The city of Le Havre was founded in 1517 as the "City of Francico", named after King François I of France, who ordered the construction of the city, and was later renamed "Grace Le Havre", meaning "Port of Grace".

Le Havre was built to replace the ancient ports of Honfleur and Havreux, which had been silted up. The history of the city is extremely closely linked to the port. In the 18th century, Le Havre was engaged not only in trade with France and Europe, but also with the West Indies, so Le Havre began to grow. By the 19th century, it had developed into an industrial center.

The opening of new shipping routes shifted the focus of France's foreign trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and Le Havre became more and more prosperous, and the port expanded again and again, and port merchants such as Le Havre amassed a lot of wealth.

It is also Lucien's hometown, and it may be because of the prosperous overseas trade here that many of the down-and-out nobles of Le Havre have also devoted themselves to the magnificent overseas trade. Lucien was one of them.

Although the French aristocracy still sneered at the rising nouveau riche bourgeoisie, it is undeniable that with the rise of overseas trade, the commercial revolution also made a large number of bourgeoisie rich.

Therefore, many nobles also secretly invested in overseas trade, and even many powerful families would hide behind the scenes and invest large sums of money to participate in overseas trade. But most of the aristocracy still had poor pride. Qu Gao and the widow guard the bottom line of the aristocracy.

Because Lucien also had to take care of his own identity, he used to berth at a private port not far from his hometown, which was once a fief of the nobility. Lucien's family used to befriend the nobles. So Lucien spent a sum of money to rent the dock and a manor on the shore that was almost deserted.

The owners of this place have been mixed with the high society of Paris all the year round, and they have long been unable to afford the large annual expenses, so they are naturally happy to accept Lucien's actions. In recent years, Lucien took advantage of the manor on the shore. As a warehouse for its own goods, although it increases the cost and cost, it also saves unnecessary trouble and the high cost of the port of Le Havre.

There are many aristocratic private ports in France, and most of them are places where nobles usually spend their holidays, so this private port is not large. Six sailboats can only be docked side by side on the pier, and only two ships can be loaded and unloaded. But this did not have much effect on the fleet, and this is a small bay, which is usually very hidden, and if you do not sail into the bay, you will not be able to find six sailing ships in the Far East.

Lucien used his connections in his homeland to pay bribes to local customs and tax officials, as well as French naval officers on the coast patrol. So Lucien's fur business has been doing quite well in recent years. Of course, his aristocratic status played a decisive role. Even the most down-and-out aristocracy is aristocrats, France in the seventeenth century. If you want to squeeze into the upper class, you still need to have the blood and identity of the nobility, and you can't get into this circle with money alone.

He also took advantage of his aristocratic status to befriend many nobles through the salons in Paris and other places, and sold the high-end beaver skins he bought in the New World to them. Although the volume of transactions and sales are far from the speed of other merchants, the profits are definitely second to none.

Ordinary leather goods that Lucien purchased annually from the New World. Just to recoup the cost, and his main profit came from his sale of high-end furs such as beaver skins among the nobility. So in recent years he has often haunted the aristocratic salons of Paris. Using his generosity, he got in touch with many nobles, and virtually established a sales network.

But he was never able to enter the circle of the highest nobles, and could only wander away from the salons where the middle and low nobles gathered. His family's downfall was one reason, and more importantly, the high-end leather goods in his hands were nothing in the circle of those high-ranking nobles.

This is why he rushed from the New World to Manila in the East, where Lucien figured out how to buy high-end luxury goods from the Far East and sell them in the salons of the high nobility. Although in recent years, European merchants have successively brought high-end luxury goods from the Far East to Europe, but the number is far from satisfying the needs of the huge European aristocratic group.

This is also due to the commercial policy formulated by the Far Eastern Company, which does not want to let the Far East have too many high-end luxury goods, so many goods are sold by hunger. Aggressively increasing the profits of goods, but rigidly controlling the quantity of shipments, made countless European merchants rush to Far Eastern goods, and if they could not get the goods, they had to pay the money first, so that they could be on the agenda.

In particular, the Far Eastern goods, which were loved by countless European ladies, were a symbol of status in various gatherings and salons. However, because of the alienation between the European merchants and the aristocracy, they had to go through many intermediate links in their transactions, which invisibly increased the price of these luxury goods.

However, the princes and nobles are not afraid of being expensive, but they care more about the quality of goods and cherished Cheng dù. Nowadays, many aristocrats openly shout high prices on various occasions, just to buy a high-end luxury item from the Far East, but it is still hard to find. The more this happened, the more high-end goods from the Far East became a concept in European aristocratic circles.

That is, it is produced by the Far East, which must be a high-quality product, there is no best, only the most expensive.

There are many French aristocrats who are eager to get high-end luxury goods from the Far East, including many ladies in the high-end aristocratic salons in Paris, don't underestimate these nobles, they have a power that cannot be underestimated in the aristocratic circle of Paris.

In the social reality of Western Europe in the feudal era, women were subordinate to men, but the nobility of the aristocratic women's hierarchy compensated for the low gender identity. The education intended to nurture their sense of aristocratic identity, in addition to training beautiful bodies and elegant manners, also emphasized the art of conversation, so that the culture of women could be passed on from generation to generation through oral transmission, and the role of women was mainly located in the private sphere of the family.

However, aristocratic women also bear the responsibility of maintaining the status of the family, and their marriages are concluded not with their own emotions, but are subject to the family strategy, with the goal of maintaining a prosperous family lineage by expanding the family network and strengthening the family power.

As a result, aristocratic women exerted influence on the vast social and political sphere of the outside world, based on the domestic sphere. The restrained style and superb social skills of the salon hostess are an extension of the long-standing tradition of aristocratic women; The salon they presided over also exerts influence from the inside out, and is a place where the private and public spheres overlap. (To be continued)

ps: Thank you for the support of the monthly pass of Nine Days Blazing Flame Dance and xmen399211, thank you for your understanding, these days are really busy, the update is unstable dìng, please forgive R466