Part Two: The French Nations Take Their First Steps
Caen, Normandie, Normandy
Noon on September 23, Louis was standing at a window looking over the view. His country was a few months old and still struggling, but it was slowly starting to take form. He still had no advisers, the economy of Normandy could not support such excess. The way he had the taxes set up he would get some every month but then each city would send him a large chunk of money at the end of the year, as far as he knew that was the standard set up for the rest of France if not the world. He had a lot to think over, the day before he had gotten a note saying that his ally, Poland, had started a war with the Teutonic Order. He regretfully had to decline aide, which broke off the alliance. Normandy still had no military and his people would not be happy with him starting a war this early in their life. That war would have just left him worse off if not the leader of a forgotten and nonexistent country. It was a unfortunate event and Poland just didn't see it from his side. They say it as him abandoning them in their time of need. Ah well, Poland was far from France and he still had the Palatinate on his side.
France
The months slowly passed for France, everything was pretty much quiet. Each leader was busy planning for the future and the conflicts that they all knew would happen. Louis I planned to create a Norman army, Charles VII brooded in Compiègne, Pierre II sat in his palace near Nantes in Brittany watching passively for now, Jean I set out to be well known and well liked all over Orleans, Charles I knew his country of Bourbonnais was stuck between a rock and a hard place, Bertrand II looked from Auvergne down at Avignon wanting to bring back under French sway, Humbert III stayed in Grenoble preferring to rule Dauphine from a place of safety, Renè I looked to reunite the two regions under his command but knew it would take a large war to do that, Henri VI was determined that under him Guyenne would create a hegemony over southern France, Eugène Maurice I was quite fine with ruling what he had and did not look outside of his boarders, Jean V looked to the region North of him hating the fact that it was owned by England, Gaston IV knew he was in a hard place being the leader of Foix and he knew he had to expand or die, François I knew he had to do something or Burgundy would take him over at the first possible moment.
Caen, Normandie, Normandy
Louis was pissed, livid, every word for anger in any language would describe what he was. Charles VII had just sent him a letter saying how fun his little insurrection had been but now it was time to go back to being what he was, a servant to the French crown and if he wanted his head to stay on his neck he would end this now. The letter went on to say that France did not and would not recognize his country and would give him one week to surrender or France would treat this as a rebellion. What gall that man had, first he destroys France and then he insults Louis? This event would be a great casus belli and no one would think worse of him if he had declared war that day. But France had a military and Normandy did not. He didn't have the money to raise a military yet but soon. Louis would never forget this and if he had to he would pass this on to his son who would pass it on until Ill-de-France was a minor region in Normandy. It was mid October about two months before he got the extra money from his cities.
Bergerac, Périgod, Guyenne
Henri VI, singlehandedly, destabilized all of southern France on November 25. He declared Guyenne totally independent of France and pressured all of France's other vassals to do the same. Slowly they all followed suit except for François I of Champagne. François I knew that if he wanted to survive he had to be a vassal of France and even pretend to be Charles VII's loyal servant and ally. After Henri declared this mass independent movement on the 25th he said that he was the protector of all of southern France, Dauphine, Provence, Toulouse, Armagnae, Foix, and Auvergne could always come to him if they needed help.
Pau, Foix
Gaston IV was very happy. The entire region was unsure of itself, everyone was unsure of themselves and no one was on guard. This was his perfect God sent chance to expand Foix. On November 26th Foix declared war on Armagnae and Gaston IV was leading his army of 1,000 men against his enemy. Although the Armagnae army was twice the size of his army he was sure that he would be able to catch them off guard.
Bergerac, Périgod, Guyenne
Henri heard the news of the war and smiled. This was his first chance to prove that he was the true protector of southern France. That same day, he declared war on Foix and allied himself with Armagnae. The date was 27 November 1453.
Caen, Normandie, Normandy
New Years 1454 was a great day. Normandy was doing wonderful all things considering and Caen saw the biggest New Year's celebration in all of France. Louis looked at his happy subjects in their revelry below him, the sight made him smile before going back to his glass of wine. He was going to celebrate by using the ducats that were just placed in his treasury the night before and send five merchants to the market in Paris. Paris was not a large market but it was large enough and with merchants working in large markets he could tax their business.
A few weeks later he learned that four of the merchants were successful, while the fifth and one he would later send in March were never heard from again. He sent a seventh one in May who soon joined the four others as part of the merchant elite in Paris. All told 1454 was a very happy very quiet year.
Pau, Foix
Gaston IV look down at the paper in front of him. It called for the immediate and total annexation of his country by Armagnae. What had gone wrong? Armagnae had not been caught off guard at all. They had destroyed his army and then soon after beat him again when he tried to defend his single region. He had been forced to spend most of 1454 in exile in Aragon as the siege of Pau continued. Now it was November 20th almost exactly a year after he started it. On the other side of this table was Jean V and Henri VI watching him. He had no other choice as he signed the paper and Foix ceased to exist.
