The Advent of the Garden Party (Prior) {Chauv}

[HENRI D'ARTOIS]

[style=font-family: times; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-transform: lowercase; color: #989898; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;]954 WORDS FOR Chauvelin Notes here: Kinda feel a bit bad for the kid. Not gonna lie. And obviously this thread takes place just before the party - as it's what results in the planning of the party - but it's still present time so goes here. PLOTTING [/style]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #6d6d6d;] [style=padding: 10px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; height: 475px; overflow: auto; color: #1e1e1e;]"Ugh." Henri muttered quietly from the darkness. "It's no use." He whispered sullenly, just loud enough that Chasse, his black and white hunting spaniel, raised his ears from his spot on the end of the bed. "I can't sleep, so I might as well just give up on it now and get up and do something at least partially productive." He said, keeping his head on his pillow for a moment or two longer before sitting up to rub Chasse on the head and then sliding out of his summer bedclothes and, now free of his bed, went to stare resolutely out of the window. Court had been moved to Versailles for the first time since Henri's coronation three years prior. No one told him why, and no one needed to tell him why. It was safer for him not to be in Paris right now. The whole entire country was on the edge - no indeed possibly falling over the edge and scrabbling for something to hold onto, of a cliff at the bottom of which was a lava pit which in politicl cartoon would have been labeled 'Vive la Revolution!'. The point was, Paris was about to fall into a head first tumult toward yet a third revolution. Despite Henri's best attempts, he had not been able to overcome the Chouannerie. And though he did not agree with their politics very much in some regards, he'd served their purposes well. In the city, it was his name connected to all of the bad things that had been happening, and it was he that the people blamed. How grossly unfair that was, he thought to himself. For if he had been able to run the country the way he wanted to - he wouldn't be doing it like the Chouannerie. He was little more, he knew well, than their life sized puppet. But yet he would go down the hardest because they used him. How grossly unfair life was. Henri had dedicated himself with all of his energies into becoming the best king that France could have by learning and studying - both at his lessons and at the hellish crash course of knowledge upon which his mentor Paul Chauvelin had set him. Never once had he complained about this - even if it meant being awake until well after midnight attempting to read and complete both his school work and Chauvelin's own rigorous assignments in time for the tutor to arrive in the morning and Chauvelin to arrive at night. That had been easier at the Tuilieres Palace with its secret passages. Now Chauvelin would need to find another way in if he wanted to meet Henri. And, it was not that the boy king doubted the Spymaster could do it - oh no. Just that it was an inconvenience. He had hoped to move the court to Versailles for the summer, for he liked its beauty and poetic grace more than the 'castle' and stone wall feel of the Tuilieres. However, he had not had to ask. Nay, he had not even been consulted. He hdn't wanted to do it on these terms anyway. Not with his capital city inching ever closer to a full bodied, long lived, fire breathing monster of a revolution. And he didn't need to be there right now to stir the pot. However, the was an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach even with the miles between their current location and the city because he remembered well that staying in the countryside had done little good to protect Louis-Auguste and Marie Antoinette. When he got to thinking in that vein, it was pointless to attempt to sleep - and that was happening lot more frequently now. None of it seemed fair, and he hated that because it also felt like there was no one he could go to for comfort during times when nothing was fair. Certainly not to Chauvelin who would as like tell him to grow up and stop acting childish. Not to Victor, who, though he was a monarchist, would tell him to take it like the soldier he was - for technically he of course had honoary military positions though he was certainly not old enough to be fighting any real wars. And where was Nicèphore? Dead in the ground. Henri's eyes stung and he blinked furiously. "Don't cry." He whispered to himself.. "Only babies cry." He hugged his pillow tight to his chest until he felt himself start to regain control again. He just had to accept that there wasn't someone he could go to for comfort and, truthfully, he shouldn't be doing that now anyway. In the fall he was going to be fourteen years of age. Too old for babyish things like that. No. If he was displeased with something, then he should be doing something about it. It was for these reasons that, grappling with himself, he'd made the decision to try to get in touch with Chauvelin earlier that evening by way of a message thought a source he trusted and which they had arranged some time before. However, now that he was out of the city, he could not be certain the man would come and, as it had drawn late nd the wee hours were waxing away, he was beginning to suspect the man would not come tonight. He must have some more important venture under way. But Henri wished he would come because he needed a new plan.. He needed to DO something. He could not stand to sit and watch in silence and inactivity as his control lapsed into the hands of bloodthirty revolutionaries about to destroy everything he held dear. . [/style]

TABLE BY CALIFORNIA DREAMING @ CAUTION 2.0

[PAUL CHAUVELIN]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,padding-left:16px; padding-top:0px; padding-right:0px; padding-bottom:0px; background: #000000] chauvelin when worlds collide and days are dark - - - - - - - - - - - - - - When Henri had risen and moved to stare out the window, Chasse had hopped down from his place at the foot of the bed and followed. The dog knew nothing of politics or what had happened in the city, he only understood that his master was upset and unhappy. So he came to the boy's side and licked his hand a couple of times, then he sat down and leaned against his leg in comfort. As he sat there listening to Henri talk, the words themselves meant nothing to the spaniel, just the tones and inflections. And he heard other things as well -- a summer breeze in the branches of a tree outside, the rustle of the pillow as the boy clutched it tighter, the skitter and scratch of mice in the walls, and the tiny click of a latch inaudible to mere human ears. Chasse twitched his ears and lifted his head, sensitive nostrils testing the air. The den where he and his master lived had a thousand scents and he knew them all. saw far more with his nose than his eyes. It didn't matter that the black-clad spymaster was invisible standing motionless in the shadows, to the dog's nose he was lit up like day. To the dog's nose, he was the smell of an older man, of the perique tobacco he smoked that clung to his hair, the spices his cook favored, his horse Abraxas, and a dozen other things. There were other scents on him now, too, those of gunpowder and blood that was not his own, but they didn't matter to Chasse. Chauvelin was not pack, but neither was he stranger. The dog's master had declared him friend, so Chasse stood and turned to greet him. Not with the exuberant bouncing and rapidly wagging tail he welcomed Henri with or the threatening barks and growls an enemy would meet. Just a slow, almost thoughtful back-and-forth motion of his tail and a soft, I-know-you're-there whuff. The dog had spotted him. Chauvelin sighed inwardly. Of course. The dog always spotted him. Which was, on balance, a good thing, because it meant the dog would spot other people, as well. People whose intentions toward the King might not be so benign. The old spymaster's lips twitched up in a smile at the thought of being termed 'benign.' Not many who knew him would call him that. Still, when it came to Henri, compared with some he was virtually harmless. His lips twitched again, more wryly this time. Harmless as a dove, he thought. Folding his arms, Chauvelin rested weary shoulders against the wall and waited to be recognized by the other human in the room. TAGGED: Henri || NOTES: none at present TEMPLATE BY OH SO COOPERNATURAL ! @ CAUTION.

[HENRI D'ARTOIS]

[style=font-family: times; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-transform: lowercase; color: #989898; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;]641 WORDS FOR Chauvelin Notes here: n/a PLOTTING [/style]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #6d6d6d;] [style=padding: 10px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; height: 475px; overflow: auto; color: #1e1e1e;]Henri stayed to stare out the window for a good deal of time. It might have minutes, it felt like hours even though he knew it wasn't and was really some mix between a very long ten minutes and perhaps thirty or forty at most. He stared into the darkness outside of his window as if he expected to see something there. However, the moon was dim and surrounded by a faint ring. He had been told by his mother that that meant it was going to rain, but he wasn't sure if that was actually true. The moon cast a sliver of light through the trees in Versailles' garden and made a spot of light on the path two storeys beneath his window. He liked watching out of that window at night. He saw a lot of useful and interesting things with the telescope he kept perched there - from the things of the sky to things down below. For instance, he knew that there was a maid who snuck out at night to meet a man in a black traveling cape every few evenings. They sat under a tree in the dark on a little bench. He didn't know what they talked about, but sometimes he saw them holding hands, and it made him smile. Once he had seen them kiss, so he guessed that they must be seeing each other. It was nice to get a view into someone else's life. He wished vaguely that that could be -his- life. Sneaking out to see a girl he fancied in the middle of the night rather than the cares and worries of a whole country groaning its way toward revolution. The load felt heavy on his shoulders and he was weary of it. But the moment he began to think things like that, he mentally scolded himself and cast his mind back to thoughts that were more grateful and generous toward the country that he'd been given to care for, protect, and love. Maybe people swore fealty to him, but he swore his fealty to France herself and he would not disappoint her. And then he heard Chasse at his feet giving a quiet whuff. He made a low sound in his throat - not a growl but an aware sound. The spaniel's ears were swiveled toward the darkness. He stared toward it and, momentarily, his eyes began to focus on what was there. A man. But his heart only sped up a tick because he knew it was Chauvelin; he also knew that had it been someone unfrindly, Chasse would have done more than give a quiet whuff. It seemed odd that he was here just as Henri had been thinking about him. "What are you doing here at this time of night?" He mumbled, turning vaguely back to the window and propping his arms in the sill. His tone was not accusatory, merely curious. His expression openly pleased to see his friend. "Do you need something in particular? If you're hungry there's tea and cakes on the table that are only a little cold. From earlier tonight." But he knew Chauvelin, though he might eat, was not there because he was hungry. He would be there for some political scheme like he always was. And so the boy continued. "I keep thinking about things. Turning them over in my mind. Things in Paris especially. It's getting worse. There's already a man ready to step up to take my place in a new Republic. Called Robespierre. My friends have told me about him." His tone was neutral even though his thoughts were bitter toward the man that wanted to take his place and turn Paris into a Republic before he, Henri, had even gotten a chance to prove what he could do if left to his own devices. [/style]

TABLE BY CALIFORNIA DREAMING @ CAUTION 2.0

[PAUL CHAUVELIN]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,padding-left:16px; padding-top:0px; padding-right:0px; padding-bottom:0px; background: #000000] chauvelin when worlds collide and days are dark - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Chauvelin had had a very long day. In fact, he'd been up well before dawn preparing for the unrest he expected -- correctly -- at the funeral, and it was now well past midnight. So it had actually been a day, a full 24 hours, since he had slept. In his younger days, he could have done stretches half again or even twice that, but now in his 60th year, his limits were more quickly reached. It had also been a long time since the old spymaster had eaten. The second of the two sandwiches he'd had his cook pack had been eaten, he reckoned, shortly after noon. He'd wolfed it down in a rare quiet moment, in the dubious shelter of an alley, without even bothering to dismount from Abraxas. Prodded by his stomach, and by the last shreds of his deliberately controlled nature, he drifted now over to the indicated table. Eating two of the little cakes, he dusted the sugar neatly from his fingers before he finally spoke. "I am here at this hour," he said in the soft voice that those who knew him knew marked that the furthest reaches of his patience were fast approaching, "because this is how long it took to ride out from Paris once your message reached me." The summons had caught up with him in a church that had been made over into an impromptu morgue, as he'd stood looking down at the body of a man named Nicephore Lamarque. He wasn't really sure that he'd ever really counted the young monk as a friend, but he'd liked him despite the obdurate naivete, and the boy had saved his life once. Frere Nicephore had been a good man, and Chauvelin, who'd buried a thousand good men and thought himself long past tears for any more, had wept openly. Even now, his eyes stung at the memory, which didn't help his mood. "I know Robespierre," the old spymaster said, pouring himself some cold tea and grimacing at the taste. "Smart, well-read, passionately devoted to France. He was in the National Assembly, one of the men the people chose to be their voice." The cup was returned to the saucer with a tiny ceramic tick, and a cold edge entered his own voice. "Before the Chouannerie assassinated almost all of them." Letting that hang in the air for a moment, he continued, returning to the quiet, almost contemplative tone. "And after, as well. He's still their voice. Murdering the others didn't silence that, it merely vested all their power in him. Don't make the mistake of thinking he's just some upstart student demagogue. He's a man who witnessed aristo agents slaughter his friends and his dream, and right now he's far more loved than you are." TAGGED: Henri || NOTES: none at present TEMPLATE BY OH SO COOPERNATURAL ! @ CAUTION.

[HENRI D'ARTOIS]

[style=font-family: times; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-transform: lowercase; color: #989898; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;]363 WORDS FOR Chauvelin Notes here: N/A PLOTTING [/style]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #6d6d6d;] [style=padding: 10px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; height: 475px; overflow: auto; color: #1e1e1e;]Henri watched as Chauvelin crossed the room to the little tea table where the remains of his tea was left. He was sorry he didn't have something warm for the man. He suspected that he'd probably had an awful day based on the reports he'd heard from the city. Henri hoped he wouldn't contribute to making it worse. He thought about what he might even be able to do to make it better. Particularly when he saw him grimace at the cold tea. "Hang on.. sit.. rest a little. I'll get some warm. From the kitchen." He scurried off toward the kitchens and before long had resourcefully returned with a hot container of coffee and some warm meat pies. "Here." He said with a grin as he handed his friend one of the warm pies and a cup of the coffee. "It's actually warm." He tried to be thoughtful as possible about things like that because he knew what he'd want in Chauv's place. He felt a little guilty too about the message, but couldn't imagine what would have taken such a delay. He'd dispatched that message hours ago. He sighed slightly, but didn't question it figuring there might have been trouble on the road or something of the like. He moved to sit in the chair across from Chauvelin and wrapped his dressing jacket around himself more for comfort than anything else as the topic had shifted to unpleasantries of people wanting to overthrow him Henri cringed slightly at the tick of the cup on the saucer and at the mention of assassination. "You've told me a little about that." He said, his blue eyes dark with emotion. "It's not right. People shouldn't be.. slaughtered.. like that. And I wouldn't do things like that. If it was my decision how to handle it." He paused, not saying more yet because it -wasn't- his decision - nor was it likely to ever be it was seeming like. "Perhaps, then, if he is the people's voice.. and he .. knows what they want... perhaps I should meet with him." He paused. "Not that I have much real power to effect change." he muttered bitterly. . [/style]

TABLE BY CALIFORNIA DREAMING @ CAUTION 2.0

[PAUL CHAUVELIN]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,padding-left:16px; padding-top:0px; padding-right:0px; padding-bottom:0px; background: #000000] chauvelin when worlds collide and days are dark - - - - - - - - - - - - - - When Henri scurried off, Chauvelin followed the royal command and sat down, sighing with relief. It was blessedly good to get off his feet. He'd been on them, or in the saddle, since early that morning. I'm getting too old for this, he thought, not for the first time even that day. But the funeral had been a tipping point, the culmination of years of his own work, maneuvering and manipulating behind the scenes. And, besides, who else was there? He had no son to follow in his footsteps, not even an apprentice. Lost in such thoughts and weighed down by weariness, the old spymaster had dozed off by the time Henri returned. Normally alert to the point of paranoia, even the sound of the boy's footsteps and the dog's claws clicking on the floor didn't wake him. It was the aroma of coffee and food tickling his nostrils that pried his heavy eyes back open. "Thank you," he said, pushing himself upright. The coffee was the first thing he reached for, figuring he was going to need the caffeine. That was before he heard the rest of what the King had to say. It took him a few seconds to process it, but when he did, it woke him right up. "You," he said slowly, "want to talk with Robespierre?" TAGGED: Henri || NOTES: none at present TEMPLATE BY OH SO COOPERNATURAL ! @ CAUTION.