Aloys la Touche

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"So, this is what France has come to. Parasites bleeding the Revolution dry."

―La Touche overseeing a public execution, 1793.^[src]

Aloys la Touche (unknown – 1793) was a former tax assessor who became a member of the Parisian Rite of the Templar Order during the French Revolution.

Initially an enforcer for the Roi des Thunes at the Cour des Miracles, la Touche advanced up the Templar hierarchy after his master's assassination. He was later sent to Versailles to spread the Reign of Terror by carrying out mass executions.

Biography

Working for the Roi des Thunes

Before the French Revolution, la Touche was part of the middle-class and worked as a tax assessor. However, after discovering that 10,000 livres had been stolen from King Louis XVI's treasury and reporting this to his superior, la Touche was dismissed from the office and charged with bribery. Unable to find employment elsewhere, he became frustrated with the aristocrats controlling the administration of the kingdom, believing that they were more interested in personal profit than doing their jobs.

Disillusioned and disgraced, la Touche joined the Cour des Miracles, where his newfound cruelty and his knowledge of the economy helped him become the right-hand man of the Roi des Thunes. While at the tavern one night, he was approached by Charles Gabriel Sivert, who had heard the tales la Touche had been telling about his new master. The Roi des Thunes' subsequent involvement in the murder of Grand Master François de la Serre led to both men being recruited into a radical faction within the Templar Order, with at its head the self-proclaimed Grand Master François-Thomas Germain.

While hunting the Roi des Thunes, the Assassin Arno Dorian (ward of the late Francois de la Serre) witnessed la Touche ordering the amputation of a beggar who had failed to make the required cut, which resulted in the unfortunate man's death from blood loss. Sensing something was wrong, la Touche ordered the corpse thrown into the gutter and retreated inside his 'clinic', where he began overseeing the blinding of another man with acid. Arno quickly located the Templar and, despite la Touche attempting to shoot him, pinned him to the wall via a torture rack. Fearing for his life, la Touche quickly gave up the location of the Roi des Thunes and the Assassin left, remarking that his boss wouldn't be too happy about his spinelessness, to la Touche's horror.

La Touche managed to free himself, however, and quickly ran to the catacombs to inform the Roi des Thunes of the Assassin hunting him, leaving out his betrayal of his boss' whereabouts. Shocked at the swiftness of his discovery, the Roi des Thunes nevertheless ordered la Touche to lead a search party to find and kill Arno. When Arno revealed himself to la Touche, the man fled through a gate (sealing it behind him) and warned the guards that he was coming before apparently fleeing. Despite the warning, however, the Roi des Thunes was assassinated and his hold over the Cour des Miracles was broken.

After the death of the Roi des Thunes, la Touche met up with other high-ranking Templars at the Hotel de Beauvais to discuss their next move with Germain. When Marie Lévesque noted that they were being targeted by Chrétien Lafrenière, la Touche informed her that Lafreniere had in fact been killed hours previously by an Assassin who had been manipulated into doing so by Germain. He also berated Frédéric Rouille for having a prisoner thrown out of a window, noting that it could blow the meeting.

Enforcing the Reign of Terror in Versailles

Germain later placed la Touche at the services of the fellow Templar Maximilien de Robespierre, to spread propaganda as a way of expanding the Templar influence among the populace. Robespierre entrusted la Touche to oversee his Reign of Terror in Versailles, where he arrested and executed dozens of people. Due to la Touche's role in the turmoil in Versailles, he was feared and hated among the populace.

Eventually, Arno Dorian decided to end la Touche's reign of terror over Versailles in 1793, having witnessed the population suffering under it. Arno tracked the Templar to a public square where he was overseeing the execution of several people accused of hoarding food, including Arno's former acquaintances Hugo and Victor. In actuality, most of the condemned were merely guilty of stealing bread to feed themselves and their families, but la Touche ordered them brought forward anyway. To his unutterable horror, however, the first prisoner to be marched forwards was none other than Arno himself, who quickly broke free and stabbed la Touche with his Hidden Blade before the Templar could escape. From his memories, Arno gleaned Robespierre's involvement and marked him as his next target. Arno also witnessed la Touche being dismissed from his job and his subsequent recruitment by the Roi des Thunes.