I Am Louis XIV

   Chapter 380 The King's Parade (3)

What would the king care about, in fact, before Louis XIV's chariot left Paris, the dignitaries of Paris and Versailles had already bought the answer from Madame de Montespan, and then resold the answer One or several good prices - this is the king's acquiescence. Greed for ink and yang and yin will always be there, but if they know what the king cares about, they will try their best to complete part of the work even if they are just to whitewash the facade... Otherwise, Louis couldn't hang them one by one from the gas lamppost.

  It will take twenty years to cultivate a group of officials who truly have professional ethics and love for the people. Louis thought in his heart, fortunately, the mayor of Saint-Germain-en-Laye was recommended by Colbert. Colbert may have a lot of shortcomings, but he still has a lot of loyalty and understanding of the king. The person he recommended Also some very interesting guys - the mayor of Saint-Germain-en-Laye can answer almost all the questions asked by the king: such as the popularization of primary education; the setting up of workhouses; the repair and maintenance of water and sewage works, etc., if not very familiar , without stammering, nonsense, and even giving complete data and time. When the king proposed to see the school and the workhouse with his own eyes, he did not shirk or embarrass him, but simply said agreed.

Although this approach was very unconventional and etiquette, none of the people present could change the king's mind. They turned a corner a few hundred feet away from the palace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and headed for the school and workhouse. The place passed by in a mighty manner. Like all cities, Saint-Germain-en-Laye is invisibly divided into an upper town and a lower town. The upper town is the mansion and apartment closest to the king's palace and abbey, and the lower town is the low shack next to the city wall. Because the buildings near the city walls are the most vulnerable to attack and may be demolished for fortifications and throwing objects during the defense of the city, only the poor will live there.

Even if the siege and defense of the city almost no longer use stone bombs, the lower part of the city is still not a place for the nobles to set foot in. The school is better. Yes, even if it looks very rough (barely any decoration), but because of the glass windows and painted chalk, it still looks neat and beautiful, and the children reading in it are the children of the poor people - stewards, servants , millers, goldsmiths, etc., they are richer than the real poor, but it is not so easy to get their children to read, in the king's promotion of universal primary education, especially girls, because boys can be sent to monasteries from The priests were educated, but girls, only girls from noble families could study in women's monasteries.

Now that these children have the opportunity to learn, they were driven out in groups, and when they bowed uneasy and shyly to the nobles under the command of the teacher, their movements were not too clumsy. Louis paid attention to their clothes. Unlike the grown men and women who crowded the streets and shouted long live to him, the latter were mostly dressed in bright satin and velvet, but the children were almost all in uniform gray linen coats, trousers or skirts, and some boys also Like the girls, they wore an apron around their waists, obviously because they were afraid that they would be too naughty and wear and stain their clothes. But looking at their faces, if they weren't as pretty as roses, they were at least round and red, their shoes fit well, and their hair was neat enough—but this was thanks to the teachers spitting into their palms, and then Spit on children's heads.

   "How many students are there?" Louis asked.

   "Three hundred and fifty boys and one hundred and twenty girls," the mayor replied respectfully.

Louis gently asked some questions to the older kids, who were about to graduate from school. They were able to add, subtract, multiply and divide within 10,000, copy, read simple texts, and sing hymns, no exaggeration. That's enough to get them out of the simple, repetitive manual labor and into jobs that are easier than their parents—and two or three of the best kids have been identified as being recommended by teachers to bishops, judges, or lawyers, capable of Go to Paris or a similar city university for further education.

As expected by these teachers, the king encouraged them with full of admiration, not only spiritually, but also realistically gave each of them a golden louis reward. Their teachers were so excited they almost fainted.

According to the king's instructions, schools are almost always built with canals or machine wells for water intake, equipped with complete sanitary facilities, so that children can develop a good habit of loving cleanliness from an early age - this aqueduct extends from the school to the lower city, down The condition of the city is of course not as good as the upper city that the king's team passed through before. There are still some walls covered with wooden boards, and the ground is not level enough. The mayor said angrily, because someone always stole the cement blocks. It sounds incredible to people, who would want cement blocks? But in fact, in this day and age, people in shacks didn't have the money to lay wooden floors or marble tiles. They saw how good the cement road was, so they moved their minds and smashed them and dug them back to lay them on their own. in the house.

   "But wait until next year, or the third year, and we will have enough money to complete the transformation of the downtown area." The mayor said.

Louis didn't think he was lying, because Saint-Germain-en-Laye used to be the place where the king stayed for several years, just like Paris and Versailles were flourishing because of Louis XIV, and many people went to Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Come and visit the former residence of the great sun king. Although the palace cannot be entered, they can also taste the food that the king "complimented", patronize the tailor shop where the king "customized" clothes, and the royal wife dedicated to the king, The powder shop of the famous Duchess of Colonna, the smithy that made horseshoes for the king and his loyal musketeers, and there are even claims that he once served the king on the road - he was a man who always carried two large barrels , a "service staff" wearing a big shawl, two barrels filled with water at one end, and one end for people to solve personal problems, he said that he was fortunate to have seen the king's buttocks... This is of course nonsense, but some people believe it , because everyone knows that their king loves cleanliness, and will not squat down and release like those poor people.

  God knows, when Saint-Germain-en-Laye has built communal toilet facilities, there will still be tourists willing to pay a small Ecuador to enjoy the same price as the king...

Although some people say that this is simply a rumor and slander, but under the powerful ability of the "Sun King" to carry goods, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which has no output, has indeed achieved a balance of payments and even a slight surplus - the mayor is so Said, also because the first stop of the King's Parade was in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and he had already thought of imitating the road of the cross in a special place - let tourists follow the route of the King's Parade to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, of course. , on this journey, there will certainly be many places that need their generosity. As for whether the king actually tasted the food, supplies or had some wonderful romantic affairs, can tourists still go to Versailles and ask?

This approach may indeed be a bit... too reckless, but this mayor deserves to be recommended by Colbert. He is very clear that the king cares more about whether his will and decrees are implemented to the end than the so-called royal majesty. He also had some undeserved thoughts, but in the end he suppressed his desires - he could even proudly say that at least one third of Saint-Germain-en-Laye's income was really used by him. Real place.

   As for the other two-thirds, let's not talk about it... This is because the bishop and the inspector of Saint-Germain-en-Laye are not too greedy...

Speaking of the bishop of Saint-Germain-en-Laye Abbey, he is really not a bad person. At least he presided over the construction of the workhouse. This is a new building, using the latest building materials, namely cement bricks. There are three The courtyard, lined up in words, with the church in the middle, inhabited by the poorest people—mainly the migrants and beggars, and then the sick. The bishop was in the queue to greet the king, but when he heard that the king was going to visit the poor He immediately went to the workhouse to clean up.

   "How many people can fit here?"

"About 3,000 people." The bishop of the Saint-Germain-en-Laye Abbey replied diligently. The mayor hesitated for a while. Of course, he is willing to continue to be the king's guide, but... he can't let him take all the benefits alone, right? In France, the appointment and removal of high clergy rests with the king rather than the pope, and bishops also need to show their ability and loyalty to the king, so after thinking about it for a while, the mayor took two steps back and gave the stage to his colleagues.

It can be seen that the workhouse has been hurriedly cleaned, the road is wet, and there are no noisy children and rude women in the courtyard. Looking in through the cleaned windows, you can see that everyone is serious and serious. Busy work - although the workhouse is a charity, everyone has to work, the men are responsible for grinding the bones collected from various places, and these things that are ground into powder will eventually become fertilizer in the fields; The women were weaving and weaving, and the children sometimes helped them and sometimes picked down.

It was very quiet in every room, not because of King Benlin, but because of the rules of the workhouse. In some places, the workhouses were not allowed to speak even if they were courtyards and sleeping areas. They had to keep Show your humility by being silent.

Walking through the corridor connecting the three places, behind the church is the hospital, let's just say it, because the number of doctors and nurses in the medical school is not luxurious enough to be decentralized to these places - this is responsible for taking care of patients There are only nuns and monks, but now they can do more than pray to God: "We provide sugar, boiling water, and herbs," said the bishop, "and clean beds."

Indeed, the cleanliness of the beds here would be surprising, because the king came to the workhouse on a whim, and it can be said that these white sheets and fluffy drapery are not all superficial, "There are only a few mildly ill patients. The bishop complimented: "Your people are pious, rich and healthy, and Saint-Germain-en-Laye has not seen plagues and deformities for a long time."

"That's a good thing," said Louis. There was no one patient, or the tradition of several patients in one room. There were about one hundred and eighty beds, and all the patients were in one hall, separated by curtains, but since the bishop If you say that there are no contagious people here, you can bear it. Although there is a bit of a sour smell in the air, it is inevitable. The king stayed for a while and then left. After all, there are too many attendants around him. are not good.

What's interesting is that the big county master who has been with the king, and the distinguished young people such as Ferdinand and Frederick can't help but open their eyes wide, I'm afraid they are the first time they see this with their own eyes, after all As the county master, the son of the grand duke and the prince, who is not Louis XIV, who would dare to take them to a place like the workhouse? And the workhouses elsewhere were only worse and more chaotic.

   "I saw someone gnawing on bones just now." The Grand Princess said in a low voice.

"Well, it's not surprising." Louis also whispered, the big county master must have seen the men who were responsible for grinding the bones secretly gnawing the bones. This is a common occurrence in the workhouse. After all, people here can't often After eating meat, some of the bones are still fresh, with minced meat and bone marrow left, so they can't avoid taking a bite... So this job is very oily, and in some more severe workhouses, there are still people Fighting over a fat bone—that's something he didn't know until long after he was in power.

   "So before making any decisions," Louis said to the Grand County Lord, "it is best to know as much as possible the ins and outs of things, and all aspects."

Sometimes good intentions do bad things for this reason, as they see now, there may be good people who think this kind of hard work shouldn't be done by workhouse people, but they don't know that without this job, these men will They have to lose the last bit of comfort in their lives, they will only feel angry and disappointed, and no one knows what will happen in the end.

After seeing the workhouse, I took a general look at the situation in the lower city-the king was finally willing to return to his Saint-Germain-en-Laye Palace, which made many people relieved. Safe and precarious (as is true for anyone), fortunately His Majesty seemed satisfied and promised to hold a banquet and receive an audience on the third day.

   This is what a king should do.

   (end of this chapter)