The children remained calm in the presence of the king, and though their red faces had already betrayed their excitement, as soon as they left the sight of the king and his ministers, they could not wait to discuss it, and the eldest princess's voice was the clearest, she was favored by her father, and she had hardly suffered any setbacks, and was even bolder than the crown prince, and the prince's voice was as calm and gentle as his movements, and the Duke of Cologna had swept away the gloom of her previous gloom when he spoke, and became eager and bright, and the lord of the county, although her tone was as gentle and calm as ever, could also hear that her little heart was beating with joy。

Louis listened until the children's footsteps faded away, and he glanced at the royal brother and the minister beside him, "There is another man," he said, "and when he comes, we will continue with the rest of the schedule." ”

That person is Cardinal LaRivière, and his current status is as embarrassing as the Archbishop of Canterbury in England, because although France is called the eldest daughter of God, it is definitely a rebellious woman for the Roman Church for three hundred years, and a long time ago, the Roman Church received threats from France rather than support - and after the Sun King, the prestige of the Roman Church is further reduced, this king can't even bear the princes of the country, how can he endure the state of the church?

But even the Roman Church had to submit to this king, and Louis XIV was now the most powerful Catholic king - the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, on whom the Church had previously relied was only the Archduke of Austria, and there were enough Protestant electors in the Holy Roman Empire, not to mention England, Hungary, Sweden, Denmark, Norway...... The Catholic Church did not have as many territories as people thought, so although angry, the Church of Rome still had to thank Louis XIV for taking the Netherlands, which was a Protestant country, and of course, if Louis XIV was willing to force the Protestants to convert or expel them...... The church can also be blameless.

But as soon as Larivière heard the subject of the proceedings, he knew that the plan of the Church of Rome could not succeed.

Because the theme of this conference is education. Louis XIV had been concerned with education in the country since he was a child, and he had asked Mr. Bishop Mazarin, and it must be said that in this respect the princes of the Holy Roman Empire were ahead of the French, and in the second half of the sixteenth century the Duchy of Wetinburg and Saxony enacted laws on compulsory education, and for the Duchy of Weimar in the early seventeenth century, a similar law was enacted, which required boys and girls between the ages of six and twelve to attend school, and that they should not miss even one day of the year, except for religious holidays- Although this part of the law is difficult to enforce, after all, people still have to worry about food, clothing, or even shelter today, they will not care whether tomorrow the child will be able to learn a word or make a math problem, and the lack of teachers is also a big problem, and in the cities there can be priests or merchants to serve as teachers, and in the villages there are many professions of teachers (not a sick sentence), they are likely to be tailors, or cowherds, or old mercenaries, and in general, the people in charge of building schools do not know what to choose, so they can only let those who can speak well to fill the numbers, and some of them can only teach children to read and write simplySome teach them to recognize numbers, while others simply boast about their past "exploits", and they physically punish their children as they please, making them work for themselves, or blackmailing their parents.

This was not uncommon in France, so Louis XIV only popularized primary and secondary education in Versailles for the time being, because the king and his cronies often traveled between Versailles and Paris, and the teachers' salaries were also very high, so there was no troublesome situation for the time being, and these schools produced what people saw as a "new army", loyal, intelligent, brave and strong.

As the assets of the Netherlands and Flanders gradually moved from the hands of merchants into gold and silver coins into the national treasury, and after the partition of the Dutch colonies, the money paid to France by the various countries according to the Treaty of Versailles was carried out, Louis still had the spare to support the country's educational projects, even though he allocated funds to both the army (150,000 standing army) and the naval fleet, one of the four art academies supervised by the children, and the universal and even secondary education that Louis had always hoped to carry out was a top priority.

But this question touches on the last thing that Bishop La Rivière wants, and that is that the Huguenots, the term for which the Huguenots are Protestants in France, are just as odious heretics as they are to the Church of Rome, and for which the Church of Rome certainly wanted Louis XIV to behave like Catherine Medici, that is, to create another massacre.

But the most important reason that allowed Louis to put up with this group of pagans was the educational resources of the Huguenots - because from the beginning, the Huguenots used education as a sword and shield to challenge the Catholic Church in France, and the king's secret agents found that before they were ordered to close, the Huguenots had a total of thirty-two colleges and eight universities, which taught the Chinese language, reading, writing, Subjects such as mathematics and poetry, although there are inevitably religious courses such as catechism, these teachers are real teachers, they have experience, they have teaching materials, and their educational philosophy has a lot of overlap with Louis, regardless of gender, in grades, in classes, and there are exams every month.

I don't know how much better this kind of systematic education is than the previous religious schools, which mainly focused on religious education.

Speaking of which, there were Jesuit schools in France, which taught physics, natural sciences, and chemistry in addition to the traditional Seven Arts, but the problem was that they were too classical, rarely accepting new things, and deliberately leading students towards absolute obedience and obedience to the Catholic and Roman churches—an intolerable sin for Louis XIV, even greater than the Huguenots' rebellion.

In addition, the Jesuits had rejected the king's request for a primary school curriculum, and of course, to this stubborn fool, children under the age of ten were all unteachable animals.

Bishop La Rivière only shook his head, the Jesuits probably didn't know what their king had to do if he wanted to do it.

Sure enough, the king had determined that the Huguenots would be able to live in peace in the Orleans region while maintaining their faith, as long as they were willing to surrender their teachers and teaching materials, and to obey the king's orders, and that the king had told Monsieur de Chamborence to convey to the Huguenots elsewhere that it was not impossible for them to insist on living in their original places, after all, the Edict of Nantes allowed them to live in La Rochelle. Montauban and Nîmes maintained their faith, but in the event of religious-related riots, the king would not only revoke the Edict of Nantes, but also consider them treasonous.

If they wanted to escape, it was the same, now the king had enough troops to keep an eye on them, and the military power of the Huguenots had long been outlawed.

Since the fall of Flanders and the Netherlands, they have had even fewer places to go.

But you have to say that they stayed in the three places of La Rochelle – in fact it should be said that they were two places, because the Huguenots were almost invisible in Nîmes – but they had to obey the Catholic Church's arrangements for the feasts and pay the tithe, but when they were surrounded by Catholics, their days would be very difficult.

It is not surprising that a converted man said that when a priest has an executioner behind him, or a king's army of 100,000, it is difficult for you to disobey his words.

Now, Louis XIV gave them the option of moving to Orleans, where there was a special area where the inhabitants shared their faith, where they could continue their lives without conversion or hard labor, as long as they wished to go to the king's school as teachers......

"Do you mean that apart from literature and science, there are schools for craftsmen?" asked Bishop La Rivière, cautiously asking, a man who was neither wise nor stupid, because he was so stupid as to compete with Prince Conte and the confessor of the Queen Mother for the position of cardinal, and if not stupid, he decisively accepted the olive branch from the then very young king.

Now it was impossible for him to dictate the king's decision, or to disobey him, and he hesitated for a moment and did not raise any objection to the question.

"Did these schools first open in Orleans?" asked Prince Conti.

"So to speak," said Louis, "because it belongs to my dearest brother," the Duke of Orleans stood up at once and saluted, "I believe that he will be able to control his own territory." "And the Duke of Orleans had a vast territory - so that the Duke of Orleans was able to make waves in the past, and now the king could divide them into three parts, belonging to the Catholics (who had been loyal to Gaston), the Huguenots and the wizards, to ensure that they would consume the last of their strength in keeping each other in check.

"And," said Louis XIV, "I do not wish that there would be any other private school like this in the land of France, in addition to the primary, secondary and university which I am about to open." ”

Bishop La Rivière moved uneasily, the meaning of this sentence was clear, it was addressed to him, and since the schools of the Huguenots had been ordered to be closed, what could the king mean but the schools of the Jesuits?

But he also went to the King's School in Versailles—and everyone who saw it knew why the king valued education so much, not even secondary schools and universities, and think that these children began to learn how to be loyal to the king at the age of six or seven, and when they were grown, would they still be like the mob of Paris to attack the royal palace at the slightest instigation?

There are no two suns hanging in the sky, and the thought popped into Bishop Laliveer's head - the Sun King would not allow any being to sit on his own footing and divide the hearts of his people, even if that being was a saint and a god.

Louis XIV gave a casual command as if he had asked for tea and coffee, and then turned to the next one, which was the school curriculum, and the religious curriculum might be retained, but not much, and in the primary school it would be simple reading and writing and arithmetic, and in the secondary school the king would have added more – physics, chemistry, astronomy, nature, law, ...... History, geography, etc., as for the Greek and Latin courses that were necessary in the Jesuit schools, were simply abolished by the king, which was of little benefit to the development of France.

As for the university curriculum, the king proposed that there should be a division of specializations, just as the art academies should be divided into painting and sculpture, drama, music and dance, and people chose the academies and chose their future careers, rather than the children of doctors are doctors, the children of merchants are businessmen, and the children of lawyers are lawyers, as in the past...... Children can choose their own careers according to their talents and interests.

"It's a genius idea," Prince Conte hurriedly complimented, "I used to want to be a trumpeter." ”

"I can have you play the trumpet before every feast (note 1)," Louis said jokingly, "but before you do that, you must do something for me." ”

"Please command. Monsieur Colbert said with his head held high, that he had no daughter to marry, and that he was not afraid, and he heard Louis XIV say: "I need your help to review a textbook, gentlemen, and I trust you, for you to ensure that it is complete, detailed, and safe." ”

Suddenly alert, Kirbert raised up his few hairs, almost up his wig—compared to Prince Conte, who was vowing to do it perfectly, he asked in a voice so weak that it was almost inaudible, "A textbook?"

"Well," said the king, "from primary to secondary school." Then he heard a "grunt", and Mr. Kirbert fainted at the moment he heard his answer.

The king glanced at the Duke of Orleans beside him: "I'm not in such a hurry. ”

——————

In the same way, after realizing what a heavy, tedious, and responsible work the King had entrusted them, Prince Conte seemed to be out of his body (and probably could not return in a short time), and the Duke of Orleans snickered and asked Bontang to take them to the side hall for a while, where he and the King still had a little work to do.

It took several minutes for Prince Conte to finally come to his senses, comforted by the hot chocolate and cream cake, and he let out a cry that startled Colbert, and was accused of being rude and stupid as he walked into the waiting room.

Before Prince Conte could say anything to his uncertain brother, Prince Condé walked in.

There has been a third group of people in the Venus Hall, but this time it is no longer the ministers, but the generals.

From the Prince of Condé downwards were the Duke of Luxembourg, the Viscount of Tyrrenne, and a few other officers who had earned themselves a feather on the battlefield, and the King looked at them and said bluntly: "I intend to establish a military school." ”