lerbook #650 - Charles VIII at the Palace of Fontainebleau
#650 - Charles VIII at the Palace of Fontainebleau
Entering November of 1446, some areas north of the Nauan River began to experience their first snowfalls, while Flower Hill City, situated on the vast Golden Plains, remained pleasantly cool.
Even within the Royal Gardens of Fanglu Palace, just outside Flower Hill City, vibrant roses still bloomed in greenhouses, and fresh grapes hung from the trellises.
Servants carrying copper kettles poured steaming hot spring water into the flowerbeds; in the early morning, dewdrops on the blossoms glittered like pearls in the sunlight.
The window frames were adorned with stained glass in rose patterns, and the cool autumn sun cast colorful, rippling reflections onto the floor.
Sitting amidst these iridescent waves of light, Lorenzo gracefully picked up a gilded white porcelain cup, took a delicate sip of red tea, and resumed reviewing the intelligence reports and letters in his hands.
On the expansive grassy plaza before the flowerbeds and hedges, several noble ladies, holding decorative paper parasols, giggled and flirted with a handsome young man who was on the grass, teasing a large dog.
The young man seemed oblivious, engrossed in chasing and playing with the massive Saint Bernard, much to the ladies' frustrated annoyance.
Finally, one of the ladies, unable to bear it any longer—considering the great expense her family had incurred to present them to the King—attempted to gain his attention.
"Your Majesty," she feigned, taking a few steps forward, then faking a stumble, she cried out in a warbling voice, "Your Majesty, I've fallen!"
"Good dog, good dog!" Ruffling the dog's head, the young man pulled a cloth ball from its mouth and tossed it into the distance. "Fetch, fetch!"
"Your Majesty, Your Majesty… I've fallen, my leg hurts so much," the lady said, sitting on the ground, and continued to call out.
The other ladies, while inwardly cursing, also began to call out, their voices sweet and charming: "Your Majesty, Your Majesty…"
"Oh dear, I think I have heatstroke, Your Majesty."
"My arm is tingling; it might be palpitations."
"Your Majesty, Your Majesty…"
"Shut your mouths, you're being too noisy, you bunch of old hags!" The young man's roar shook the dewdrops from the rose petals, silencing the ladies.
An eerie quiet fell over the grassy area, broken only by the Saint Bernard wagging its tail and happily trotting to the young man's side with the ball, nudging his leg.
His gaze swept over the ladies' faces, filled with shock and tears, then shifted to Lorenzo, whose expression was inscrutable. The young man took a deep breath, suppressing his irritation.
"I apologize, I was rude. The sun is too bright out here; perhaps you ladies would prefer to return to the palace to change and freshen up. May I have the honor of inviting you to a brunch?"
"Thank you for your consideration, Your Majesty," the ladies said, forcing smiles, their voices tinged with grievance and unease.
"Your Majesty is truly elegant and thoughtful," someone murmured, trying to ease the awkwardness.
Though they had been so rudely berated by the King, the ladies were unwilling to leave. They merely supported each other, using the opportunity to whisper amongst themselves, careful not to be overheard.
"You should maintain a certain degree of closeness with the noble ladies, or else rumors will start circulating again," Lorenzo said, though his words were laced with admiration and satisfaction as he looked at the young man.
The young man before him was Charles VIII, the new King of France. He was twenty-five years old and about six feet tall.
His wavy, golden hair was tied back with a ribbon, and his heavy eyebrows almost met, arching with his expressions.
Up close, Charles VIII's face was marked with pockmarks from acne, leading some to slander him as a leper.
Lorenzo had once tried to persuade the young King to use divine magic to heal his complexion, but the newly crowned Charles VIII had refused, giving a reason that Lorenzo still remembered vividly.
"My crown does not define my kingship."
And as he had said, in the subsequent political struggles over the crown, Charles VIII, with his pockmarked face, had defeated almost all dissenters.
This enlightened, intelligent, and ambitious young man, though somewhat frivolous in his actions and words, possessed, in Lorenzo's eyes, the makings of a great ruler.
May the Holy One bless France; He has bestowed upon the kingdom three wise and martial monarchs in a row.
The only thing that dissatisfied Lorenzo was that these three monarchs, spanning four generations (including Charles VIII's deceased father), showed little interest in women, instead favoring handsome young men.
They were often conventional in their marriages and remarkably "loyal," surrounded by crowds of fair-skinned and spirited young men.
This puzzled Lorenzo greatly. Could this be hereditary? It seemed as if the French royal family was about to become a single-line inheritance for three generations.
"They actually had the nerve to stay for lunch," Charles VIII jested. "I thought at least one of them would leave or slap me."
"The longer they stay, the greater the honor, Your Majesty," Lorenzo said, filing the letters into their respective folders. He smiled. "Why wouldn't you engage in this cost-free method of currying favor with the powerful?"
"I don't understand."
"Has Your Majesty not heard the common saying circulating widely in Flower Hill City?" The black-clad Prime Minister smiled mischievously. "Meeting you is equivalent to a dowry of 2,000 gold pounds, dining with you is equivalent to a dowry of 5,000 gold pounds, and having a tryst with you is equivalent to a dowry of 10,000 gold pounds."
This was no exaggeration; many nobles had risen to power through their wives' close relationships with the King. In centralized France, a nobleman's power no longer stemmed from his lands but from the King's favor.
Slumping into a cushioned chair, Charles VIII took a sip of red tea. "At times like these, I miss the old days when kings could have equal lovers and friends."
"Oh, come now, you have the Queen as your lover," Lorenzo said, spreading his arms wide. "The 3,000 officials of the kingdom's government are your most supportive friends."
"That's a bit too humorous," the young King said, wiping sweat from his brow with a towel as he casually flipped through the intelligence reports Lorenzo had just organized. "Has the latest edition of *The Truth* arrived?"
"Your Majesty, my intelligence is not for your entertainment."
Despite his words, Lorenzo dutifully handed over the latest edition of *The Truth*.
Ever since the "Free Will Debate" began, Charles VIII had taken notice of this small country nestled in the Dragon's Sleep Mountains.
There were plenty of factions and monks dissatisfied with the Church, but Thousand River Valley was the first to openly oppose it.
Not only could they oppose it, but they could even support their views with a self-consistent new system.
The theological debates in Thousand River Valley had now evolved to a version of theodicy, while Lorenzo's side was still stuck on the free will version.
But even the free will version was enough to make Charles VIII lean in close to the newspaper, reading it word for word.
After reading it over and over, Charles VIII finally exhaled. "'All men are born free,' they dare to say such things."
For Charles VIII, the theological debates in this newspaper were both familiar and novel.
They were familiar because his theological teachers, the scholars of Aier, had already explained these issues to him implicitly and explicitly. They were novel because this was the first time someone had so directly resolved them.
"This 'all men are born free' statement will surely make the citizens their supporters," Lorenzo said, flicking the newspaper in his hand. "This Saint-Son of a b*tch is indeed a master of deception, reaching the pinnacle of skill in swaying the masses."
Despite Lorenzo's immediate efforts to control the content after realizing what was in *The Truth*, the aftershocks of this theological storm had already begun to spread along the rivers and roads.
Any citizen who came into contact with the doctrine that allowed the pursuit of earthly happiness would naturally gravitate towards the Saintly Path.
Fortunately, the scale was still small. Even if this ideological movement wanted to take off, it would take at least a year or two.
But what would happen in a year or two? For a moment, both men fell silent.
"The Northern and Southern Popes are currently divided and unable to spare any resources. Otherwise, if they could organize the great scholars to launch a concentrated attack, they would suffer," Charles VIII said, standing up and pacing back and forth in the sunlight with the newspaper. "Can we control these things from entering the kingdom?"
"We can't stop it," Lorenzo said, shaking his head as he looked at the dense text on the newspaper. "The mouths of the lower-level monks and priests have been sealed for too long. Now that there is a platform to vent, letters will fly to Thousand River Valley like rain.
It's better to guide than to block. There's no reason why they can do something that we can't. We can select some suitable content from it, have some great scholars endorse it, and then turn it into our own."
"In that case, send a letter to Jeanne d'Arc Fortress, ordering that farmer to control this surge of religious enthusiasm and prevent it from spreading."
"I don't need to send a letter. They will soon lack the energy to promote those novel theological views," Lorenzo said with a mysterious smile. "My little birds tell me that the nobles of the Lilac Corridor are preparing to start the great purge of Black Serpent Bay ahead of schedule."
The so-called great purge was actually a wave of invasions and encirclements of the witches of Black Serpent Bay by the surrounding nobles in conjunction with witch hunters.
"Advance the extermination of Black Serpent Bay, why?"
Lorenzo gracefully sipped his red tea and picked up a sugar cube. "What do you think?"