Life of Being a Crown Prince in France-Chapter 1507 - 1413: Freedom—

In the hall of the east wing of the Tuileries Palace, the Gozzi Theater Group from Venice was performing the classic play "Turandot".

This play is the masterpiece of the famous playwright Carlo Gozzi, and although it has been performed across Europe for more than twenty years, it still enjoys immense popularity.

Meanwhile, Joseph was watching the new play by the young Prussian playwright Johann Ludwig Tieck—"Puss in Boots" with his family in the south wing.

Last month, when he saw the title on the theater festival application form, he briefly thought he had returned to a 21st-century cinema.

However, he quickly confirmed that this was indeed a script the Prussians had just written last year, and the later animation must have adapted the character settings from this play.

So he decisively designated it as one of the plays to be performed on the first day of the theater festival.

According to the rules of the festival, two plays are performed simultaneously each day. Then, the jury gives a score, and the audience gives a score too, and the average of the two scores serves as the final score of the play.

This new scoring model that involves audience participation further fueled the enthusiasm of the audience—who wouldn’t want to experience being a juror, especially one that can affect the results of a world-class theater festival?

People from many countries even traveled long distances to Paris to buy tickets and watch the plays, hoping their country’s play would win an award.

On the second-floor VIP seats in the south hall, Queen Mary and Alexandra watched the actors on stage with keen eyes, occasionally showing happy smiles.

They had seen enough of those tiresome noble life dramas and historical plays in their daily lives; suddenly coming across such a light-hearted and funny "fairy tale play" immediately captivated them.

Even Joseph felt that this playwright’s imagination was truly rich.

With lively music, the play quickly reached its first climax—

The poor boy Gottlieb wants to marry the beautiful princess, but he doesn’t even have a respectable outfit to enter the royal palace. So his magical tomcat Hencher came up with an idea and suggested he hide in the river by the road the king would take.

When the king’s carriage came by, Gottlieb stripped off his clothes and pretended to bathe in the river. Meanwhile, Hencher stopped the king’s carriage, claiming that its master, "Count Calaba," was attacked by robbers while bathing in the river, and all his clothing and treasures were stolen.

The king, feeling sympathy for the count’s plight, ordered his servants to give him a set of splendid clothes.

At this moment in the performance, the audience below shouted in excitement, "That cat is a fraud!"

"Your Majesty, please don’t believe it!"

However, some murmured enviously, "Oh God, please grant me such a cat..."

Sitting on the second floor, Joseph smiled at this scene, feeling that the theater festival was indeed a success.

The people of this era had very monotonous spiritual and cultural lives, and watching such interesting plots made them easily immersed and quietly influenced.

Finally, with Hencher’s ingenuity, Gottlieb defeated the ogre, and with the ogre’s wealth, he managed to marry the princess. Hencher became the noble among cats, and the play concluded amidst people’s laughter.

Queen Mary was the first to stand up, applauding the actors taking their bow. The audience was even more excited, clapping and cheering for a long time.

More than ten minutes later, Alexandra, holding Joseph’s arm, followed the king and queen out of the Tuileries Palace, talking enthusiastically about the plot along the way.

Once in the carriage, the Crown Princess looked back at the theater with longing, "It was so entertaining, darling, I want to watch the late-night show again tonight."

All plays at the theater festival have a matinee performance, and another at 9 PM, running until midnight, with slightly lower ticket prices.

"Why not?" Joseph winked at her, "Just don’t let mother know."

"Really?" Alexandra hugged his neck and gave him a kiss, "You are so good to me!"

Such things that went against court rules, she would never dare to imagine while living in the Winter Palace.

Joseph embraced her waist, smiling, "If you like it, we can buy the rights to the play. And then, I’ll help you write the sequels, maybe two more."

The reason for two sequels is that he had seen two "Puss in Boots" movies.

"Oh God, that would be fabulous!" Alexandra exclaimed, kissing him several times on the face. "I might be too excited to sleep tonight!"

The next morning.

Joseph yawned continuously while having breakfast. Last night, the Crown Princess was too excited, which caused him to not sleep well either.

Eman placed a stack of freshly ironed newspapers beside the table.

Joseph picked up the "Paris Commercial News," seeing that the front page was all about the theater festival, and the scores for yesterday’s two plays were out.

Out of a total of 20 points, "Puss in Boots" received a high score of 16, surpassing "Turandot," which received 15 points.

It’s worth noting that this was achieved despite the German actors having heavy French accents, losing many points in the "dialogue" category, while the Italian troupe’s French was very pure.

Joseph nodded in satisfaction, choosing this play truly achieved a successful beginning. This laid the groundwork for the "grand finale"—

On the last day of the theater festival, one of the final performances would be the French Royal Theater Group’s "The Count of Monte Cristo," and the other would be the Florence Drama Troupe’s "Brave Heart."

Yes, the same story from later times that tells of William Wallace leading the Scots to thrash the British army and embarrass King Edward I of England, only for the British to barely scrape by through trickery.

Of course, the script was personally written by Joseph and performed by the skillful Florence Drama Troupe.

He had privately watched the performance of the 1.9-meter-tall Florentine actor last week. The actor’s shout of "Freedom—" was magnificent and heart-wrenching, no less powerful than Mel Gibson.

Considering how invested the audience was in yesterday’s plot, it’s expected that after "Brave Heart" is performed, even if the British Royal Family were to jump into the Thames River, it wouldn’t clear their name.

If this could stir some anti-British sentiment in Scotland, it would be an unexpected bonus.

Once Joseph finished breakfast, he saw Eman leading Bertier briskly into the room.

The Chief of Staff approached with a bow, beaming with joy, "Your Highness, news arrived this morning that the British army completely withdrew from Porto by noon the day before yesterday. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"Currently, less than a thousand enemy troops are defending the port, and Marquis Talavera is personally leading two infantry regiments to encircle it."

Indeed, after the Portuguese nobles abandoned Porto and amidst heavy British casualties, Marquess of Wellesley finally chose to retreat.