12: 009 First Arrival in Paris 12: 009 First Arrival in Paris The journey back to Paris was more peaceful than expected.
The only challenge ca from Anning’s buttocks: long hours of horseback riding put Anning through a terrible ordeal for his backside.
By the second day, Anning discovered blood when he defecated, clearly the intimate contact with the saddle and the friction had given him hemorrhoids prematurely.
Luckily, the situation wasn’t too serious, and it wasn’t yet the ti to need Mayinglong ointnt, so Anning endured it.
To distract himself, Anning began to observe young master Kroetz more carefully.
He soon found the lad’s chin suspiciously smooth, combined with his consistent use of clothing to cover his Adam’s apple, Anning grew more and more suspicious that Kroetz was actually a woman.
Why would the Duke of Orleans’s daughter disguise herself as a man and go to the battlefield?
Puzzled, in his casual chats with others, Anning subtly brought up many questions about won going to war.
The outco was quite a surprise to him.
He found out that in this tiline’s France, due to the influence of Saint Joan, there actually was a tradition of won participating in war.
Moreover, so impoverished nobles, to avoid paying dowries, would send their daughters to military academies, to serve in the military just like n.
In the original tiline, France’s poor nobles would send their daughters to monasteries to live a cloistered life devoted to God in order to save on dowries, but in this tiline they would send their daughters to serve the country like Joan, aiming to gain glory and rewards.
However, the Duke of Orleans wasn’t an impoverished noble, Anning rembered that in the original tiline, the Duke of Orleans was an enlightened noble, already capitalized and very wealthy.
Clearly, the Duke of Orleans’s daughter didn’t need to join the military to avoid paying a dowry, the only explanation was that Kroetz—who knows what her real na was—didn’t want to get married too soon, so she disguised herself as a man to join the military, trying to earn rits to prove herself.
Regardless, once he arrived in Paris and t the Duke of Orleans, Anning would know if his speculation was correct.
Ten days after leaving the front lines, Anning finally caught sight of the silhouette of Paris City.
Originally, Anning thought that the city of this era would at most be like a larger county town, never did he expect it to already be so grand scale.
Standing on the high ground downstream of the Seine River, overlooking the entire city, he couldn’t see the edges of the city at a glance.
Moreover, the whole city had a vast number of buildings, which looked like a big gray expanse.
The slums at the edge of the city, with their chaotic and disorderly low-rise buildings, looked remarkably like the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.
The roads leading into the city were lined with rchant’s carts loaded with goods.
Kroetz seed quite pleased with Anning’s astonished look, asking with a slightly smug tone, “First ti in Paris?”
Anning nodded: “Yes, the first ti.”
“Everyone who cos for the first ti is shocked; after all, this is France’s largest city, with several million people living here.”
Anning curled his lip, thinking that’s nothing, I’ve seen gacities with tens of millions of people living together.
But there was no need to quibble with Kroetz over this, so he pretended to be thoroughly impressed and said: “Truly remarkable!”
Kroetz: “You probably can’t imagine, once we enter the city, we still have to travel for over an hour to get to my father’s estate, the Royal Palace!
When we enter the city, don’t be scared by the crowd.”
Anning: “Okay, I…
will try my best.”
He didn’t have much else to say than “I’ll try my best.”
He certainly couldn’t tell Kroetz: I’ve been battle-tested on Yangcheng’s tro Line 3, and I’ve seen all the human hustle and bustle there is.
Paris City originally had walls, but as the city expanded beyond them, Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” ordered the demolition of the old walls.
Instead, he had a ring of roads for soldier patrols built according to the existing city outline, to serve as the new walls.
But later on, the city quickly expanded beyond these roads, and Paris beca a city without walls.
Of course, so remnants of the original city walls and fortresses still exist on the Île de la Cité, the heart of France, but these have long lost their defensive capabilities.
Now, the whole of Paris City only has a few fortress-like constructions such as the Bastille.
Present-day Paris is a city without gates, the boundaries between urban districts and suburbs considerably blurred.
For soone like Anning who was entering the city for the first ti, he didn’t even realize when he had entered the boundaries of Paris’s 48 districts.
However, this was not a novel experience for Anning, given that the periphery of large cities in later generations is also very vague, blurring the distinction between city and suburbs.
Anning rode his horse, following the Dragon Cavalry’s troop through the streets of Paris.
What surprised Anning was that the sanitation of the streets was much better than he had imagined.
Before traveling through ti, Anning had read a joke that said European Nobles liked to wear long stockings and high heels mainly because the streets were too dirty, full of excrent everywhere.
Now it seems this was clearly a misconception.
If you think about it, it makes sense.
By the year 1780, Paris should have already established a rather comprehensive sewer system; it’s not likely the streets would be full of excrent.
It’s not like in India, where people are accustod to relieving themselves anywhere.
But the streets of Paris are still quite dirty, with horses stirring up as many splashes on the cobblestone roads as they would outdoors.
Additionally, there is a strange sll in the streets, like wearing a long-unwashed jacket.
As Anning surveyed everything about Paris City, Kroetz suddenly turned his head and said, “We’ll reach the Seine River soon, and you can see Notre Da on the opposite bank.
You’ll be amazed.”
Anning thought to himself, no, I won’t be because I’ve already seen it in the “Assassin’s Creed: Revolution” ga.
—I’ve even climbed it—in the ga.
As they spoke, the cavalry took a turn and began to travel along the banks of the Seine River.
Anning couldn’t help but frown.
Because the pollution in the Seine River was beyond his expectations; a stench of household garbage wafted through the whole river.
Anning had slled the sa odor beside the Pearl River in his childhood, which had not undergone sewage treatnt.
Thinking about it, it makes sense.
The entire city’s household waste and excrent from millions of people were discharged into the Seine River; having this sll was normal.
It’s just a pity that Anning had held a little bit of romantic illusion about the Seine River, which now completely dissipated.
Kroetz glanced at Anning, showing an apologetic expression, “Uh, I know this sll is a bit unpleasant.
In a while, I’ll take you upstream for an outing.
The river there doesn’t stink, and the scenery on both banks is also very pleasant.”
Anning nodded: “Please do.”
At this mont, the cavalry turned another corner, and Kroetz pointed to a building ahead and said: “That is the Royal Palace, my ho.
My father recently decided to open the garden of the Royal Palace to the public, so you’ll see many cafés and galleries.
In the afternoon, many gentlen and ladies co here to attend the salon.”
Anning simply responded, “Oh.” He knew that the Royal Palace was an important public space for Parisian citizens at this ti, but he did not know that it was the Duke of Orleans who opened it to the public.
While they talked, the cavalry marched into the Royal Palace and stopped in front of a majestic building, where an old butler and a group of servants were already waiting.
Kroetz dismounted and turned back to Anning, saying: “Co on, let take you to see my father.”
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