Bishop Baras, with a fit of rage, kicked open the carriage door, startling the noisy people with a loud noise, but as soon as they saw Ballas's bishopric and belt, they immediately ran to him, knelt beside him, and said something.

This surprised Baras, who had not rested well last night, and who had been woken up today when he wanted to take a nap, and whose head was pounding so hard that he could barely hear what they were saying, but there was also a man who was good at reading words, and he managed to get rid of those who had come to ask the Bishop to be the master, and graciously invited Baras to his manor to be a guest and rest, and Baras barely maintained some dignity and caution, and returned to the carriage first, and then tiredly listened to the priest beside him report the identity of this man, it turned out that this man was the lord of this small city, where he had a large land and people, and today he was about to deal with an extremely evil case......

Baras, who did not want to know whether someone had lost a rooster or a lady had been touched, wanted only to rest well or go on with his journey, but the Baroness begged him to give him the honour of entertaining a papal envoy, and Baras agreed, and his motorcade came to the Baron's estate, where he was given a very grand reception— Of course, a small town like Pliva could not even compare with Marseille, let alone Paris or Versailles, but the next day when Barras got up sleepy-eyed, his attendant happily told him that the roosters and potatoes were fresh.

When it comes to potatoes, Barras is a little unhappy, because potatoes were also introduced to France by Louis XIV, and then became popular throughout Europa, the poor used it to satisfy their stomachs, and the nobles used it to create all kinds of ways to eat it - boiled and steamed, stewed and roasted, shredded and fried, ground and mashed...... It can also be fried into finger-length strips, and the clergy of Rome shrugged their noses at the mention of Louis XIV, as if they smelled a pile of stinking dog shit, and ate the potatoes he promoted without mercy.

What Baras didn't expect was that the baron in a small town was also so rich, he said, he had a yellow curry potato stewed rooster for breakfast, a real big pot, the rooster was nothing, and the potatoes were nothing, but there was a problem with such precious spices, and it was not just for him alone, Baras made up his mind, he would not sell himself for a pot of yellow curry potato chicken, although he ate it, he would not admit the other party's affection.

But this baron is not stupid enough to do this, after the king abolished the tax collector system, as a baron of Privat, he also felt a lot better - in the past, after those tax collectors bought the right to collect taxes from the king, they had to add twenty, thirty or even fifty percent of the profits to satisfy their appetite, and the baron did not need to pay taxes, but his people needed to pay taxes, and he was not the kind of guy who was extremely vicious, and even a little weak...... While the tax collector was still there, he could only barely make sure that his castle would not leak, that there would be pork and wine on his table, and that he could not care about anything else, whether it was the suffering of the people or anything else.

As soon as the system of tax collectors is abolished, he can also happily and without pressure to collect the original tenant money or harvest from the people, and thank God that at least when he rides through the wilderness in a carriage or rides into the forest to hunt, there will be no hungry and desperate "wild man" who cannot pay the tax, loses his land, his home and his relatives, and gives him a blow with sticks and stones......

At first it was only the men who had to work to feed themselves, but later, unfortunately, there were fewer babies who were "accidentally" crushed to death by their mothers at night, and after reading the newspapers, he sent the stewards to Orleans and Paris to buy seeds of tobacco, tomatoes, and peppers, which were not as reliable as wheat, but which could make a good fortune, and the tenant farmers now even drank ale in luxury, wore a few laces on their turbans and shirts, smoked pipes like old men, and put on leather boots.

But O God Almighty, Baron Pliva thought with a sad face that the poor ghosts who should be accursed, who could not keep to themselves when they could not eat enough, and now that their lives were better, they had fallen into the devil's tricks again, and had begun to do things that they could not say more.

What the Bishop of Baras thought was nothing more than the loss of a rooster or the touching of his buttocks, Monsieur Baron could have solved it by beating each man with ten sticks, but the problem was that while Ballas was passing through Pliva, something great happened in his farmstead.

Twelve people were poisoned in a farmer's house.

This number even Baron Pliva should feel frightened, he has never even been on the battlefield, even during the period of the Fronde movement, when it was the most chaotic, his small town and farm died of hunger and disease, he didn't have to collect and bury it, he just felt that his territory was getting more and more empty, but when the king was in charge, thank God! Many of his subjects came back one after another, but the most fortunate were the tenant farmers who remained in the grange, and did not flee, who persevered while others abandoned their land and fled, and before the people returned, they gave Monsieur Baron a lot more land, and hired those who did not cultivate, and then they became rich.

As far as the Baron of Pliva knew, he meant that the gentleman who had been poisoned, who had been a cowherd in the village, and who had a little savings, and who had faithfully guarded the village when the others had no choice but to abandon their homes, and for which the Baron was moved to reward him with a gold louis, which he wore piercing around his neck, and wore it like a medal— Of course, when he asked for more tenants, Monsieur Baron agreed, and if he remembered correctly, the cowherd would probably have taken all his relatives and friends' land.

Some of them returned, some of them did not, and anyway, when they returned, how they had to become slaves of the cowherd, and how they cursed the cowherd in a rage, Monsieur Baron was not interested in knowing—the case was not difficult to solve, and the stick, and the iron, or the blossoming pear, though the king's magistrate would not take the faith of such evidence, but ...... It's still the countryside after all.

The result was not surprising, the murderer was the only survivor, the thirteenth, the deceased's little nephew, whose father and brother had died in Lepuy or Mund, and he returned to Pliva alone, only to be treated by his uncle, who not only did not take care of him, but treated him like a cow and horse, and he was willing to bear it because his uncle promised to marry his daughter to him. Then he gave him a field and a house to live in, and as soon as he turned around, his uncle married his daughter to a soldier who, though not in the service of Louis XIV, boasted that it was possible for the king's magistrates to go to Orleans, Versailles, or Paris from their army, and everyone knew what that meant.

His uncle didn't hesitate.

The young man did not hesitate, he got poison, put it in the ale of the wedding, and killed twelve people at once.

If that's all there is to it, it's very simple, although Pliva is small, but there is also a square for execution, and he can choose to be hanged or beheaded, but unfortunately the king has long abolished the more cruel and lengthy execution methods such as wheel punishment and four-horse corpse punishment, but the source of poison given by this young man has led to another trouble.

That's a good thing for the three clergy, they are secretly selling the so-called "heirship potion" - the name is a bit awkward, but the rare clergy are not lying, of course, if you kill all the heirs before you, of course you can become the first heir, just like the lad did, if he is not so reckless, his uncle's accumulated money, livestock and fields are all his.

So Monsieur Baron ordered the soldiers to arrest the three priests - the main thing was that he absolutely did not want these three people to remain in his domain, to hell, he could also inherit and be inherited, he did not want to be honored to go to God in advance one day just by drinking a glass of wine, the poison was so immediate, that he would not even leave you time for the sacrament of death, and as a result, when his soldiers ordered the priest of the church to hand over the three priests, two of them had already run away, and only one guy named Ravigul remained.

And then the guy came up with a charter — a charter, which means that the person who is fortunate enough to get this kind of paperwork, either issued by the church or issued by the bishop, has the privilege of doing things that are otherwise forbidden or exempt from doing things that are otherwise necessary. The three priests, of course, were the former, and he claimed that this "elixir of succession" appeared to warn the faithful to stay away from greed and depravity, but no, everyone who gave birth to greed was sent to hell by this potion.

Baron Priva pondered it all night, and could not decide whether the matter should be handed over to Mr. Bishop of Pliva, or to Mr. Governor of Pliva, but there was no simple matter concerning the Church of Rome, and he did not know whether the charter was true or not—and his sister in Marseille wrote him a letter informing him that it was very likely that the Ecclesiastical envoy would pass through Pliva, so ......

This may have been a hot potato to Baron Pliva, but not to Bishop Baras, who, as soon as he heard it, guessed that the charter came from the hand of the madman with the triple crown, the so-called "potion of succession", which he only sniffed and knew came from the hand of the wizard, that is, the wretched creatures held in the hands of Clement X, and when he heard the baron say that there were two more priests on the run, his expression became even more dangerous.

"It's fake. Ballas said sharply, he had taken the priest from the baron, and was ready to take him all the way to Paris.

To Baron Pliva's surprise, the papal envoy did not embarrass him by his arrogance, and he was full of joy to prepare a new car for the tolerant bishop—the latest carriage from Orleans, with pneumatic wheels made of pneumatic rubber, and in addition to making the body more stable, the horses could pull the carriage with little effort—and the carriage would be faster.

It was a bonus, at least Ballas was finally able to take a long nap comfortably in the carriage.

——————

While Barras was still napping on the road, Louis was also going through his ordinary busy day.

He had returned to Versailles from Paris, and he had stayed in Paris to support his daughter and niece, but did he not see that even the Duke of Orleans, who had always been fond of freedom, had honestly spent fifty days in the Louvre? Dancers and musicians stayed in Paris, hoping for a chance to rise to the top, and partly because Parisians and the flocks of tourists could satisfy their most basic needs.

They could go back to their original city, but having seen Versailles and Paris, how could they be willing to stay in a remote and lonely place? It was full of beauty, nobility and opportunity, and although few people could get their wishes fulfilled, who could guarantee that they would not be the next Rembrandt?

When the Marquis de Lois came to meet the king, Louis XIV was taking a rare moment to admire the gift given to him by the eldest princess, the Night Watch, which the hapless Dutch painter Rembrandt said was not the original Although his employers were very unhappy with the night watch, they eventually took the painting back at a discount, but their attitude towards the painting was very different from that of the creators, not only did they cut off the sides of the picture in order to hang the painting on the established wall, causing the whole picture to be unbalanced, but also because the room was lit and heated by peat fires, so a thick layer of black ash was piled up on the picture.

Rembrandt, who heard about this from a friend, was very sad, so he repainted "Night Watch", which was a little smaller than the original, but more perfect, because the painting did not have to pursue the satisfaction of the employer, but only to achieve the creator's goal, and it was not surprising that it was taken by Princess Celestia at first sight, and even Louis could be said to love it.

After the Marquis de Lois came in, Louis beckoned him to come and admire the work with him, if you are not familiar with this majesty, you may be uneasy, but the Marquis de Lois has been following the king since the Battle of Flanders, how could he not know that this is the king's expression of closeness, he hurriedly stepped forward a few steps, stood beside the king, and carefully looked at the work.