Chapter 52 Britain Holds Autumn

one There is the famous Windsor Castle more than 30 kilometers west of London. This castle is still the palace of the British royal family. The queen often drags her family here to spend weekends, and sometimes stays a little longer.The queen had just left on the day we went, and she said she would be back in a few days. The granite building complex is built on a hill. At first glance, it really looks like an eternal fortress.However, as a fortress, it is too elegant and grand, just like the gold-rimmed military uniforms of the white-haired veterans at the banquet, decorated with imaginary sword energy.

Thousands of years ago, William the Conqueror built a castle here to guard the Thames from the south bank, but the castle was a wooden structure at that time; who would have thought that after the later monarchs rebuilt the castle into a solid stone structure and expanded it again and again, its original function was reversed? Completely abandoned, and now only hold on to one autumn, face each other quietly. Guarded with it, there is also the royal family, but I don't know whether to guard it with it or be guarded by it.Autumn is very quiet but the royal family is very restless. Maple Leaf Hanshi has read too many stories, and finally still remembers Diana's anxious footsteps and the raging fire that cannot be extinguished.

Before entering the castle, go to an attached house in the north to go through the formalities, and then wait in a hall.All of a sudden, a tall lady appeared in front of us.I saw that she was wearing a long black trench coat with a wide red collar and a head of blond hair on the red collar. This combination of black, red and gold is so simple and luxurious, and it immediately led us into the classic The court story has a modern resounding.But I think that no matter how daring a young lady is in modern times, she would not dare to accept such a combination. The royal spirit has a natural exclusive power.

The lady really wanted to introduce us to the classical court story, and she led the way and finally entered the castle.There are several layers of gates inside the castle, and each gate is guarded by royal guards.These guards also all have black windbreakers and red wide collars, but they are all tall and straight men, and all of them are elderly, with carefully trimmed silver and white beards, so they form a three-color series of black, red, and silver, which is better than the ladies' black, red, and silver beards. Red and gold are more cold and arrogant.These two strong colors are set off by the granite under the autumn sun, so that we have to be ashamed of our clothes, and we don't even have the confidence to walk boldly.

After forgetting which door to enter, we were greeted by a lady wearing glasses and a long gray dress.This lady looks like a middle school teacher, with a badge on her chest, she should be a higher-level figure in the castle, so there is no need to carve royal weather on her appearance.She showed us some of the places where the queen lived, and gave some introductions in a soft voice, but not explanations.If you don't ask, she won't say anything. If you ask, she will say everything, mainly pushing the door to lead the way, pointing the stairs, and asking us to pay attention to our steps.I looked very carefully at the photos of several generations of royal families hanging on the castle wall.

When visiting rooms in the house, the scenery outside the south window attracts us more and more.Finally came to the outside of the house, where there is a large platform overlooking the vast autumn scenery in the south.The forests, grasslands, lakes, and rivers in the autumn colors, no one can be seen from a distance. When asked, it turned out to be the royal garden where the royal family and nobles hunted.Standing on the platform, I thought, it's autumn all over the world at this moment, but it's rare to gather the best possible fragments of a season on this scale.Thinking back to the time when the owner of the castle looked out from afar here, it must be better to show the king's demeanor than giving orders in the magnificent palace.

A row of neat footsteps sounded behind him, and he turned around to see that it was a royal patrol passing by.I was obsessed with the autumn colors and didn't want to take a closer look, but the patrol soon came around again. After three times, I simply calmed down and observed carefully. The patrol soldiers were all young, wearing tall hats with black manes on their heads, and red and gold ribbons on their shoulders. Among them, the one with the black mane standing up very high on the hat must be the captain.Their faces were expressionless, they didn't speak or smile, and they stared straight in the eyes, but this direct gaze made me feel strange, because it was not the gaze of the patrol team but the gaze of the guard of honor.After a few hours, it will be dark and dark, and the royal castle will be the target of thieves again. Is it the same with their eyes?The last time there was a big fire, the world public opinion has already questioned, why didn’t Windsor Castle, which was going every step of the way, not detect it in time and extinguish it quickly?

The castle was originally built for the safety of the Quartet, but now it has become a place that worries the Quartet. two Not far from Windsor Castle is the famous Eton College. The long-lived grandma and the lively grandson live next to each other, which is a kind of mutual comfort: the grandson understands his rank and mission, and the grandma sees the young life in the noble group. I stayed in the Eton school building for a long time, lost my way, deliberately didn't ask, just walked slowly, and then stood by the playground, watching the students play football. We have also seen several aristocratic schools in other countries along the way. They are self-admired and proud in everything. As long as Eton is mentioned, they will immediately become devout and respected as a model.A few days ago, someone talked about the current Prime Minister Blair's life, and praised his poor parents for their foresight, and managed to send him to the best Fitz School in Edinburgh. How good is the school?It was once called the Eton College of Scotland.

The British tradition of aristocrats is almost summed up most beautifully by the five hundred years of Eton College history.In this regard, Eton College itself has a very low-key introduction. I remember a sentence in it, which was said by General Wellington who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo: The victory on the battlefield of Waterloo is the victory on the playground of Eton College. . This sentence may surprise many Chinese who only understand aristocrats literally.In fact, many outstanding military commanders in British history were really trained at Eton College. There is very little laziness and cowardice in this aristocratic school.Fundamentally speaking, European aristocratic groups were originally formed in hard bloody battles. Most of the earliest members were military leaders and meritorious warriors. The quality of the series, through the packaging of power, wealth, and honor, has become the image flaunt of the noble group.

The aristocratic group as a whole has become conservative and fragile because it does not adapt to the modern society, but there are also a group of outstanding people who judge the situation and regard themselves as a combination of modern rules and aristocratic demeanor, which indeed produces unique advantages and is respected.This is the case with some enlightened royal families in Europe, such as the Spanish royal family, the Danish royal family, and the Swedish royal family. Sometimes they even miraculously become a force to defend democracy and restore stability.Therefore, we have heard many times from people in those countries that if the system is changed to a presidential system, they are also very likely to be elected.

Of course, the aristocratic tradition in Europe today mainly exists as a kind of behavioral temperament, especially as a gentleman.For example, in the face of the indiscriminate bombing by fascists, they could line up politely and let women and children enter the air-raid shelter, and Prime Minister Churchill used such beautiful and flawless words in his impatient radio speech, all of which are the flashes of gentlemanly demeanor in modern times.In contrast, France puts more emphasis on chivalry, and everyone from Napoleon to Charles de Gaulle is a representative of this aspect.Chivalry is also a derivative of the aristocratic tradition, which is closer to the main spirit of the aristocratic group than gentlemanly demeanor. Whether it is the gentlemanly demeanor of England or the chivalrous demeanor of France, they are all pursuing a form of beauty in life, but these beauties belong to the category of classical aesthetics, and it is often tiring to present them in modern times.Eton College tries to prove with a large number of young lives that classics are not tiring. This reminds me of an interesting phenomenon that occurred in China a few years ago. Many people call private schools with more expensive fees, better dormitory environment, and lower admission scores as noble schools. The school also uses this name to advertise. The parents of the students are called the aristocratic class because of their higher income. For this phenomenon, cultural people have satirized, and their theoretical basis is a famous saying: no three generations can't cultivate a nobleman.But this sounds a little uncomfortable to me, because it cannot explain the fact that the first and second generations of nobles appeared magnificently.But these words are still very intimidating, because in the turbulent China, no one can trace back the three generations of Shun Shun Liu.Later, some people gradually made efforts, vaguely revealing that their achievements today are the reasons buried by their great-grandfathers.But when asked about this reason, it is probably because he was a bureaucrat in troubled times, or he had a title in the imperial examination. Chinese history is very different from British history, so we don't have to discover and create any nobles at all.Some say it's just a joke, but it seems to me that this kind of fun involves great loss and danger.Enjoying the concept of pirated copies cheaply, at first glance it seems a kind of cheap, but in fact it will harm many people who should have the exact identity.For example, those intellectuals insist on comparing great-grandfather to aristocrats, and the old man must show cowardice everywhere. In fact, an old man who has experienced hardships in modern Chinese history can become a research model without any pretense. The same is true for some new types of rich people who would originally search for life goals in the unknown world. If they are nobles, even if they are just talking about it, they will lure many of them to pretend to be ghosts.Many people in China soon fell into ecological disorder after becoming rich, and they didn't know how to live. Cultural people criticized them for lack of culture. In fact, in my opinion, they were more poisoned by those seemingly cultural concepts. three It is very difficult for British nobles to be pirated, not to mention China, even its neighbor France. The French aristocracy was ruthlessly impacted by the Great Revolution and had experienced the Napoleonic Wars, so it was no longer a climate.There are still many noble manors, and we went to see several of them seriously this time, only to feel that the aftertaste is endless, but the scene is sparse.Except for a few manors that are still planting grapes and making wine, most of them are sitting on nothing, and don't know how to maintain them in the future.Of course, you can also auction the manor or borrow the manor to do other business, but you are afraid that your identity will be lost, your family history will be interrupted, and you will be laughed at by other nobles.It can be seen that among the grass and trees in the setting sun, there is still a kind of long-term honor that is still under pressure. Britain is different, not only the royal family is still lively, the old and new nobles are members of the House of Lords, although they may not come to the meeting.Why did the British nobles enjoy the glory for so long?I guess it has to do with the way they exist.Of course, they value the principle of heredity, but at the same time they value the principle of wealth even more. Avoid the danger of being overthrown. What I admire the most is that the three principles of the rule of law put forward by the jurist Dicey were actually accepted by the British royal family and nobles.The three principles are: first, the law is supreme and against autocracy; second, everyone is equal before the law; third, the constitution does not give individual rights, but individual rights generate the constitution.It can be seen that there is vigor in gentleness, and strides are accumulated in gradual progress, and the final result may not be lower than fierce shouting and jumping.This is where Britain differs from France. I often thought of Voltaire in France a few days ago, remembering that he highly praised Britain's tolerance, freedom, peace, and ease in "Philosophical Letters", but there was too much religious persecution in France at that time.But it seems to me that Voltaire encountered a profound paradox here: it was the unfreedom of France that called him a freedom fighter, and he praised England but it was difficult to live in England because it was the very things he praised. The content determines that such a place does not need a severe ideological critic like him. Britain may be easily criticized for not being profound because it is moderate and gradual.However, people have done what should be done in social development, they have crossed the hurdles that should be crossed, and they have all the concepts that should be possessed. What else can you say? Less bloody, less harsh, and less German-style deep thinking, just easy-going, feeling all the way, following experience, bypassing obstacles, walking as much as possible with less consumption, and walking as fast as possible. This kind of social behavior has been proven by history to be a remarkable path. Of course, there are conditions for the UK to do so, that is, there must be French-style passion and German-style high-mindedness constantly supporting and inspiring, otherwise it will inevitably become superficial and mediocre.Therefore, it is inappropriate to simply separate and compare Britain, France, and Germany. They have always been in a relationship that is different but complementary, echoing each other, flirting with each other, communicating with each other, and each has its own focus.In this sense, Europe should be one and cannot be beggar-thy-neighbor. Four The long-term gentle and gradual, long-term gentleman's demeanor also makes the British lose the opportunity to vent. If they are too depressed, they will produce abnormal outbreaks.I've always felt that mild-mannered England turned out to be a breeding ground for football hooligans, and that has something to do with it. According to friends who live here, why did the British government make great determination to deal with football hooligans but failed?The main reason is that these football hooligans are mostly dressed as gentlemen in daily life, and their gestures may have aristocratic charm, which is difficult to identify.But before a certain game one day, he changed to another person, who was full of brutality, swearing, and didn't even buy a ticket for the bus.After provoking trouble and causing casualties, they may become well-dressed and polite again in a blink of an eye, and blend into the normal crowd. I saw a scholar explain the phenomenon of football hooliganism in this way: the wildness in the British people has been suffocated for too long since Waterloo. It was Waterloo again.Referring to General Wellington's words, the matter may really have something to do with the nobles. Therefore, the nobles and hooligans, gentlemen and scoundrels who were already close at hand had to be quickly switched and shared roles. The decent British history has left such a stinking outlet?How could such a group of unworthy descendants have been exiled from the white-haired Windsor Castle?Although it is a mystery in the world, pros and cons coexist, there is always a feeling of injustice. The equivalent of football hooligans are London's low-level tabloids.They also constitute a polar opposite of the strict British traditional media.The traditional British media has inherited the gentlemanly demeanor of being objective, low-key, and reserved. When Reuters reports on terrorists, it generally only refers to gunmen, because the case has not yet been finalized.The power of this kind of demeanor can be felt from the sighs of the Germans after the defeat. They said: Reuters, who speaks cautiously, is more powerful than the British Navy!Unexpectedly, in recent decades, London's speculative and sensationalist tabloids have become popular all over the UK and internationally, and they have finally spread to China in recent years, only with an oriental sanctimonious attitude. Maybe it's a vengeance of gritty history on gentlemanliness?