User:Bovkaffe/Sandbox2

Heralds

Italy

This killer stains the very stone of our city with his presence! Surely, God will be displeased with us, should we fail to strike him down!

Constantinople

It is the duty of all loyal citizens to collaborate with the stewards of Byzantium, to bring them to a swift end!

There is a vile, infernal Assassin plague walking among us! Terror spreas throughout the city! The terror of madness and death!

Do not be deceived by these voices seeking to justify their acts! They are nothing but cold killers, reveling only in death!

Leonardo conversations

• Leonardo: Back for more designs, again?
• Leonardo: Bene. I will return shortly.
  Wait here. I will be back soon.

Leonardo produced a second Hidden Blade for Ezio.

• Ezio: I can kill double the guards.

Leonardo produced a climb leap glove for Ezio.

• Ezio: Now nothing will be out of my reach.

Leonardo produced a poison dart launcher for Ezio.

• Ezio: Just a small sting, and my enemies will fall.
• Leonardo: If you decide to buy something, look for the chalk outline on benches.

The Banker

• Leonardo: Ezio! I just hear the most wonderful news. Cesare's banker has been killed. It seems Cesare's battle funds are in shambles.
• Ezio: What a surprise.
• Leonardo: You did not have anything to do with this, did you?
• Ezio: Do you really want to know?
• Leonardo: On second thought, let's stick with the inventions.

Baron de Valois

• Leonardo: Ezio. The French are pulling out of Roma! The Baron Valois was found murdered within his own camp.
• Ezio: Could it have been an Assassin?
• Leonardo: There are rumors which favor such a theory.
• Ezio: Never listen to gossip, Leonardo. It could get you into trouble.
• Leonardo: Good advice.

Pietro

• Leonardo: Strange news, Ezio. Did you hear Pietro, Lucrezia's lover, fled the city after being poisoned by Micheletto at the Colosseum passion play?
• Ezio: No. But... was he saved by a hooded man?
• Leonardo: You daring figlio d'un cane (son of a bitch).
• Ezio: Shhh. I heard nothing, remember?

Papal turmoil

• Leonardo: Ezio. The papal apartments are in turmoil. Cesare is ill and the Pope, dead. It was your doing, was it not?
• Ezio: Leonardo, I swear to you, he did not die by my hand.
• Leonardo: This world gets stranger every day. I shall have to focus on my painting. I work on the small portrait of a woman. I am growing rather fond of it.
• Ezio: Do not let a beautiful girl distract you from constructing my designs.
• Leonardo: Have no worries. Women provide little distraction.

Leonardo put his hand on Ezio's back.

• Ezio: Wait, I don't get it.

Embarassed, Leonardo took his hand away.

Guards

1750s

Crime under control and not a Frenchman in sight.

Robespierre material

Database

Deprived of his father from a very early age, Robespierre was raised by Oratorians. He was a hard-working pupil with a passion for Roman history, which he would refer to almost obsessively in his later speeches. Trained as a lawyer and admitted to the Arras bar, he was destined for provincial mediocrity just as the depression broke out. On April 20, 1789, he was elected only fifth deputy (out of eight) of the Third Estate of Artois to the Estates-General. But he would soon conquer Paris, and would only ever return to Arras on one occasion. Over five years, he would speak out many times to various galleries: "We are being watched by all nations; we are debating in the presence of the universe."

Despite his harsh voice and his Artois accent, he gained increasing attention.

Of his private life, we know next to nothing. He lived elegantly but without over-indulging himself. His was a life based on regular study and maintaining good company. He had an overzealous distrust that could be offensive to schemers and supplicants. In fact, he did not court popularity, and was all the more esteemed as a result.

Once in power, Robespierre quickly shed his moderate image, favoring extremism and terror as tools for rulership. After a reign that culminated in the Festival of the Supreme Being and the Terror, Robespierre lost the support of the Committee for Public Safety. His former allies turned on him, and he was deposed and executed.

Historic Personage Sheets

QUOTE

"The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant." - Maximilien de Robespierre.

ROBESPIERRE FAST FACTS

Born 5/6/1758; died 7/28/1794; aged 37. Spoke over 5000 times in the National Assembly, giving articulate arguments against the royal veto and religious discrimination and often advocating for the rights of the common people. Mirabeau once said of him, "He will go far. He believes everything he says." Following the death of his mother and abandonment by his father, Robespierre took on the responsibility of raising his siblings until he left for France's most respected university at the age of 11. IMPRESSION

I just can't fathom this man. What the hell happened? So much blood... BIOGRAPHY

With such a quote to his name, one might think that Maximilien de Robespierre would have been a supporter of the Assassins, but he would have had great difficulty with the first tenet - "Stay your blade from the flesh of the innocent". Forever linked with the excesses of the zealot, Robespierre was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the arrest of an estimated 300,000 people in less than a single year, of whom nearly 40,000 were executed - 17,000 by guillotine, the "national razor". Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer, was catapulted out of obscurity into the public eye by the French Revolution. Like Mirabeau, Robespierre was elected to the Estates General, where he attacked the monarchy and called for reform. In April 1789, Robespierre became president of the Jacobite Club, and when Paris rose up against King Louis XVI three years later, Robespierre led the Paris delectation to the new National Convention. He continued to whip up the crowds to rise against their aristocratic oppressors, and pressed for the king's execution. The National Convention formed the Committee of Public Safety in March 1793. Its stated goals were to protect the newly formed republic from threat - both international and internal. The committee underwent restructuring in July, at which time Robespierre was elected. The Reign of Terror began on September 5th, 1793 and continued through the summer of 1794. Although the country no longer faced foreign enemies, Robespierre continued to urge more purges and executions. Some colleagues in government began to wonder at his true motives as the bloodbaths continued unabated. Seemingly not content with merely utterly reversing his stance on the death penalty, in the last two months of his life, Robespierre introduced a philosophy that he called the Cult of the Supreme Being. Like everything else he advocated, its ultimate purpose was to winnow out and eliminate dissenters. A rejection of the Cult of Reason that sprang up after the Revolution, the Cult of the Supreme Being was not Catholicism, but a type of deism. It was too much for the French people to accept. To see Robespierre on a man-made mountain in a toga was to see the truth of a man who touted equality, but was in reality on the verge of becoming a Caesar himself. His peculiar behavior on that day gave credence to rumors that he was insane. On July 27, 1794, Robespierre and many of his allies were arrested and taken to prison. Robespierre shouted his defiance as he was led off, warning that he had "powerful friends". Indeed, "friends" engineered an escape. Robespierre hid in the Hôtel de Ville, the city hall, in Paris. Robespierre began to make a new sort of list - this time not of supposed enemies of the Republic, but of his own personal adversaries. When he received word that the National Convention had declared him an outlaw, according to history, Robespierre panicked and, terrified of the guillotine to which he had sent so many, attempted suicide. Strangely, the gunshot broke only his jaw. We now have evidence that Assassin Arno Dorian and Élise de la Serre, daughter of the former Templar Grand Master, were involved in many of these incidents, from the theft of the various documents to the false "suicide attempt" evidence of a shattered jaw, that Robespierre might suffer the fate to which he condemned so many: execution by guillotine.

Other database entries

With France at war with Prussia and Austria in the summer of 1792, Maximilien de Robespierre called for the removal of the king.

He found the Reign of Terror appalling, and became openly critical of Maximilien de Robespierre.

Germain was as much a master puppeteer as he had been a silversmith, even bringing the famous (and later infamous) Robespierre into place as a tool for the Templar Order.

Napoleon and Robespierre had a falling out, but unlike many who did so, Napoleon managed to keep his head, in both senses of the word.

On June 25, 1793, he proclaimed his Manifesto of the Enragés to the National Convention. He was booted out. By June 28, was violently denounced by Robespierre*** who had him expelled from the Cordeliers.

He also worked, more covertly, on a draft about education, which was read by Robespierre at the Convention about 6 months after Le Peletier's death.

Thanks to Robespierre, this monastery became the epicenter of the revolutionary tumult. While all the important decisions were made at the National Convention, the real power lay with the Jacobin Club, so-called because of its meeting place in the church of the reformed Dominicans, namely the Jacobins. Relieved of nearly all its monks, this huge convent was situated a stone's throw from the National Assembly at the exact location of the current Marché Saint-Honoré. After their initial meetings held in the sumptuous library, and drawing on their success, the "Jacobins" occupied the chuch and installed amphitheater seating tiers where 1,500 patriots could come to hear the words of Barnave, Lambeth, Marat and Robespierre.

The Girondists initially held most of the political power, but a series of political defeats led to their fall from grace and the rise of the Montagnards. By this time, Robespierre had grown obsessed with conspiracies, especially among his political opponents.

Robespierre blamed him for fiddling with army supplies: he made a huge proft on ad advance order of thousands of pairs of boots for the army's soldiers ... which were never delivered. As a result of his involvement in the fraudulent affairs of the French East India Company, Robespierre targeted him as a means to eventually get to Danton. Guillotined on April 6, 1794. Robespierre "the Incorruptible" described him thus: "Talented, but with no soul. Skilled in the art of depicting men, even more skillful in deceiving them."

Robespierre thus sent his friend to the guillotine. He closed the shutters in his room to avoid seeing or hearing anything. However, the convoy that carried the members of the indulgent party to the scaffold passed in front of Robespierre's house. Danton recognized the building. Refusing to sit, he shouted out: "Robespierre, you will follow us shortly! Your house shall be beaten down and sowed with salt!"

Le Chant du Départ: Originally entitled "Hymne à la liberté", it was renamed by Robespierre, who praised the lyrics as "magnificent poetry".

Project Widow

Somewhat less grounded in reality than the Cult of Reason though no less inspiring was Maximilien Robespierre's Cult of the Supreme Being. The Supreme Being in question was nature itself, capable of uniting people with "pure and feeling hearts". There was a political edge to this of course with Robespierre nominating himself president of a festival in its name during which the Hymn of the Supreme Being would be sung.

The Café de la Régence in the Palais-Royal was a meeting place for the sharpest of minds in all of Paris. Maximilien Robespierre was among its clients, philosophising over games of chess, rubbing shoulders with great thinkers of the enlightenment: Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire.

It was at Tuileries that Robespierre's lavish counter argument to dechristianisation took place on 8 June, 1794. Robespierre’s painter friend Jacques-Louis David collaborated with opera composer François-Joseph Gossec and dramatist Marie-Joseph Chenier to make this an unforgettable occasion with a chorus of 2400. Dissatisfied by Chenier's lyrics, Robiespierre brought in Théodore Désorgues as a replacement.

The Jacobin politician Maximilien Robespierre was among the most famous and charismatic leaders of the Revolution. He was the architect of the guillotine killing-spree known as The Terror, executing people from all walks of life on often spurious charges such as "Crimes against the Revolution". Robespierre was fond of saying that he would gladly die for the Revolution... and when the paranoia reached fever pitch the mob turned its gaze on him and granted his wish. He was spectacularly guillotined after a failed suicide attempt, a victim of his own draconian policies that had escalated out of control.

Maximilien François Isidore de Robespierre was the provincial lawyer turned Revolution leader for whom power went to his head, which was eventually chopped off. As a politician Robespierre was among the first to voice concerns about failing military campaigns in Austria and Prussia – speaking as a Jacobin to disparage his Girondin adversaries in government. He collaborated with the painter Jacques-Louis David to use culture as a political device, promoting the Cult of the Supreme Being to further endear the Jacobins, but mainly himself, to the French in the absence of Roman Catholicism. The Supreme Being no longer referred to God, but "Nature itself".

By 1794 Robespierre had become the dominant voice on the Committee of Public Safety, established in 1793 to come down hard on anyone suspected of counter-revolutionary activity. A staggering 16594 Parisians were guillotined during the period known as The Terror. Jacobism became associated with extremism, and Robespierre started to look suspicious in obvious pursuit of his own political gain. He was outlawed by the National Convention, alongside his deputies, and sentenced to death by the dread tool of his own making. He took shelter in the Hôtel de Ville where he was captured by Convention guards. An apparent suicide attempt resulted in a gunshot wound that shattered his jaw, hastily bandaged with paper. Before the blade fell, the executioner tore off the bandage causing Robespierre to scream loudly before silence.

Revolutionaries Reinvent God

Midway through the French Revolution its leaders were rather forced to reconsider what it truly represented. With the bloody regime of the terror in full flow, during which 16,594 Parisians were guillotined, the politician Maximilien de Robespierre took his chance to represent a new voice of reason. Such was his oratorical prowess that he appointed himself mouthpiece of a new god.

So it was that in May 1794 Robespierre formally announced the cult of the Supreme Being, to be celebrated in a series of festivals across the land. Though the revolution had so far proven violently opposed to religious leadership of any sort, the dechristianisation of France was not sitting too well with a public used to sustaining on faith (in the absence of actual sustenance – i.e. daily bread).

The Supreme Being, which Robespierre defined as “Nature itself”, was a patriotic reimagining of the spirit that guides us all. The Paris event, held on 8 June 1794, was staged by neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David who commissioned the construction of a plaster and cardboard artificial mountain placed in Champ de Mars. On top of this mountain stood a 50-foot column upon which was a statue of Hercules. Down below a procession of girls carried baskets of fruit along avenues lined with roses, and a new anthem was sung to the music and lyrics partnership of composer François-Joseph Gossec and poet Théodore Désorgues: ‘Hymne à l'Être Suprème’ (‘Hymn to the Supreme Being’).

Although the song’s purpose was surely anti-hymnal, its similarity to popular God-fearing Catholic chants was unmistakable: “Your temple is on the mountains, in the air, on the air; You have no past, you have no future; And without the care you fill all worlds; Which can not contain thee.” Etc.

Robespierre brought proceedings to a rapturous close with a speech, sporting a blue coat, tricolor sash and plumed hat acquired especially for the occasion. He then burned an effigy representing Atheism to reveal a statue of Wisdom. Meanwhile, across Paris, the guillotine continued to chop the heads of anyone deemed to be even the slightest counter revolutionary, or showing such potential.

Understandably, the image of Robespierre resplendent in the exact costume worn during the Festival of the Supreme Being was later mocked in the anonymous anti-terror engraving, ‘Robespierre guillotining the executioner after having guillotined everyone else in France’. Behind Robespierre and the contraption is an obelisk that reads “Here Lies All France.”

In the wake of all this hypocritical ugliness the Christian faith was eventually re-consecrated across France. There is no record of when the cult of the Supreme Being was officially abandoned, or even reports of it ever fully catching on. And no voice of the Supreme Being was invoked in defence of Robespierre when the time came for the man himself to be executed.

Other

Joseph Bara quote, death mask, Louvet?, Chénier and Jacques-Louis David, Boulevard des théâtres, Café Février, Procope visits and conspirators there, Champs-Élysées database