27. The Decision of the Nobles (1)
The silver candlesticks glitter in the candlelight, and the Arubian black tea, which is obtained through special channels, exudes a refreshing tea aroma, and the aroma of lemon and sugar is intoxicating. Portraits and landscapes hanging on the walls add to the elegant atmosphere of the room. A thick carpet was laid in the centre of the room, and several chairs with intricately carved stripes around the coat of arms of the Count of Agen Toraton, with intricately carved borders, were arranged in a square shape around the carpet. Porcelain tea sets with gold rim and blue ornamentation are neatly placed on the coffee table, and the decoration of the whole room brews a romantic artistic style.
There are also several literary authors, artists, and critics sitting here, plus a few topics full of literary and artistic tones. All the ingredients for a salon are gathered, followed by an endless stream of food, drinks, noise, singing......
The luxurious salon lacked these key elements, and the literary atmosphere that had been created with great difficulty was long gone, and two men with gloomy and wooden expressions occupied the luxurious living room, and a cold and sharp atmosphere overflowed the spacious room.
The nobles who were supported by taxes and state salaries rarely bothered about food and clothing, and it stands to reason that the happiest groups in the world should be these old men who don't have to run for life, but in the eyes of the common people, the well-dressed, carefree, and idle adults have their own troubles.
The Count of Argent Toraton was confronting his troubles, trying to maintain his expressionless silence while contemplating whether to throw a handkerchief in his face instead of a glove, and destroy the problem with a hearty duel.
Baron Eugène de Parrieu (Eugene.de.parieu) is not worth anything in the face of Count Felix de Argentoratum, who holds the real power of a land, regardless of his family background, genealogy, bloodline, magician rank, qualifications, merits, height, and appearance, and he does not want to see the products of intermarriage between nobles and lowly people. A sparsely minded, self-righteous man with a face peculiar to the citizens of the royal capital Lutèce, who is not even as good as a fragile vase.
In the past, he would have burned the retarded to ashes and poured it into a dung pit - just like the one that had sunk to the bottom of the poop and was once named Monet. It may be chopped up and fed to the pig - like a pig's lewd housekeeper.
He is an earl, a five-cornered superior, and a great mage of wind and fire dual attribute change close to the quasi-six-mang-level. When the big man who controls the money, the force, and the life and death of others in the Agen Toraton, when he thinks of any means to make people suffer to death, tragedy will surely befall the unlucky person who is targeted by him.
But the Earl had uncharacteristically chosen to be patient, even though the recent wave of visitors had put him in a bad mood, and the fly sitting opposite him was the worst of them. But the Count could not have burned all the flies, much less allowed the bald flies to make a difference in his castle and his domain.
Baron Palho was an envoy sent by the royal court to inspect the area of Agen Toratonon on behalf of the king. In a sense, this Lord Chin Cha represents His Majesty's supreme power, and offending the envoy is tantamount to a great sin of rebellion against the royal power.
In the salon where the Earl discussed political topics after dinner, the other nobles were just as dismissive of the royal court and royal power, but private complaints and braggings must not be brought to the table. The control of the royal family over the country was still strong, and the troops directly under the royal family and swore allegiance to the king exceeded the private soldiers of the nobles. The earl has no good choice, and he can only talk casually after he gets drunk.
Be open-minded and teachable, and there's nothing more to do. ...,
But the Count of Argent Toraton, who violated this most basic rule, expressed his resentment with unreserved expression.
"Your Excellency, the Earl. ”
Because of the host's bad attitude, Baron Paleo, who was a guest, responded with a reciprocal attitude. The vague honorifics and the tone of not waiting to see the stinky face are pushed back together.
"The bad rumors about you in the royal capital have been flourishing recently, and His Majesty sent me here to inquire about your ......"
"As to whether I am preparing to attack Lapland, plotting to assassinate the Duke of Lotharingia and seizing the whole province of Alsace, whether the bishop of Turones is preparing to destroy the church and cut off the bishop's head, and whether I am going to send troops to rob the Countess of Divodurum...... These are all shameless rumors that have come out of the mouth of that madman who I don't know, and I will hang that fool with my own hands 100 times! I have been refuting rumors day and night since last month, but wave after wave of messengers who have heard rumors from the root of my rotten tongue and asked me for confirmation have kept coming! Hell, do I have to say the same thing tens of thousands of times?"
It's easy to be nervous to repeat the same words over and over again, and the Count himself is not the type to be very patient. I couldn't wait for the messenger to finish his words, and all the words that had been repeated for 2 months and 12 days in one breath and the anger that the dissatisfaction with the status quo was on the verge of a critical point exploded.
The envoy did not interject or express polite sympathy. Just close his eyes and let the Count perform a fiery one-man show in his own living room, and quietly wait until the Count has finished spraying all the spittle, and a blush of overexcitement appears from his neck to his face, his chest rises and falls violently like bellows, and his mouth spits out a cooled exhaust fume, and a chilling cold light shoots from under his open eyelids.
"Your Excellency, are you loyal to our great king?"
"Of course I am loyal to His Majesty, to the Kingdom...... How could there be such a ridiculous and ridiculous nonsense?!! how could you believe such a ridiculous and funny thing?!!
[Are the guys in the royal capital in water?] -- the angry questioning may be a more plausible explanation, but in front of him sat a baron who had beaten the royal capital. At this delicate moment, the Earl would not have inferred from all the inhabitants of the royal family that they had offended the Light.
"The royal capital does have some rumors related to His Excellency the Earl lately. ”
Baron Palho, who played with the delicate tea set, spoke slowly, enjoying the lubricating touch of the finely crafted porcelain that had been hotly fried to 100 large eju sets in the royal capital at his fingertips, and the Sven tone of teasing his pet slowly sent out some terrible messages.
"His Majesty was very puzzled by the recent rumor that the Count of Agen Toraton was gathering troops and preparing to attack Tulong to meet Duke Philippe, so he asked the junior officer to come over and find out the details. ”
The arrogance of the Ling people dissipated at the moment when the baron presented the content of the mission, and the count's majestic appearance was shrouded in a gray leaden color.
Rumors of attacking Tulong have been around before, but this time it was a little too realistic and terrifying.
Duke Philip - the younger brother of the current king, the loser of the battle for the throne, and the prisoner of the stairs in the tower of Tulong Castle.
The duke, who had once been a prince, was once considered a popular candidate to overtake his brother and take over the throne of the favored younger son. There were many of his supporters among the nobility, and it was unfortunate and well-known that the Count of Agen Tuolaton was a former supporter of the Duke.
The Count has motivation, strength, and a maneuver that makes it impossible not to think about it. The true credibility of the rumors was magnified to the point of endangering the head of the Count.
This heavy gossip about the ownership of the throne was reported layer by layer, and finally reached the highest level, the royal case of His Majesty Charles IV. le. Bel, King of the Kingdom of Charlemagne. From that moment on, rumors were no longer just rumors, and the government gave rumors more powerful lethality. ...,
What a wonderful opportunity this is for the great Majesty.
If true, then the Count of Agen Tuolaton was an out-and-out rebel, and in order to warn some monkeys who coveted the throne, the Count had to be the unlucky chicken who was chosen to lose his head. Even if it turns out that it is indeed just a rumor fabricated, His Majesty the King, who worries every day about the disobedient local nobles for not finding a suitable reason, will not let go of such a good opportunity, and His Majesty, who is sincere in strengthening the power of the central royal court, will still repair the fool who does not put the king's scepter in his eyes.
"This ...... This is a shameless slander...... My family and I have never wavered in our loyalty to His Majesty. ”
The cesspool of power struggles was bottomless, the cold and deep mud and the smell of bloody corpses slowly ate away at the count's courage, and the consciousness of reason and luck clung to an unclear straw in front of him.
"His Majesty the King considered it extremely imprudent to suspect a nobleman of a long lineage on the basis of a mere rumor. ”
The baron's smile was gentle and friendly, but the viciousness of flirting with his prey did not hide it.
A count made a gesture of humility to himself—such a thing was not a privilege for the baronial class, and Baron Paleo carefully enjoyed and remembered the power gained by relying on royal power, and admired the humiliation and fear that the Count had endured at the moment—very things that the Baron had experienced and paid.
"His Majesty is a wise and wise king, and a wise man who is enough to leave a glorious footprint in history will not be deceived by the gossip of villains, let alone wronged his loyal subordinates. ”
Not to the baron in front of him, but to the supreme ruler in the deep palace of the distant royal capital of Lydes, the earl gushed about compliments and justifications that he had never had before. Because this performance was too unwilling, the muscles on his face twitched in pain for a while, and the disgusting unhappiness and monstrous resentment rolled and swelled in the arrogant nobleman's body, almost bursting the noble body of the dual-attribute great magician.
"In order to put an end to the unnecessary rumors, His Majesty sent a minor official to the Earl's domain to conduct a thorough investigation. As long as you can prove your loyalty to His Majesty and the country, Earl. False and shallow words will also be self-defeating, and no one will pay attention to them. ”
Baron Palho was as enthusiastic as an old friend who was willing to help the needy, and his hairless head was running at full speed to help the troubled Count of Agen Toraton. His tone was earnest and his attitude was warm. The excessive eagerness in those little eyes is no different from the lawyers who are eyeing the fat sheep.
The burning lust for money, the filth called greed lodged at the bottom of the baron's eyes, and the stench of corrupt copper could almost be smelled through the man's nose.
"I am willing to cooperate with His Excellency the Baron in this task to prove my innocence. As long as you can do it, you will do your best. ”
Words of gratitude act as a disguise for anger, no matter how much you want to stone, hack, hang, stab, chop, burn, drown, strangle, bite...... This bastard who took advantage of the danger of others to extort a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand times. The Earl still has the sensibility to know how to choose, and forcibly suppresses the almost uncontrollable killing intent to send an invitation to the other party.
[Let's make an offer.] 】
Like the words of defeat and surrender, hidden in the earl's promise.
Baron Palho had enough of admiring the caged beast, and the bottom line of his sanity that the Count finally adhered to was also the upper limit of his profits. Although he hated and envied these nobles from prominent families as much as his [friends] of the same class. But compared to his kind who can only talk and have a hot head, Baron Paglio knows how to protect his interests.
The importance of deserved interests far outweighs personal preference, and those who cross that red line will not only lose their entertainment and profits, but also accidentally lose their lives. ...,
At the end of the entertainment time, it's time to figure out what a reasonable and mutually acceptable number is.
"The petty officials will do their best to investigate the facts, and the Earl can wait for the results at home. As soon as there is a result, the junior officer will notify you as soon as possible. May Mother Goddess grant you peace and happiness. ”
the baron, who stood up and saluted;
the earl who also gave a smile and sent off the guests;
No one would have thought of it, cognizant.
The porcelain ornaments are adorned with black crystals so tiny that they are invisible to the naked eye, and the inanimate eyes and ears faithfully record and transmit the movements in the room to distant onlookers as if they had been every day since entering the Earl's Castle.
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Commentary on the time of the small theater
Brunhill: This is the first time I'm asking? Lord Lilin, where is Lord Nidhogg?
Li Lin: That stupid guy appeared too much, and some viewers felt that he was too cute, so he asked him to go backstage to eat a bento first.
Brunhill: ---b...... It's a little scary. By the way, this time there is a mention of [Electing a Prince], what kind of title is that?
Li Lin: The prototype of the electoral system is the [electoral system] during the Holy Roman Empire. The Elector (German: Kurfürst, plural Kurfürsten, English: Elector) is a special phenomenon in German history. The word was used to refer to those princes who had the right to elect the kings of the Roman people and the Holy Roman Emperor. This system weakened imperial power and deepened the political division of Germany. In 1356, Emperor Charles IV of the Luxembourg dynasty, in order to seek the recognition of his son's succession to the throne by the princes, formulated the famous charter "Golden Seal Edict" in Nuremberg, officially confirming the legitimacy of the election of the emperor by the great feudal princes. The edict was based on the seven deadly sins of the world as a religious basis, establishing the seven electors of the empire. In 1806, the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by order of Napoleon, and the electorate lost its meaning.
In this book, the electoral system of Charlemagne's kingdom is not a direct election of kings, and the electors are the highest-ranking nobles who have strength, have established indestructible feats in history, and have a family inheritance. In fact, alternative parts closer to the royal family.
Brunhill: It feels like the human state is really complicated. I also ask all readers and gentlemen to support this book, to be able to vote for recommendation and promotion, and thank you here.