I Am Louis XIV

   Chapter 213 Henrietta's Persuasion and the Decision of Charles II (6)

Moliere's Brilliant Troupe could not find any flaws, and they were finally released. After all, they accepted the invitation and employment of Charles II. They rented it on a street near Whitehall Palace. A large house, and these brightly dressed, ruddy Frenchmen stand out like a splendid flower in the grey soil—though Charles II outlawed all the decrees of Oliver Cromwell , Britons can now hold banquets, dance, sing, watch plays, but Protestant Londoners are still habitually dressed in dark clothes. Once Molière and his little love walk down the street, they will be frequently followed.

Molière is no longer a young man. He was 22 years old and he is forty-eight years old this year, but he still looks like he is wearing a black wig, wearing apricot velvet clothes, and rubbing white powder and rouge on his face. Excited and full of energy, he and his troupe were fortunate enough to enter Whitehall Palace the next day to perform a new play of his - "Don Juan" for the king. Of course, Don Juan here is not referring to the current regent of Spain. , but based on a Spanish legend "The Playboy of Cervera", this play greatly mocked the church and the nobility, so when it premiered in Paris, it attracted a lot of complaints, but Molière was disappointed. As a patron, Duchess Ponceier doesn't even look at a provincial governor or count, and naturally he doesn't care about gossip - in London, the mood of Protestants is much more complicated. Although they had always thought that Rome was a filthy quagmire, they still felt a little uneasy when someone put it naked in front of them.

   In the entire hall, only Charles II laughed unscrupulously. He really liked the show so much that he even allowed an actor, Molière, the owner of the Guangyao troupe, to speak to him.

As soon as he entered the cozy and private little hall, Molière bowed deeply to Charles II, and quickly took off the necklace around his neck - he had just played Don Juan, and now the costume is still Wear it well, and Don Juan is a frivolous nobleman, so his dress and accessories even surpass those of the ladies, and the gold necklace that Moliere hangs around his neck is not only large and heavy, but also inlaid. Wearing a palm-sized ruby, "This is what our Majesty ordered me to bring to you."

Henrietta had returned to Paris a week ago, and this was Louis' answer to Charles II. Charles II raised the necklace suspiciously, only to find that it was not as people thought, it was faked with stained glass and gold-plated iron chains. The fakes, but real gold and precious stones, "and the diamond ornaments on the three beautiful ladies." Molière said: "The total is about half a million livres, and our Majesty hopes that they will be able to Take your worries away a little."

Charles II almost believed the absurd rumor that Leopold I's messenger foolishly regarded a troupe as the sultan of Bosnia, and now this man was in front of him, and he actually So bold, to put half a million livres worth of jewelry on himself and the actor so struttingly, and enter the palace in front of everyone's eyes - but there is no doubt that this is the best, Charlie The second is saying that bills and checks are of course more secretive, but the problem is that although these things appeared very early, in the seventeenth century, the Dutch people used these means the most. They used them to solve the problem of merchants in different regions using different currencies. The largest and most liquid financial market system was also born in the Netherlands. Although the use of bills is secret, a little carelessness will be regarded as evidence of his treason and pro-France.

As for the gold and silver worth half a million livres, it is even more impossible, and it is almost impossible for him to meet the French envoy alone, so that a neglected and despised actor can take it easy. The return from the king of France was freely handed over to Charles II - who also had trusted hands here who could quickly dismantle and sell these beautiful jewels - although Louis had promised that as long as England was in France When the war with Holland broke out, he had control of the Dutch navy, and he would send fifteen thousand soldiers from Dunkirk to remove the noose around Charles II's neck, but Charles II would not take all the The chips were placed on the king of France, even without Henrietta's reminder.

   This tangible bribe would be used by Charles II where it was most needed.

The deal between Charles II and Molière is unknown, although there are also wizards to credit, it can be said that Charles II's ministers and councils also contempt their king, but there are monsters like Louis XIV. , Charles II's heart has long been twisted to a terrible point, he admits that he is cowardly, but he will also madly gamble.

  ———

Louis XIV's army in Flanders spent a whole winter and a spring day in Flanders, and during these long months they were not idle, although Duke Philip, Condé The Prince and the King returned to Paris together, but the Viscount Turenne and the Duke of Luxembourg were asked to stay in Flanders—the supply of tens of thousands of people had been transferred from France to the people of Flanders, which was of course an extremely heavy burden , so there were several more unrest in Flanders, but for the soldiers who had gone through the war, these sporadic, chaotic revolts only made their blades brighter and sharper.

In addition to the army's supplies, the Flemish people were forced to build a new road, which, like a tragic wound, went directly from Brussels through most of Flanders to the Guise in Picardy , so that the French army was able to drive straight into Flanders, and so was the fact that Louis XIV's glorious motorcade was once again on this road before the wind could get hot.

On this new road, there is not only the king's motorcade, but also 30,000 soldiers. The merchants who accompanied the army followed in a mighty manner. This time it was different from the king's first expedition. The ministers, officials and lords could be said to be They went on and on, eager to offer large sums of money, and begged the king to laugh at them, and with little effort, the recruiting officials collected the number requested by the king, and when they left Paris, many young men came from the provinces— As the saying goes, the prosperity of the world is for the benefit of the future. Although Louis XIV did establish a solid throne through the war against Flanders, these people were for the benefits brought by the war.

I won’t say how many livres the king got in Flanders. In the era of no law of war, soldiers’ looting was allowed, even if most of the soldiers stayed in Flanders, but those The wounded soldiers still returned to Vers and Paris ahead of schedule. I won’t say how rich Flanders is—just think about it, in the past 100 years or so, the Spanish royal family’s total income accounted for one-third All from Flanders, know what a land flowing with milk and honey, a few lucky trophies can make a family jump a class in an instant—that is, they can manage to buy a job, Whether in the church or in the official mansion, it was transformed from a commoner family into a bureaucratic family.

   How can such huge profits not make people excited? Moreover, the ministers and nobles looked further. At the end of the seventeenth century, Flanders not only became the woolen workshop of the entire Europa, but also gradually replaced the French champagne market based on woolen wool. A huge center of commerce and logistics, in Flanders, with gold, silk, spices and wine, and anything you can imagine and imagine, plus their merchants when Spain was getting weaker He also relied on his own means to slowly grow this region, instead of continuing to allow Spain to **** blood. It can be said that if Louis XIV hadn't intervened, maybe a few decades later, the stronger Flanders would also. Following the example of the Netherlands, it may be possible to declare independence.

But now Flanders is nothing but Louis's bag, the unformed military system is vulnerable to artillery, and a fat prey will only make the hunter happier, not depressed, Parisians , or any French with a keen sense of smell, will expect to take a hard bite from this cake - the money and manpower they donate will soon be thrown into the new military torrent by Louis, with an army of nearly 100,000 , like an arrow pointing straight to Holland.

  ———

William III, a young man who is burdened with the expectations of his family and country, is only twenty years old this year. He sits silently in the city hall of Amsterdam, listening to people's disputes - even when the enemy is present, the senior officials of the provinces, officials They - from the youngest clerk to the prime minister, still have their own minds, the Dutch have only been independent from the Spanish Habsburgs for sixty years, and certainly do not want to return to the rule of a king - William III It is for this reason that the Netherlands has been embarrassed and suspicious. After all, the Netherlands has been strong enough to compete with the United Kingdom for maritime hegemony in just a few decades. , the Dutch army is simply a pitiful wretch - in Maurice of Nassau, that is, William Orange, after William I's younger brother built an army of about 20,000 people in order to resist the Spanish rule, the Dutch army The blade on land was sharp for a while, but with the retreat of the Spaniards, of course, the merchants needed more ships to open up and fight for them, rather than cavalry. No more, no less, or ironically 20,000 people.

The key point is that the war 70 years later is completely different from the war 70 years ago. Compared with the Dutch army with spearmen, the French army, which is almost entirely based on thermal weapons, is not only far superior to theirs. Tactics and armaments, and crushing numbers, and they also have Viscount Turenne, if you haven't forgotten, Viscount Turenne is Maurice of Nassau, the proud student of the founder of the Dutch army, he He has learned more from his uncle than an entire military school. He also knows the strengths and weaknesses of the Dutch army. It can be said that the Dutch army confronted the French head-on, except for the rout. There is no other possibility.

And these high-ranking officials have different ideas. Some want to bribe the king of France, or his trusted ministers and nobles, in order to expect Louis XIV to change the original plan; others advocate hiring more from the Holy Roman Empire or Sweden. Many soldiers fought against the French to the end; some people thought that they should negotiate with the British as soon as possible, so that the Dutch navy could be transferred back to threaten Dunkirk and Calais, perhaps to force the French to retreat.

But among these people, William III's opinion was the weakest, and he was the least concerned by these people. The vigilant eyes of the prime minister made William III feel deeply distressed, and he walked out of the council room - no one noticed him anyway. , he walked all the way to the side of the council hall, from here you could see the blue ocean, the milky white sky, and the wings of the seabirds pierced through the clouds like daggers.

   "I still disapprove of your previous idea."

William III looked down and saw his only friend, Seymour, standing under the steps. Seymour was an Englishman, but he taught William III French. When William III's mother died, Parliament had to place him under his guardianship. When the power was handed over to his grandmother, the English around him were driven away, but Seymour had sneaked from London to Amsterdam only a few days earlier, and as a secret messenger of Charles II, he told William III that Charles King II intends to return part of what the Stuart family owes to the Orange family, which is a large amount, worth about four hundred thousand livres, and Charles II means that if William III can manage to recover part of what he owes Maybe his nephew could manage to recruit some of his own soldiers for the upcoming war.

  William III was skeptical about this, everyone knew that Charles II was financially stretched, but Charles II's suggestion really moved him - "It's the queen's dowry," Seymour said.

Indeed, in the royal family of this era, arrears of dowry have almost become a tradition, as was the case with Philip IV of Spain, and so was Joao IV of Portugal. The actual amount of Queen Catherine's dowry was completely different from what Joao IV promised. , In this case, it is also possible for Portugal to supply part of it year by year, mainly because William III really needs a share of the money in his hands.

So on that night, a three-masted ship sailed from the port of Amsterdam with William III and two of his entourage on board for the money owed by the Stuart family to the Orange family. , they arrived at Whitehall Palace early the next morning.

   was then placed under house arrest by Charles II.

   (end of this chapter)