Louie smiled and didn't speak.

Although many people had doubts, Madame d'Aubigne was the first to put the question directly in front of him, and his non-response made Madame d'aubigne frown: "Do you admit it, or do you not want to answer?

"I never test human nature. Louis said, and then his smile became mischievous: "I can answer this question, Madame, I have always been very devout and convinced of God, who is my only master, and I have fallen at His feet as meekly as a lamb, obeying Him and worshipping Him." ”

Madame d'Aubigne was speechless, "There are still spear marks left by your soldiers on the Pont Sant'Angelo! ”

"No deeper than your sin," said Louis, "and if your words are unfortunate enough to be heard by a second man, they are destroying their faith." ”

"Who else can hear our conversation but your wizard?" said Madame d'aubigne.

"Do you think that wizards have no faith? They call themselves Merlin, but there may not be as many people in them who know the inside story as you think, and there is nothing more ridiculous than the despair and hatred that has lasted for more than a thousand years and is just a wall of brothers, no, I must say, what is even more ridiculous is that they are fighting with the snipe for the benefit of the fisherman, and in the end it is the church that has taken power. Louis tapped the handrail lightly: "It can only be said that the only thing that the church did not expect was that mortal technology would develop so fast. ”

In the infancy of steel smelting and gunpowder, the magic of wizards, werewolves and vampires, and magical creatures could indeed pose a great threat to mortals, forcing them to rely on the protection of the Church, even their kings - but what they did not anticipate was that the world of the Table was developing too fast compared to the slow and almost unchanging inner world, even though the Church had been intervening and watching—especially the technology related to war.

The 14th-century musket is no longer recognizable (it was just a dark tube), and the cannon of today is forcing the heavy walls and huge ships to change, and the armor has changed from rivets, chain mail, and full armor to the current ceremonial cuirass......

In addition, for a thousand years, mortals have continued to reproduce, and unlike the inner world, where the number of people must be carefully controlled, as long as there is no famine or plague, mortals can continue to reproduce for decades in their lives until they can no longer - on the other hand, the wizards of the inner world must consciously control the number of people, so as not to lose the balance of the ecology of the inner world.

A wizard, to be precise, an extraordinary being against a mortal is like a beast against a child, and he can do whatever he wants, but what if he is dealing with ten mortals, unless he is a mad dark wizard like Bosch, the average wizard will choose to avoid it, and what about a hundred, a thousand? When the Duke of Colonna returned to Paris, Louis turned him into a dragon...... Trying, while such a form does break the willless mortals, it is of little use to the soldiers passing through the battlefield - they may panic for a while, but experience and instinct will make them dodge and try to attack, and the dragon's blow is no more terrible than artillery, even if it is a flaming dragon like Agnelli's transformation, its body can still be torn apart by a ballista shell.

When the power of the Extraordinary could not threaten mortals, their exalted position would be in jeopardy, and the arrival of Louis hastened the question, why did the dark wizards of Flanders not continue their curse on the French royal family, and even flee the Low Countries, because they knew very well that if they continued to stay there, they would face the army of Louis XIV.

Wizards who have not tried to run around in the nets of His Majesty will never understand their feelings - household registration, identification, permission to walk, tight checkpoints, and seemingly ubiquitous patrols are around their necks like a noose, not that there are no dark wizards who are found and slaughter, but those stupid mortals not only did not flee in fear as before, but quickly surrounded them, and dark wizards are also human beings, and they will also feel tired, Hunger and thirst, their materials and magic are not endless, and if they are caught, they are subjected to severe punishment and then put to death.

The sorcerers flinched in front of the king, and so did the Roman Church, like a bold cardinal babbling drunken gibberish———— who knows if the devil was also created by God? After all, without the devil's danger and temptation to mankind, God and his messenger seem to have no need to exist, of course, the people who hear and say this sentence are "disposed of", but Elelius says that it does give a little interesting inspiration to young people like him.

Louis was not wrong when he said that the Church of Rome did not give him a great excommunication when he attacked Flanders and the Netherlands, and that the Church of Rome was hesitant to excommunicate the king of a Catholic country for the sake of a Protestant region (both the Netherlands and Flanders were mostly Protestant), but if any of the Princes in Red had realized what kind of man Louis XIV was, they might have gambled indeed.

Looking at the current situation, France was undoubtedly a huge country with successive victories of Flanders and the Netherlands, and Louis XIV, with a standing army of nearly 150,000 people, was unmatched, he was rich, generous, and tolerant- His eldest princess had married Karl XI of Sweden, his crown prince had married Princess Isabella of Portugal, he had promoted his uncle Prince Condé to become king of Poland, and his illegitimate son, the Duke of Colonna, had married the daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany in Italy.

But the Holy Roman Empire was now being held hostage by the Archduke of Transylvania in Hungary, who had a patrical vendetta with the Empire, and who had dealings with the Sultan of Ottoman Turkey, who of course feared that the Ottoman Turks would one day pass through Upper Hungary to the heart of Austria. Although, it is not for nothing that there are people who can intimidate this Grand Duke of Transylvania...... Look at King Ludwig I of Poland on the right...... That is, our dear Dakongdai......

Spain, needless to say, the Habsburg queen mother belongs to the kind of fool who wants to do it if she can't do it well, the regent Don Juan is obviously more accomplished in women's sex, Carlos II is not fertile and will live forever is already an open secret, who made the Spanish envoy make a gesture of ambition? Everyone would want to know why this marriage ended so suddenly.

As for England and France, to be honest, they were more adept at being enemies than friends, and even Louis XIV was not surprised, so it was almost impossible to get any benefit from them—like a surprise blow, and the only British foothold in France, Dunkirk, had already been sold to Louis XIV by Charles II.

As for Denmark, it was difficult enough to deal with Sweden, which was close at hand, and even if they hated Louis XIV, they could not be used by the Roman Church.

There is also a key problem, which is that England and Denmark are both Protestant countries, and the Church of Rome cannot do anything to slap itself in the face for the time being.

After a rough arrangement in this way, Louis felt that he should be able to understand a little bit of the cardinal's thoughts—Clement X had less than two years to live, and certainly would not be afraid of another Alvernon. Therefore, without the slightest hesitation, he took out the means that were about to decay again, and if he succeeded, he might as well become a saint - and the Church of Rome would be glad to see yet another French king at their mercy.

Unfortunately, there are not many people who share his delusions, at least not Madame d'Aubigne's maternal grandfather, and he asked his granddaughter to bring the truth about the Church to Louis as a gesture of goodwill and strength - it seems that this Monsieur Benedetto Otterscalci may already have most of the power in the Church (probably the part closer to the inner world), and if he is interested in the papal throne, it is not surprising that he decided to ally with Louis XIV.

"But there may not be so many places in France where the church is needed. Louie said.

"As I said before, you're getting a bad start. Madame d'Aubigne said without flinching: "Now that God's punishment has come, your Majesty, you will have to face not only the artillery, the ships and the armies of the outer world, but also the wizards and monsters of the inner world, Charles II has allowed the descendants of Merlin to enter his court, the regent of Spain is also breaking the shackles around the neck of the mad dog, and all the advantages you have gained from the wizard are being lost...... It is even turning into a disadvantage. ”

"Your power in the world is not as strong as one thinks," Madame d'aubigne pointed out bluntly: "The only wizards in France are those who mingle with the Bohemians, the wizards of Gayola are from the Apennines, and they are likely to go to war with the Duke of Colonna, and you can't keep them all with you or in the army, and as for Elarius, even if he and his people are willing to serve you, they have failed in their duties in Dunkirk once, which shows that the monks are not infallible." ”

"If you draw your dagger first, don't blame anyone for drawing your sword," after a pause, Madame d'Aubigne continued: "My grandfather had no ill will, and although he also thought that you were a man of great impudence and arrogance, he must also admit that you were a man of forgiveness and willingness to keep his word, and he even confessed that it was not necessary for you to make a long-term contract with him, and that you and he might soon have a conflict, but at least for three years you and his position were perfectly identical. ”

It must be said that this statement of Madame d'aubigne almost convinced Louis.

Louis did not fail to consider that other monarchs would make some similar attempts after seeing that he had driven wizards without any punishment from the mortal or the heavenly, after all, for some bold people, even the devil was not out of use, let alone the devil's servants? Even the wizards seem to have given up on their ambitions, and over the centuries the taboo has become almost an unwritten law.

But after Louis took the first step, others could naturally get their hands on this forbidden fruit.

His royal special guard was also prepared for this possibility, but Madame d'aubigne's secret pact meant that he could keep these credible young men with him and the Duke of Colonna, and let the wizards and monks of the Prince of Red go against the extraordinaries of England, Austria, or Denmark.

Whether it was the Viscount of Tyrrenne, the Prince of Condé, or the generals of Schaumberg and Vauban, Louis knew that Louis was a king who cherished his soldiers, and it should be said that Louis cared for anyone who was loyal to him, and he was able to avoid unnecessary casualties - the price he had to pay was only money and some superficial concessions, and it was well worth it. Although the cost was very substantial, according to the edict of Sithus V, the number of cardinals was limited to seventy, and more than two-thirds, or forty-seven, could be elected pope, and even if Madame d'aubigne's maternal grandfather was prepared, Louis XIV had to ensure that two-thirds of one-third favored the cardinal......

Now it seems that he has little chance to hesitate, Carlos II's sudden improvement is inseparable from the dark wizards, and even Spain, a country that was once burned at the stake, has begun to allow wizards to meddle in the life and death of the king, and other countries will only be more wanton, in addition to the Duke of Colonna, Louis also has to consider other children, as well as the safety of the Queen Mother and the Queen, the Duke of Orleans and others, as well as the Prince of Condé and his eldest son in Poland...... Looking at it this way, he is really a little stretched......

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Madame aubigne's maternal grandfather, the cardinal chief of Rome, was not so surprised when he received a reply from the king, knowing that his majesty would agree to an alliance with him, although in Rome the king's reputation was as bad as that of the beautiful man Philip IV, and it was said that he would establish a church that belonged only to him, as Henry VIII of England did, and at the same time hold the clergy and the royal power in his hands.

Although this idea is very tempting for an ambitious king, it is clear from the information obtained by the cardinal heads that this king can sometimes appear unusually merciful, such as Henry VIII, who freed England from the control of the Church, but at the cost of nearly a hundred years of religious wars, which not only did the clergy fall and the power of the country declined, but even the power of the monarchy was seriously shaken.

Louis XIV was not the kind of person who would do stupid things, even if he was indeed an unbeliever, and to tell the truth, it was much easier for the cardinal chiefs to deal with such people whose sanity was more rational than emotion, and even faith.

"Tell Bishop Barras to come to me. The cardinal's command was given, and the priests on one side immediately bowed down to obey, and within ten minutes, Bishop Barras appeared outside the cardinal's door.