Joseph frowned immediately. Although he hadn't seen exactly what happened, he noticed that Alexandra had been walking straight and hadn't veered towards the "extras." How could she have stepped on that woman's foot? The only explanation was that the other girl had stuck her foot out herself.

Shaking his head in disapproval, he ignored the noble lady who had tried to stir up trouble.

"Your Highness…"

Seeing that the Prince wasn't going to reprimand the little Russian girl, the other noble ladies, realizing they couldn't argue with a seven or eight-year-old—and likely wouldn't win even if they did—stood up in a huff. They helped Triss out of the theater, muttering under their breath:

"We can't share the stage with such a rude girl!"

"We'll help Triss back to her room to rest."

"I'll make sure everyone hears about her rough behavior…"

Alexandra, seeing that the women were trying to isolate her, blinked and quickly caught up with them:

"Dear ladies, are you upset because you wanted to attract the Prince's attention but didn't succeed?"

Had an adult said this, it would have sounded sarcastic, but coming from a child, it seemed innocent and sincere.

"You! You're lying!" One noblewoman immediately denied it, flustered.

"Oh? So you didn't want the Prince to notice you?"

"No, that's not it…" The noblewomen's faces turned a deep shade of purple, and they quickly turned and fled from the theater.

Joseph, watching the scene unfold, nearly burst out laughing. This little girl was quite interesting—unyielding and sharp-tongued. Was this how all Russian women were? It seemed so; after all, Russia was powerful under Elizabeth and Catherine, while under Peter III and Paul I, it was a mess.

As the other women left, Alexandra sighed and turned back to Joseph, bowing apologetically:

"Your Highness, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have argued with them and disrupted your rehearsal."

"It's not your fault," Joseph waved it off. "You acted well and bravely. I'll find a way to replace the missing actresses."

In reality, he didn't need to do much; there was a long line of people eager to perform with the Prince. Within half an hour, the rehearsal resumed.

…

Northern Suburbs of Paris.

Antoine Industrial Development Zone.

Thanks to the booming paper industry, more workshops and craftsmen were setting up in Antoine. Joseph had decided to designate the area as a new development zone.

In a factory covering over 10,000 square meters on the southwestern side of Antoine, Lavoisier watched the mechanical oven spewing white smoke, pulling his wife close as he marveled:

"My dear, how did you manage to create this in just a month? You are truly blessed by the god of chemical experiments!"

Marianne smiled:

"Actually, I just set the specifications, had the designs drawn up, and then handed them over to the Saint-Étienne Ironworks. They finished the manufacturing in just over 20 days. Most of the time was spent on testing and transportation. Their equipment and management are far better than before."

"I thought I'd have to help out to get everything done here." Lavoisier looked at his wife lovingly. "But you handled it all by yourself."

He glanced around the workshop at the enormous equipment—the rotary kiln, centrifuge, evaporator, reactor, and the most complex of all, the gas scrubber.

Marianne had overseen the construction and testing of all these machines. Before marrying him, she hadn't even known what chemistry was. She was undoubtedly a genius in the field of chemical experiments. Of course, it didn't hurt that she had an excellent teacher.

After receiving the Royal Soda Production Method from the Prince, Lavoisier took less than a week to complete the lab setup—once the principle was understood, it was easy for someone of his experience.

The challenge was scaling up to mass production.

In chemical industries, scaling up can change the process completely. For example, in a test tube, you can mix reactants evenly with a simple shake, but when the quantity increases to a ton, mixing alone can drive you mad.

Ensuring that large amounts of material react fully, purifying the products, and preserving them are all major challenges. If any part of the process is inadequate, mass production becomes impossible.

Soda production was particularly tricky. According to the Prince's requirements, daily soda production needed to reach 1.66 tons, meaning the raw materials would weigh several times that amount.

The core of the process involved recycling ammonia, which demanded extremely tight sealing and efficient gas collection.

The most challenging part was washing the ammonia gas. Ammonia is not only toxic but also corrosive and flammable. Cleaning large quantities of it was so difficult that it nearly drove the Lavoisiers crazy.

In the end, the Prince suggested a general solution—Joseph vaguely remembered a documentary mentioning gas scrubbers and their basic principles, though he didn't recall the details. Marianne then worked day and night for three and a half months and actually designed the scrubber!

As long as they kept the gas scrubber a secret, even if they gave other countries the soda production manual, no one would be able to replicate it.

Looking at the complete soda production setup, Lavoisier turned to his wife and asked, "How did the trial run go, my dear?"

"The efficiency is still a bit low," Marianne admitted. "The Prince said we should aim for about 70%, but I'm only at 50% so far." Then she smiled excitedly, "But in the trial run two days ago, we produced 700 kilograms of soda in just six hours. And it was very pure."

Although Lavoisier had been prepared for impressive results, hearing this number still made him gasp—soda currently sold for about 33 livres per 100 kilograms.

In other words, just a brief run of the equipment had earned them over 230 livres.

And soda was always in demand. Buying a few dozen kilograms was easy, but if you needed more than 100 kilograms, you'd have to wait a long time.

Before he could respond, Marianne smiled and said, "My dear, we'll never have to skimp on soap again."

Soap's most expensive ingredients were fats and soda. With the ability to produce soda on a large scale, France could even dominate the global soap market.

Soap might seem insignificant, but the global market for it would be worth over 10 million livres!

Lavoisier nodded enthusiastically, "And glass, paper, dyes—all of these will become much cheaper."

For France, this meant that the costs of these industries would drop significantly, turning them into powerful export tools.

(End of Chapter)

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