My God what a great AAR. I only found it earlier this week and have in free (yeah right) moments read through it all. I only reached the end just now – wishing for more…
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Thanks all...
Just completed the "dirty deed" of genuflecting to Bill Gates and installing the XP OS. Does anything ever go smoothly with a Microsoft install?
Don't worry, nothing fatal.
Sharur: indeed. Initially I'll treat colonization and exploration in separate posts as I was quite active both abroad and in Europe.
I only suffered one BB war in the entire game, the time that Aragon DOWed me a few years back at the end of the 2nd major war with England. Keep in mind that 80% of the territories I've taken to date have French national shields on them so the BB hasn't been too terrible, hovering between very bad and tarnished. I haven't yet hit (or maybe I only *just* hit) the "hated throughout the entire world" reputation level. I think that after this point I was suddenly too big for most countries to be interested in attacking me, and most of my wars were short and sweet, and pretty much entirely with my neighbours. As often as not, I was the one declaring on them as soon as the 5 years were up.
Legbiter: Thanks. It is really nice to hear from "new people.
P. Alvarez, Daniel, King: Thanks a lot for the interest + links! My French is barely up to it but I think I got the gist. I later found some more info on him too (while I was looking for something else) in the Catholic Encyclopedia (AMAZING SOURCE!). It would be fun to write several more posts on on in this AAR but that might be a bit over the top.
Dan Cook: Well I really thought I was going to be nice, but then the other countries just kept begging me to kill them! What could I sayÉ
Rath Jones: Thank you.
thames: thanks...more coming. It has been a hectic couple of days at the office but I might be able to squeeze in an installment today. Otherwise there will be one or two (at least) on the weekend.
Just completed the "dirty deed" of genuflecting to Bill Gates and installing the XP OS. Does anything ever go smoothly with a Microsoft install?
Don't worry, nothing fatal.Sharur: indeed. Initially I'll treat colonization and exploration in separate posts as I was quite active both abroad and in Europe.
I only suffered one BB war in the entire game, the time that Aragon DOWed me a few years back at the end of the 2nd major war with England. Keep in mind that 80% of the territories I've taken to date have French national shields on them so the BB hasn't been too terrible, hovering between very bad and tarnished. I haven't yet hit (or maybe I only *just* hit) the "hated throughout the entire world" reputation level. I think that after this point I was suddenly too big for most countries to be interested in attacking me, and most of my wars were short and sweet, and pretty much entirely with my neighbours. As often as not, I was the one declaring on them as soon as the 5 years were up.
Legbiter: Thanks. It is really nice to hear from "new people.
P. Alvarez, Daniel, King: Thanks a lot for the interest + links! My French is barely up to it but I think I got the gist. I later found some more info on him too (while I was looking for something else) in the Catholic Encyclopedia (AMAZING SOURCE!). It would be fun to write several more posts on on in this AAR but that might be a bit over the top.
Dan Cook: Well I really thought I was going to be nice, but then the other countries just kept begging me to kill them! What could I sayÉ
Rath Jones:
Thank you.thames: thanks...more coming. It has been a hectic couple of days at the office but I might be able to squeeze in an installment today. Otherwise there will be one or two (at least) on the weekend.
I knew it!!! You're one of them genuflectors, MrT!!!
I'll have someone sorting you out very soon... ah, you didn't expect that did you?
*considering going into the 'no-one expects'-mode, but reconsiders*
I'll have someone sorting you out very soon... ah, you didn't expect that did you?
*considering going into the 'no-one expects'-mode, but reconsiders*
1510 – 1514: The Last Years of Louis XII
My planned discussion with Louis XII regarding the issue of succession would not take place until the autumn of 1512, just after the rather lavish celebration of the king’s fiftieth birthday. In part I can attribute this to his preoccupation with the so-called “New World” and in part it was because I had been rather busy myself, carrying out just about the last order that Louis had given concerning affairs in Europe. His command had been brief and succinct:
“What the hell does Hessen think it’s doing? Crush the bastards!”
What was I to do? Their annexation of Münster in August of 1509 provided us with a perfect excuse to declare war, we had the troops already more or less in position, and Hessen did not have a particularly large army. Yet once again, the “war” was little more than a farce in five acts:
Act I: In which, on January 15th, 1510, war is declared by France on the kingdom of Hessen, and in which Hessen calls to its ally Lithuania to help protect it. Lithuania agrees, but then almost immediately negotiates a white peace with the French king in May.
Act II: In which La Palice leads the assembled French army of some 90,000 infantry, 25,000 cavalry and 100 cannons rips the Hessen army of less than 40,000 men into shreds in a matter of little over a week.
Act III: in which Münster is besieged and captured; as is Mainz.
Act IV: in which Denmark joins Hessen’s alliance and declares war, only to immediately offer a white peace. We see Louis agonise (or rather I agonize and then instruct Louis) over whether to accept the offer. Given that the French armies were hardly in a position to march those great distances and engage a new and well-prepared enemy, the offer is accepted.
Act V: in which Hessen is captured on September 12th, 1512, and immediately offers up 117 francs, Mainz and Münster – an offer which we readily accept and which finds France once more at peace.
So once this little flurry of activity was over, I went to discuss the matter of appointing an heir with the king. It was a brief discussion, one that I shall not relate in its entirety to you, but the upshot of it all is that his “nephew” François was named heir to the crown the following day. Why François?
It took a bit of digging, but we did eventually determine that François was the closest relative of the king who could inherit according to Salic Law. It turned out that it was necessary to trace the lineage all the way back to Louis de Orléans, the king’s grandfather, and then forward again through the second son’s direct lineage. Here’s how it worked out: Louis de Orléans had three sons. The first of these was King Louis’ father Charles. The second son, John, could not (of course) also inherit Orléans so he had been made Count of Angoulême. He, in turn, had sired a son whom he imaginatively named Charles and became the Duc de Angoulême as the size and structure of the fiefdom had changed. Charles was Louis’ cousin, of course, and had he not died in 1496 he would have been Louis XII’s heir. Thus the title fell to his first-born son, François, née on the 12th of September, 1494, and had therefore now also attained his age of majority. François, therefore, was named the new Dauphin.
Now the young Dauphin was, surprisingly, as yet unmarried and without issue, therefore it was quickly decided that the line of de Valois should be further intertwined by having François marry the king’s first daughter, Claude, when she attained the appropriate age. As she had been born in 1499, this called for their wedding to take place in 1414, and the date was set for the 18th of May. This was, perhaps, one of the few good pieces of news to come on a domestic level during the entire five-year period of 1510 to 1514.
In most other respects, those years were full of internal strife. It was not enough, apparently, that the King’s armies were off conquering Hessen’s territories – or perhaps it was because they were doing so – for a succession of people came to place petitions and demands in front of the king. In September of 1510 it had been the nobles demanding increased pensions. Initially the reasons for this were unclear, but it soon slipped out that they were jealous of their counterparts to the south – in Spain and Portugal – who had pulled off a coup by having Pope Julius II agree to a treaty, signed on June 23rd, 1510, commonly known as the Treaty of Tordesillas. Effectively this annoying document was designed as a snub against Louis in retribution for his refusal to back the League of Cambrai which had subsequently failed miserably to contain the Republic of Venice. Of course they tried to pretend otherwise, but the whole intent of dividing the world into two hemispheres, a “Spanish” one and a “Portuguese” one, flew in the face of the very fact that Louis had already begun to aggressively colonize in the northern sections of the New World. I’ll tell you about the king’s funded expeditions in a few moments, but let’s just say that the exclusion of France from the treaty was like a slap in the face, and neither I nor the king would soon forget it - though he did give the nobles some 200 additional francs to keep them quiet.
OOC: The above, of course, is a complete fabrication and has no basis (that I’m aware of) in history. The ToT event happened, and shortly thereafter I had the “Nobles Demand Increased Pensions” random event, which I accepted.
On the heels of this Treaty, came the shocking news that Admiral Polin had committed suicide on June 24th, most likely as a final act of desperation as the poor naval military genius had spent his entire service to the crown of France ferrying the King’s armies around and had, in fact, engaged in a grand total of onenaval battle in his career. This had been a lop-sided affair where he had sunk a Tuscan warship and three Tuscan transports while commanding a flotilla of more than 20 French warships. Frustrated with under-utilization, he blew his brains out on the poop deck with his service pistol, and was buried at sea with full honours (it was only later that the story of the suicide reached us 0 initially it had been an “accident” that had killed him).
OOC: Again, complete bunk. I just happened to write in my notes that the guy probably killed himself due to extreme boredom after the way I’d been using him (or rather, not using him).
Not a year later, a delegation made its way to Paris from the cities once more. Having already agreed to one such petition less than ten years ago, I advised the king to hold the line on this one and suffer the consequences. Suffer we did, as the kingdom’s stability plunged and it became necessary to devote all possible finds to improving it once more. Of course such drastic measures have a way of getting out of hand, and it was only nine months later that it was discovered that there was a certain degree of corruption in the distribution of the fund that were earmarked to improving national stability. The whole mess took yet another 100 frances to smooth over, and the public confidence in the administration took yet another dip.
Finally, in 1513, it seemed as though the litany of problems was coming to an end. The year began with an announcement from the Academie that a new keel design had been integrated into our vessels, and that all existing ships in the fleet had been upgraded to this new standard. This, in turn, seemed to have an impact on the economy as a whole as within a month we were having what could only be described as an exception year. There were additional, unexpected revenues of some 100 francs, and our inflation level dropped from its current high of about 9% down to a measly 4% that we hadn’t seen since the mid 1400’s.
Having determined that the recent years’ rapid expansion might upset our neighbours, and that there were difficulties enough in maintaining control over these conquered territories without adding new ones to the mix, I ordered the artillery regiments to be stood down, I sent some of the knights back to their manors, and even a few infantry units were disbanded. All of this was by way of reducing the now very high maintenance costs, and the poor navy was once again subjected to under-funding.
The spring wedding of François and Louis’ daughter Claude was a grand affair, full of pomp and pageantry, and very well attended by the nobility. The king took a moment, in his speech to the happy couple, to make a few snide and backhanded comments about how surprised he was to see them all, though perhaps it might be attributed to all of the free food.
After the positive events of 1513, and in spite of the King’s little dig at them in his oratory, it was disappointing to see the nobles approaching the king once more in the summer of 1514 with their hands held out for an even greater increase in their pensions. Had it not been for a general surplus of funds in the royal treasury, I am not sure what Louis would have done. As it was, he shelled out another 200 francs and told them not to expect such a reception (or to be invited to many state functions) anytime again in the near future. It would be his last official act.
The autumn of 1514 was a cold and wet one – disastrous for the grape crop as it happened – and even more disastrous for the king’s health. He caught a cold in early October that he just couldn’t seem to shake, and by mid November it had turned into pneumonia. Strong of body, the king fought the ailment for more than another month, before finally succumbing to the disease. In his final days he had been so weak that he couldn’t even celebrate the unexpected establishment of a weapons factory in Normandie – a gift from the merchant class there, though it was suggested by some less generous types that they had merely tired of Flandern getting all the government military contracts.
By Christmas Louis was fading fast, and he died a few days later.
In the sixteen years of Louis’ reign, he had accomplished a great deal and between the two of us we had expanded France’s territory even further. But it may be that his greatest achievement is rapid and enthusiastic response to the discovery of land across the wide Atlantic Ocean.
As you’ll recall, it was in fact the English who had provided the initial exploration upon which Louis and future generations of French kings were to build. The maps found in the tower of London (when that citadel had fallen to French troops in April of 1508) detailed part of the eastern coastline of what would later come to be known as “North America” – a land of great empty spaces and, as we would soon find out, curious native tribes whom we called “braves”. Other, less well educated persons, took also to calling them “Indians”, though of course they were dead wrong – being off by a matter of 5000 leagues or more.
It is hard to imagine a more trusting king, nor a more faithful group of people whom he recruited even before the month was out. These hardy, daring souls volunteered to be part of two expeditions that were financed by the crown – one to attempt to establish a small colony in Bas St. Laurent, and the other to attempt the same in Gaspésie. The king determined that whichever group of one hundred persons succeeded in establishing a foothold, he would continue to send more settlers until a full-fledged colonial city could be built.
I no longer recall their names, nor their faces. They were desperate for a new life, and perhaps seduced by the idea that they would live semi-autonomous lives when they were so far removed from the crown and its armies. It was with great sorrow that the king later learned they had all perished of famine and exposure; their feeble efforts to erect any protective structures having failed, and the soil being unsuitable for the crops that they had attempted to plant. Once the small number of livestock they had transported had been exhausted, the writing was on the wall.
Undeterred by these initial failures, the king once more funded an expedition - this time to Acadie - which was commissioned in November of 1508. These new volunteer colonists reviewed what little was known about the two previous failed attempts in the New World, and decided to take fewer building supplies and more by way of food and a variety of livestock and edible crop seeds. Arriving in the early spring, they immediately began felling trees and constructing a dozen, small log cabins which they would share. Crops were planted in early April and by the end of the month it was already apparent that at least a portion of them would survive. They sent word back with their ship’s captain, and he dutifully reported on April 28th, 1509, the founding of the first French settlement in the New World. Louis immediately began putting together a second wave of colonists to assist the first lot, and further expand and secure the holding.
By the autumn, Acadie numbered some 203 persons, three children having been born during the summer who survived, and a third group of settlers followed close on their heels, arriving in mid-winter. These, rather than being farmers and trappers, were more skilled tradesmen who established a small mill, an ironworks, a clothier, and several other essential businesses upon which a city would depend for its survival. Then Louis discovered that there was one small flaw in his plan to colonize North America: the people were too happy and content to remain in France.
He began to ponder what might be done to encourage a few people to leave, but was unable to come up with a solution. I had no idea either, and it would take nearly four years and some considerable scrounging around to find another 100 or so people who were interested in braving the wilds. These were eventually sent to join the first groups of settlers, arriving in July of 1514, less than six months before Louis’ death. He was overjoyed that they had succeeded, as now the small colony boasted nearly 420 people. By French law at the time, it would require some 700 persons before official city status would be awarded, but it was a good start, and more than half way to achieving that aim.
It should be noted, however, that France was not the only nation that had begun to explore the western Atlantic, for there appeared several notations on the English maps that indicated Spanish trading posts had been established. It seemed that there would eventually be some conflict in that area, as they were rapidly setting up their claims on many of the rich spice and sugar islands to the south. When coupled with the Pope’s ridiculous “Treaty” it was almost a begging for war to erupt. And it would, though not for some years...
It is one of the few things that I regret about fate; that Louis never lived to see the ambition to which he had devoted the final years of his life, the colony in Acadie, grow into the burgeoning city and hub of the New World that it would later become. It turned out, though, that the new king was possessed of the same dream as his uncle. Even more importantly, François had the additional benefits of a very great understanding of administrative matters and he would apply himself to the problems of colonization and exploration more so than anything else during his reign. It would fall onto my shoulders to hold France together in Europe, and keep it strong and feared above all others. It was a task I was looking forward to.
My planned discussion with Louis XII regarding the issue of succession would not take place until the autumn of 1512, just after the rather lavish celebration of the king’s fiftieth birthday. In part I can attribute this to his preoccupation with the so-called “New World” and in part it was because I had been rather busy myself, carrying out just about the last order that Louis had given concerning affairs in Europe. His command had been brief and succinct:
“What the hell does Hessen think it’s doing? Crush the bastards!”
What was I to do? Their annexation of Münster in August of 1509 provided us with a perfect excuse to declare war, we had the troops already more or less in position, and Hessen did not have a particularly large army. Yet once again, the “war” was little more than a farce in five acts:
Act I: In which, on January 15th, 1510, war is declared by France on the kingdom of Hessen, and in which Hessen calls to its ally Lithuania to help protect it. Lithuania agrees, but then almost immediately negotiates a white peace with the French king in May.
Act II: In which La Palice leads the assembled French army of some 90,000 infantry, 25,000 cavalry and 100 cannons rips the Hessen army of less than 40,000 men into shreds in a matter of little over a week.
Act III: in which Münster is besieged and captured; as is Mainz.
Act IV: in which Denmark joins Hessen’s alliance and declares war, only to immediately offer a white peace. We see Louis agonise (or rather I agonize and then instruct Louis) over whether to accept the offer. Given that the French armies were hardly in a position to march those great distances and engage a new and well-prepared enemy, the offer is accepted.
Act V: in which Hessen is captured on September 12th, 1512, and immediately offers up 117 francs, Mainz and Münster – an offer which we readily accept and which finds France once more at peace.
So once this little flurry of activity was over, I went to discuss the matter of appointing an heir with the king. It was a brief discussion, one that I shall not relate in its entirety to you, but the upshot of it all is that his “nephew” François was named heir to the crown the following day. Why François?
It took a bit of digging, but we did eventually determine that François was the closest relative of the king who could inherit according to Salic Law. It turned out that it was necessary to trace the lineage all the way back to Louis de Orléans, the king’s grandfather, and then forward again through the second son’s direct lineage. Here’s how it worked out: Louis de Orléans had three sons. The first of these was King Louis’ father Charles. The second son, John, could not (of course) also inherit Orléans so he had been made Count of Angoulême. He, in turn, had sired a son whom he imaginatively named Charles and became the Duc de Angoulême as the size and structure of the fiefdom had changed. Charles was Louis’ cousin, of course, and had he not died in 1496 he would have been Louis XII’s heir. Thus the title fell to his first-born son, François, née on the 12th of September, 1494, and had therefore now also attained his age of majority. François, therefore, was named the new Dauphin.
Now the young Dauphin was, surprisingly, as yet unmarried and without issue, therefore it was quickly decided that the line of de Valois should be further intertwined by having François marry the king’s first daughter, Claude, when she attained the appropriate age. As she had been born in 1499, this called for their wedding to take place in 1414, and the date was set for the 18th of May. This was, perhaps, one of the few good pieces of news to come on a domestic level during the entire five-year period of 1510 to 1514.
In most other respects, those years were full of internal strife. It was not enough, apparently, that the King’s armies were off conquering Hessen’s territories – or perhaps it was because they were doing so – for a succession of people came to place petitions and demands in front of the king. In September of 1510 it had been the nobles demanding increased pensions. Initially the reasons for this were unclear, but it soon slipped out that they were jealous of their counterparts to the south – in Spain and Portugal – who had pulled off a coup by having Pope Julius II agree to a treaty, signed on June 23rd, 1510, commonly known as the Treaty of Tordesillas. Effectively this annoying document was designed as a snub against Louis in retribution for his refusal to back the League of Cambrai which had subsequently failed miserably to contain the Republic of Venice. Of course they tried to pretend otherwise, but the whole intent of dividing the world into two hemispheres, a “Spanish” one and a “Portuguese” one, flew in the face of the very fact that Louis had already begun to aggressively colonize in the northern sections of the New World. I’ll tell you about the king’s funded expeditions in a few moments, but let’s just say that the exclusion of France from the treaty was like a slap in the face, and neither I nor the king would soon forget it - though he did give the nobles some 200 additional francs to keep them quiet.
OOC: The above, of course, is a complete fabrication and has no basis (that I’m aware of) in history. The ToT event happened, and shortly thereafter I had the “Nobles Demand Increased Pensions” random event, which I accepted.
On the heels of this Treaty, came the shocking news that Admiral Polin had committed suicide on June 24th, most likely as a final act of desperation as the poor naval military genius had spent his entire service to the crown of France ferrying the King’s armies around and had, in fact, engaged in a grand total of onenaval battle in his career. This had been a lop-sided affair where he had sunk a Tuscan warship and three Tuscan transports while commanding a flotilla of more than 20 French warships. Frustrated with under-utilization, he blew his brains out on the poop deck with his service pistol, and was buried at sea with full honours (it was only later that the story of the suicide reached us 0 initially it had been an “accident” that had killed him).
OOC: Again, complete bunk. I just happened to write in my notes that the guy probably killed himself due to extreme boredom after the way I’d been using him (or rather, not using him).
Not a year later, a delegation made its way to Paris from the cities once more. Having already agreed to one such petition less than ten years ago, I advised the king to hold the line on this one and suffer the consequences. Suffer we did, as the kingdom’s stability plunged and it became necessary to devote all possible finds to improving it once more. Of course such drastic measures have a way of getting out of hand, and it was only nine months later that it was discovered that there was a certain degree of corruption in the distribution of the fund that were earmarked to improving national stability. The whole mess took yet another 100 frances to smooth over, and the public confidence in the administration took yet another dip.
Finally, in 1513, it seemed as though the litany of problems was coming to an end. The year began with an announcement from the Academie that a new keel design had been integrated into our vessels, and that all existing ships in the fleet had been upgraded to this new standard. This, in turn, seemed to have an impact on the economy as a whole as within a month we were having what could only be described as an exception year. There were additional, unexpected revenues of some 100 francs, and our inflation level dropped from its current high of about 9% down to a measly 4% that we hadn’t seen since the mid 1400’s.
Having determined that the recent years’ rapid expansion might upset our neighbours, and that there were difficulties enough in maintaining control over these conquered territories without adding new ones to the mix, I ordered the artillery regiments to be stood down, I sent some of the knights back to their manors, and even a few infantry units were disbanded. All of this was by way of reducing the now very high maintenance costs, and the poor navy was once again subjected to under-funding.
The spring wedding of François and Louis’ daughter Claude was a grand affair, full of pomp and pageantry, and very well attended by the nobility. The king took a moment, in his speech to the happy couple, to make a few snide and backhanded comments about how surprised he was to see them all, though perhaps it might be attributed to all of the free food.
After the positive events of 1513, and in spite of the King’s little dig at them in his oratory, it was disappointing to see the nobles approaching the king once more in the summer of 1514 with their hands held out for an even greater increase in their pensions. Had it not been for a general surplus of funds in the royal treasury, I am not sure what Louis would have done. As it was, he shelled out another 200 francs and told them not to expect such a reception (or to be invited to many state functions) anytime again in the near future. It would be his last official act.
The autumn of 1514 was a cold and wet one – disastrous for the grape crop as it happened – and even more disastrous for the king’s health. He caught a cold in early October that he just couldn’t seem to shake, and by mid November it had turned into pneumonia. Strong of body, the king fought the ailment for more than another month, before finally succumbing to the disease. In his final days he had been so weak that he couldn’t even celebrate the unexpected establishment of a weapons factory in Normandie – a gift from the merchant class there, though it was suggested by some less generous types that they had merely tired of Flandern getting all the government military contracts.
By Christmas Louis was fading fast, and he died a few days later.
In the sixteen years of Louis’ reign, he had accomplished a great deal and between the two of us we had expanded France’s territory even further. But it may be that his greatest achievement is rapid and enthusiastic response to the discovery of land across the wide Atlantic Ocean.
As you’ll recall, it was in fact the English who had provided the initial exploration upon which Louis and future generations of French kings were to build. The maps found in the tower of London (when that citadel had fallen to French troops in April of 1508) detailed part of the eastern coastline of what would later come to be known as “North America” – a land of great empty spaces and, as we would soon find out, curious native tribes whom we called “braves”. Other, less well educated persons, took also to calling them “Indians”, though of course they were dead wrong – being off by a matter of 5000 leagues or more.
It is hard to imagine a more trusting king, nor a more faithful group of people whom he recruited even before the month was out. These hardy, daring souls volunteered to be part of two expeditions that were financed by the crown – one to attempt to establish a small colony in Bas St. Laurent, and the other to attempt the same in Gaspésie. The king determined that whichever group of one hundred persons succeeded in establishing a foothold, he would continue to send more settlers until a full-fledged colonial city could be built.
I no longer recall their names, nor their faces. They were desperate for a new life, and perhaps seduced by the idea that they would live semi-autonomous lives when they were so far removed from the crown and its armies. It was with great sorrow that the king later learned they had all perished of famine and exposure; their feeble efforts to erect any protective structures having failed, and the soil being unsuitable for the crops that they had attempted to plant. Once the small number of livestock they had transported had been exhausted, the writing was on the wall.
Undeterred by these initial failures, the king once more funded an expedition - this time to Acadie - which was commissioned in November of 1508. These new volunteer colonists reviewed what little was known about the two previous failed attempts in the New World, and decided to take fewer building supplies and more by way of food and a variety of livestock and edible crop seeds. Arriving in the early spring, they immediately began felling trees and constructing a dozen, small log cabins which they would share. Crops were planted in early April and by the end of the month it was already apparent that at least a portion of them would survive. They sent word back with their ship’s captain, and he dutifully reported on April 28th, 1509, the founding of the first French settlement in the New World. Louis immediately began putting together a second wave of colonists to assist the first lot, and further expand and secure the holding.
By the autumn, Acadie numbered some 203 persons, three children having been born during the summer who survived, and a third group of settlers followed close on their heels, arriving in mid-winter. These, rather than being farmers and trappers, were more skilled tradesmen who established a small mill, an ironworks, a clothier, and several other essential businesses upon which a city would depend for its survival. Then Louis discovered that there was one small flaw in his plan to colonize North America: the people were too happy and content to remain in France.
He began to ponder what might be done to encourage a few people to leave, but was unable to come up with a solution. I had no idea either, and it would take nearly four years and some considerable scrounging around to find another 100 or so people who were interested in braving the wilds. These were eventually sent to join the first groups of settlers, arriving in July of 1514, less than six months before Louis’ death. He was overjoyed that they had succeeded, as now the small colony boasted nearly 420 people. By French law at the time, it would require some 700 persons before official city status would be awarded, but it was a good start, and more than half way to achieving that aim.
It should be noted, however, that France was not the only nation that had begun to explore the western Atlantic, for there appeared several notations on the English maps that indicated Spanish trading posts had been established. It seemed that there would eventually be some conflict in that area, as they were rapidly setting up their claims on many of the rich spice and sugar islands to the south. When coupled with the Pope’s ridiculous “Treaty” it was almost a begging for war to erupt. And it would, though not for some years...
It is one of the few things that I regret about fate; that Louis never lived to see the ambition to which he had devoted the final years of his life, the colony in Acadie, grow into the burgeoning city and hub of the New World that it would later become. It turned out, though, that the new king was possessed of the same dream as his uncle. Even more importantly, François had the additional benefits of a very great understanding of administrative matters and he would apply himself to the problems of colonization and exploration more so than anything else during his reign. It would fall onto my shoulders to hold France together in Europe, and keep it strong and feared above all others. It was a task I was looking forward to.
It's just as well, ghosts aren't well-suited for travel across the Atlantic
Although, I wonder if the ghost could ride one of the ships?
Although, I wonder if the ghost could ride one of the ships?
1515 – 1521: The First Years of François I
I am of two minds as two whether next to tell you of my own affairs in the early years of the reign of François I, or whether to tell you of the king’s own pursuits. Seeing as these did not diverge significantly in the first five or six years, I will at least recount those at this juncture...
It should be noted that François was young when he rose to the throne on the 2nd of January, 1515. Born in September of 1494 (the 12th, if you’re curious) he was not yet nineteen and was filled with those dreams that one adopts at that sort of age. He had been taught to both appreciate and fear the situation in Europe – the established nations, the pope, the rights of the nobility, the leagues of nations, and proprieties of war and peace – and was reluctant to go out of his way to “rock the boat”, so to speak. Thus his interests seemed to lie far across the ocean to the west, as had those of his predecessor.
“Frankly, my dear spirit,” he said to me once, “I’m just not all that interested in making war on my neighbours. They’re sure to have their revenge on us at some point, and then where would we be?”
I was disgusted. For France to humble herself in the face of the vaguest possibility of some slight adversity? It was unthinkable. I resolved to make a ‘deal’ with the king.
“Oh, I dare say you’re right,” I said agreeably, betraying no sign of my innermost thoughts. “We should be most judicious in our dealings with our fellow nations, and be careful not to incite their wrath. You are young, Majesty, and unskilled in such delicate matters of diplomacy. Perhaps I should care for such things for you, advising you and your counsellors on the best courses of action to navigate those choppy waters, that you might better apply yourself to the truly important matters of state?” He loved nautical metaphors.
“A wonderful idea, éminence,” he exclaimed. “I am much interested in exploring and colonizing this Terre Neuve and, frankly, these stuffy men who come to visit periodically bore me silly.”
“I understand, Majesty. They are from a different age, and a different breed. Not high born like yourself, but lowly mud-grubbers who require careful diligence and language steeped in tradition (and pigs-swill). Fear not, I shall ensure that you acquit yourself well. Merely heed my advice and France will surely weather the torrents and storms that may pass across our bow.”
“Done!” he exclaimed joyously. “And I will look to the greener pastures of Nouvelle Écose.”
Lest I give you the impression that the young king was a complete and utter dolt, I should point out a few things about him that may at least raise him somewhat in your opinions. It was not even three months after he rose to the throne that he solved the problem that had plagued Louis and I for nigh on seven years: the problem of finding the people who were interested in settling the New World. He solution was simple, and elegant: to make an adjustment in our domestic policies concerning trade by implementing policies to further ensure that the state’s interference was reduced, and that merchants might go about their business in a freer environment and better spirit of competition. This had the two-fold effect of improving trade revenues for the state in general, and it seemed that the merchants were now beginning to appreciate the economic potential of the vast open provinces of furs and naval supplies and so on that lay untapped. To quickly jump in on the action merely required sending one’s younger sons off on one of the king-sponsored expeditions and the money, eventually, would start rolling in.
Now I hope you don’t think that this all of a sudden caused a flood of volunteers, for it remained far from the fact. On the other hand, it now became possible for the king to assemble a new ‘party’ every two or two-and-a-half years, as opposed to the previous standard period of about six (once those first intrepid souls had been ‘used up’ in the initial five or six ventures).
This adjustment in trade policy, beyond causing a mild disruption in the country as everyone tried to scramble around to react to the changes, also seemed to tick off the Spanish, for in a succession of highly questionable acts, they began harassing our merchants in the various international centres of trade. Rather than taking it lying down, I advised the king to escalate the complaints of our merchants, which would have further soured our relationship with the Spanish monarchy had it not been for the fact that they couldn’t possibly have liked us any less than they already did. What it did give us, though, was a legitimate causus belli for the next five years. I did not know, then, whether I would avail myself – excuse me, whether ‘the king’ would avail himself – of it, but it was always nice to have such a reason for war in one’s back pocket.
François’ administrative abilities extended themselves even further in 1515. By December of that year, the king had spent some time discussing various matters concerning the county’s infrastructure with the ‘great minds’ at the Universitée and decided to implement a new provincial legal system that called for a “chief justice” to preside over any and all appeals within their purview. This had the dual purpose of controlling public sentiment by making them feel more secure in the law and therefore a little less likely to rebel; and it also seemed to reduce the likelihood of ‘skimming’ and other nefarious activities and thus rendered a higher rate of tax revenue from the province without upsetting the populace. We weren’t taking ‘more’ from them per se, but rather we were taking it more efficiently.
The king was so enamoured of his idea that he immediately spent slightly in excess of 1200 francs to promote existing legal counsels to chief judges in twelve of the provinces – effectively reducing the state treasury to about the lowest level it had been in forty years. After the annual tithe, he invested in a further five such promotions. While I was aghast at the amount of money he was willing to spend on this untried solution, and further shocked that it would take two years for each of these worthies to establish themselves, I had to concede that if the system worked, it would be all very worthwhile in the long run.
It appeared that the initial public response to this was far from what the king had anticipated. When word first leaked about the plan – in December 1516, about a year into the first group of promotions – the public immediately assumed this was a thinly disguised tax grab and waves of obscurantism swept the nation, setting off numerous riots in our recent ‘acquisitions’ and making it a bit touch and go here and there throughout the nation – particularly in areas where English culture predominated over the trickle of French culture that was trying to gain a foothold. All in all, though, I recall thinking that as long as nothing else happened, it would be easily manageable until we could demonstrate the truth of the matter. We almost made it, too.
In November of 1517 I suppose the various mayors of the cities had decided that nothing good could possibly come from all this turmoil, and came en masse to Paris to present their demands that the whole thing be forgotten and that their individual cities have their former rights of taxation reinstated. As this would set the nation back by years – if not decades – François refused to hear them and vowed to carry on with his reforms. This, needless to say, didn’t go down well with the public, and the upshot of it all was a massive reduction in the country’s stability. Combined with the last vestiges of obscurantism and...well let me just say that December 1517 was a very bad month to be living pretty much anywhere in France.
All of this would eventually sort itself out, the first signs of this coming by New Year’s as the public finally got a taste of what the chief justices were all about and discovered that their individual levies had not been changed one iota. This, effectively, brought to an end the waves of obscurantism, but it would be some time before the public was truly satisfied with the running of the country again.
I would be tempted to say that 1517 was one of the worst years of the nation’s history had it not been for one piece of exceptionally good news: by late 1516 the king had managed to scrape together another band of would-be colonists whom he charged with the task of settling in Acadie. Arriving in February of 1517, they were quickly absorbed into the existing framework of the rudimentary town, bring the population up, now, to surpass the officially recognized mark of 700 citizens that were required to receive official status as a city of France.
In a grand ceremony in the palace ballroom, the King lavishly entertained the new mayor and several prominent citizens of the new city and on the following morn, he allocated 100 francs from the state treasury to be used to build the essential fortifications that Acadie would need to protect itself against possible incursions. Though it would take a year before the walls and ramparts would be completed, the people of Acadie appreciated the grand gesture and went away happy. This would be a pattern that the king would repeat many times during his reign, as he proclaimed that it was all very well to establish a colonial city, but it was also extremely important to ensure its continued survival. In a decree dated March 1st, François made it known that all future colonies would always receive the necessary funds to build such basic fortifications immediately upon receiving their city status.
As word began to spread throughout the populace that the king’s primary focus during his reign would be exploration and expansion into the uninhabited lands of the New World (or, rather, uninhabited by Europeans – for the pre-existing natives were frequently put to the sword or subjugated into the new population and culture), the public, in turn, responded with a measure support for the young king’s goals that had heretofore been unheard of.
This was, perhaps, most evident by a sudden enthusiasm for the navy, where five merchant vessels harboured in the formerly English province of Lancashire were refitted at the sole expense of their owners and presented themselves to his majesty on October 14, 1518, to be assigned to active duty. François was overjoyed at the obvious support for his ideas, though he did not immediately charge them with any particular task.
The reason for this is that the king had realized that he had a problem: it was all very well and good to dream of exploration, but it was another thing altogether to realize the dream. Seasoned sailors were fine when it came sailing the known and charted waters of the world, but it took an entirely different breed of captain to pilot a vessel into, essentially, the unknown. To this the king had no immediate solution, but he began to spend a great deal of time with the various army and naval officers – the military colonels and fleet commodores - and would throw special parties for them where he would ply them with strong spirits and then talk animatedly about his desires to explore and map the new world.
This process was not as frivolous as it seems, as the king was looking for the man who would finally stand up and say to him: “Your majesty; give me a few ships and some hardy men and I will do this task for you, for I share your vision.” Such a man was not easily found, for fear and superstition were still the order of the day in the early 1500’s.
The Academie was hard at work in support of the king’s objective, announcing yet another advance in marine technology in the fall of 1519. The king’s joy at this was short-lived, as it was only two weeks later that yet another embassy made its way to the palace. This time it was the nobles who demanded the recovery of some of their former rights. Seething with frustration, but knowing that he could ill-afford to deny them – the king acceded to their demands, thus strengthening the sway of the Aristocracy at the expense of the middle class.
Two more years of gloom would pass before the king found what he was looking for. While the first ten months of 1520 were quiet, November was marred by the upsetting – but well-deserved – retirement of long-time army general La Palice. As you will recall, he has featured prominently in our previous discussions of the wars of the last couple of decades, and had led more armies onto the field of combat than other French general of his day. The king, sensible to the revered general’s advanced age and sense of price, gifted him with an expansive estate in Alsace, and the hereditary title of Comte de Alasace.
In December of the same year, a man by the name of Philippe de Beauvieu began writing a series of highly controversial philosophical traitiers that criticized the ambitions of the king. Unable to leave well-enough alone (you’ll recall the François was still in his early twenties and not well-disposed to such attacks), the king had Philippe imprisoned for life – which turned out to be quite short as he was cast into one of the deepest cells in the dungeon and his keepers somehow ‘forgot’ to feed him on a regular basis. There was no inquiry into his death.
Now, ironically, this episode had a positive effect on the king’s grand strategy, as the public sensed his anger and quickly turned towards a more pious and narrow-minded fashion of living. In general this improved the overall stability of the realm as the clergy were highly supportive of the move and preached in favour of the sinner’s treatment. What it also did was prompt a few of the less willing characters to consider moving away from the core of France and establishing themselves in the frontier regions of the realm, so François now found it increasingly easy to find volunteers to establish trade posts and future colonies.
And so 1521 rolled around, and the king was pleased with what he saw. I had been ‘minding the shop’, so to speak, by handling our diplomatic and international matters with kid gloves – I had all the time in the world to pursue my hidden agenda and I felt it necessary to wait until I had the king’s complete trust before I began to implement them…essentially lulling him into a false sense of complacency while waiting for precisely the right moment (and distraction) before I began to act. That time would come soon, but that is not the principal thing that I shall remember about 1521.
Nor is it the unsurprising discovery of yet more corruption in the government. This was something that I had come to expect in a nation the size of France, and through the course of many reigns I had already formulated the optimum response to such revelations: through some 100 francs at the problem to try to eradicate it, and live with the temporary loss of public opinion in what they always seemed to perceive as gross domestic mismanagement. And that, precisely, is what we did in this case (and all future cases, for that matter).
No; the thing that will remain most prominent in my mind about the year 1421 didn’t even happen (directly) in France. Rather it happened in Wittenberg, on August 6th, and was in the form of a document written in guttural German and pinned there to the door of a church. Its author, a minor priest by the name of Martin Luther, was dissatisfied with the Pope, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and the holy Roman Catholic Church in general and his penned 95 Articles effectively set off a storm that would ravage the nations of Europe for many, many generations. It sowed the seeds of religious rebellion and gave rise to a new religion, called “Protestantism”, that would cause nightmares for many of the ruling monarchs of the day. Nowadays, you know this as the start of the ‘Reformation’.
In the vast Empire of France there were a large number of provinces where the local populace immediately adopted the heretic’s ideas and preachings; perhaps not many of the core provinces, but with the large number of conquered territories there came a general dissatisfaction with life, and the Church was seen by many as merely another agent of repression. A number of Protestant churches sprung up almost overnight and attracted worshipers from all walks of life. It was immediately apparent that the State must determine how tolerant it would be towards this new religion – indeed, whether it might perhaps even adopt it as the official religion of the nation - and after careful consideration François and I decided that it would be in the best interests of the nation to allow the people their own freedom to choose which Christian religion to follow, but to continue to support and sanction Catholicism as the one officially endorsed and espoused by the Empire.
In spite of this enlightened approach to a highly divisive issue, a number of riots were touched off before the policy became known, and it became the task of the mighty French armies to quell these disturbances. It came as a blessing in disguise for me, as this gave me the leverage I needed with the king to raise another 100,000 infantry and a handful of cavalry to the standing army – something that would come very much in handy when I made my move to strike.
All of the rebellions had been crushed by Yuletide, and I was just beginning to try to decide how best to proceed with my agenda, when the king delivered some startling news. It was New Year’s Eve, and the king had just returned from yet another one of his wine-and-dine (or rather rum and dine) affairs with the Academie’s naval boys at a public house situated on the Ile de la Citée in the heart of Paris. Privately I had begun to think of these as merely his excuse to get sloshed, throw up all over the palace, and flirt (and more, perhaps) with the numerous tavern wenches who frequented the place. It might also, I thought, have some serious consequences on the state of his liver and the longevity of hs reign, though I said nothing of it at the time. But the King insisted that his nocturnal excursions were strictly the pursuit of his driving ambition to find a naval captain who was willing to go where no man had gone before.
“I’ve found one!” he enthused, with a rather alarming lack of clarity and a definite vertical-stability issue. Realizing the latter, he flopped down into his favourite chair - narrowly missing ending up on the floor instead - and beamed drunkenly at me.
“How nice for you,” I replied sarcastically. “One what?”
“A shexshplorwer,” I thought I heard him say.
“I beg your pardon?”
“An exchpla...eggsplow...a guy who’ll take a ship off into the great mare incognita.”
It says something of his schooling that he was able to speak Latin even when pissed to the gills.
“An explorer? Really?!”
“Yup. Hish namesh Verra-shomshink.”
“Verrashomshink? What kind of name is that for a Frenchman?”
“No, no. Not ‘Verrashomshink’. It’s ‘Verra’...shomshink, and he ishin Frenth.”
I got the feeling we were talking at cross-purposes.
“Perhaps your Majesty would care to lie down for the night, and we’ll discuss this in the morning when I – and, dare I say, you - can understand whatever words you’re trying to use and failing so miserably to find at the moment?”
“Fine! Be tha waie! But I’m sho eggshyted I don’t think I’ll get a wink of shleep.”
Five minutes later he had passed out in the chair.
**********
For those of you marvellously faithful people who have been following along with this AAR as I’ve been writing it, and waded your way through that last section's terrible abuse of the English language, I now offer you a choice. I have two separate themes to present and I’ve hit a juncture where I can go either way, so I’d like to know if you have a preference as to which you will have the dubious pleasure to read about first (i.e. you’ll get both parts one way or another, but the question is more along the lines of the order that they are to be presented). Here are your choices:
1. 1522 – 1530: François’ Ambition
This deals with the exploits of one ‘Verazzano’, an explorer, along the shores of the New World; and with François’ ambitions to begin further colonization.
2. 1522 – 1530: L’Éminence et La Guerre
Which covers what our possibly-not-so-friendly ghost does while François is distracted by the exploits of the aforementioned explorer.
So there you go. Would you prefer the next instalment to be about war in Europe, or the New World? Cast your vote now...
I am of two minds as two whether next to tell you of my own affairs in the early years of the reign of François I, or whether to tell you of the king’s own pursuits. Seeing as these did not diverge significantly in the first five or six years, I will at least recount those at this juncture...
It should be noted that François was young when he rose to the throne on the 2nd of January, 1515. Born in September of 1494 (the 12th, if you’re curious) he was not yet nineteen and was filled with those dreams that one adopts at that sort of age. He had been taught to both appreciate and fear the situation in Europe – the established nations, the pope, the rights of the nobility, the leagues of nations, and proprieties of war and peace – and was reluctant to go out of his way to “rock the boat”, so to speak. Thus his interests seemed to lie far across the ocean to the west, as had those of his predecessor.
“Frankly, my dear spirit,” he said to me once, “I’m just not all that interested in making war on my neighbours. They’re sure to have their revenge on us at some point, and then where would we be?”
I was disgusted. For France to humble herself in the face of the vaguest possibility of some slight adversity? It was unthinkable. I resolved to make a ‘deal’ with the king.
“Oh, I dare say you’re right,” I said agreeably, betraying no sign of my innermost thoughts. “We should be most judicious in our dealings with our fellow nations, and be careful not to incite their wrath. You are young, Majesty, and unskilled in such delicate matters of diplomacy. Perhaps I should care for such things for you, advising you and your counsellors on the best courses of action to navigate those choppy waters, that you might better apply yourself to the truly important matters of state?” He loved nautical metaphors.
“A wonderful idea, éminence,” he exclaimed. “I am much interested in exploring and colonizing this Terre Neuve and, frankly, these stuffy men who come to visit periodically bore me silly.”
“I understand, Majesty. They are from a different age, and a different breed. Not high born like yourself, but lowly mud-grubbers who require careful diligence and language steeped in tradition (and pigs-swill). Fear not, I shall ensure that you acquit yourself well. Merely heed my advice and France will surely weather the torrents and storms that may pass across our bow.”
“Done!” he exclaimed joyously. “And I will look to the greener pastures of Nouvelle Écose.”
Lest I give you the impression that the young king was a complete and utter dolt, I should point out a few things about him that may at least raise him somewhat in your opinions. It was not even three months after he rose to the throne that he solved the problem that had plagued Louis and I for nigh on seven years: the problem of finding the people who were interested in settling the New World. He solution was simple, and elegant: to make an adjustment in our domestic policies concerning trade by implementing policies to further ensure that the state’s interference was reduced, and that merchants might go about their business in a freer environment and better spirit of competition. This had the two-fold effect of improving trade revenues for the state in general, and it seemed that the merchants were now beginning to appreciate the economic potential of the vast open provinces of furs and naval supplies and so on that lay untapped. To quickly jump in on the action merely required sending one’s younger sons off on one of the king-sponsored expeditions and the money, eventually, would start rolling in.
Now I hope you don’t think that this all of a sudden caused a flood of volunteers, for it remained far from the fact. On the other hand, it now became possible for the king to assemble a new ‘party’ every two or two-and-a-half years, as opposed to the previous standard period of about six (once those first intrepid souls had been ‘used up’ in the initial five or six ventures).
This adjustment in trade policy, beyond causing a mild disruption in the country as everyone tried to scramble around to react to the changes, also seemed to tick off the Spanish, for in a succession of highly questionable acts, they began harassing our merchants in the various international centres of trade. Rather than taking it lying down, I advised the king to escalate the complaints of our merchants, which would have further soured our relationship with the Spanish monarchy had it not been for the fact that they couldn’t possibly have liked us any less than they already did. What it did give us, though, was a legitimate causus belli for the next five years. I did not know, then, whether I would avail myself – excuse me, whether ‘the king’ would avail himself – of it, but it was always nice to have such a reason for war in one’s back pocket.
François’ administrative abilities extended themselves even further in 1515. By December of that year, the king had spent some time discussing various matters concerning the county’s infrastructure with the ‘great minds’ at the Universitée and decided to implement a new provincial legal system that called for a “chief justice” to preside over any and all appeals within their purview. This had the dual purpose of controlling public sentiment by making them feel more secure in the law and therefore a little less likely to rebel; and it also seemed to reduce the likelihood of ‘skimming’ and other nefarious activities and thus rendered a higher rate of tax revenue from the province without upsetting the populace. We weren’t taking ‘more’ from them per se, but rather we were taking it more efficiently.
The king was so enamoured of his idea that he immediately spent slightly in excess of 1200 francs to promote existing legal counsels to chief judges in twelve of the provinces – effectively reducing the state treasury to about the lowest level it had been in forty years. After the annual tithe, he invested in a further five such promotions. While I was aghast at the amount of money he was willing to spend on this untried solution, and further shocked that it would take two years for each of these worthies to establish themselves, I had to concede that if the system worked, it would be all very worthwhile in the long run.
It appeared that the initial public response to this was far from what the king had anticipated. When word first leaked about the plan – in December 1516, about a year into the first group of promotions – the public immediately assumed this was a thinly disguised tax grab and waves of obscurantism swept the nation, setting off numerous riots in our recent ‘acquisitions’ and making it a bit touch and go here and there throughout the nation – particularly in areas where English culture predominated over the trickle of French culture that was trying to gain a foothold. All in all, though, I recall thinking that as long as nothing else happened, it would be easily manageable until we could demonstrate the truth of the matter. We almost made it, too.
In November of 1517 I suppose the various mayors of the cities had decided that nothing good could possibly come from all this turmoil, and came en masse to Paris to present their demands that the whole thing be forgotten and that their individual cities have their former rights of taxation reinstated. As this would set the nation back by years – if not decades – François refused to hear them and vowed to carry on with his reforms. This, needless to say, didn’t go down well with the public, and the upshot of it all was a massive reduction in the country’s stability. Combined with the last vestiges of obscurantism and...well let me just say that December 1517 was a very bad month to be living pretty much anywhere in France.
All of this would eventually sort itself out, the first signs of this coming by New Year’s as the public finally got a taste of what the chief justices were all about and discovered that their individual levies had not been changed one iota. This, effectively, brought to an end the waves of obscurantism, but it would be some time before the public was truly satisfied with the running of the country again.
I would be tempted to say that 1517 was one of the worst years of the nation’s history had it not been for one piece of exceptionally good news: by late 1516 the king had managed to scrape together another band of would-be colonists whom he charged with the task of settling in Acadie. Arriving in February of 1517, they were quickly absorbed into the existing framework of the rudimentary town, bring the population up, now, to surpass the officially recognized mark of 700 citizens that were required to receive official status as a city of France.
In a grand ceremony in the palace ballroom, the King lavishly entertained the new mayor and several prominent citizens of the new city and on the following morn, he allocated 100 francs from the state treasury to be used to build the essential fortifications that Acadie would need to protect itself against possible incursions. Though it would take a year before the walls and ramparts would be completed, the people of Acadie appreciated the grand gesture and went away happy. This would be a pattern that the king would repeat many times during his reign, as he proclaimed that it was all very well to establish a colonial city, but it was also extremely important to ensure its continued survival. In a decree dated March 1st, François made it known that all future colonies would always receive the necessary funds to build such basic fortifications immediately upon receiving their city status.
As word began to spread throughout the populace that the king’s primary focus during his reign would be exploration and expansion into the uninhabited lands of the New World (or, rather, uninhabited by Europeans – for the pre-existing natives were frequently put to the sword or subjugated into the new population and culture), the public, in turn, responded with a measure support for the young king’s goals that had heretofore been unheard of.
This was, perhaps, most evident by a sudden enthusiasm for the navy, where five merchant vessels harboured in the formerly English province of Lancashire were refitted at the sole expense of their owners and presented themselves to his majesty on October 14, 1518, to be assigned to active duty. François was overjoyed at the obvious support for his ideas, though he did not immediately charge them with any particular task.
The reason for this is that the king had realized that he had a problem: it was all very well and good to dream of exploration, but it was another thing altogether to realize the dream. Seasoned sailors were fine when it came sailing the known and charted waters of the world, but it took an entirely different breed of captain to pilot a vessel into, essentially, the unknown. To this the king had no immediate solution, but he began to spend a great deal of time with the various army and naval officers – the military colonels and fleet commodores - and would throw special parties for them where he would ply them with strong spirits and then talk animatedly about his desires to explore and map the new world.
This process was not as frivolous as it seems, as the king was looking for the man who would finally stand up and say to him: “Your majesty; give me a few ships and some hardy men and I will do this task for you, for I share your vision.” Such a man was not easily found, for fear and superstition were still the order of the day in the early 1500’s.
The Academie was hard at work in support of the king’s objective, announcing yet another advance in marine technology in the fall of 1519. The king’s joy at this was short-lived, as it was only two weeks later that yet another embassy made its way to the palace. This time it was the nobles who demanded the recovery of some of their former rights. Seething with frustration, but knowing that he could ill-afford to deny them – the king acceded to their demands, thus strengthening the sway of the Aristocracy at the expense of the middle class.
Two more years of gloom would pass before the king found what he was looking for. While the first ten months of 1520 were quiet, November was marred by the upsetting – but well-deserved – retirement of long-time army general La Palice. As you will recall, he has featured prominently in our previous discussions of the wars of the last couple of decades, and had led more armies onto the field of combat than other French general of his day. The king, sensible to the revered general’s advanced age and sense of price, gifted him with an expansive estate in Alsace, and the hereditary title of Comte de Alasace.
In December of the same year, a man by the name of Philippe de Beauvieu began writing a series of highly controversial philosophical traitiers that criticized the ambitions of the king. Unable to leave well-enough alone (you’ll recall the François was still in his early twenties and not well-disposed to such attacks), the king had Philippe imprisoned for life – which turned out to be quite short as he was cast into one of the deepest cells in the dungeon and his keepers somehow ‘forgot’ to feed him on a regular basis. There was no inquiry into his death.
Now, ironically, this episode had a positive effect on the king’s grand strategy, as the public sensed his anger and quickly turned towards a more pious and narrow-minded fashion of living. In general this improved the overall stability of the realm as the clergy were highly supportive of the move and preached in favour of the sinner’s treatment. What it also did was prompt a few of the less willing characters to consider moving away from the core of France and establishing themselves in the frontier regions of the realm, so François now found it increasingly easy to find volunteers to establish trade posts and future colonies.
And so 1521 rolled around, and the king was pleased with what he saw. I had been ‘minding the shop’, so to speak, by handling our diplomatic and international matters with kid gloves – I had all the time in the world to pursue my hidden agenda and I felt it necessary to wait until I had the king’s complete trust before I began to implement them…essentially lulling him into a false sense of complacency while waiting for precisely the right moment (and distraction) before I began to act. That time would come soon, but that is not the principal thing that I shall remember about 1521.
Nor is it the unsurprising discovery of yet more corruption in the government. This was something that I had come to expect in a nation the size of France, and through the course of many reigns I had already formulated the optimum response to such revelations: through some 100 francs at the problem to try to eradicate it, and live with the temporary loss of public opinion in what they always seemed to perceive as gross domestic mismanagement. And that, precisely, is what we did in this case (and all future cases, for that matter).
No; the thing that will remain most prominent in my mind about the year 1421 didn’t even happen (directly) in France. Rather it happened in Wittenberg, on August 6th, and was in the form of a document written in guttural German and pinned there to the door of a church. Its author, a minor priest by the name of Martin Luther, was dissatisfied with the Pope, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and the holy Roman Catholic Church in general and his penned 95 Articles effectively set off a storm that would ravage the nations of Europe for many, many generations. It sowed the seeds of religious rebellion and gave rise to a new religion, called “Protestantism”, that would cause nightmares for many of the ruling monarchs of the day. Nowadays, you know this as the start of the ‘Reformation’.
In the vast Empire of France there were a large number of provinces where the local populace immediately adopted the heretic’s ideas and preachings; perhaps not many of the core provinces, but with the large number of conquered territories there came a general dissatisfaction with life, and the Church was seen by many as merely another agent of repression. A number of Protestant churches sprung up almost overnight and attracted worshipers from all walks of life. It was immediately apparent that the State must determine how tolerant it would be towards this new religion – indeed, whether it might perhaps even adopt it as the official religion of the nation - and after careful consideration François and I decided that it would be in the best interests of the nation to allow the people their own freedom to choose which Christian religion to follow, but to continue to support and sanction Catholicism as the one officially endorsed and espoused by the Empire.
In spite of this enlightened approach to a highly divisive issue, a number of riots were touched off before the policy became known, and it became the task of the mighty French armies to quell these disturbances. It came as a blessing in disguise for me, as this gave me the leverage I needed with the king to raise another 100,000 infantry and a handful of cavalry to the standing army – something that would come very much in handy when I made my move to strike.
All of the rebellions had been crushed by Yuletide, and I was just beginning to try to decide how best to proceed with my agenda, when the king delivered some startling news. It was New Year’s Eve, and the king had just returned from yet another one of his wine-and-dine (or rather rum and dine) affairs with the Academie’s naval boys at a public house situated on the Ile de la Citée in the heart of Paris. Privately I had begun to think of these as merely his excuse to get sloshed, throw up all over the palace, and flirt (and more, perhaps) with the numerous tavern wenches who frequented the place. It might also, I thought, have some serious consequences on the state of his liver and the longevity of hs reign, though I said nothing of it at the time. But the King insisted that his nocturnal excursions were strictly the pursuit of his driving ambition to find a naval captain who was willing to go where no man had gone before.
“I’ve found one!” he enthused, with a rather alarming lack of clarity and a definite vertical-stability issue. Realizing the latter, he flopped down into his favourite chair - narrowly missing ending up on the floor instead - and beamed drunkenly at me.
“How nice for you,” I replied sarcastically. “One what?”
“A shexshplorwer,” I thought I heard him say.
“I beg your pardon?”
“An exchpla...eggsplow...a guy who’ll take a ship off into the great mare incognita.”
It says something of his schooling that he was able to speak Latin even when pissed to the gills.
“An explorer? Really?!”
“Yup. Hish namesh Verra-shomshink.”
“Verrashomshink? What kind of name is that for a Frenchman?”
“No, no. Not ‘Verrashomshink’. It’s ‘Verra’...shomshink, and he ishin Frenth.”
I got the feeling we were talking at cross-purposes.
“Perhaps your Majesty would care to lie down for the night, and we’ll discuss this in the morning when I – and, dare I say, you - can understand whatever words you’re trying to use and failing so miserably to find at the moment?”
“Fine! Be tha waie! But I’m sho eggshyted I don’t think I’ll get a wink of shleep.”
Five minutes later he had passed out in the chair.
**********
For those of you marvellously faithful people who have been following along with this AAR as I’ve been writing it, and waded your way through that last section's terrible abuse of the English language, I now offer you a choice. I have two separate themes to present and I’ve hit a juncture where I can go either way, so I’d like to know if you have a preference as to which you will have the dubious pleasure to read about first (i.e. you’ll get both parts one way or another, but the question is more along the lines of the order that they are to be presented). Here are your choices:
1. 1522 – 1530: François’ Ambition
This deals with the exploits of one ‘Verazzano’, an explorer, along the shores of the New World; and with François’ ambitions to begin further colonization.
2. 1522 – 1530: L’Éminence et La Guerre
Which covers what our possibly-not-so-friendly ghost does while François is distracted by the exploits of the aforementioned explorer.
So there you go. Would you prefer the next instalment to be about war in Europe, or the New World? Cast your vote now...
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This is very picky, but once you referred to 1416 and twice 1421. Perhaps you should correct that.
Francois' Ambition seems preferable to me, as European wars are getting a bit samey.
I wonder how well Richelieu and the ghost are going to get along, especially as his secretary was the original grey eminence.
This is a great read BTW
Francois' Ambition seems preferable to me, as European wars are getting a bit samey.
I wonder how well Richelieu and the ghost are going to get along, especially as his secretary was the original grey eminence.
This is a great read BTW
Not at all! Thanks for picking up my sloppy mistakes. I think it;s because I'm already beginning to play my next game and I'm making notes about the 1400's all the time so I guess I have it on the brain.
That's one vote for ambition...
Re Richelieu: Ah...and in that there is, most definitely, a story.
War!
what is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
Aw, who am I kidding. Rampage through the plains of Spain. Burn Luther at the stake. Conquer Rome.
just don't touch Scotland.
what is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
Aw, who am I kidding. Rampage through the plains of Spain. Burn Luther at the stake. Conquer Rome.
just don't touch Scotland.
To ansor this hard question for you I will honour you with my first post .
Tell us about europe first much more entertaining
Don't forget to feel honourd !!!!
.Tell us about europe first much more entertaining
Don't forget to feel honourd !!!!
Well how can I not respond to Imperialism Inc's post?
It's great to see new members...and I must confess that I get a special thrill when the "new face" chooses to post for the very first time in my AAR. What can I say but that I do feel honoured to have in some small way (however right or wrong I might be about your 'actual' motivation) helped to inspire it. Don't worry...I won't forget.
Faeelin: Don't worry. Believe it or not, France NEVER finds itself at war with Scotland for as long as it exists. Chew on that...
Dan: ...ergo it's worth remembering that there's more than one way to skin a cat (if it happens to be the right religion).
It's great to see new members...and I must confess that I get a special thrill when the "new face" chooses to post for the very first time in my AAR. What can I say but that I do feel honoured to have in some small way (however right or wrong I might be about your 'actual' motivation) helped to inspire it. Don't worry...I won't forget.
Faeelin: Don't worry. Believe it or not, France NEVER finds itself at war with Scotland for as long as it exists. Chew on that...
Dan: ...ergo it's worth remembering that there's more than one way to skin a cat (if it happens to be the right religion).
If I understand correctly you'll write both, so I would prefer the exploration first, then finish with a BANG! by telling of the ghosts' exploits.
Although, another method you could take is to describe whichever one has more immediate historical impact second, to carry you into your next segment.
Btw, what abuse of the English language
Although, another method you could take is to describe whichever one has more immediate historical impact second, to carry you into your next segment.
Btw, what abuse of the English language
Dis yo' ass honkey!Originally posted by Sharur
Btw, what abuse of the English language
Mrt yo' ass should colonize Sout' America..an' whup' down Austria.
Sucka'!
Originally posted by Sharur
If I understand correctly you'll write both, so I would prefer the exploration first, then finish with a BANG! by telling of the ghosts' exploits.
Although, another method you could take is to describe whichever one has more immediate historical impact second, to carry you into your next segment.
Btw, what abuse of the English language
A good point. Perhaps it might make more sense to start with the wars in Europe since, in fact, that is by far the end of them and the colonization "piece" would provide a little break from all of the gratuitous violence (which merrily continues on pretty much non-stop until the late 1540's so there's another 20ish years of it after the 1522-1530 part.)
Besides, the general vote to date seems slightly to favour carnage over colonization...what does that say about us? The abuse of the English language I was refering to was the drunken speech of our current monarch, not the entire instalment (that being, of course, open for debate.
)
