Versailles is worse than being queen

◎Century bounty of sailing—here it is for you. ◎

More than 100 years ago, when there was a revolution in England across the Channel, people in France were generally skeptical and ridiculed - until it was discovered that this old enemy seemed to be getting stronger, and even defeated France in the Seven Years War. , took away large colonies in North America and South Asia.

After more than 100 years, it will be England's turn to secretly watch the whole process of the civil war of its opponents on the mainland, hoping that this chaos will end France's dominant position on the entire European continent and strengthen the policy of balance of power that is beneficial to Britain.

Generally speaking, most European countries are optimistic about the civil strife in France.We are all on the same continent, and if you are strong, it means that I face a greater threat.Countless rounds of wars for territory and resources have been waged. Wouldn't it be a great thing if one could not fight and the other side would mess up?

It's a pity they didn't get to watch it for long, and were surprised to see that it all ended so quickly, that politicians and diplomats hadn't really joined in and added fuel to the chaos.

Because of an arson during the war, people in Paris became very interested in finding the spies in the city, and they also became very vigilant against all foreigners with strange accents and different looks.In addition, most of the spies placed in France by various countries were concentrated in Versailles. As a result, when the Palace of Versailles was finally breached by the army loyal to the queen, and the army of the king who invaded Paris also swore allegiance to the queen and the people, there was almost nothing Foreign spies see what's going on.

"On November 11th, a solar eclipse suddenly occurred..." Erich from Prussia wrote the report to the king, "As I reported before, all the street lights in Paris have been replaced. , The power plant has also started to supply power. At the moment when the sun was completely dark, the whole city was lit up, and a loud noise that humans had never heard before came from the direction of the Louvre, like the end of the world, and like A miracle unfolds."

"Right now, there are rumors in Paris that the queen is an envoy sent by God to France. Maybe France is really the eldest daughter of Catholicism."

"...I told Erich a long time ago that he should not be a spy, but a poet." Frederick crumpled up the paper and threw it directly into the fireplace. result."

"Has there been a reply from George III?" he asked.

What he is going to do next is very risky and violates the principles generally observed among monarchs, but he has no choice—after all, if Austria and France join forces again, they must directly target Prussia.

Even so, however, he has scruples about Britain's attitude.

"Yes." The Minister of State bowed to him, "His Majesty George III has now been completely dragged into the quagmire of the North American War, and no longer has any energy to fight another war on the European continent. You know, the French Rise is an intolerable scourge to the House of Hanover, who fully supports your actions—as long as the English are completely ignorant of it.”

"Tsk," Frederick sneered, "he really wants to make a good business without spending a penny. It's a pity, this time I have to let him take advantage of it."

"Have the electors arrived?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"How long before the Habsburg family arrives in Saxony?"

"A few more days according to reports."

"How many days?"

"Two... two to four days? I'll check again, Your Majesty." The Minister of State was a little nervous, "However, according to reports, Queen Theresa's health is getting worse and worse, which may delay her trip, and she may also go to the No more weddings..."

"Theresa." Frederick sighed softly, "It's fine if she doesn't go."

The Minister of State bowed his head and did not dare to speak.

After a long time, the King of Prussia raised his head, and his voice returned to his usual coldness: "Then, let's go too."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

……

The French Civil War came to an end almost at the same time as the three-level conference was held.

The Swiss army guarding the Palace of Versailles was originally a mercenary system and was only loyal to mercenary money. In addition, part of it had moved to the Louvre in Paris with the original Louis XVI. How long did his men last.

Most of the nobles were originally on the sidelines.On the one hand, of course they want to retain the original tax exemption privileges, but on the other hand, the public anger aroused by the assassination of Louis XVII has indeed made some scruples, and the series of actions taken by the Queen before have indeed brought significant Better development.

More importantly, the Queen and the National Assembly proclaimed the post-war principle: reconciliation, not antagonism.

From Versailles to as far away as Corsica, this war will be followed by parliamentary governments with the aim of reconciliation.Those vacillating and fleeing nobles, the soldiers who once pointed their guns and long swords at the citizens but put down their weapons, as long as they join in this process, they will no longer be held accountable for their mistakes in standing in line.

Therefore, after the war situation became clear, apart from the nobles who quickly left France for other countries, more people were more afraid that they would lose their original seats in the third-level meeting.

Everything was completed in a silent transition in a way that everyone knew well and did not expose.

Just like their deadly rivals across the ocean.

From the central government to the local government, many systems need to be updated urgently. However, because there are precedents, all kinds of work have been carried out quite smoothly. All parties have made compromises and concessions, and they are still satisfied with the results.

In the process, reports from several representatives from the Paris Basin grain-producing region caught Antania's particular attention.

"Many times before, the tax collectors appointed by the governors of various parishes did not dare to directly increase the amount of payment, so they secretly adjusted the scales used to weigh the grain...Farmers have suffered an extremely unfair and heavy tax burden."

This itself was a tax report, but this reminded Antania.

说实话，她此前就对法国人千奇百怪的数学换算感到头痛。和德语从10到90各自有对应的表达不同，法语里的70是“60+10”，80是“4*20”，90是“4*20+10”——97就是“4*20+17”。在货币单位上，1个金路易等于4埃居，1个埃居是6个里弗尔，1个里弗尔是20苏，而1个苏又等于12德尼尔……她打心底里钦佩财务官们。

Of course, these conversions are only relatively complicated, but at least there is a unified standard.As for units such as length and weight, there is confusion—the same unit has different meanings in different parts of the country, and the gap can even reach nearly half. The minister who is in charge of building the railway from Paris to other big cities I suffered a lot for this during the investigation.

It's time to unify weights and measures.

When the queen just made this point, someone immediately suggested happily: "We can use the length of the queen's arm as the basic unit of length!"

Antania: "..."

Although this kind of operation is very common, for example, feet are the length of King John's feet in England, and yards are the distance from the tip of the nose to the thumb of Henry I when his arms are stretched out, but she does not have this hobby.

"Sir, professional things should be left to professional people, what do you think?"

Fortunately, looking around for a week, the lineup of the Paris Academy of Sciences' unified weights and measures was almost complete.

After negotiations between the Queen and the Parliament, the Paris Academy of Sciences was soon authorized to establish a weights and measures committee. Lagrange was elected chairman of the committee.

Scholars from the Academy of Sciences joined the work one after another, officially starting the system engineering of metric units.

Unification of units in scientific research is obviously very important; nowadays, transportation and production have also made great progress driven by steam engines and internal combustion engines, and a large amount of trade in goods highlights the necessity of uniting units.Even if it cannot be implemented on the entire continent, national unification is imperative.

The first principle identified by the scholars was that the set of units should be universal.This also means that it is necessary to choose a number that is meaningful to people all over the world as the basic unit.

The ancient Greek word "metron" for "measurement" was proposed as the basic unit of length, the meter.

"The basic unit of length is the meter, and the basic unit of weight is the kilogram—after the basic quantities are determined, units such as area, volume, and weight are formulated based on them."

"Which specific value to choose needs to be studied slowly. But first of all, we must make one thing clear - we must use the decimal system!" The committee solemnly declared in front of the National Assembly.

Decimal!must be decimal!

Everyone is fed up with this confusing set of conversion units in France.

Only Prony, a mathematician who studies trigonometric functions, weakly raised doubts - the circumference of the circle is changed from 360 degrees to 400 degrees, and the right angle is no longer 90 degrees but 100 degrees. What about the trigonometric functions?

Although most scholars enthusiastically support the decimal system, disagreements do arise on this point.

In the end, as the scholars voted roughly [-]-[-], and the Queen was very firm in their support of the retention, the original bases of the trigonometric functions were preserved, and Prony was thus spared the enormous task of computing a whole new trigonometric function table.

Just as the academic circles in Paris were busily preparing to officially establish this new academic system, the news transmission that had been affected by the domestic chaos had finally returned to normal.

It was only then that Antanya learned about a series of major events that had taken place in other European countries during this period.

Britain's powerful navy is retreating steadily in North America, which is surprising.

During the war between Turkey and Austria, it finally could no longer control the domestic situation. Serbia has officially announced that it will withdraw from the Ottoman Empire and establish an independent Kingdom of Serbia. It is said that it is the Obrenovic family who finally led Serbia to gain independence.

And, marking the reconciliation between Austria and Prussia, the marriage of the Habsburg royal family and the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar.

When she got the news, an ominous premonition suddenly flashed in Antanya's heart.

Leopold died of a sudden illness after only two years on the Austrian throne, when he was forming an alliance with Prussia...

Although it was completely different from the current situation, Antanya still felt a certain intuitive uneasiness.

The situation in France has not yet fully stabilized, and she cannot leave for Saxony at this time; as a princess married to France, she is now theoretically a French, not an Austrian, and has no political affairs in Austria. Room for beak placement.

Despite this, Antalya arranged for the commissioner to rush eastward to report news from Germany and Austria in the north as soon as possible.

No one expected that when the commissioner's information was finally sent back, there was also an urgent military report——

The army of the Holy Roman Empire is invading, and Paris is in a hurry!

……how can that be? !

The emperor of the Holy Roman Empire has always been the king of Austria, and Prussia has also promised to vote for Leopold.

The Habsburgs had always been the royal family of the Empire, and Antalia, the Habsburg princess married to France, was now Queen of France.How could they send troops to France?

"Your Majesty," Henryette's voice trembled a little, "You... have a look at this."

"King Frederick II of Prussia invited all the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire to Saxony for their wedding," read the scrawled text. His Habsburg allies forced all the Electors to vote on the spot to elect him as the new Holy Roman Emperor."

Antanya was in a daze, as if she didn't understand the situation of the battle that the Minister of Defense came in to report.

"...The army of the Holy Roman Empire has driven straight from Alsace and Lorraine in the east, and only the defenders of Champagne are left to fight... Once Champagne is broken, they will come straight to Paris!"

"Your Majesty?" asked the young man standing beside the Minister of Defense.

"...What did Frederick say?" Antanya came back to her senses and asked softly.

Several people in the room were silent for a while.It was really hard for them to tell the queen what Frederick said.

Antanya sighed and stopped embarrassing them, "Show me."

The proclamation issued by the Holy Roman Emperor was published in the German press.

"Today, France is ruled by a woman-this is a contempt for the Germanic Frankish tradition, and the nakedest humiliation to the French! The Holy Roman Empire has been reunified, and His Majesty Frederick the Great will march westward to conquer France, and will not let It's going further and further down the wrong path."

"Surrender, woman who stole the throne! As long as you surrender, France can return to its original glory, otherwise, this place will become a piece of scorched earth under the hooves of the Holy Roman army, and you are the biggest sinner!"

"Frenchmen, have you forgotten the glory of your ancestors? Are you cowards willing to be ruled by a foreign woman? Hand her over to Frederick the Great, and you will be rewarded supremely!"

"Napoleon." Antanya suddenly raised her head, "With our current military strength, can we fight against Frederick?"

Napoleon clenched his fists and said nothing.

He has never been afraid of military adventures, but this is based on his in-depth study and understanding of the military - precisely because of this, he clearly knows the gap between the French army and the Holy Roman army at this moment.

He shook his head slowly: "It's difficult, Your Majesty... The Austrian army is now under the command of Frederick, which means we have to fight against the two most powerful armies on this continent at the same time."

"I would say, almost no chance."

Antanya was silent for a long time.

"I see, thank you. You go out first."

The room fell silent again.

Antanya stood in front of the window and looked quietly at the distance outside the Louvre for a long time—the night of this city has been illuminated by lights, and halos of light enveloped the elegant gray-blue roof, faintly The sound of singing and dancing came from a distance.

This is Paris, which has just ushered in peace.

Afterwards, she turned around and walked to the "Winter of the Seine" hanging on the wall, took down the painting, and then took out a box from the hidden compartment on the wall.

The lock of the chest has been opened long ago.

Antanya stroked the black wooden box.With a light "click", the slender fingers unlocked the lock and lifted the lid.

Inside is an exquisite square metal instrument.

The instrument was covered with several sheets of folded paper, already a little yellowed and brittle, and some ink stains were stained.

There is a sentence written on the first side of the paper facing up.

"The bounty of the century of voyages——I gave it to you."

The author says:

If you have forgotten what the bounty of the century is: it is a navigator solution that accurately measures latitude and longitude time while sailing at sea.