It was already in the afternoon when Aigron got the news of Maria's arrest.
This news, like a bolt from the blue, shocked him so much that he was speechless.
Since he ascended to the throne of God, he has long been accustomed to the respectful treatment of people around him, and he has never suffered such a serious blow.
It seemed that her vague worries had come true. Teresa's previous calmness was just a performance. She was really secretly holding back her ultimate move, and it was such a severe ultimate move.
Very smart, but so unwise!
No matter how inconspicuous it is, Maria is a foreign princess with a noble and prominent status, and she is also the guardian of Princess Theodland in name. Now that Maria is being arrested without any prior explanation, what will happen to the outside world after the news gets out?
look?
Regardless, this is a serious offense to international relations.
Even if the Bavarian royal family really doesn't take Maria seriously, even if King Ludwig actually doesn't care about this half-sister, for the sake of "national dignity" and family face, he will definitely show a serious attitude and show his respect to her.
Aigron protested, and other countries would certainly not ignore it.
Therefore, it is obvious that a diplomatic turmoil is brewing. Whether it is for personal reasons or public interests, he must solve the problem as soon as possible before the situation gets out of hand.
Because the news came so suddenly, Aigron was so angry that he took dozens of seconds to reorganize his thoughts.
He asked the attendants around Theresa, found out where Theresa was, and immediately walked over.
When he got there, he found his swordsmanship teacher, Major Foresti, guarding the door.
"Your Majesty..." Upon seeing him, the major showed an expression of fear and relief, and then saluted him.
Agron was not surprised by his presence. After all, he was Teresa's most senior confidant, and it was natural for Teresa to send him to capture Maria.
"Where is Maria?" Because he was in a rage, Aigron didn't waste any words and asked the other party directly.
"Inside, Your Majesty." The major replied immediately, "Her Majesty the Queen is also inside, and she was just interrogated..."
After saying that, he immediately moved away and let out the door, obviously without any intention of stopping Aigron.
Aigron felt a little relieved, and then immediately took big steps to walk in.
"Your Majesty...can you listen to me for a moment? I beg you." Just as he passed the major, the major begged softly.
Aiglon frowned, but still stopped.
"Your Majesty, this time, Her Majesty the Queen did not do it properly. I also tried hard to advise her beforehand, but Her Majesty the Queen simply refused to listen to her advice when she was so angry. So I can only obey orders. This is also my duty.
, there is no way." The major explained to Aigron in a low voice, "I am telling you this not to absolve myself of my own responsibility, but to tell you that this time it was really Her Majesty the Queen who burned through her reason because of her anger.
I am someone who has watched Her Royal Highness grow up, and I have never seen Her Royal Highness do such a thing before... She has really suffered too much, so she did this. I beg you to be a little considerate.
Let's check her mood, and we can talk about anything between husband and wife."
After finishing speaking, he continued to look at Aigron with pleading eyes, pleading for Teresa.
Aiglon originally wanted to say something angrily, but he couldn't get the words out of his mouth. In the end, he just sighed, then reached out and patted the major's shoulder.
"Don't worry, I will take care of it. You can go and rest first. It has nothing to do with you now."
The major also sighed with a complicated expression, and then bowed to Aigron again and left.
After seeing off the major, Aigron strode inside. Soon, he saw Teresa, Maria, Mrs. Mercedes and others.
Almost at the same moment, he felt the tense and tragic atmosphere in the room.
His eyes first focused on Maria.
Then he discovered that Maria was in an extremely bad state at the moment - she was slumped in the corner of the room, her face was as pale as paper, her eyes were blurred, the corners of her eyes were red and swollen, it was obvious that she had cried just now, and her clothes were quite messy.
What? Teresa actually had Maria tortured?
It's not easy to make things right.
Aigron suddenly felt cold in his heart.
"Teresa!"
He looked at his wife and called her name with a tone of confusion and reproach.
But Teresa turned a deaf ear and just looked at her husband with calm eyes.
Aigron didn't care about arguing with his wife, and immediately walked forward, ready to see Maria's current situation.
Maria, who had been unconscious due to the heavy blow, finally noticed the appearance of Aigron, and at this moment, Aigron was nothing more than a "savior" in her eyes.
When she thought of what she had experienced not long ago, she was filled with grievances and resentment, and then she felt so sad that she burst into tears.
While crying, she hugged Aigron's shoulders.
At this moment, she is no longer as arrogant as usual? She is more like a little girl who is unable to resist after being bullied.
And her weak and helpless look made Aigron feel a little pity for her.
In particular, the way she was crying reminded Aigron of the way Sophie cried in the theater the night he fled from Austria, and his heart suddenly felt cramped.
Because he felt distressed, he reached out and touched Maria's back to comfort her, while turning to look at everyone present.
"What just happened? What did you do to her?!"
Under this strange scene, no one answered him, Teresa watched coldly and others remained silent.
"What the hell happened!" Aigron repeated impatiently.
At this time, Mrs. Mercedes finally came to her senses. She quickly approached Aigron and briefly reported to him in a low voice the tragic events that had just occurred.
When he heard that Maria was actually asked by Teresa to lift up her dress to "check" whether it was perfect, Agron was extremely shocked.
This is not torture, but for a woman, it may be more humiliating than ordinary torture.
No wonder Maria, who is usually so arrogant, looks like this now.
Aiglon suddenly felt angry in his heart. Half-crouching, he helped Maria up, then frowned and looked at Teresa.
His eyes seemed to ask, why are you doing this?
Teresa looked back at him calmly, as if asking, don't you understand why?
The silent confrontation between the husband and wife did not last long, and Aigron looked at Mrs. Mercedes again.
"Madam, take Her Royal Highness Maria back to rest - don't tell anyone what happened today."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Mercedes took the frail Maria from his hand, then supported her and walked out step by step.
No one dared to stop, no one even dared to speak out. When they saw the fierce look on His Majesty's face, everyone was frightened in front of the "imperial power", fearing that they would become the victim of His Majesty's anger later.
"Get out of here! I have something to say to the queen." Aigron gave the second order, "Whoever dares to leak even a little bit of what happened today will be imprisoned in a monastery in the mountains for the rest of his life.
Bar--"
His tone was not harsh, but it was scary enough, because this was not a threat, but a reality that could happen at any time.
The few female officials who were granted amnesty immediately withdrew, and just like that, suddenly only a couple from the Empire's Supreme Court were left in the simple room.
The two of them stood quietly, and no one spoke for a while.
After a while, Aigron calmed down again, and then asked Theresa again.
"Why do you have to do this, Teresa?"
"Why? Isn't the reason obvious?" Theresa seemed to be prepared and answered her immediately, "Because she was disrespectful to me, and even bullied me and humiliated me in front of everyone. She treated me with arrogance, and she treated me in private.
seducing my husband... I have countless reasons to hate her, don't I?"
At this point, she laughed sarcastically again, "What's even more disgusting is that she seems to have a penchant for stealing. She stole fans from me and confidential information from you. Could it be that such a person just because of her status?
Can you escape the punishment you deserve just because you are a princess? I don’t think so."
Huh? Stealing?
Aigron could understand the first words, but the latter words were a bit confusing to him.
"What did she steal?" So he asked.
"It seems that this is also a lie of hers." Seeing Aiglon's confused look, Teresa understood that the so-called Aiglon 'sent a fan' was also a lie by Maria, and she felt even more disdain for Maria.
So, she told Aigron about Maria's previous incident of taking out the ivory fan on her dressing table to show her disgust.
After hearing this, Aigron was dumbfounded.
He immediately thought of how Maria got this fan - when he first came to the throne, he once held a banquet for guests in the Tuileries Palace, and Maria secretly attended.
I secretly saw her in the dressing room. I think she took the fan away on purpose.
What kind of mentality does Maria have?
Part of the idea may be to use this thing to make up a story to deliberately disgust Theresa; however, in her subconscious, it may be the extreme jealousy of Theresa at work.
She subconsciously wanted to replace Theresa, so she wanted to use Theresa's daily necessities.
But no matter what the psychology is, this behavior is really too disgraceful.
"Although it's not decent, it's just a small item..." Aigron defended Maria bravely, "Just think of it as a gift from us."
"Then your Paris city construction plan is also a small object?" Teresa asked with a sneer.
As she spoke, she threw the physical evidence she had seized to Aiglon. "She took these things to Paris today and is planning to sell your plan for money -"
As soon as Aigron saw it, he understood that Maria must have written down what he told her yesterday, and she even collected the sketches of her paintings.
"Who is she going to sell to?" he asked quietly.
"Baron de Beauvin." Teresa replied. "It seems that they have had similar transactions before, so they have been in contact with each other for a long time."
Aiglon was immediately speechless.
Because Bowang was the one who introduced Maria...
Obviously, Maria asked for a sum of money from Bowen, but she had a big appetite and was dissatisfied with the lack of money, so she came up with the idea of selling information to the other party, and then the two parties hit it off.
But after all, he wasn't angry either.
On the one hand, he loves the house and the house, and he also has a preference for Maria and is very tolerant; on the other hand, although his city construction plan is important business information, it doesn't matter who makes money from it, as long as he completes the plan
Just fine.
But no matter what, Teresa did catch Maria.
Moreover, she did make sense when she said that Maria should be punished for what she did.
When he thought of this, Aigron's originally angry aura suddenly weakened.
"If that's the case, she does deserve some punishment, but...is it too much now? I don't think it should be so extreme." So, he asked Teresa in a negotiating tone, "Teresa, now
Since you've humiliated her so much, it's time for you to calm down, right? The matter should end here."
"That's it?" Teresa asked Agron, "Isn't what she did disgusting enough? Your Highness, she lied, she stole, and she was extremely disrespectful to me! Why should we keep such a guest?
?”
Aiglon suddenly felt hesitant.
It was obvious that Teresa wanted to take the opportunity to directly defeat Maria and expel her from the country.
However, whether it was out of his personal feelings or his secret plan, he did not want to see this happen.
"That's what I say, but what she committed was just a small mistake after all; she didn't really harm our country. My city construction plan is just an idea now. Even if she shares it with others, it won't be able to affect it.
What. As the emperor and empress, I think we can give her a little more tolerance."
Eggron's excuse was not beyond Teresa's expectations at all.
And she was already prepared for this.
"You are really accommodating her in every possible way. Is this accommodation because of herself or because of the person she looks like?" Teresa asked back.
"She is not only Sophie's twin sister, but also the princess of Bavaria." Aigron calmly avoided the important and trivial. "Think about it, it is our diplomatic strategy to win over Bavaria now. If something like this happens, if we direct her directly
What will the Bavarians think when we rush home? How will they deal with this humiliation? How much time and effort will it take to repair the damaged relationship?"
Seeing that Aigron brought up the big hat of national interests, Teresa did not hesitate because of this. "What will the Bavarians think? They should thank us for taking care of their face, just sending Marie Maria back, but we really don't care about her."
What they do is kept secret! Think about it, if all the European courts know that there is a princess in Bavaria who enjoys being a thief, where will their family's face be saved?"
What Teresa meant was that as long as Maria's affairs were revealed, her reputation would be ruined immediately.
After all, a princess with kleptomania, a princess who steals other countries' confidential information for profit, will definitely become the laughing stock of everyone if word spreads about it.
For the sake of their own face, the Bavarian royal family definitely does not want this to happen, so after learning about it, they will definitely be willing to deal with it in a low-key manner and quickly bring back this troublesome daughter. They will never use this to hype up or affect the diplomacy of the two countries.
relation.
This move was indeed so vicious that Aigron couldn't think of any words to refute it for a moment.
It seems that after being irritated by Maria, Teresa really made deliberate plans and conceived a series of plots against Maria. It can be said that she made a killing move step by step and was simply irresistible.
However, no matter what, Aigron did not want this to happen.
"Teresa, stop, things are far from this." He continued to insist on his opinion, "She does have many faults, but she has not committed any serious evil, so why do you have to make it so difficult for her?
?Well, after the situation calms down, I will ask her to apologize to you, and she will just be more restrained in the future. After all, she is also our guest..."
Although he had said soft words, Teresa didn't buy it at all.
Let's not talk about whether Maria will apologize to herself because of her personality, but what if she does? Now that the two people have reached this point, the relationship between them can no longer be solved by a light "apology".
Once something is done, it must be done to the end. This is Teresa's creed.
Moreover, she was not unprepared for this.
"Well, since you don't think she made a mistake, then we might as well make it public and let everyone comment and see if what she did is considered a crime?" So Teresa answered with a smile.
, "If the outside world thinks that Maria just made a small mistake, then of course I am willing to forgive her!"
"You..." Aigron was furious.
After all, if this matter is really made public, Maria's reputation will be ruined immediately; and, with the national character of the French, they see a foreign princess causing trouble in their own court and even reselling information for profit.
How could it be possible to feel okay?
At that time, all the criticism will be directed at Maria and those who protect her.
He knew that Teresa was actually threatening him.
At this time, he truly felt how deep the anger Maria brought to Teresa was.
The deliberate ridicule and offense, coupled with the face that was exactly the same as Sophie's, added up to Teresa's unforgivable situation.
She is deliberate and pressing every step of the way, but she is not a cold and cruel political machine. On the contrary, she is just a woman swallowed by jealousy and resentment.
Because of this, she would make such an unwise move, harming her own and her husband's interests in a seemingly "smart" way.
In the final analysis, she has never been obsessed with her own power and the honorable title of queen. To her, it is just an accessory of family life with her husband. It doesn't matter if she has it but doesn't have it. So she is not like many queens.
To accommodate and give in for these things.
So she is not afraid of flipping the table.
But her threat also aroused the authoritarianism and aggressiveness in Aigron's consciousness.
Now, this was not only a matter of emotion, a matter of morale, but also a matter of authority. He had to keep Maria, no matter what.