I Am Louis XIV

   Chapter 3 is not the worst, only the worst

The king and his party were finally able to reunite with Cardinal Mazarin and his party in the afternoon of the following day at Versailles, a town of forests, hills and swamps, about four leagues from Paris. At first Henry IV built a replica of the Renaissance castle while hunting here, a chapel, some houses and inns - then people gathered here and formed a few small villages, but there is still only one gallop. horse road.

Even though this desolate palace has been expanded by Louis XIII, the number of rooms is still lackluster. The king, the queen mother, the king's younger brother, the cardinal and the royal guards crowded the entire second floor, while the ground floor was originally used as a stable. , arsenal and furniture storage room became the bedroom of the less important people.

Even the king had to share the room with the cardinal, but the king didn't care. He sat in a chair, and the cardinal went over and poured him a glass of warmed wine. "It's a pity that there is no honey, Your Majesty." He Say, "But drink it, and warm up."

  The king took the glass, but had no desire to drink, he felt that he needed to sober up.

"You look very preoccupied," said Bishop Mazarin sympathetically, as he sat down in front of the king, a handsome and handsome man with a Louis XIII style (a combination of a mustache and a goatee) ) beard and long curly brown hair, his face is fair, and his crimson robes add a bit of majesty and sacredness to him.

   "We met werewolves."

   "Oh, Your Majesty, yes," the cardinal frowned: "Werewolves, a group of devils from Serbia, yes, we must pursue this matter."

   "You know werewolves?" asked the king in surprise.

   "I don't think werewolves are uncommon." The bishop raised his eyebrows suspiciously. Although the king has not yet been involved in government affairs, the court will never be short of gossip and gossip.

"But that's just a legend... I mean, fictional, fake, just like..." Louis wanted to talk about fairy tales, but he wasn't sure if there was a "fairy tale" genre at this time, after all, at this time, the concept of children was still vague It's unclear, people see children either as "animals" or as adults: "In short, it's something that doesn't exist in reality."

   "Why do you think so, Your Majesty." The bishop paused for a moment, and then showed an inquiring look: "Who made you think like this?"

Louis realized that he had made a mistake, of course, if he was really just Louis XIV, a boy born in the seventeenth century, even if he was destined to be king of France, he would not have one who accepted it hundreds of years later. The rational cognition that an adult who has been educated in materialism for decades will only think like everyone else, that gods, devils, heaven, and **** all exist, and the werewolf is no exception.

  Although the only materialist in the seventeenth century does not know how long his rational cognition can last without collapsing. "I've never seen a werewolf before—until one was only a foot away from me."

"This is my negligence," said the cardinal, "but, Your Majesty, according to people's opinions, you are still young." In fact, neither the Queen Mother nor Mazarin allowed him to come into contact with the outside world too early. In terms of political affairs, they were quite indulgent to him, and they almost didn't tell him, go, go, have fun, let the adults do those annoying things.

   Although he used to be an adult, Louis never cared about it. He was put on the throne by his mother when he was a five-year-old child. As others have criticized, the power of France was seized by Cardinal Richelieu before 1642. After Richelieu's death, he took his place. The country was run by his mother and Richelieu's heir, Mazarin. But he has no ill feelings towards the Queen Mother and Bishop Mazarin. He has transcended the thinking of infants, children and teenagers, and he is very clear that what he needs most now is to understand and become familiar with this strange and dangerous world. Although Mazaran and the Queen Mother are very fond of power, but without them, the hyenas surrounding the young king and his younger brother would have long since divided the young king and his brother-when someone is willing to shelter you from the wind and rain, don't complain that he forgot to give you sunshine.

Likewise, Bishop Mazarin is not worried about the king's peculiar knowledge. The only thing he has to be sure is whether someone is saying something dangerous in the ear of the young ruler to affect his mind, but if it is the king himself thought—he was quite happy. After all, in this day and age, most people are idiots who can't or don't want to think. Of course, if it's a farmer, a businessman, or even an earl, it doesn't matter. There are many more such people, at least the priests who preach the scriptures can spend less speech and brains. But a king, especially the one who was supported and loyal to Bishop Mazarin, would rather accept the ending of being coldly treated and exiled than work with a big fool who doesn't know how to think and judge.

"However." The cardinal's tone changed: "Since this kind of thing has happened today, I must let you participate in a new course in advance, Your Majesty, I didn't want you to contact you so early. To another world, unfortunately our enemies don't think so," he sighed.

  The king thought about it, he had a lot of questions, but tonight was obviously not a good time to ask, "You said before that these werewolves are from Serbia."

"Werewolves have their own characteristics," explained the bishop. "The priests peeled off their skins, burned them, and their corpses changed from wolves to human-like, Bohemian or Serbian wolves. They also have richer fur than the werewolves in Poland, Hungary and Mordovia. Only Russian werewolves can match them, but most of the fur of Russian werewolves are silver-gray, thick and luster. And only a werewolf in Bohemia or Serbia would have it."

   "So the Turks were responsible for this assassination?"

   "It's hard to say," said Bishop Mazarin, "perhaps English, Austrian, Spaniard, possibly French."

"It's not news." Louis frowned in distress. Bourbon had many enemies, both inside and outside France—because of this depressing answer, the room fell into a brief silence until the wine was cold. , the king raised a finger, "The last question... Marie Mancini."

  Mazarin looked at the king gently: "She is my niece," and then he said: "And a witch."

  Although he was prepared, the king couldn't help but shouted in a low voice: "Witch! A witch! Mr. Bishop, King Innocent VIII only issued an encyclical condemning witches in 1484!"

Mazaran spread his hands: "It seems that your history teacher is quite conscientious, Your Majesty, that lord really hates wizards." He added kindly, "But the more convincing reason is that the Holy See and the kings at that time. It's a little bit financially tight."

"Yes," he continued: "This is not something that can be discussed publicly. Your Majesty, many people think that our relationship with wizards is like fire and water, but there are always some secrets in the history books of the Holy See that cannot be seen by unrelated people. For a long time, I don't know how to describe our struggle with these infidels other than war. But you can't just call it a war... We are indeed each other's mortal enemies , but sometimes, even the devil, we have to dance with him...especially... (here, he takes a meaningful look at the king again), when we have to face some great crisis together, People who have not been in contact with each other will never be able to imagine how intense and complicated the situation between these three will be."

He looked at the fire in the fireplace and said, "A wise man will know that he needs both angels and devils, while a foolish man will not let him see how powerful the devil is, he will throw the angels aside together with him. Go, sometimes we are helpless, but that's the reality."

   "But...she's your niece, that is, your sister...no, don't tell me you're a wizard too."

"The power of wizards can be said to be deeply rooted in Italy, but my family is only mortal, no no no, Your Majesty, the Holy See has not fallen to this point." Mazaran said with a smile: "It is my sister's husband, people think he is just a A wealthy businessman, in fact, he came from an old wizarding family, and in the wizarding world, his family was both powerful and powerful, and I must admit, I was greatly benefited from it..." He stood up, for The king lit the fire in the fireplace: "Mary had to leave her parents and come to me for some reason, but I promise she's trustworthy, and I'm sure she's proven it, isn't she?"

Louis nodded, he had mistakenly thought that Bishop Mazarin was to protect his niece and let her ride with the king and queen dowager. In fact, it was just the opposite, or to be more precise, it was just one of the reasons: "You expected us Will you be sniped by werewolves?"

"At first I wasn't sure, we had a set rule, that is—although there are bishops and wizards in every court, in general, extraordinary powers don't show up in worldly battles. But when I discovered the suburbs of Paris When all the werewolves suddenly disappeared..." Bishop Mazarin stared at the flames: "The werewolves are strongly exclusive, and foreign werewolves will be hated and expelled, but if the outsiders are stronger or have helpers, Then the native race will be wiped out." He made a terrible gesture: "They have crossed the line, Your Majesty, I have to let you know at an inappropriate time something that you should not be exposed to yet. things. I suspect it's going to get worse in the future - so I hate unruly people."

  ——————

  Obviously, Mr. Cardinal thought that this ten-minute conversation was enough for the young king. After all, the amount of information contained in it was so rich that it could drive an ordinary person crazy. He left, and Louis had completely lost sleep. Compared to his tired body, his spirit was as active as morphine.

   What's worse than finding out you're Louis XIV as a baby?

   Of course there is, for example, it's still a magic version.

   But this is life.

   (end of this chapter)