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Chapter 150: The Little Girl and Her Mr. Whiskers
🕑 Added 2024-12-21 21:59:51 +0000 UTCChapter 150: The Little Girl and Her Mr. Whiskers
The sun was shining brightly, the sky was blue with white clouds, and the weather was so pleasant that it lifted everyone's spirits.
In the outskirts of Paris, along the same royal road that the Princess of the Two Sicilies had traveled before, another important guest was about to arrive.
This time, the decorations along the road remained mostly unchanged, but the soldiers in charge of security were all new faces, and there were far more of them than before.
Due to the incident two weeks ago where the "gang attacked the Prince," Queen Marie even called in the King's Swiss Guard to escort her niece safely.
For a moment, the white uniforms of the Parisian troops and the red uniforms of the Swiss Guard alternated along the road, creating a striking red and white scenery.
Inside the carriage, Clementine, with big eyes that resembled Joseph's, looked out at the rows of guards with a proud expression. Speaking in Italian to the Tuscan ambassador, she said with a grin, "Count Farnano, did you see that? Prince Joseph himself brought nearly the entire army of Paris to welcome me! He must have heard from many people about how adorable I am, haha."
The square-faced middle-aged man shook his head slightly with a wry smile, thinking, You've heard about the attack on the French Prince, so the strict security is probably not just for you...
Suddenly, the sound of a loud horn rang out from the front.
The Grand Duchess of Tuscany quickly put away her playful grin, hurriedly tidied her clothes, placed her feathered hat on her head, and began quietly rehearsing what she was going to say.
When the carriage stopped, Count Farnano bowed and opened the door. Clementine, now composed, stepped down from the wooden steps with the most graceful manner she could muster.
However, as she stepped onto the second step, she suddenly slipped, lost her balance, and with a cry, tumbled forward.
Fortunately, a nearby guard was quick to react, rushing forward to catch her just in time, preventing her from face-planting into the dirt. However, her pretty feathered hat went flying over ten steps away.
With her cheeks turning slightly red, Clementine looked up to see the handsome Prince Joseph watching her. She quickly broke free from the guard's hold, lifted her skirt, and approached him. She curtsied and said in slightly awkward French, "It's an honor to meet you, esteemed Prince Joseph! Um, ahem, I saw everyone looking so serious just now, so I pretended to slip to lighten the mood, hehe..."
Joseph couldn't help but smile at the young girl, who was talking to herself with a strange accent. He quickly bowed in return and said, "I'm very pleased to meet you as well. You have a great sense of humor, haha."
"Oh, by the way, to thank you for coming all this way to meet me, I have a special 'gift' for you," the little girl said as she pulled out a small wooden box from behind her.
"'Gift'?" Joseph asked, puzzled. "Do you mean 'gift'?"
"Oh, yes, yes, a gift," Clementine scratched her head and laughed. "My French isn't very good, please don't mind me. Here, this is for you."
"Thank you so much," Joseph said as he took the wooden box and opened it, revealing a slightly yellowed paper fan inside. "Is this... a folding fan? For me?"
The little girl put on a mysterious expression and waved her hand, saying, "No, dear cousin, this is an antique. I heard you have an interest in Eastern culture, so I specially bought this for you. Oh, and it's said to have been used by a very famous scholar in the Far East named 'Confucius'!"
"Confucius? A folding fan?!" Joseph couldn't help but facepalm. A paper folding fan from the Spring and Autumn period... that's like a Ming dynasty blue and white porcelain plate with "microwave safe" on it, or a bronze vessel with characters resembling popular cartoon animals on it...
Though he knew it might be impolite, Joseph couldn't resist asking, "May I ask how much you paid for this antique?"
"It wasn't expensive, only 120 ducats," the little girl said happily. "As long as you like it, that's all that matters."
One hundred twenty ducats was nearly 800 livres. Oh dear! She spent so much money on a fake... Joseph was torn about whether to tell her, but thinking that the little girl had good intentions, he decided not to embarrass her.
He put away the gift from Clementine and exchanged a few more pleasantries with her before inviting her to return to Versailles. But before he could do so, she was already bouncing over to Croisade, smiling brightly as she said, "Here's a 'gift' for you too, I hope you like it."
Then she gave a gift to Emond, another to the head steward who had accompanied them, and yet another to the officers of the Parisian troops...
Joseph had to facepalm again. This little girl is way too outgoing!
As Clementine happily handed out gifts, a cloud suddenly covered the sun, and what had been a sunny sky suddenly turned into a light drizzle.
Joseph quickly took the opportunity to call his overly friendly cousin back to the carriage, and the convoy continued on its way.
However, they had not yet reached the city when Clementine's carriage axle suddenly broke. Seeing the raindrops bouncing off the ground, Joseph quickly asked Emond to invite his cousin into his own carriage.
The little girl wiped the rain from her arms and face with a handkerchief and cheerfully said, "The carriage broke all of a sudden, but it's okay, I'm used to bad luck like this, haha. You have to stay optimistic."
As she spoke, she pulled out a handful of candies from her pocket as if by magic, laid them out on the table in front of her, and tilted her head toward Joseph, "Cousin, would you like some candy? This vanilla mint candy is my pastry chef's specialty, you can't get it anywhere else."
...
Fortunately, the rest of the journey was smooth, and by the time they reached Versailles, the rain had gradually stopped.
Queen Marie, with a warm, motherly smile on her face, stood with King Louis XVI on the marble plaza outside the main gate.
The little girl jumped down from the carriage and ran to the King and Queen, curtsying before throwing herself into her aunt's arms, secretly slipping her a handful of vanilla mint candies. "These were made by Mr. Reynaud himself."
"Oh, thank you so much, my sweet girl! This truly is the taste of home."
When Clementine had finished greeting everyone and reached Princess Thérèse, she noticed the bluish-gray Chartreux cat in her arms and instantly became excited, "Wow! It's so beautiful and cute! Can I pet it?"
"Wow, it's so gentle. By the way, I have a cat too! I love him so, so much. His name is Mr. Whiskers.
"Oh, you must want to meet Mr. Whiskers too. Let me go get him, hehe!"
Thérèse stared in confusion as the little girl ran off to her servant's carriage and then came back holding a black-and-white long-haired cat.
"Look, isn't he adorable too?"
Joseph, standing nearby, almost burst out laughing when he saw Clementine's cat. The cat's head was mostly white, with a small patch of black fur right above its mouth, making it look just like a certain failed art student.
No wonder it's called Mr. Whiskers.
No one noticed that Mr. Whiskers' eyes were locked onto Thérèse's Chartreux cat, and suddenly, he reached out his paw and waved it in the air, while softly meowing as if trying to get the other cat's attention. Thérèse's cat, in turn, responded with slow blinks and a playful wiggle of its body.
(End of Chapter)
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