I Am Louis XIV

   Chapter 436 Return (Part 2)

Patinho stood up staggeringly according to the wound and ran to the door. He saw the Duke of Don Juan and heard him shouting. Delayed to shoot - Patinho knew his concerns. The reason why Duke Don Juan did not dare to shoot himself was because of his special status. If he killed the king, if someone wanted to take the opportunity to attack him, he would die without a place to be buried. , but his servants, it should be said that they are like masters, are obviously not loyal enough.

   He heard mourning behind him, followed by heavy breathing, and Carlos II was behind him.

   The scythe of the **** of death seemed to have strangled his neck, and Patinho heard the second hurried order from the duke!

But the cowardly young man even closed his eyes, his fingers trembling and he couldn't exert himself, and Patinho let out a sigh, regretting that he didn't bring his musket, but just turned around in a desperate attempt - at least for Spain When someone who can still talk-

   A roar.

Carlos II's body is much shorter and smaller than Patinho, it is hard to imagine how he could rely on this body to cause such terrible consequences... The bullet pushed him back and he fell on his back On the ground, the dagger came out of his hand, the velvet nightgown was crimson red, and the room was dimly lit, so it took a while for Patinho to see a spot on the nightgown slowly turning black.

   Duke Tang Huang swallowed. At first, he failed to recognize who the young man was who was shot in time. Later, the face that had some resemblance to an unfortunate girl brought back his memory.

   "What did you do?" Patinho could hardly hold on, he knelt on the ground, supported by the young officer, leaning on the other side.

   "I didn't do anything," replied the young officer calmly, "He's a sinner, isn't he?"

  Patinho took a deep breath, both because of the pain from the wound, and because of his mistake-he really shouldn't be selfish, nor should he guess other people's thoughts without authorization, he can't even control his own nephew...

   "The doctor is here."

Duke Don Juan, who was of no use, shouted that in fact, not only doctors but also wizards came. In the past, Patinho's injuries would not be cured, but with wizards, maybe the archbishop and the queen dowager have both. A little hope, but he was too sensitive at this time, and he didn't dare to call out the word wizard.

The wizard and the doctor examined the people in the room. Two female officials, one attendant, and the queen mother died... It seems that they will hold two extremely grand funerals. The Archbishop's mental blow is probably more serious than the physical one. Patinho also survived, and surprisingly, Carlos II is still alive.

Not only was he alive, but he persisted tenaciously for ten days without treatment, care, or food and water when everyone kept indifference and silence, which made people have to believe what the Queen Mother said. This noble body contains a devil.

Because the oil has been wiped, no one cares about Carlos II. All people, whether they have pity or hated him before, are waiting for him to die with an indifferent attitude, Carlos II Persevering tenaciously for so many days - it's tiring. A squire had previously been ordered to watch over and observe him, but later, as one can see from Cardinal Alberoni's records, it was he who was then a teenager in charge.

Cardinal Alberoni is an astonishing figure, not because he came from humble beginnings. Since the Reformation, there have been many more mediocre but gifted people in the Church of Rome. What is curious about him is that he The teacher who had betrayed him, the archbishop of Toledo at that time - in the anti-royal family that ignited from Toledo and then spread to the whole of Spain, correctly speaking, in the anti-Habsburg riots, he stood among the thugs here, not on the side of kings, bishops, and ministers.

For another person, his ending is either to be executed or imprisoned. It is best to be sent by the archbishop to an island far away from the world to be a lifelong ascetic monk, but look at the official account and his own memoirs. , he returned to the old palace in the days when the riots in Toledo had just subsided, when the queen mother had gone to see the merciful God, the Duke of Don Juan also released the news that the king was in bed because of grief, and the archbishop announced To do a penance to pray for Spain, there is also Patinho, the Minister of the Navy, who made no secret of saying that he was injured in the riot and needed to be healed.

Bishop Alberoni wrote bluntly in his memoirs: At that time (referring to the end of the negotiations), some well-meaning people wanted to help me escape, at least leave Spain, lest I be sent to the gallows by the king and the bishop, Or sent to some monastery, but Jose found me before them.

  As soon as he saw Jose, Alberoni knew that things might not turn out the way he thought. Jose is equal to his accomplice, if Jose has been free to walk outside, he may be forgiven, although he thinks he can accept what the archbishop can do to him, because in a way , he did live up to the expectations of this eminent person.

   But his nervousness quickly turned to worry.

Jose told him that the archbishop was unfortunately injured, but this matter could not be announced to the public, and he could only pass the curious eyes with closed-door penance. A scandal won't be the talk of the common people after dinner.

The archbishop's injury is very serious. The ears and cheeks are not fatal injuries. The problem is that these areas are prone to infection, and the archbishop's cheeks are almost bitten off. At least two-thirds of the teeth are exposed, and there is no muscle. Can't chew, can't suck, he can only be fed some hot soup and porridge until he recovers, which is not good for his recovery.

The Duke of Don Juan brought in the latest medicine he had obtained from the French, the white powder to prevent the archbishop's wound from festering, but it was still some time away, because neither the archbishop (he barely supported the use of written To express meaning), or Patinho, or the intact Duke of Don Juan, do not agree to let the original religious leader, the Jesuit Nittad, to replace the position of the archbishop. First of all, although Nittad has naturalized Spanish , but still an Austrian, and secondly Nittad is a supporter of Queen Mother Maria, and the results of his and Queen Mother's ruling are well known.

As a result, Alberoni, who was not yet a priest, was quickly pushed into the position of the archbishop's spokesperson - the funny thing is that the archbishop expressed great relief and was willing to trust his former disciple, because Alberoni had proved that he was a compassionate People who are not too enthusiastic about power.

After all, the archbishop has to avoid people's attention for a long time. During this time, it is easy to form a power vacuum or transfer. If you don't put someone here who can make you feel at ease, the archbishop is only afraid to insist on wearing a mask and come out. Presided over the mass - Patinho also agreed that the Duke of Don Juan was originally a French, and he was aware of Alberoni's inclination and wanted to take this downwind boat. The Queen Mother may object, but she has died.

  Alberoni took over the task of caring for King Carlos II after finishing the funeral of the Queen Mother.

This later cardinal had nothing to praise in his writing, but it was such a straightforward description that made the people who discovered this text horrified-he recorded the last time of Carlos II in detail, continuously. eleven days.

Before Alberoni returned to the old palace, Carlos II was placed in his bedroom and smeared with holy oil because of his "serious illness". It stands to reason that the king's physician should surround him with all his might to the last moment, However, everyone said unanimously that His Majesty the King refused any treatment. He said that his time had come and that he should go to see God, and that he did not need anyone to serve him again.

  Since he is so devout, people can only do what he wants.

On the body of the king, Alberoni wrote, there were many festering sores, the largest on the chest, and some on the shoulders, head, and legs, though the room was cold because of the winter , did not rot too quickly, attracting mosquitoes, but began to appear a strange liquefaction phenomenon - the king's sores, the skin was shiny and bulging, all the accumulated water, after the water was released, the skin was close to the muscles, Turned dry off-white and rolled in.

Although the sores did not fester, they did not mean to heal. They were like thirsty mouths, emitting a tiny amount of heat into the air, which attracted mice, and they anxiously came from the ceiling, the top of the window curtain and the air. He jumped off the fireplace and ran around the king's body.

Then Alberoni didn't say whether he drove the mice away, but the people of later generations thought he must have done so, and perhaps even let the squires try to search to prevent the mice from running into the king's bedroom again - these are the People take it for granted that even a lowly prisoner cannot be a good man watching him get bitten by a mouse.

Bishop Alberoni looked away after writing about the mouse, he wrote, the king woke up from a sweet dream, he groaned and looked around with wide eyes, he called his attendants, he called his ministers, Called the Archbishop of Toledo, called the Queen, called the Queen Mother, and even called the Duke of Don Juan, who had a bad relationship with him - of course, these people did not have important things to do, or died, or had Other blameless reasons.

   Anyway, Alberoni told him seriously.

The king suddenly became angry - Bishop Alberoni wrote, with an unbelievable indifference in his words, conjecturing that the king must have become so irritable because he grieved at his own powerlessness. It was a troubled time, but he could only lie in bed and do nothing.

It is also possible that he mourned too much, the queen mother died, but the queen "left" Spain. When Carlos II woke up, she had already arrived in Rome, obtained the asylum of Pope Innocent XI, and took her own life. She was still a virgin, and she asked the Pope to declare her marriage to Carlos II annulled on the grounds that the marriage contract could not be completed. Like the Duke of Don Juan, he was not eligible to inherit the Spanish throne.

  So, Carlos II is about to die, but the person who inherits his throne may be the second son of Louis XIV, Charles Bourbon, whom he hates most.

Although this kind of thing is not good for a dying patient, Bishop Alberoni is the one who is the saint who is revered by countless people (he was indeed canonized after his death). The grown-up is a little too blunt.

In Alberoni's description, he used the word "desperation" without any cover, and Carlos II lamented: "This is the empire that God gave me and took away." He added: "I have nothing. worth it."

It would be a delusion to say that Bishop Alberoni's account here has a sense of schadenfreude, Alberoni, a saint, who, for decades, has spread his mercy all over Spain, especially How could those poor people treat their king like this?

Alberoni said that after hearing that his country would be handed over to Louis XIV's son, Carlos II had little peace, and he kept asking to see this and that, but those people did come. At the same time, he fainted again because of the high fever, and sometimes he may be awake, but because of the torment of illness, he could not maintain his proper manners and reason at all, and could not say any available will.

"The king was in great pain. He said that his back was like a person being restrained and tortured," Bishop Alberoni explained here. The restraint is a kind of torture tool relative to the limb frame. The frame is to stretch the person until the limbs are dislocated, and the restraint is to force the person to curl up together - from hours to days, the first pain is the back.

   Then there was suffocation, that is, difficulty breathing, and Carlos II complained that his chest was like a boulder being crushed.

His limbs turned black from the tips of his fingernails a few days later, when his sores finally began to rot and smell fishy. He needed to open his mouth to the limit or he couldn't take in enough air. Wails and cries, unfortunately, writes Alberoni - no one can help him.

Even so, the king continued to live, and the dirty smell in the room had long overshadowed the aroma of holy oil and myrrh. Alberoni held the candle and carefully observed the "like breathing corpse". , or "buried for many days," he added.

   At last the king began to vomit black blood, then shards of internal organs, the largest sore on his chest exposing bone, and the heart looming below.

  The heart was dug up after the king endured more than ten days of torture, placed in a glass bottle, soaked in spirits, and stored in the reliquary of the Cathedral of Toledo.

  ———

  Alberoni wrote the last sentence on the parchment, ending with a small dot, before inserting the quill back into the inkwell.

   "There is indeed a heart in the reliquary," Jose asked with a subtle expression: "But are you sure it belongs to Carlos II?"

   "Of course not." Alberoni said: "It's not a human heart. In order to avoid any accident, they entrusted me to deal with it."

"deal with?"

   "As you wish," said Alberoni.

   "Whose heart is that?"

   "It belongs to a man who is pure and unblemished, and fully entitled to be honored." Alberoni said: "Another reason is that Her Majesty the Queen has entrusted me to try to look after it."

"Your Majesty..." Jose sighed: "If the Pope decides that her engagement with Carlos II is invalid, she is not our Queen. She really shouldn't be doing that—I'm not saying she shouldn't run away from Carlos II. , I mean, her father must be very angry, because her actions undoubtedly support the legitimacy of the French Bourbon claim to the Spanish throne."

Alberoni remained silent, Antonia's behavior could be said to be desperate, and had great sequelae - she was eager to get rid of the shadow of this marriage, but she forgot that even if the marriage contract was invalid, her guardianship The right will return from the Spanish royal family to Leopold I. Leopold I is not the kind of person who will be soft-hearted to his children, so why can't he do more terrible things?

   (end of this chapter)