I Am Louis XIV

Bontang is the number one attendant around Louis, and also the head of the bedroom. It can be said that among the servants of the court, he is the unquestionable prime minister. Sometimes, even the king's dragoons and musketeers have to obey his orders. , He has been with the king for fifteen years, from when Louis was an ignorant child to now, a real king, Bontang loves and respects him, and if he can make Bontang say such things, it can be said that Louis is real A little too much.

In fact, in the secret library of the Church of Rome, there are indeed many documents that may not be made public within a thousand years. Not limited to those so-called pagans and wizards, transactions between dark creatures, there are also some humiliation or peace treaties or deeds that will cause an uproar, such as the one signed by Louis XIV and the Roman Church Documents are also taken for granted. Hundreds of years later, when French scholars filed a petition to the Roman Church, intending to show people a real Sun King Louis XIV, the priests of the Roman Church could almost Said that he smiled coldly, and threw the extremely well-preserved vellum in front of them.

Of course, Clement VIII would not have such great foresight. The reason why he asked the priests to keep this document as much as possible is to let everyone who has the right to enter here be able to see for themselves. How shameless and base is the king of men.

In the middle of the sixteenth century there was already good paper, but orthodox documents, especially with the church, people still use parchment or vellum, which is excellent because it is taken from a calf, Even if it is more than three feet, there are still no seams or sticking marks. It is a complete piece. Even after hundreds of years, it is still elastic and smooth. And it keeps for a long time, the iron gall ink that will not fade, the ink is mixed with gum, makes the handwriting so thick that it seems that it will be uncovered at any time, but these handwriting are explaining how a greedy man King Louis XIV of France is At the same time, it also undoubtedly exposed the weakness of the Roman Church at that time—it is hard to say whether the Roman Church’s willingness to reveal this precious document to everyone this time has something to do with the new round of pope elections, because at this time the most vocal official It was Bishop Batti from Siena, and his surname was Qigi.

Even after hundreds of years, when Clement VIII is mentioned, people in the church can't help but feel ashamed, because on him, the Roman Church broke many firsts, and even Boniface VIII did not The face of the church was so dry and silent-the French scholars didn't care about it at all, they put on clean protective clothing, soft-soled shoes, and entered the hinterland of Rome. In a large room where the temperature and humidity were kept constant, and they could only feel the light, but could not see the light source, they waited for a while, and a priest walked into the room with a dark glass box in his hands. Looking at a huge table, the priest put the box on the table, opened it, and carefully took out the piece of vellum with gloved hands—it was originally rolled in a cylinder because it had been pressed between two wooden boards for preservation. The vellum inside has long since become smooth, and from the edge of the vellum, traces of dark red to black sealing wax can be clearly seen.

As soon as they saw the handwriting on it, these scholars couldn't help but let out a deep and excited cry. There are many handwritten letters left by the Sun King Louis XIV in the world, especially his children, whether they were born in marriage or not. When you give birth to a child, you will receive a gift from your father and a note of blessing written by your father on the birthday every year. Most of these notes are kept precious, and until today, they are often displayed at family gatherings of the descendants of the Sun King , and a very small part was donated to the museum because of extinction, and everyone can see the profound and beautiful handwriting of the Sun King.

Scholars are even more familiar with this handwriting, it is not an exaggeration to say that they are more familiar with their own, so they only saw the initial capital letter, and they were sure that it was indeed Louis XIV's own handwriting, and then they all said in unison In the era of François the Big Nose, French nationalism showed signs of rising, which was far superior to their beliefs, and it reached its peak in the era of Louis XIV. People in Europa still use Latin as their common language. When they exchanged letters in Latin, the letter written by King Louis XIV of France to Pope Clement VIII was already in French.

Rows of slightly slanted, but slender and flexible like spring vines, lined up on the apricot-yellow paper, full of aesthetic feeling, except for the capital letters at the beginning, the other letters are not fancy, but have An awe-inspiring and arrogant manner, "At that time the Sun King..." A scholar couldn't help but say.

"Twenty-three years old," said another scholar.

"Young man," said the third scholar, "king," he added, and it was not until the priest hissed reproachfully that they began to take their duties as scholars and researchers seriously.

After routinely paying the pope a hypocritical homage, Louis XIV made five demands.

Article 1: He asked the Pope to hand over the bandits who attacked the king's envoy and his family members, that is, the Marquis of Craiji and his party. The leader of these people is the brother of Pope Clement VIII. Of course, the Pope will not give his Brother, of course he couldn't let his brother die, so everyone knows that after this peace treaty was signed, the pope's brother was expelled from Rome, and the Corsicans who participated in the two battles before and after, They were all sentenced to be hanged or beheaded.

Article 2: The Pope’s Guard must be disarmed at the king’s request—in fact, the Pope’s Guard was indeed disbanded, and the pope has never re-established the Guard. At that time, because the security of the Vatican required, the guard was re-established.

Article 3: The Church of Rome must apologize to the King of France for this matter, and not in a brief and forgettable or private ceremony, and a papal envoy must leave for Paris, at the Louvre in Paris, Under the watchful eyes of many envoys and dignitaries, they bowed their knees to the king, as the pope's representative, to this venerable majesty. In addition, in Rome, a stele must be erected, on which the whole incident and the confession of the person in charge must be written.

This stele originally stood on the west side of the Pope's Palace, at the end of the corridor of St. Peter's Basilica, but it is no longer found. Although it is valuable as a historical witness, church officials insist that it was in the first During the World War, it was destroyed by artillery fire. But now, the document proves that it did exist, and the king also specifically stated the requirements for the size and font of the stele.

Article 4: The Church of Rome shall return Castrote and Longciglione to the Duke of Parma, and return Comagio to the Duke of Modena or compensate him for the loss he suffered as a result—scholars clamor immediately Because the descendant of the Duke of Parma still claimed ownership of these two cities, and he did have the relevant certificates, as for Comaggio, fortunately, the Duke of Modena still took the compensation Otherwise, the current Italian government will definitely have to worry about the big problems brought to them by the Roman Church.

And this fourth article is the reason why the Roman Church denounced the shamelessness of the Sun King Louis XIV-France's covetousness for the Italian Peninsula can be traced back to the Gaul period, and their ancestors were still serving the Romans. When he was a mercenary, but Louis XIV, a boy who had been in power for less than five years, dared to claim that he was the protector of various princes in Italy, and he wanted to turn this into reality rather than in vain. — to the dismay of the church, he did.

If it is just this alone, it may not annoy Clement VIII to protect this document like an ancient Bible. What annoys him most is that whether it is the Duke of Parma or the Duke of Modena (they both The princes of Italy, the previous cities were all in Italy, and they were all former territories of the Papal State), they all acquiesced to this, and because of these two things, they gave the French a lot of money-yes, please Watch out, folks, that's the point! Louis XIV of France suppressed Pope Clement VIII in Castel Sant'Angelo and threatened him to hand over the territory of the Papal State. Of course, the King of France knew very well that his army could not stay forever. Italy, so his envoys held a semi-public reward meeting—to put it simply, he asked the Italians if there was anything that required the Pope’s permission. If so, the Duke of Luxembourg and his king would Very generous, I am willing to ask the Pope about this matter on your behalf, and I can also get a satisfactory answer for you, all you need is a little vulgar gold...

Although this approach made many people secretly criticize or laugh out loud, there are still warriors—that is, the Duke of Parma and the Duke of Modena. It is said that the donations they made were not inferior to the ransom paid by the Pope for himself.

The fifth is ransom, writes the King of France with the audacity to send his envoys, and their loyal protectors, to Italy, to inquire of the venerable Father, because of the error committed by the wretched men of the Pope's guard In this matter, although he does not think that the Holy Father will be involved in this matter, it is an indisputable fact that the matter is caused by it. In this case, he believes that the Holy Father will definitely feel grief because of this. The guilt of the spokesperson on the earth, he asked the Roman Church to bear all the expenses of this battle, or the armed parade, as well as the cost of spiritual damage-as for why there is such a thing as spiritual damage, it is because the French king is so pious A person, such a saint, has to accept the terrible fact that his envoys were expelled from Rome by the church and that he had to send troops to surround Rome. He has been unable to sleep or eat normally for several days, so...

He wants to hold many Masses to calm his heart. Although when the Mass will be held, where it will be held, and who will preside over it, nothing is mentioned in the letter, but in order not to make the Holy Father think too much, the Roman Church only All you need is money and the cardinal's shawl—the king even kindly expressed that if the church can't afford the money for a while, it can also be repaid with the obligations and taxes due to the church by priests and monks.

"A coinage!" said one of the scholars, almost laughing, and it was from here that the word was coined, and has since been used by many kings, if they thought themselves shameless enough.

"More importantly," said the second scholar, "from this time on, the Sun King Louis XIV deliberately taxed priests and monks."

"Yes, he may have started thinking about it a few years ago. The brother of Clement VIII gave him a good excuse. If he directly collects taxes from religious people in the country, he will definitely be counterattacked and retaliated, but if In the name of the church..."

"I think there should be smart people who can see it."

"Maybe the king can't solve this problem, but he can definitely solve that smart man." The scholars laughed. The church people on one side were very embarrassed, because someone in the church did see it at the time, but he soon encountered a reasonable accident, and it was not a conspiracy by the French king, but Clement VIII had to bear the responsibility. This guilt, because he had not yet thought of visiting Paris or Avignon.

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The discussion five hundred years later was not clear to the young Guo and Bontang. While marveling at the king's whimsy, Bontang wondered whether it could completely free the king from the doubts of the French church people.

Here is the issue of taxation in France. The pride of the French king is not groundless. When the king of England was still fighting openly and secretly with members of Parliament over taxation, the French king had already obtained the freedom to tax due to the Hundred Years War. There are many and complicated taxes in France, many of which are for the war, and when the war really starts, the king will temporarily increase taxes, or worse, borrow money from domestic bankers and use it in the future It seems to be a very beneficial and easy thing for the king to do all the tax revenue of a region to be handled by one person - because the tax collection process is exempted many of the jobs and annoyances in life, and still get enough money to meet the needs of oneself or the country.

Just like any official who has bought an official position, in order to ensure that his borrowing will not be in vain, or that he will not get enough benefits, those big taxpayers will do their best to exploit those poor people who need to pay taxes.

But the nobles at that time did not need to pay most of the taxes, and then the religious officials targeted by the king, those priests and monks, only needed to pay a donation every few years, even if there were several million livres each time. , but compared to what they really should pay, it is just a drop in the bucket.

And who is it that pulls the heavy coach of France?

Civilians, and only civilians.