About the book: 2008 / The book of Kondraty Birkin (P.P. Karataev), an almost forgotten Russian writer, opens up a rare opportunity for readers to feel the atmosphere of palace secrets, intrigue and scandals of Russia, England, Italy, France and other states in the period of the 16th–18th centuries. Francis I has the famous: “Everything is lost - except honor” (which we have already discussed with the reader); in Louis XIV: “The State is I” (l’etat – c’est moi) and “There are no more Pyrenees” (il n’y a plus de Pyrenees); Henry IV, the most popular of the three, promised chicken soup to the poorest of his subjects. This chicken can be most closely compared to a newspaper duck; did not wait for her, and the poor bachelor, the heraldic French rooster, hardly ever will.