Chapter 32: The Little French Girl

  "Madam, you are truly renowned far and wide." I felt a bit uneasy, having just learned about the tactics of the wife's husband, and thought that what they said might be true. After responding with this sentence, my eyes instantly swept towards Constance, only to see the triumphant color in her eyes becoming even more intense. "It seems that being able to become the madam's partner is a great honor."

  I'm puzzled, why does the French girl always target Wendy?

  "It would be my honor to be your escort, a privilege that others can only dream of." Wendel sneered at the French girl.

  The latter continued to keep a smile on his face and didn't say anything, gradually giving the initiative of speech to the three companions he brought.

  "Madam, this dress truly suits your temperament. Just look at the color, the fabric is high-quality Far Eastern silk, the embroidery is master-level fine work, and the needlework and embroidery techniques are all top-notch. A dress like this would cost at least 5,000 roubles, even in the court of Versailles, only the most noble and favored ladies could wear something like this."

  "Seeing your dress is so beautiful, I couldn't help but ask, would you be able to take me to visit the tailor who made this skirt for you on a day when you have some free time? Because the ones I brought are all somewhat old-fashioned, just look at this coat of mine, the gold thread embroidery patterns on it are outdated, the tassels and green color on the chest are not in fashion in Constantinople, and the two rows of buttons on the chest need to be replaced. So although this garment cost me nearly seven thousand roubles, when it's time to throw it away, it still has to be thrown away."

  I couldn't help but take a few more glances at the clothes on that guy who was speaking. Jean Harris, one set of clothes costs over 7,000 roubles, which is roughly the same number in Imperial gold coins as soltudes! Those French nobles are really generous.

  "Why don't we do this, madam? Take us to meet the seamstress who made this dress for you. I'll personally buy a brand new one as a gift in return, how about that?" Jean Harris said with a self-satisfied smirk, raising an eyebrow on either side.

  Wendell said indifferently, "There's no need for that. I already have enough clothes. If you're going to get new clothes, I can have my steward take you to see the tailor."

  "Look, look at the enchanting sky outside, such a pleasant night, let's put aside the matter of buying clothes for now and talk about something more interesting."

  Three French guys, you one sentence I one sentence, completely no room for anyone to interrupt, although watching others hit on my future wife was a bit annoying and escalated to very dissatisfied, but I still decided to observe first.

  "What's on your mind?" Constance asked with interest.

  I smiled and said: "I wonder what kind of country France is."

  "Did you get an answer then?" Constance asked.

  "I think so. France is a beautiful country, otherwise it would not have given birth to such beautiful women as Madame de Leonidas and Mademoiselle d'Orleans." I said slowly and deliberately, with great interest.

  "Am I really beautiful?" Constance, with a flirtatious smile, took off the lace gloves from her hands, revealing her fair and smooth skin on the back of her hands, then handed them over. Her crystal-like nails were very pleasing to the eye: "And what about my hands?"

  When a noblewoman removes her gloves, it means that one can kiss the palm of her hand directly, rather than making a kissing sound in the air above the glove. Taking the delicate, almost boneless little hand, so soft and comfortable, my lips made zero-distance contact with the back of the small hand in the palm, lifting my eyelids to see a pair of amber-colored eyes that were about to become dazed.

  "I think I'll always remember this day." I said, releasing Constance's hand.

  Constance's face suddenly turned bright red, as if she had applied a thick layer of rouge. The poor and short-tempered woman was suddenly pushed by the goddess to become a rich and beautiful lady. She was so excited that she couldn't help but dance with joy, her movements awkward and uncoordinated. Her eyes sparkled like diamonds, shining brightly in the sunlight.

  Are all French girls so bold and uninhibited? My face was burning, I didn't want to get entangled in this topic any further, who knows if she would ask me something like "can I try it" or "come to my place tonight": "No matter how charming you are, you can't compare to the Duchess of Orléans, can you tell me some interesting stories about France? I'm really curious about beautiful France."

  After finishing speaking, he looked at the person's wife and saw that Wendi on the other side let out a cold hum: "I'm very sorry, everyone. I suddenly feel a bit unwell. You all continue, but I need to leave for a moment."

  "That's enough, madam. Let us continue." Constance hooked her arm through mine, a pair of breasts that strained against the confines of her corset pressed tightly against me. "What would you like to know? Ah, let me tell you about Versailles, it is the most beautiful place in all the world."

  "Okay."

  Starting from the center of power, this is just what I wanted to know. What allies does the Duke of Orléans have?

  "Does the duchess have only three earl friends?"

  "How is it that we are also more emotionally close, truly good friends are still in Paris. Like Viscount Philias, Count Ina, they all get along with me quite well, Princess Anne, Princess Maria, the two Misses of Duke Guise, and Countess Anjou, they are all very nice people. If one day you go to Paris, I can introduce them all to you."

  "Is Comte de Guiche a hero of France and Mademoiselle d'Orleans does not know him?"

  "What about him? He's all right, I suppose. Our Orleans family has a rather ordinary relationship with his side, but that's because the Count of Vaudemont from the Condé branch often causes us trouble."

  The relationship between the House of Orléans and the Condé branch was not very good.

  "What does the duchess usually do in Paris?"

  "Excursions, gatherings, banquets, and occasionally going hunting. But my last memory of going to the forest was truly terrible. The forestry official was completely irresponsible, allowing many lowly people to sneak into a good hunting ground. They not only stole wood, but also secretly hunted down the deer and foxes that were supposed to be reserved for us. It's really infuriating! In the end, I didn't even get to see a single fox."

  "This is indeed not good."

  "What's more, someone even went to Versailles to propose to the king that the ban on deer hunting be lifted. Honestly, doesn't that guy ever think that if the ban is lifted, where will our nobles go to hunt deer, and where will we have forests to play in?"

  "Hey, if you go hunting one day, call me up, I'll be staying at the guest house you provided. Is that okay? Is it okay?"

  The cheap old man wants me to marry the woman who seems to have numerous debts outside, now she's making a scene and leaving, who knows what kind of medicine she has in her belly. Next to this French chick, my male intuition tells me that this is a French feast, as long as I crook my finger, I can eat until my mouth is full of oil, but my rationality also reminds me that this chick must have played with many men.

  I don't have much of a good impression of this woman, but I need to pretend to be increasingly interested and flirtatious with her. Because only by doing so can I get what I want out of her mouth. You see, she is the Duchess of Versailles, where something happened, there are many things that cannot be fully understood just by written reports, but through her little mouth, they can be.

  Although tonight was not very fast, there were still some gains. When Constance asked me about the interesting things on the battlefield, she inadvertently revealed a very important message. The French royal bank established a company called Mississippi last year with assets of 1.2 billion livres and authorized to issue 50,000 shares. Before Constance came to Rome, the original price per share was 240 livres, which soared to 1880 livres!

  Fifty thousand shares, the price of which had risen to five times its original value, now stood at eighteen hundred and eighty roubles; in all, that would be nine million four hundred thousand roubles. Good heavens! That was more than the annual income of the French Treasury!

  It's several dozen times more than the surplus!

  With this large sum of money obtained so easily, the Sun King will probably be smiling even in his sleep.

  But I think that the Mississippi Company would not sell all its accumulated stock at once, and in the worst case scenario, if 240 shares were sold for too much, the price rose to 1880 livres, the Mississippi Company still had at least 20,000 livres of stock on hand. That is to say, the Mississippi Company spent half a year raising 56.4 million livres from France! After deducting costs, they made a profit of over 49 million without doing anything!

  49 million rials in silver francs, what a concept!

  The monthly salary of an infantryman in France was between four livres and twelve sous to six livres and four sous, while the monthly salary of a cavalryman was fourteen livres. In Western Europe, second-rate powers generally had only one permanent force of around 40,000 to 50,000 men. With France's prosperity, if Louis XIV wanted to maintain an overwhelming advantage with 150,000 infantrymen and 50,000 cavalrymen, totaling 200,000 troops, the monthly expenditure would be two million livres, including miscellaneous expenses and officer salaries. If the army were mobilized, the maintenance cost of this force would rise to around 3.4 million livres per month. However, even with such a large sum, France could support its army for over a year and a half without using state funds, relying solely on the massive profits of the Mississippi Company! But would France not use the money in the treasury?

  This bad news is really too much for me, I don't have the heart to continue playing anymore.

  Just as I was about to leave the old duke's house, a commotion broke out in one corner of the hall. When I lifted my eyelids, I saw three Constantinople nobles storming out of the hall with rage. All three were people I knew, and there was no way around it - after all, our family, the Seofano, had only that many supporters. But this time, I furrowed my brow, because I saw a fierce murderous intent in the eyes of the leader, a man who didn't have a good reputation in Constantinople.

  "What's going on?"

  "Not quite clear! But it seems to be a dispute over fame and fortune!" Constance clenched her fists excitedly, "Will there be a duel? Where do they usually duel? Will someone die? Oh God, I'm so looking forward to it!"

  This woman is beyond salvation, I glanced around and saw two familiar faces, the artistic youth Frederick and the artistic girl!

  "Are they the two who provoked those people?" I asked.

  Constance said with interest, "It seems they are vying for the favor of a young lady! That man, the handsome one, is said to have dueled with people in the university district more than twenty times in half a year, and many people call him 'Dueling Frederick'!"

  "What a troublemaker he is indeed." I said with annoyance, a small German nobleman actually dueled over twenty times, he simply didn't want to live... This is Constantinople, after all.

  "Do you know them?"

  "It's okay."

  I took a glance at the sky and decided to leave early, but Constance detained me for some time. It wasn't until I gave her an ambiguous reply that she let me go, saying that as soon as I had a chance, I would invite her to go hunting on the Thracian Plain.

  Sitting in the carriage, Constantinople at night was no less lively than during the day. The Wendel opposite him kept fanning himself with a fan, seemingly lost in thought.

  I've decided to break the silence, no matter what, I'm going to marry her anyway.

  "Milady." "Your Highness."

  What a coincidence! We almost spoke at the same time.

  "My lady first." "Your Highness first."

  Another car accident.

  I smiled and said: "The lady is a woman, let the lady speak first."

  "You're the lord, you speak first."

  "I thought for a moment and then said, 'Madam, you didn't feel well at the meeting. Do you feel better now? Is there anything serious wrong? Would you like me to go back to Seofano's house and ask the imperial physician to take a look at you?"

  "Thank you, Your Highness, for your kind intentions. I'm afraid it's an old habit of mine - when there are too many people around, I get a tight chest." Wender said, suddenly changing the subject, "That Constance, she doesn't have good intentions towards you! Last week, when we were clearly together, she could obviously tell you and your brother apart by appearance, yet she still pretended to be unaware and came up to chat with you. She must have had an ulterior motive!"

  "Huh?" I was stunned, this chick's move was too sudden.

  "Wendell said hastily: "Your Highness, I'm not joking! Believe me, that kind of woman will only toy with men's emotions. Today she'll pretend to love you so much that she can't eat or sleep, but tomorrow if she meets another man who catches her eye, she'll unhesitatingly go after him! You know? She came to Constantinople for a month and became the most famous socialite in the capital! Look, as soon as she opened her mouth, she called out your identity, isn't that strange?! And furthermore!!!"

  "Have you two had a falling out?" I interrupted her.

  "No!"

  "But I see you two meet and it's explosive..."

  "How can you not believe me!" Wendell's tone rose, her eyebrows following suit, and she suddenly transformed from a gentle wife into a shrewish woman.

  When Wendy realized her mistake, she begged bitterly: "Believe me once, okay? Don't go with that French woman again."

  I remained silent for several seconds before asking in a low voice: "Why are you so concerned about me?"

  "Because..." Wendell gritted her teeth, her eyes flashing with determination, "because you look a bit like my ex-husband, when I see you, it's as if I'm seeing him!"

  I widened my eyes in incredulity, I'm actually like a husband of someone's wife, what a joke!

  Wendy's face turned red as if it had been dyed with a layer of rainbow: "Eyes like, hair like, ears like!"

  It's usually me who leaves others speechless with just a roll of their eyes, but this time, it's my turn to experience that kind of speechlessness!

  ————————————————————————————

  Regarding the issue of eggs... I couldn't find any information on the prices of eggs and oils in France and Germany back then, and it's a waste that the French army used eggs as a lubricant during their invasion of Russia. As one friend in the group said, "If not, they wouldn't have starved to death later." Okay, surprisingly, there are actually people who feed eggs to horses, which I'm learning for the first time - I thought horses only ate hay, grains, oats, and carrots.

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