"I think there's only one way to defeat the enemy, and that's to make France richer, richer forever. ”

This sentence was written by the Marquis de Senele in a letter to his father Colbert, and there is no doubt that it was a mockery of Louis XIV, but the king was not harsh on those around him, and this sentence- It can also be said to be a truth, Princess Henrietta's dowry was thirty Calais ships, but in the end only seven steam ironclad ships were refitted, in addition to the development of the steam engine has not yet reached the end of the realm, that is, each huge ironclad ship alone armor will consume nearly thirty tons of steel, even if Louis XIV has obtained Lorraine, which has huge reserves of coal and iron ore, this is already most of France's steel reserves in the past ten years.

Regardless of the money, gentlemen and ladies, the cost of the modification and other equipment such as artillery were not included, but the application report submitted by Mr. Denis Papin and his group was piled up on the table of the Marquis de Senele, who had to warn him that if he found anything unspeakable in it, he would ask the king to hang him on the cross in the harbor, as if he were a lowly pirate— Monsieur Papin swore that he had not falsely reported even a single riad (copper coin), whatever the Marquis de Senelet had to say.

When Senele complained to the king that the Huguenots were too rampant, the king, who was in a good mood, told him that if he really did not like Monsieur Papin, there was a way for him to get revenge - and that was to give him more work.

The Marquis of Seenellet was very interested in this proposal, but when it came to the subject, neither the king nor he was an expert, but Mr. Papin's use of rubber in the pressure cooker and the steam engine reminded the king that he could have that Mr. Samuel Moran do the rest of the work with Mr. Papin.

Samuel Moran was the one who provided Mr. Papin with rubber.

Rubber appeared on the continent of Europa much earlier than people thought, and when Columbus first set foot in South America, he saw that Indian children and young people would sing songs and throw small balls at each other, which had excellent elasticity and resilience, that is, when the weather was hot, they would be soft, and the smell was pungent. The balls were made from the secretions of some kind of tree by the Indians, and this was originally a liquid, but when solidified, it became an elastic solid, and it could be rubbed on the cloth and feet, so that no water could penetrate or get wet.

But for most Europeans, this stuff that can neither be eaten nor used is just a toy. Mr. Papin was the first to build the prototype of the steam engine, but he must say that the first steam engine was hardly very practical, or not cost-effective—most of the steam would flow out of the cracks in the parts of the machine, and he used cotton cloth at first, then silk, and then asphalt, and ox and sheepskin to seal the gaps, but all failed, and the work of the steam engine was so great that it could destroy most of the sealing material, and then he simply asked the king if there was a material that was tough and could withstand high temperatures and crushing. The king posed this question to his Academy of Sciences, and luckily, Samuel Moran, one of the king's scholars, happened to be studying rubber.

The improvement of the steam engine would of course continue, but the king could understand the Marquis de Senelet's fears, and of course it would not be rational for a Huguenot to monopolize this vital research work, although it was inevitable that there would be a situation of contempt among the scientists and even for patents, but Mr. Papin would have been glad to see Moran, for he also had a deep understanding and a great talent for the steam engine, and rubber was the material he had found to solve the tightness of the piston.

"But the most important thing is to ensure the safety and stability of the steam boiler. The king added that it was okay to slow down, and that it was okay to have the occasional glitch, but just don't explode, and think of the Kim Louis he spent on these ironclad ships, and the thousands of officers and soldiers on board in the event of war......

The Marquis de Senele obeyed, and then he could not help but look at the Throne anchored in the fleet of ships that the Duke of La Rochefoucauld had purchased from the Netherlands, although the Throne was taller and wider than these ships, but it did not look very conspicuous, and the king ordered the craftsmen to paint the ships all black, so that one could walk next to the Throne and find that it was covered with iron armor like a knight.

"I don't know when I'll see it across the sea. The Marquis of Senele said involuntarily.

"Maybe soon. "As time passes, nations cannot always be enemies and never friends, and it is understandable for a king that Charles II, who already had an heir, did not convert to Catholicism after hanging the heads of Protestants on the bell tower of the cathedral, as agreed with Louis XIV. After the Duke of York had a marriage contract with a Catholic daughter, in order to stabilize the mood of the Protestants in the country, they had already fought for their support, and Charles II was of course better still a Protestant king, of course, which made Louis XIV's position a little awkward - after all, the Treaty of Dover was a secret contract, and there were too many things in it that could not be made public, like the Flemish contract between Louis XIV and Leopold I, which was still kept in the hands of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Speaking of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany...... When Louis, the Duke of Orleans, and the young royal family returned to Versailles, the first envoy allowed to meet the king was the emissary of Cosimo III, Francesco Maria de' Medici, the younger brother of Cosimo III.

Francesco was born in 60, the same age as the Dauphin Louis, and he was still a young man who was interested in everything, but he didn't have much responsibility, and his intention was that Louis XIV and the Grand Duke of Cosimo III had already had a tacit agreement - that is, to enter into a marriage between Louis XIV's firstborn son, the Duke of Colonna, and Anna, the daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III.

In fact, this marriage cannot be said to be a good match, because the Duke of Colonna is just a title, and the Colonna family cannot give up their territory in Rome, so the Duke of Colonna is just a title, not a fief, when discussing the marriage contract, Louis XIV's representative Prince Conte said that Louis XIV will be canonized to the Duke of Colonna in a part of Flanders, until the Duke of Colonna inherits Naples as the son-in-law of the Bourbons.

This brings us to the new identity of the Duke of Colonna, given that the Duke of Colonna already has an official identity, Louis will not recognize him as his son in any public appearance, let alone in law, so if the Duke of Colonna wants to get Naples, then he must be the son-in-law of the Bourbons - this identity comes from Margaret Louise de Orleans, who married Cosimo III, she is the daughter of Gaston, the former Duke of Orleans, and the niece of Louis XIV.

However, Madame Marguerite hated Louis XIV and her half-sister, the Duchess of Montpensier, especially after the death of the Duke of Gaston in agony and curse, and the expulsion of her mother and sisters from Orleans———— Perhaps because her father had plotted the throne of the King of France, the lady often called herself a French princess, and she was jealous and hated the Duchess of Montpensier, who had grown up in the Louvre since childhood, and when she heard that her husband intended to marry their daughter to the king's illegitimate son, the Duke of Colonna, she shouted like a powder keg on fire.

Seeing this, ladies and gentlemen, do not think that this mother has much love for her daughter, she is not angry that her husband wants to marry her daughter to an unblessed illegitimate son, but because this illegitimate child is the eldest son of Louis XIV, and she does not care that the envoy of the King of France quarrels with Cosimo III at the Pitti Palace, insulting him as a "good mother baby" and "a poor worm" And so on, although it was true that Cosimo III was tired of dealing with government affairs for a while, and transferred his duties and powers to his mother, he could not bear such a humiliation, and in his own letter to Louis XIV, he begged Louis XIV to "take back" the shrew, and the proportion of the matter in the letter was even greater than the marriage they were negotiating.

Louis had also heard of this Margaret, Gaston's daughter, and perhaps she had always thought that the marriage was a humiliation to her, and in order to compensate herself, she had been trying to get as much money as she could since she set foot in Florence—a truly jaw-dropping thing for a noble lord. Cosimo III may not have been a good husband, but he at least gave Margaret enough respect...... Anyway, his gift to his new wife was a pearl the size of a pigeon's egg, and then Margaret gave her jewelry as a gift if she asked for it—even Queen Teresa only received jewelry from the king on her birthday, childbirth, or important day—but Margaret was not very happy, she did not want to have another child after giving birth to her eldest son, Ferdinand, and when she was pregnant with her daughter Anna, she went horseback riding, hoping to have a miscarriage.

Like a mother like this, how much love can you expect her to have for her daughter?

For Cosimo III to make this request to Louis XIV despite the fact that Marguerite had given birth to his youngest son, it seems that he was already going mad with torture, for he and Marguerite already had three children, and the only daughter was going to marry the Duke of Colonna, and it was probably impossible to break the marriage without having sex with him, and the only way to do so was to send his wife to the convent, which he said in his letter, in order to recover his wife, who had almost run away with all the jewels of the Medici family— When he saw this, Louis XIV couldn't help but be moved, the Medici family flourished in the Renaissance period, and was born as a merchant, there were two popes, a queen, and the treasures accumulated over hundreds of years can be imagined, Marguerite's appetite is not small, and it is no wonder that Cosimo III will be angry like this.

Most marriages in this era were political or commercial, especially the marriage of Cosimo III to the Lord of Margaret, which connected the Medici and Bourbon, and he was not asking Louis XIV for help, but begging him to allow himself to dissolve the marriage on a substantive level, which is not unprecedented...... Like the once mad woman Juana, she was deprived of the power and freedom of the queen under the conspiracy of her husband and father.

In short, Louis XIV could be said to have agreed to Cosimo III's plea with a smile, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany was four years younger than Louis, but according to the Prince of Conti, he was already frost-white.

"I'm worried about that Anna Medici now," Louis said to Prince Conte, "was she influenced by her mother?"

The Grand Duke still loved her very much, and Lady Margaret hated her and did not want to see her, so she grew up under her grandmother's knees. ”

"That's great. Louis said, and then he turned around, "Come here, child, and come and see your fiancée." ”

The Duke of Colonna forced his composure out, and there was a giggling sound from the curtain behind him, it seemed that the children who had become more harmonious after returning from Nantes were here, Francesco looked at the Duke of Colonna with a burning light, although the latter's title came from the Colonna family in Italy, but he almost grew up in France, so Francesco saw him for the first time- Although I have seen portraits before, there is still a difference between portraits and real people, even if the Duke of Colonna does not need a painter to beautify, he is a good young man with a magnificent instrument in his own right.

Whether it was a political marriage or a buying and selling marriage, the young man who saw his fiancée for the first time must have been very nervous, and after the attendants lifted the curtain covering the canvas, the Duke of Colonna visibly relaxed— The only daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany inherited the appearance of the Grand Duke, not that of the Lord of Margaret, but her face and contours were softer, and although her posture was a little stiff, it could be seen that her skin was fair, her eyebrows were thick, her eyes were shiny, and her black curls fell on her round shoulders, which looked very cute.

The Duke of Colonna turned to look at the King, who raised his hand encouragingly.

"I have a gift here, and I ask you to pass it on to Her Royal Highness Princess Anna Maria Luisa de Medici. ”

The Duke of Colonna said, his voice trembled slightly, but also with a little expectation, this sun face diamond brooch is no less valuable than the pearl the size of a bird's egg, presumably Cosimo III should understand the meaning of Louis XIV, the Duke of Colonna is not only as the Duke of Colonna, but also as the son of the King of France to fulfill this marriage contract.

Cosimo III, although a little stubborn, was not stupid, and on the day of the marriage contract, he transferred a castle in Siena to the Duke of Colonna as a gift in return.