Chapter 476: Double Bay Naval Battle

It was only when Louis XIV received a letter from the Duke of Orleans in Versailles that he truly understood the cause and effect of this incident in detail.

Although he joked with his younger brother that don't underestimate idiots, the things that idiots can do can sometimes stump a large group of smart people, but Gemma—this is the first time he saw this name in the letter, the Duke is very impressed. Although this unfortunate girl is full of sympathy, she has not mentioned this person in her letter to His Majesty the King—who knows that such an existence who is despised, despised, and ignored makes such a... ...something astonishing.

When Gemma assassinated the priest, maybe it was because she was hesitant, or maybe the priest was more vigilant than Mr. Tamalit, so the priest yelled loudly after being stabbed, and it was morning again , the attendants rushed in at once, but the priest had already been stabbed several times by Gemma at this time, and the two knives pierced through the ribs cut through the heart, so the priest only lived for a few more minutes.

She was immediately caught by angry attendants, and then the Duke and his French attendants were also put under house arrest—the Duke was stunned when he learned of this, and his joke with Theoderic actually came true——Catalo It is a good thing that the Niyans are now leaderless, but there is also a bad thing, which is the rightful suspicion that the French have a hand in it. Although Gemma was Father Clarice's maid, she had already been asked by the Duke to be with her before.

The Duke of Orléans, on the contrary, showed considerable calmness, and he agreed to stay in the room temporarily, together with his servants and entourage, until the trial of the murderer was over.

Although Gemma can't speak, she can write, but the answer she gave made some people unbelievable-obviously, in order to fight for the domination of Catalonia, the French bought such a humble servant to assassinate The leader of the latter is the correct answer in their imagination; the other part dare not express their belief—either they are in the same league with the Tamalite MP, or, like the priest, they feel that for a dead person and a self-deprecating It's really unreasonable for a woman to embarrass her colleagues... But at this time, the Duke's Catalan entourage came out.

This young man is roughly the same as the young Catalans who venerate and love the Duke of Orléans, or, like most young people who have not suffered, their breasts are burning with fire, and their eyes cannot hide a trace. Hearing that Mr. Tamalit was such a person, he chased and executed the murderer without hesitation—even if he was a follower of Mr. Tamalit. If Gemma hadn't moved his hand, he might have impulsively questioned the councilor and the priest face to face. Now that the two men, the culprit and the man who sheltered the criminal, are dead, and the man who killed them is going to be judged, he is going to come out and speak.

Originally, such a young man could not turn the situation around. After all, he was serving the Duke, and he might have been deceived or bought by the French.

But someone came out again.

These people may have various reasons—for the remaining conscience and morality, for the guilt of the deceased, or for ulterior motives—to erase the halo of the two surnames Tamalit and Clarice (one of their ancestors once One is the speaker of the Catalan Council of Hundreds, and the other is the leader of the Catalan uprising thirty years ago), so the forces left by them can naturally be divided up by them.

Tamalit councilor's jealous behavior can only be concealed from the lower class people, from those who are equal to him, those councilors, priests or generals... Even if the people around Tamalit keep their mouths shut, how could they? Knowing nothing, they sometimes play tricks similar to those of Tamalit. Of course, they played better, things like Gemma, they either took good care of the descendants of the deceased, or simply reunited their family.

Tamalit is without a doubt an idiot. But with the testimonies of these people, since Gemma’s crimes cannot be forgiven, at least they can be mitigated—in any case, Catalans, like Sicilians, have a tradition of revenge for blood relatives—so this Although the girl cannot escape death, she can die happily.

Once Gemma was executed, this incident seemed to have come to an end. The Duke's house arrest ended earlier than this. When the girl's body was still dangling on the gallows, the nobles of Catalonia had already Can't wait, come to visit this noble man in an endless stream. As the Duke of Orleans said, Senator Tamalite and Father Claris are like two cumbersome heads protruding from a mess. Although they are incompetent and useless, they are also an indispensable symbol and goal. Now these people are scrambling to flatter him, hoping that the Duke of France can support them to become the next Tamalite and Clarice.

Of course, the Duke of Orleans would not want to see the next Tamalite and Claris. He can say without hesitation that Catalonia was taken back from the Spaniards with his support and guidance. He has already received the support of Lupo. Although Lupo's soldiers in the Catalan army do not have a numerical advantage, but in terms of combat experience and cruel heart, those rough fishermen, farmers and How can craftsmen compare with professional soldiers?

At the time when the Duke of Orléans wrote this letter, he had already called a council - the first council of the Catalan province of France, and as deputy of the King of France and the King of Spain, he accepted the Catalan Not without dissenting voices, but these voices have been buried six feet deep with Gemma, the Duke said, all he saw was the hanging head.

Next, he was about to conquer Barcelona in the next few days. The death of Senator Tamalite and Father Claris delayed a little, but it was of no use to the Spaniards in Barcelona. The Duke of Orleans sent envoys to them. He said that if they would surrender, he could treat them graciously, as guests, and if they wanted to leave, after paying a ransom—and he added that he hoped to take Barcelona as soon as possible, because He heard that Charles II of England had been using the name of his nephew William III of Orange to continuously make waves on the boundary line between North Holland and South Holland, as well as swimming in the Dover Strait and the English Channel The British privateers and pirate ships in the country also began to persistently launch attacks against French, North Holland, and Swedish ships.

Once Barcelona falls, the two fleets sent by Louis XIV for his younger brother may turn to the Atlantic Ocean to relieve the pressure on the French Atlantic Fleet.

"Although I am also against the Catalans..." Louis read the letter and said tactfully to the Duke of Vendôme: "I have no hope for the military talents of the Catalans." Since they are against the Spanish government , the search for independence has been going on for hundreds of years, but has never achieved any measurable results - "but these people are still stupid beyond my imagination." He really wants to thank Catalonia's Councilor Tamale made that excessive request to him, otherwise, his original plan might really have to be revised—the war would have to be delayed by at least one year, or even two years—without the Duke of Orleans’ efforts to turn the tide , the riot was about to die in Roussillon.

"Just because..." the Duke of Vendôme thought for a while and said, "It's because their request is wrong, Your Majesty." It's also because he has been living in Versailles recently, and because, as a Bourbon, he is very close to the king Therefore, after getting to know the Sun King, you will find that he is a generous and tolerant person who is almost a bit rough in private. If it were Louis XIII, he would never dare to talk to him like this: "Your Majesty," he said. Touched his chin: "These Catalans have been away from the court for too long, so long that their vision has narrowed to only one city, one village, and even one person—that is themselves, and a farmer, A steward, an official, a nobleman, a prince, a king, Your Majesty, when they raise their arms, will their appeals be the same?"

"Of course not," he answered himself, "you are a king and have a powerful country, and Philip, although he is your younger brother, thank you for your tolerance and kindness, he received the same education as you, so Even if he arrived in Roussillon alone, what he saw was the whole of Catalonia and even Spain, but for those Catalans, what they saw in the future was very shallow—like a gaze A sharp person must walk with big strides and a fast speed, while a person who can only see a few inches in front of him and does not know the future must be timid and hesitant when walking—at this time, the latter There are two kinds of people, one kind is morally noble, with boundless enthusiasm in their hearts, but the result of blindly moving forward is either falling into a trap or being led to the wrong destination; while the other kind, because the future is uncertain, they Therefore, they can easily compromise and be bribed and threatened by the enemy."

After finishing speaking, he looked at the king and smiled slightly: "That's why some wise Catalans think that they will need a king. If Catalonia has a king like Alexander the Great, or King Arthur , or a king like you, not only will they be able to become independent, but perhaps, in turn, they may be able to restore the glory of the Aragonese era."

Louis glanced at him and smiled slightly: "I have accepted the bribe of this sweet talk," he said: "Are you reminding me that there is something about the Duke of Orleans, don't worry, he won't accept Catalo at the behest of the Nigerians, to become Count of Barcelona."

"That's a huge territory," said the Duke of Vendôme, "and now is a good time."

"Then we'll make a bet," said Louis. "I bet he'll be back at Versailles before the feast of the Assumption."

The Duke of Vendôme bowed his head and calculated, the time was almost up, and he was only here to remind the king, not to argue with him, so he agreed kindly, but in his heart, he also hoped that the Duke of Orleans could do what the king expected, Refusing the temptation, he returned to his brother as scheduled.

"By the way, Philip also mentioned that there is something about the fleet..." Louis said: "He already knows that the British are harassing our and our allies' merchant ships."

"These hateful robbers!" the Duke of Vendôme said angrily: "Not only do they not think it is a disgraceful act, but they are proud of it. They even publicized it in newspapers and books, and even auctioned it publicly." The booty they looted!"

"It's not a booty for them," Louis said, "it's a booty. Sir, Jean Bart proposed to me a very interesting idea," he held up the letter and pressed it against his chin: "I have promised him, I think this young man might be able to surprise us."

———————

The reason why the Netherlands was able to achieve such brilliant achievements as a small country, even threatening Britain and France at one time, is not without reason. The great advantage of the estuary of the Si River and the Rhine River, the frantic development of maritime power, the construction of thousands of merchant ships and warships, the inexhaustible oriental spices, silk, the gold and silver, ivory, tobacco of the New World, and the weapons of Europa , wool and handmade products are all circulated in this business center that seems to link the whole world - their merchants took advantage of this advantage and successfully went a step further, turning the Netherlands into a huge financial city.

Although it has been divided up by various countries now, Louis XIV even drew the financial advantage of the Netherlands to Paris by means of drawing salary from the bottom of the pot, but since it is still here, the geographical advantage cannot be changed, although it was cut off by the United Kingdom to The Hague Rotterdam and these two important ports, but North Holland, which is owned by France, still owns Amsterdam, the largest port city, and the wharf here is still busy, even busier than before - this is the king's territory, and the king's officials are in charge of it , their governor is the Viscount Turenne, who is loyal to Louis XIV and is also a member of the Orange family. After the initial turmoil, even the most stubborn Dutch have to admit that compared with the original (Of course, they didn’t think it was a kind of exploitation at that time), their life is much easier now-the wealth accumulated at the top before finally began to gradually disappear. flow down.

The shipyard was busy all day long, and the uneven fleet was able to leave the port neatly because it was taken away by the parliament and businessmen. The original route became dense again, but within a few days, new problems appeared again. For some reason, there are more and more pirates. Not only are there more, they seem to be more familiar with the channel and schedule than the caravan, and they can successfully intercept their prey every time.

The people on the merchant ship who escaped by chance couldn't help muttering to themselves, who could be in charge of these crucial and confidential issues... Isn't it the Dutch who fled the Netherlands? This saddens and annoys the victims, who once suffered because of believing in those people, and now suffer a great loss because of them.

They pleaded with their current king, Louis XIV of France, and begged him to send the navy to ensure the safety of the route, but they were not sure that the Sun King was not the king of the Netherlands after all, and now that the war was coming, the French fleet, this A sharp sword should undoubtedly pierce the enemy's vitals, not escort a group of businessmen.