose them in boxes filled with cotton before transportation. Additionally, next to the glass bottle factory, there are plans to construct a food processing factory that will produce items such as strawberry jam and pickled herring olives, which are still made as preserved foods in this era. There will be two of these factories... and to improve efficiency, they will be equipped with devices like pulleys to enable assembly line production. Scientists are currently working on adapting steam engines and hydraulic energy to power these machines.

The roots of mass production in the modern era are often attributed not to Ford Motor Company, but to a food company manufacturing tomato ketchup in the late 19th century. The products produced by this company were said to be not only extremely safe and hygienic compared to other foods on the market but also highly nutritious, as mentioned in a television program.