Molière's Glorious Theatre Company was not able to find any flaws, and they were eventually allowed to go, after all, they had accepted the invitation and employment of Charles II, and they had rented a large house on a street near Whitehall Palace, and these well-dressed and ruddy Frenchmen were as striking as a wisp of bright flowers in the gray earth— Although Charles II outlawed all Oliver Cromwell's decrees, and the English could now hold banquets, dance, sing, and watch plays, the predominantly Protestant Londoners were still habitually dressed in dark clothing, and once Molière and his little lover took to the streets, they would be under constant scrutiny.

  Molière is no longer a young man, he was born in 22 years, he is forty-eight years old this year, but when he wears a black wig, wears an apricot-colored velvet dress, and rubs white powder and rouge on his face, he still looks energetic and energetic, and he and his troupe are fortunate to enter Whitehall Palace the next day to perform a new play for the king, "Don Juan", of course, Don Juan here does not refer to the current regent of Spain, but is based on a Spanish legend "The Playboy of Cevera" The play was so great a mockery of the church and the aristocracy that it was premiered in Paris and drew a lot of complaints, but Molière, with the Duchess of Montpensier as his patron, did not even look at a provincial magistrate or count, and naturally did not care about the gossip - in London, the Protestants were much more complicated, and although they had always thought of Rome as a filthy mire, they still felt a little restless when it was put naked in front of them.

  Charles II was the only one in the hall laughing uncontrollably, and he liked the play so much that he even allowed an actor, Molière, the owner of the Shining Theatre, to speak to him.

  As soon as he entered the cozy and secluded little hall, Molière bowed deeply to Charles II, and then quickly removed the necklace around his neck—he had just played Don Juan, and now he was still wearing the costume well, and Don Juan was a frivolous nobleman, so that he was dressed and ornamented even more than the ladies, and the gold necklace that Molière wore around his neck was not only large and heavy, but also set with a palm-sized ruby, "This is what our Majesty has ordered me to bring to you." ”

  Henrietta had returned to Paris a week earlier, and this was Louis's answer to Charles II, who looked up the necklace in confusion only to find that it was not a fake made of stained glass and gilded iron chains, as one might think, but real gold and precious stones, "and the diamond ornaments worn by the three beautiful ladies." Molière said, "Approximately half a hundred thousand livres in all, and our Majesty hopes that they will relieve you of your troubles a little." ”

  Charles II almost believed the absurd rumor that the messenger of Leopold I had foolishly regarded a troupe as the Sultan of Bosnia, and that he was now in front of him, and that he was so bold that he wore jewels worth half a thousand livres on himself and the actors, and entered the palace in front of him, in full view of everyone— But there is no doubt that this is the best, Charles II is saying that bills and cheques are of course more secretive, but the problem is that although these things appeared very early, in the seventeenth century, it was the Dutch who used these means the most, and they used them to solve the problem of merchants in different regions using different currencies, so that the largest and most liquid financial market system was born in the Netherlands, and the use of bills, although secretive, would be regarded as evidence of his treason and pro-French crimes.

  It was all the more impossible to carry half a hundred thousand miles of gold and silver, and it was almost impossible for him to meet the French envoys alone, so that an overlooked, despised actor could calmly hand over the reward from the King of France to Charles II, who had the credible men to quickly dismantle these beautiful jewels and sell them— Although Louis promised that he would send 15,000 soldiers from Dunkirk to remove the noose around Charles II's neck as soon as England took control of the Dutch navy at the outbreak of the war between France and the Netherlands, Charles II would not have put all his chips on the King of France, even without Henrietta's reminder.

  This tangible bribe will be used by Charles II where it is needed most.

  No one knows about the deal between Charles II and Molière, although there are also sorcerers to blame, and it can be said that Charles II's ministers and parliament are equally contemptuous of their king, but with such a monster as Louis XIV, Charles II's heart has long been twisted to a terrible point, he admits that he is cowardly, but he will also be crazy and desperate.

  ——————

  Louis XIV remained in Flanders' army, spent the whole winter in Flanders, and a spring day, and during these long months they were not idle, although the Duke of Philippe, the Prince of Condé, and the King returned to Paris together, but the Viscount of Tirrene and the Duke of Luxembourg were asked to stay in Flanders— The supply of tens of thousands of people had been transferred from France to the people of Flanders, which was of course an extremely heavy burden, so Flanders broke out several more riots, but for the soldiers who had already gone through the war, these sporadic and chaotic revolts only made their blades brighter and sharper.

  In addition to the supply of the army, the Flemers were forced to build a new road, which, like a terrible wound, ran directly from Brussels through most of Flanders and connected with Guise in Picardy, so that the French army could drive directly into Flanders, and it was also true that before the wind had time to become hot, the brilliant convoy of Louis XIV reappeared on this road.

  On this new road there was not only the king's convoy, but also thirty thousand soldiers, who followed the army and merchants in a mighty manner, and this time it was different from the king's first royal conquest, and the ministers, officials, and lords could be said to have gone one after another, and could not wait to offer large sums of money and beg the king to accept them, and the conscripts had little effort to collect the amount the king had demanded, and when they left Paris, many young men had come from the provinces— Although Louis XIV did establish a solid throne of royal power through the war against Flanders, these people were still for the benefits of war.

  I won't say how many livres the king got in Flanders, in the years when there was no law of war, the plundering of the soldiers was allowed, even if most of the soldiers stayed in Flanders, but those wounded soldiers still returned to Verles and Paris ahead of schedule, not to mention how rich Flanders were- One only has to consider that for more than a hundred years, one-third of the entire income of the Spanish crown came from Flanders, and you can see what a land of milk and honey it was, and the spoils of a few lucky people could make a family jump from class to class in an instant—that is, they were able to manage to buy a position, whether in a church or an official residence, and then from a commoner family to a bureaucratic family.

  And the ministers and nobles looked further, at the end of the seventeenth century, Flanders not only became the woolen workshop of the whole of Europa, but also gradually replaced the champagne bazaar in France and became a huge commercial and logistics center based on woolen wool. Spices and wine, and anything you can think of and imagine, and that, when Spain was weakened, their merchants were able to slowly grow the region by their own means, rather than continuing to let Spain suck blood, and it can be said that if it had not been for Louis XIV's intervention, perhaps decades later, the stronger Flanders would have followed the example of the Netherlands and declared independence.

  But now Flanders were only Louis's possession, and the unformed military system was vulnerable under artillery, and a fat prey would only make the hunter happier, not depressed, and the Parisians, or any Frenchman with a keen sense of smell, would have expected to take a bite of the cake - their money and manpower were soon thrown into a new military torrent by Louis, and nearly 100,000 troops, like an arrow, pointed straight to the Netherlands.

  ——————

  William III, a young man who carried the expectations of his family and his country, was no more than twenty years old this year, and he sat in silence in the city hall of Amsterdam, listening to the arguments of the people - even if the enemy was present, the high-ranking officials of the provinces, the officials - from the smallest clerk to the prime minister, still had their own thoughts, the Dutch had only been independent from the Spanish Habsburgs for only sixty years, and certainly did not want to return to the rule of a king - It is for this reason that Wilhelm III was embarrassed and suspicious, after all, the Netherlands was able to compete with Britain for maritime supremacy in just a few decades, and the benefits of independence were undoubted, but the problem was that compared to the invincible navy at sea, the Dutch army was simply a pitiful worm- In Maurice of Nassau, that is, William Orange, William I's younger brother in order to resist Spanish rule, created an army of about 20,000 people, the Dutch land blade was also sharp, but as the Spaniards retreated, the merchants of course needed ships to open up and fight for the passage for them rather than iron horses, and the army was shrinking day by day, and when William III took over the banner of commander, the Dutch army was no more and no less, or an ironic 20,000 men.

  The point is that the war after seventy years is completely different from the war seventy years ago, compared to the Dutch army with spearmen, the French army, which is almost entirely dominated by thermal weapons, not only far surpasses their tactics and armaments, but also has a crushing number, and they also have Viscount Tyrenne, if you haven't forgotten, Viscount Tyrrenne is none other than Maurice of Nassau - The protégé of the founder of the Dutch army, who had learned more from his uncle than an entire military school, was well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the Dutch army, and it could be said that the Dutch army was facing the French head-on, and there was little chance of defeat but defeat.

  Some of these high-ranking officials had different ideas, some wanted to bribe the French king, or his trusted ministers and nobles, in the hope that Louis XIV would change his original plan, others advocated hiring more soldiers from the Holy Roman Empire or Sweden to fight France to the end, and still others thought that peace should be negotiated with Britain as soon as possible so that the Dutch navy could be withdrawn and threatened Dunkirk and Calais, and perhaps force France to withdraw their troops.

  But of these people, Wilhelm III's opinion was the weakest, and the least of these people, and the wary eyes of the Prime Minister made Wilhelm III feel deeply distressed, and he walked out of the council chamber - no one noticed him anyway, and he walked all the way to the side of the council chamber, from which he could see the blue ocean, the milky white sky, and the wings of seabirds breaking through the clouds like daggers.

  "I still don't agree with your previous idea. ”

  William III looked down and it was his only friend Semuel who was standing at the foot of the steps, Semuel was an Englishman, but he taught William III French, and when William III's mother died and Parliament had to hand over his custody to his grandmother, the English around him were driven away, but Seymour had only sneaked away from London to Amsterdam a few days earlier, as a secret messenger of Charles II, he told William III that Charles II intended to return part of the Stuart family's debt to the Orange family, which was a large amount, worth about 400,000 livres, which Charles II meant, if William III could manage to get back part of the arrears, perhaps his nephew could manage to recruit a part of the soldiers himself and throw them into the coming war.

  William III was skeptical, and everyone knew that Charles II was financially stretched, but Charles II's suggestion did make him feel like he was - "it was the queen's dowry." Semuel said.

  Indeed, in this era, the arrears of dowry have almost become a tradition, such as Philip IV of Spain, João IV of Portugal, and the actual amount of Dowry of Queen Catherine is completely different from what João IV promised.

  So on the evening of that day, a three-masted ship sailed out of the harbor of Amsterdam, with William III and two of his retinue, who had gone for the money owed by the Stuart family to the Orange family, and they arrived at Whitehall Palace early the next morning.

  Then he was put under house arrest by Charles II.