Chapter 9 Chapter Four

This is my first morning in Paris. On the top floor of the History Department of the University of Voltaire, I open the window of this ancient guest room, and only see the gloomy sky outside. The jet lag has almost reversed, recalling everything after arriving in Paris yesterday, it seems that every detail is so clear, and the scenes flash back before my eyes.But I still felt a faint sense of uneasiness, which seemed to have been buried in my heart the moment I set foot on France. Yu Li came to pick me up in the morning, and he pretended to be mysterious and asked me: "Did you hear the knock on the door last night?"

"I didn't even see a ghost." "That's a pity. Maupassant wrote an article in his later years, recalling that when he was young, he lived at the University of Voltaire. At night, a beautiful woman would often knock on his door. The woman said she was from the era of Louis XIV. " "People from the time of Louis XIV ran to the 19th century? Isn't that a ghost?" "That's right." Yu Li said with a smirk on his face. I also laughed, if I meet it, I must write another "Ghost in Paris". Yu Li first took me to the restaurant for breakfast, and saw the female administrator of the building downstairs in the history department. The fat aunt looked at me with gloomy eyes, which made my skin crawl.

After breakfast, I took the parchment and went to the office of the University of Voltaire. I went through the cultural relic identification procedures with the professor, and got the certificate issued by the school. I confirmed that it was only an agency identification, not a donation or collection. The professor also signed Guaranteed return. After all the formalities were completed, I was relieved and handed the parchment and the tin box to Professor Orleans.Suddenly, I found that the moment the professor took the tin box, there were a few strange lights in his eyes. Could it be that the uneasiness in my heart came from this?

Professor Orleans and Yu Li brought the parchment to the laboratory, which is next door to the professor's office. It is said that there are many archaeological instruments in it.They didn't delay at all, and started working immediately. The professor wore gloves and a mask, pointed at the parchment with a magnifying glass, read out the Middle French on it, and then recorded it down by Yu Li next to him.While they were reading the parchment, they kept biting their ears, and they just turned their heads away when they spoke, so as not to splash their breath and saliva on the parchment.

Seeing how they were working, I knew that I was definitely not going to be able to help, so I quietly pulled Yu Li out, saying that I had finally come to France, and naturally I wanted to pay my respects to the city of Paris.Yu Li said that the professor would not let him leave, and then he gave me a map, marked a few points on the map, asked me to follow the route he said, and took care of a few things to pay attention to, so he left me alone. People were sent away. Only then did I feel the tragedy of "traveling into the world alone". I walked out of Voltaire University with my chest up and followed the map instructions to find the nearest subway station.The road signs in France are basically in French, but my English level is terrible, and I can't figure out the difference between French and English. Anyway, I can imagine it according to the Roman alphabet.

Thank goodness I was right. After ten minutes of subway journey, I arrived in Eiffel smoothly—the huge iron tower in our memory.However, when I came to the feet of Eiffel, which I have admired for a long time, I began to curse secretly in my heart, because he did not tell me: Elffel cannot be seen in the daytime, and the Eiffel Tower during the day is completely different from the night scene I usually see. .But I still went up and turned around like a pilgrimage.It's a pity that the weather in Paris in April is not good, and the sky is gray under the cold sky. Even if you are condescending on the top of the tower, you still can't see the whole picture of the city clearly.

Stepping off the EIffel, I immediately got into a taxi and said only: "Musee Du Louvre." You guessed it right, the place I'm going to is the Louvre. I remember when I was still in elementary school, the TV station showed a long foreign documentary about the Louvre Museum. Probably the desire to learn painting came from there when I was young. It is not too far from EIffel to Louvre, and soon I came to this sanctuary on the north bank of the Seine.Breathing the air of art, I feel that people have become a part of this place.The Louvre has a history of more than 700 years. In 1204, Philip Augustus built a castle here. The expansion was not fully completed until 1857.

Many famous painters during the Renaissance, such as Da Vinci and others, had painted for the French royal family. In the 17th century, the famous paintings of the Fontainebleau Palace were also moved to the Louvre. In 1791, the French National Assembly issued a decree to open the Louvre as a national museum.In the era of Napoleon, when the French were most proud, wherever the French military flag went, the local treasures of cultural relics were transported to France, and the total collection has exceeded 400,000 pieces. I was trapped among tourists speaking various languages, and I heard a few Chinese words around me from time to time. I could only take pictures carefully with a digital camera, but unfortunately I still got a lot of heads.When you arrive in Louvre, there are three things you have to see, that is, the Venus with Broken Arms, the Goddess of Victory, and the Mona Lisa.

Venus is a well-deserved treasure of the town hall.It is said that before the damage, Venus held an apple in his left arm and placed it on his left shoulder, while his right hand drooped naturally.Of course, no one can tell whether this is the case. People today are still accustomed to the beauty with the broken arm. Next, I finally saw the "Mona Lisa" with my own eyes. I won't introduce who painted it. The "Mona Lisa" is probably the only work in the Louvre that occupies an entire wall.The painting is locked in a special small box, which seems to be only the size of A3 copy paper, and is separated by thick glass.Mona Lisa—the woman (or man in another word) who sits upright looks at the dense crowd of tourists like an icon in a shrine.I heard that there are often thieves hiding in the crowd, so I can only desperately cover the position of the wallet with one hand, and hold the camera high with the other hand, which looks quite funny.

When I saw the third treasure, my legs were already weak, and that was the statue of the Goddess of Victory.The goddess of victory (La Victoire de Samothrace) in 190 BC is heroic, spreading angelic wings, and the skirt is carved with fine details... Panting and coming out of the Louvre, it was past two o'clock in the afternoon. I was tired and hungry and rushed to the side of the street. I bought some bread for 9.5 euros to satisfy my hunger.The bread of the French is too long. I only ate one and I was almost full. The remaining two loaves were stuck in my back like Jay’s nunchucks, shuttling among foreigners, a bit like a swordsman described by Gu Long. style of pie.

Seeing that it was still early before I went back, I got up in the alleys near the Louvre and looked at the old houses in Paris, which were a bit like the buildings on Jiangxi Middle Road in Shanghai where I lived when I was a child.After wandering around for more than half an hour, I accidentally turned to the edge of the Seine River. Many people have dreamed of rafting the Seine River, but it seems that it is not much wider than Suzhou Creek. The sky was much darker again, with gusts of cold wind blowing across the river, I knew it was going to rain in the morning, but I didn't have an umbrella at hand.I was looking for that bridge in a hurry—it was the "New Bridge" in the movie "Lovers at New Bridge", just like when I arrived, people on the Thames River in London were all looking for the Waterloo Bridge in "Blue Bridge". like that. The "new bridge" was not found, but the old bridges were one after another. I gave them Chinese names one by one: from "Old Gate Bridge" to "Waibaidu Bridge". Unfortunately, the rain finally started to fall. In April, Paris was suddenly bleak and rainy. I looked around for a place to shelter from the rain, and finally hid in a bridge hole beside the Seine. There is the Seine River around, and the rain has made the river turbid, and a few small boats are lying on the bank, just like "a wild crossing without a boat". Suddenly, I heard someone calling me from behind: "Sir, Sir!" I turned around nervously, and saw a scruffy man with 18th-century shaggy hair and a mustache on his chin. He nodded to me with a wide smile, and said something. String French. It's a pity that I didn't understand a word, so I just shook my head blankly.The man said another sentence in English: "Hello, How are you?" I searched the limited English words in my mind, and stammered the answer: "How's yourself?" "Bread—" He pointed to the long bread behind me, and I immediately understood the meaning of the word, which is bread in English. What surprised me even more was that he spread out his hands to me, he was a beggar!The funny thing is that the man had a smile on his face, as if he was praising the friendship between China and France. Thinking about how I am always "good at giving" when I am in China, naturally I have to carry forward the kind nature of the Chinese people when I go abroad, so I took out the two loaves of bread and "gifted" to this predestined person under the bridge.The more reason is that I really can't eat it anymore, and it's too troublesome to take it back. "Thank you!" The man took the bread in a very gentlemanly manner, with an aristocratic posture of "neither humble nor overbearing", he stared into my eyes and asked, "Chinese?" Probably the Japanese and Koreans who came to Paris were very stingy. They could tell at a glance that I was from a great country, so I couldn't help nodding my head proudly. At this moment, the wind and rain outside the bridge hole is still unabated, and the Seine River seems to have the momentum to overflow the embankment.I could only hug my shoulders and shiver. Seeing my appearance, the man immediately patted my shoulder, and then took out a tattered umbrella from behind a broken sofa under the bridge hole.I immediately said "Thank you", and there were a few poor English words left, so I didn't know how to express my gratitude.But he just waved the bread in his hand, and those big black eyes seemed to say: You gave me the bread, I gave you the umbrella, we trade fairly. Suddenly, I realized that he looked a bit like Alan Deron. How did he end up joining the beggar gang? The world is really changing.Saying "Bye" in a hurry, I took up my umbrella and ran out of the bridge hole. It was raining and raining outside, and Paris was shrouded in rain and fog. I ran along the Seine River for a while holding an umbrella, and finally found the subway station. I took the subway back to the University of Voltaire according to the location indicated on the map. It was already dark when I returned to the university, and Yu Li was waiting for me in the dining room, and took me to a postgraduate dinner.He looked very tired, as if he had been studying the parchment all day, he shook his head and said: "This matter seems to be getting more and more complicated, Professor Orleans thinks the value of this parchment is very great, whether it is a parchment The texture and production, as well as the writing method of the text on it, are indeed the originals of the 13th century. As for whether the author is Louis IX himself, this remains to be studied tomorrow.” "Isn't this very good? Isn't Professor Orleans' appraisal the most authoritative? The parchment is true, and the contents recorded in it must be very important." "Yes, but the problem now is that if it is really a cultural relic from the 13th century, it will definitely cause a sensation in the entire European historical circle, and many people will come to interview you. However, the professor does not want this to happen. He hopes that we They can all be kept secret, and he wants to study in a secret state. Because solving the 'Louis IX mystery' is his long-standing dream, and it is also a lifelong research project of many other scholars..." "I see what you mean. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about it." Yu Li nodded: "Well, actually you don't know: in the 1970s, we also had an expert at the University of Voltaire, who devoted his whole life to studying the 'Mystery of Louis IX', it is said that he was in a certain place in the south of France They finally found clues and found a mysterious tomb with records about Louis IX in Egypt engraved on the coffin boards. The expert spent three months studying the coffin and claimed that it would be buried in the coffin in 1975. On Christmas Day, the final answer to the "Louis IX Mystery" was announced to the world. However, on Christmas Eve of that year, people found his body, lying in the same coffin he was studying. The police have always The cause of death has not been found, and no one dares to study the coffin, so it can only be buried in secret again." "Is it really that mysterious?" I can't help but think of the curse of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh. There may be many historical mysteries that we modern people are not allowed to explore, and many people often bury their lives in curiosity. "The death incident I just mentioned is just a relatively famous example in recent decades. In fact, since the 19th century, famous scholars and explorers have continued to die mysteriously because of their research on the 'Mystery of Louis IX'. Rather than saying that Louis IX made this secret famous, it is better to say that the death of these researchers made their research objects even more mysterious. According to my own incomplete statistics, from 1945 to 2000, a total of Thirteen European and American scholars and explorers died because of the "Mystery of Louis IX", and the cause of death is still unknown. Of course, these are only recorded deaths. If various unrecorded deaths are added, there may be more Bar." Hearing this, I was already horrified. This parchment involving the "Mystery of Louis IX" was brought to Paris with my own hands. I have also touched this parchment. Could it be that such a terrible thing would Involve me? Now I have some regrets, there is no free lunch in the world, they invited me to travel to Europe for free, and the price is some unknown danger. And where is the danger? I looked at Yu Li's silent face, dazed and ignorant.