Chapter 1607: All Nations Come to Mourn

At dusk, Louis the Great was strolling arm in arm with his second wife, Madame de Maintenon, through the great garden in front of the Palace of Versailles — a scene of quiet beauty, soothing to the heart and refreshing to the spirit.

The Great Emperor seemed in excellent spirits, because the war between the Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire had ended in a complete victory before it had even truly begun!

The Ottomans turned out to be nothing but a paper tiger baring its claws and fangs... Before the legions of the Roman Empire had even taken the field, they had been thoroughly thrashed by Archduke Henri's Austrian army, losing at least seventy thousand men in the Battle of the Lakeshore — the Danube. The survivors had abandoned their cannon and baggage and fled south in headlong rout, and who knew how many of them would live to see Belgrade again?

Why "back to Belgrade"? Because both Upper Hungary and Lower Hungary had already risen in revolt, and the Ottomans' shattered remnants could find no foothold there at all.

Moreover, Bohemia had risen in a single mass of rebellion, and the Ottoman army could no longer even leave Prague!

Upper Hungary, Lower Hungary, and Bohemia... and by all reckoning Croatia could be swallowed up at once as well! In this campaign the Roman Empire had truly won a great victory without even fighting!

Were it not for the consideration that Rome still needed the Ottoman Empire as an enemy, this time they could already have begun planning the recovery of Constantinople...

Yet with the war having reached this point, there was no lack of hidden worries. The chief one was that Archduke Henri's army had performed far too brilliantly! He had managed, in a very short time, to raise an Austrian army numbering as many as one hundred thousand men! How many people did his archduchy have in all? One and a half million? Or one and six hundred thousand?

With so small a population, to have raised an army of a hundred thousand in so short a time — and a capable fighting force at that — meant that once he had fully digested all of Hungary, he would be all the harder to deal with!

He had underestimated Henri... no, rather, he had underestimated the women of the Mancini family! Marie Mancini had borne Archduke Henri, Olympia Mancini had borne Count Eugene, and there was also Laura Mancini, who had borne the Duke of Vendôme — now a great general upon whom Emperor Louis relied heavily!

It seemed that "selecting consorts by examination" was indeed very well founded!

But knowing it was well founded and putting it into practice were two very different things, because here in Europe there were far too many royal houses that the Roman Emperor had to placate by every means possible — including marriage alliances.

That was why Crown Prince Louis and Louis, Duke of Burgundy, "Son of France," had both married princesses of matching rank...

Louis sighed softly. At his side, Madame de Maintenon seemed to read his mind, and said gently, "My dear Augustus, are you fretting over how to settle the aftermath? There is no need at all... because we have already won, and that is what matters most!"

Louis smiled wryly. "Yes... won. Without even fighting, and yet we won! Truly inconceivable!"

"A win is a win..." Madame de Maintenon said with a smile. "Did not that Eastern gentleman Sun say in his book on the art of war that winning without fighting is the best of all? This time we have won without fighting, so of course we are the biggest winners!"

"That is true enough..." Louis nodded. "Winning is always good!"

Winning was what mattered most. The Roman Empire of today had not yet been truly bound together!

So the war with the Ottoman Empire was, in a sense, the midwife of the Roman Empire!

And Rome absolutely had to win — so much so that the manner of winning mattered little...

As Louis talked and walked, he had by now reached the Marble Court. The Duchess de La Vallière, in full formal dress, had appeared there at some point, a triumphant smile on her face.

In her youth this woman had been very beautiful, and had served for a time as Louis's maîtresse-en-titre. Louis XIV had many mistresses, but only the children born to him by his maîtresse-en-titre could possess legitimate status. This Duchess de La Vallière had borne Louis three sons and one daughter. The two elder sons had both died young, leaving one son and one daughter. The son was Louis de Bourbon, Count of Vermandois, and the daughter was Marie Anne de Bourbon-Mancini, wife of Archduke Henri.

But the Duchess de La Vallière had long since fallen from favor; her relationship with Louis had been in name only since as early as 1667. And this year she was already fifty-six. Though she still held the lofty rank of duchess, she had long been a person Emperor Louis rather disdained.

Emperor Louis nonetheless smiled politely and asked, "Louise, what wind blows you here?"

"Your Majesty, I bring you good news!" The Duchess de La Vallière curtsied, then nodded politely to Madame de Maintenon.

"What good news?" Louis asked.

"Your Majesty," the Duchess de La Vallière said with a smile, "our daughter, Marie Anne, has just been elected Apostolic Queen of the Kingdom of Hungary!"

"What?" Emperor Louis was taken aback. "What did you say?"

The Duchess de La Vallière wore the smile of a victor. "Your Majesty, our daughter Marie Anne is now Her Apostolic Majesty of Hungary! And she has also sent troops into Brno in Bohemia... and she hopes that our son Louis may become King of Bohemia!"

"How dare she do such a thing!" Louis was already growing angry.

This Marie Anne really was acting recklessly! To make herself Queen of Hungary without approval was already outrageous enough — and now she had gone so far as to arrange a Bohemian kingship for her own full brother!

And what was more, her husband was Archduke of Austria... Was she trying to resurrect the House of Habsburg?

Seeing Emperor Louis angry, the Duchess de La Vallière actually felt a thrill of satisfaction in her heart. She had been cold-shouldered by this man for thirty-three years... and now at last she had held her head high for once!

"Your Majesty," the Duchess de La Vallière said to Louis with a smile, "Marie Anne is our daughter! If she becomes Queen of Hungary, has she not opened a Bourbon dynasty in Hungary? And Louis is our son as well! If he can take a throne in Bohemia, then yet another Bourbon dynasty will have been opened! Is this not a great good? Would Your Majesty truly oppose such a good thing?"

Opposition was impossible... Hungary and Bohemia were both notoriously difficult places; Louis could never have turned them into Roman provinces — at least not in one step.

Since it could not be done in one step, then temporarily arranging for two Bourbons to go and be kings was not unacceptable.

But it must be by the investiture of the Roman Emperor — not by seizing it themselves!

Marie Anne did not even hold the title of princess, and now she actually meant to "crown herself queen" — and on top of that, to arrange a throne for her own younger brother. Was this not building a separate power base within the House of Bourbon? If Bohemia, Hungary, and Austria were to unite in the future, would they not turn into an Eastern Rome?

And when that time came, would the Roman Empire not fall into civil war? And would a civil war not once again split apart the Rome that had been "unified" with such difficulty?

"Your Majesty," said the Duchess de La Vallière, watching Emperor Louis's somewhat darkening expression with a smile, "this war was won for you by Henri and Marie Anne... Do they not deserve a reward? And our son and daughter are both Bourbons! You have gained two cadet branches of the House of Bourbon for nothing — are you not the biggest winner of all?

Although Marie acted on her own without consulting us, is such a thing not commonplace within a great empire? Many of the vassal states of the great Ming Empire in the East were won by imperial princes through their own daring, and did the Zhu Emperor not tolerate their existence? Should our Roman Empire be less than them? Would Your Majesty truly go to war with your own daughter over the throne of Hungary?"

Louis fell silent. He could not possibly go to war with Henri and Marie Anne. Because the chief enemy at present was still the Ottoman Empire!

It seemed that acquiescing, and sending someone to perform the investiture, was the only choice...