Parisian Brotherhood of Assassins

The French Assassins were the Brotherhood of Assassins located in France. They were most notable for the involvement in the public disbanding of the Templar Order, and later worked to prevent the Templars from infiltrating the Royal Court.

History

Destruction of the Templars

Early in the 14th century, the Assassins manipulated King Philip IV of France, in order to destroy the Templars. With the help of Pope Clement V, who was sympathetic to the Assassin cause, the Templars were branded as heretics, and their stronghold attacked by the King's forces in 1307. The Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, was captured during the attack and put to death by fire, along with sixty other Templars. However, unbeknownst to the Assassins, nine Templar leaders had gone underground and continued their work in secrecy, despite the public disbanding of their Order.

Working with the Italian Brotherhood

In the early 16th century, King Louis XII left Paris and quarreled with Ferdinand II over the ownership of Naples, leaving his foreign ministers in charge. However, the King was unaware of their ties to the Borgia, and it allowed them to target the religious reformist Desiderius Erasmus.

To escape the plague, Erasmus planned to hire a carriage out of town, though the Templars disguised themselves as travelers and offered him a ride. With Erasmus' life in danger, the French Assassins and a team of Ezio Auditore da Firenze's Italian apprentices tracked them down, and with coordinated shots, killed all of the guards. After rescuing Erasmus, he told them that the Templars were holding another Assassin captive.

Following this, the Assassins tried to find their Brother, who had been captured by the men working for the Borgia. A group of Italian Assassins sent from Rome by Ezio were able to receive information from corrupted ministers about the Assassin's whereabouts, and tracked down Archbishop Georges d'Amboise, before interrogating him. He revealed the names of the ministers associated with the Templars, whom the Assassins later disposed of.

After that, the Italian Assassins rescued the French Assassin from the manor he was held in, but he eventually succumbed to his wounds. However, he informed his Brothers that he had only revealed false information to his torturers. He also warned his rescuers to be wary of the Orsini family, who had ties to the Templars.

In 1511, King Louis XII acted on Marseille's threats of secession motivated by the French Assassins, and ordered his army to banish all Assassins from the city. Aided by Ottoman Assassins sent from Constantinople by Ezio Auditore, the combined Assassin force hindered the army's efforts, though without violence.

American and French Revolutions

In the early 18th century, the Assassin Council sent the French Assassin John de la Tour to the Thirteen Colonies. In 1740, de la Tour became acquainted with Achilles Davenport, who was sent by the Mentor of the Caribbean Assassins, Ah Tabai. The latter soon became the Mentor of the growing Colonial Assassins.

During France's involvement in the American Revolutionary War, the Assassin William de Saint-Prix was sent to aid the Thirteen Colonies. During the French Revolution, the Assassins aimed to prevent needless deaths, but otherwise wanted to avoid involving themselves, believing the people had the right to make their own mistakes and learn from them. However, they became concerned that an outside force was influencing the revolution.

Assassin-Templar truce

Before the French Revolution had started, Grand Master de la Serre sought to establish a truce between the French Assassins and French Templars, a motive much like Ratonhnhaké:ton's beliefs while working with his Templar father Haytham Kenway. The Assassin leader Mirabeau supported this idea and the two factions worked together for a time. However, this peace was rather short-lived (to say the least), as Francois-Thomas Germain, a Templar Sage banished from the Order, had two of his own assassin hencemen, Charles Gabriel Sivert and Le Roi des Thunes, go to the Palace of Versailles during a party and de Thunes kills the Grand Master by stabbing his neck with a pin that Geramin made himself, putting the blame on Francois' adoptive son Arno Dorian. This assassination plot had a devastating affect on both sides; the Assassins had lost the man they made the truce with, dropping both sides back into "war", and Germain took over as Grand Master to spread his plan to recreate the Templar Order his way.

The French Revolution had begun following the assassination of Lord de la Serre, as another part of Germain's evil plan. However, as much as Lord de la Serre's followers loathed the idea, all that hatred manifested in one Assassin; Pierre Bellec. When Arno had brought Lord de la Serre's daughter Elise de la Serre to work with the Assassins, which Mirabeau seemed to approve of ("If you can't see the advantage of being owed a favor by Grand Master de la Serre's daughters, I despair for our future!"), Bellec sought to punish Mirabeau and Elise to prevent the failed truce from coming back to life. He poisons Mirabeau with aconite, which the Templars use many times as poison, and would frame Elise for it to prove that Assassins and Templars cannot work together, plunging both sides back into war. However, Arno catches Bellec at the Sainte-Chapelle and kills him in a furious fight to the death. Elise continued to work with the Assassins (to an extent), but when Germain and Maximilien de Robespierre had managed to have Louis XVI of France executed at a public trial, Elise left the Assassins, since Arno refused to kill Germain when he had the chance to and chose to save Elise instead. Arno was then banished from the Brotherhood, destroying the Assassin-Templar truce that had such a good effect for both sides for so long.

Members

• Julie d'Aubigny
• François Auverlot
• Pierre Bellec
• Guillaume Beylier
• Thomas de Carneillon
• Louis-Dominique Cartouche
• Cartouche II
• Cartouche III
• Claude Chemin
• Arno Dorian (banished)
• Charles Dorian
• Helene Dufranc

• Charlotte Gouze
• Camille Hautcoeur
• Louis-Joseph d'Albert de Luynes
• Maréchal
• Mirabeau
• Mireille
• Guillaume de Nogaret
• Didier Paton
• Hervé Quemar
• Nicolas de Saint-Prix
• William de Saint-Prix
• Sophie Trenet

Allies:

• Rose Bertin
• Napoleon Bonaparte
• Jean-François Champollion
• Clement V
• Elise de la Serre (former Templar)
• Georges Danton
• Thomas-Alexandre Dumas
• Antoine Lavoisier
• Marie Anne Lenormand
• Louis XVI of France
• Théroigne de Méricourt
• Joachim Murat
• Philip IV of France
• Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade