Editing François de la Serre

{{Era|Individuals|Templars}}
{{Update|[[Assassin's Creed: Unity]], its [[Assassin's Creed: Unity (novel)|novel]], and the [[Assassin's Creed Unity: Abstergo Entertainment – Employee Handbook|Abstergo handbook]]}}
{{Quote|I know that that monarch is appointed by God and I believe that a corrupt monarch can be persuaded to see the error of his ways.|François de la Serre on Louis XVI and monarchy, 1775.|Assassin's Creed: Unity (novel)}}
{{Character Infobox
| image = ACU De La Serre Render.png
| birth = 1733<br>[[Kingdom of France]]
| death = 5 May 1789<br>[[Versailles]], Kingdom of France
| species = [[Human]]
| affiliates = [[Templars]]
*[[Parisian Rite of the Templar Order|Parisian Rite]]
| database = [[Database: François De La Serre|François De La Serre]]
}}
'''François de la Serre''' (1733{{Cite|12 Nov 2014}} – 1789) was the [[Grand Master of the Templar Order|Grand Master]] of the [[Parisian Rite of the Templar Order|Parisian Rite]] of the [[Templars|Templar Order]] during the late 18th century. He was the father of [[Élise de la Serre]] and adoptive father of [[Arno Dorian]].

A supporter of the absolutist [[monarchy]] of the {{Wiki|Ancien Régime}}, he expelled his [[Lieutenant of the Templar Order|lieutenant]] [[François-Thomas Germain]] from the Order for his radical ideas of unseating the aristocracy from power and instead giving it to the rising middle class. Germain came to see de la Serre as a complacent Grand Master who had forgotten the Templars' [[New World Order|true goals]], and had him killed in 1789 as part of a coup within the Order.

==Biography==
===Early life===
François was born in 1733 to the de la Serres, a family of minor nobles<ref name="Database">''[[Assassin's Creed: Unity]]'' – [[Database: François De La Serre]]</ref> who had held the position of Grand Master of the Paris Rite for several generations. By 1756, his actions as a high-ranking Templar had caught the attention of the [[American Brotherhood of Assassins|Colonial Assassins]]' [[Mentor]] [[Achilles Davenport]], who added the Frenchman on a notice board in the [[Davenport Homestead]].<ref>''[[Assassin's Creed: Rogue]]''</ref> At some point before 1768, François married his fellow Templar [[Julie de la Serre|Julie]] and acquired an [[De la Serre estate, Versailles|estate]] in [[Versailles]] overseen by his majordomo [[Olivier (majordomo)|Olivier]] as well as a smaller [[De la Serre estate, Paris|residence]] in [[Paris]]<ref name="Novel">[[Assassin's Creed: Unity (novel)|''Assassin's Creed: Unity'' novel]]</ref><ref name="Database"/> within the historic [[Le Marais]] district.<ref name="ACU">''Assassin's Creed: Unity''</ref> Rising to the [[Templar rank|position]] of Grand Master, François had a daughter, Élise, with Julie in 1768. At some point, he became a close confidant of King [[Louis XVI of France|Louis XVI]] and [[Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau]], Mentor of the [[Parisian Brotherhood of Assassins|Parisian Brotherhood]] of [[Assassins]].<ref name="Database"/>

In December 1776, the [[American Rite of the Templar Order|Colonial Templar]] [[Shay Cormac]]<ref>''Assassin's Creed: Rogue'' – [[QXNzYXNzaW5hdGlvbg0K]]</ref> murdered the French Assassin [[Charles Dorian]] and François adopted the Charles' son Arno.<ref>''Assassin's Creed: Unity'' – [[Memories of Versailles]]</ref> Out of respect for Arno's father and at the request of his wife and daughter, François did not attempt to bring Arno into the Templar Order, although he asked Élise to influence him in joining their cause. As Julie deteriorated due to her illness, he started spending time with the boy and arranged his time table for him to take lessons from the governor and [[hunting]].<ref name="Novel"/>

===Expulsion of Germain and death===
At some point in time, de la Serre expelled his lieutenant François-Thomas Germain from the Templar Order<ref name="Hoarders">''Assassin's Creed: Unity'' – [[Hoarders]]</ref> for spreading radical ideas supporting the idea of a violent revolution.<ref>''Assassin's Creed: Unity'' – [[A Cautious Alliance]]</ref> De la Serre attempted to persuade his lieutenant to abandon his radical ideas, but to no avail, forcing de la Serre to expel Germain.<ref name="Hoarders"/><ref name="ACU"/>

Later on, the [[Roi des Thunes]] appealed to de la Serre for a position in the Order. However, his appeal was rebuffed by de la Serre, who proceeded to state that he had no use for the "intrigues of [[rat]]s".<ref name="LeRoiEstMort">''Assassin's Creed: Unity'' – [[Le Roi Est Mort]]</ref><ref name="Confession">''Assassin's Creed: Unity'' – [[Confession]]</ref> This unfortunately sealed his fate, as it was this remark that caused the slighted Roi des Thunes to pledge his allegiance to Germain's radical faction and vow to kill de la Serre.<ref name="LeRoiEstMort"/> During the [[Estates-General of 1789]], François was a delegate for the nobility of Second Estate. He attempted to make peace with the Assassins,<ref name="TheEstatesGeneral">''Assassin's Creed: Unity'' – [[The Estates General]]</ref> but this was not accepted by other Templars,<ref name="Novel"/> especially his advisor [[Chrétien Lafrenière]], who believed that Mirabeau could not be trusted.<ref name="TheProphet">''Assassin's Creed: Unity'' – [[The Prophet]]</ref>

On the night of his daughter's [[Initiation into the Templar Order|induction]] into the Templar Order, de la Serre was unaware of the plot by his erstwhile advisors to assassinate him. After Elise was officially inducted, de la Serre was called to the palace gardens by one of his advisors, [[Charles Gabriel Sivert]]. Upon arrival, he asked what could be so important as to draw him away from the ceremony; Sivert's response was to punch him in the stomach. Despite the ambush, de la Serre quickly rallied by headbutting Sivert and slashing his left eye with his [[sword]]. However, the Roi des Thunes snuck behind the Grand Master<ref name="Confession"/> and struck him with a [[poison]]-laced [[Templar pin]].<ref name="HighSociety">''Assassin's Creed: Unity'' – [[High Society]]</ref><ref name="Confession"/>

While the two assailants made their escape, de la Serre succumbed to the effects of the poison and died in front of Arno's eyes. Taking advantage of the chaos, Sivert pinned the blame of de la Serre's murder on Arno,<ref name="HighSociety"/><ref name="Confession"/> leading to the latter's imprisonment in the [[Bastille]].<ref>''Assassin's Creed: Unity'' – [[Imprisoned]]</ref> After de la Serre's death, the Order split between the small remains of a conservative faction led by Élise<ref name="Novel"/> and the followers of the usurping Grand Master Germain who wanted to encourage the rise of the middle class at the expense of the aristocracy.<ref name="ACU"/>

==Personality and traits==
{{Quote|What we Templars know, is that despite exhortations otherwise, the people don't want real freedom and true responsibility, because these things are too great a burden to bear, and only the very strongest minds can do so.|François explaining the Templar ideology to Élise, 1775.|Assassin's Creed: Unity (novel)}}
François held relatively moderate views in regards to the Templar ideology. Rather than eradicating free will entirely, he appeared content with preserving the ordered society under the absolutist monarchy in France. As he believed that strong and powerful leaders were necessary in order to advance society, he was opposed to the notions of a constitutional monarchy. François held that a king was chosen by [[Christianity|God]] to lead, and thus believed that Louis XVI should be influenced to rule France more competently, rather than be deposed. François felt that the traditional ways of thinking had been beneficial in guiding humanity for millennia, and therefore found the Assassins' [[Assassin-Templar War|support of freedom]], independent thinking, and radical ideas to be anarchic.<ref name="Novel"/> In another departure from established Templar practice to rely on criminal connections just as strongly as the Assassins, such as the [[Levantine Rite of the Templar Order|Levantine Rite]]'s black arms [[merchant]] [[Tamir]] or the Colonial Rite's counterfeiter [[Thomas Hickey]], François apparently did not see the use of the potential information the lower classes could provide, demeaning the position and the Roi des Thunes' entreaty to join as supplying nothing more than useless noise.<ref name="LeRoiEstMort"/>

Despite these strong philosophical differences, he was reluctant in starting open conflict with the Assassins, in stark contrast to his advisors. Even though he was convinced that an earlier ambush on Julie and Élise was the work of Assassins, he claimed to his advisors that he held no such suspicions, wishing to silence calls for reprisal against the Brotherhood.<ref name="Novel"/> While Chrétien Lafrenière considered the Assassin Mentor Mirabeau immoral and self-serving, François trusted the latter and believed him a good and honest man.<ref name="TheProphet"/> Together, the two leaders attempted to broker a truce between their opposing orders while meeting at the Estates-General of 1789.<ref name="TheEstatesGeneral"/> François believed that they held common ground on the nation's future, even if both knew that the truce would not last beyond the [[French Revolution]].<ref name="Novel"/>

In regards to attire, François usually wore a powdered wig and a black coat adorned with a Templar pin.<ref name="ACU"/> His favorite hat was a feathered black [[beaver]] hat.<ref name="Novel"/> Francois was also a skilled swordsman, managing to slash out Sivert's eye when he was ambushed and would most surely have prevailed over Sivert had he not been stabbed from behind by the Roi des Thunes.<ref name="Confession"/>

==Behind the scenes==
François de la Serre is a historical character from Versailles whose name [[Ubisoft]]'s Production Coordinator [[Maxime Durand]] found in digitized copies of the city's obituaries records from before the Revolution.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://carleton.ca/history/news/shannon-lecture/from-dreams-to-realities/|title=From Dreams to Realities: Performing History in the Assassin's Creed® video game series|author=Durand, Maxime|date=23 October 2015|publisher={{Wiki|Carleton University}}|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220128053242/https://carleton.ca/history/news/shannon-lecture/from-dreams-to-realities/|archivedate=28 January 2022|accessdate=30 September 2023}}<br>↑{{Youtube|video=rheZCOql9kg|text=From Dreams to Realities: Performing History in the Assassin's Creed Video Game Series|channel=@vanderbilt|channelname=Vanderbilt University}} "[W]hen you make a game about assassinating people, obviously you need people who die. Real people as much as possible, otherwise we make them up. The example up top is François de la Serre, so if you played ''Assassin's Creed: Unity'', it's one of the first characters that you get to meet. Uh, so, he's Élise's father. He was—I found him in the, uh, death record for Versailles, so for two, three days, or maybe it was a week, I can't remember. So I looked into these, into the digital archives there online. So I, I looked at these until I found "Oh! This guy's perfect: He's a nobleman, he dies in Versailles at the perfect time just before the beginning of the French Revolution. Uh, OK, let's find more about this guy." And then we realized there wasn't much more to learn about him unless going to, like, uh, paper archives, and, and so it was perfect. It was a character with not much background but with a good name and the right place; let's create a character out of him. So you see where we play with history? So maybe he wasn't a Templar in real life." from 0:56:55–0:58:00</ref>. He was first introduced in the 2014 video games ''[[Assassin's Creed: Rogue]]'' and ''[[Assassin's Creed: Unity]]'', where he only had a portrait in ''Rogue'' but was voiced in ''Unity'' by the [[Canada|Canadian]] actor [[Julian Casey]]. The etymology of his name has a variety of different backgrounds. François is a French variant of the name Franciscus, Latin for "Frenchman". The family name comes from the French "''[[wikt:serre|Serre]]''", meaning "talon" or "greenhouse", while ''de la'', "from the", indicates nobility.

==Gallery==
<gallery captionalign="center" position="center" widths="180">
ACU De la Serre - Concept Art.jpg|Concept art of de la Serre
ACU De la Serre - Concept Art 2.jpg|Concept art of de la Serre
ACU De La Serre's Murder - Concept Art.jpg|Concept art of de la Serre's murder
Young de la Serre - Head Sculpts.jpg|Head sculpts of a young de la Serre
Old de la Serre.jpg|Head sculpts of an old de la Serre
De la Serre - Head Renders.jpg|Head renders of de la Serre
Hoarders 8.png|François expelling Germain from the Templar Order
Memories of Versailles 9.png|François taking Arno under his wing
Memories of Versailles 13.png|François keeping Arno from being arrested
Memories of Versailles 14.png|François scolding Arno
The Estates General 9.png|François standing behind Louis XVI
The Estates General 10.png|François speaking with Mirabeau
High Society 12.png|François succumbing to his wounds
High Society 13.png|Arno checking on François
</gallery>

==Appearances==
*''[[Assassin's Creed: Rogue]]'' {{1st}} {{c|simultaneous with ''Assassin's Creed: Unity''}}
*''[[Assassin's Creed: Unity]]'' {{1st}} {{c|simultaneous with ''Assassin's Creed: Rogue''}}
*[[Assassin's Creed: Unity (novel)|''Assassin's Creed: Unity'' novel]]
*''[[Assassin's Creed: Rebellion]]'' {{Mdat}}

==References==
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[[Category:Individuals]]
[[Category:1733 births]]
[[Category:1789 deaths]]
[[Category:French people]]
[[Category:Parisians]]
[[Category:Versaillais]]
[[Category:Templars]]
[[Category:French Templars]]
[[Category:Grand Masters]]
[[Category:De la Serre family|Francois de la Serre]]
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