User:ACsenior/Sandbox3

Archive

Wiki work

lieutenant of the Templar Order(created)

"For me you can rely on two things: firstly, that I will abide by my own principles; and, secondly, that I will not allow my husband to be swayed by his advisors."

―Julie de la Serre to Mrs. Carroll, 1778.

A lieutenant of the Templar Order is the second-in-command to a Grand Master of the Templar Order, acting alongside Master Templars in assisting leadership of Templar Rites. The Parisian Rite had at least three different individuals who served as lieutenant to the de la Serre family, which hereditarily held the position of Grand Master in the 18th century.

Structure

Authority

Julie de la Serre: "I'm sorry if you don't feel our goals are aligned, Mrs. Carroll. My apologies if that makes me a somewhat unreliable confidante."

Mrs. Carroll: "I see. Well, if I were you, Madame de la Serre, I would use my influence on both sides in order to propose your middle line."

—Mrs. Carroll advising Julie de la Serre, 1778.

A Grand Master is the highest authority of a Rite, which is often coextensive with a nation's geographical boundaries. The lieutenant participates in their meetings with other Rites to discuss the politics of their nation, internal and external, and conditions of the Order itself. Their duty as an advisor is to ensure that whatever direction their Rite takes, it would benefit the Order and adhere to their principles. To that end, they actively formulate the domestic policies that they believe their corresponding nation should implement and communicate these plans with lower-ranking Templars like Advisors.

As the direct subordinate of a Grand Master, lieutenants can also be given other duties, such as organizing the training of the next Grand Master, the parameters of which would be set by the ruling member. For instance, Grand Master François de la Serre of the Parisian Rite assigned his wife and lieutenant Julie de la Serre the role of instructing their daughter Élise in the art of swordsmanship alongside the British Templar Frederick Weatherall while François himself directly presided over her education of Templar principles.

A lieutenant can be punished for breaking their principles. A notorious example was François-Thomas Germain, who was exiled for propounding reforms based on the Codex of Jacques de Molay deemed too radical and then refusing to recant them. The appointment of a lieutenant was not guaranteed, as François never appointed a successor following Julie's later death from illness.

History

Élise de la Serre: "Arno... François Germain was my father's lieutenant."

Arno Dorian: "What?"

—Élise de la Serre and Arno Dorian, discussing her father's lieutenant, 1791.

Germain being taken away after his expulsion

François-Thomas Germain was the lieutenant of Grand Master François de la Serre of the Parisian Rite from 1768. Being a Sage, Germain started experiencing visions of "Great towers of gold, cities shining white as silver" which led him to discover the Codex Pater Intellectus within the vault of Jacques de Molay beneath the Temple. Germain came to view the Order as corrupted by wealth and power, but his attempts to convince Grand Master François de la Serre of his vision came to no avail, and he was expelled for refusing to renounce his views. His only defender was Advisor Marie Lévesque.

Julie watching her daughter's sword training

By 1774, François's wife Julie had become his next lieutenant, and she secretly began their daughter Élise's combat training with the assistance of British Templar Frederick Weatherall. The same year, the influential Carroll Family of the British Rite visited due to their concerns of François' ability to keep France under control. Mrs. Carroll and Julie discussed regime change and loyalties, with Julie being clear that she held a moderate position between the talks of overthrowing or maintaining the Kingdom of France and would not allow too much influence from their Advisors.

In 1776, Julie and Élise narrowly survived an assassination attempt by a the former Assassin Bernard Ruddock while out shopping in Paris. Julie managed to slay the assailant with a Hidden Footblade. In the meeting with their Advisors that followed, Francois and Julie both argued against the assailant being an Assassin although the latter would privately reveal to Weatherall the truth afterwards. Unable to continue concealing the Assassin-Templar War from Élise after the incident, the couple revealed her birthright to become grand master, and François began her tutelage in the Templar value system thereafter. The same year, the de la Serre family adopted Arno Dorian, a boy orphaned when his Assassin father was killed by a Templar, and he became Élise's playmate. François and Julie discussed Arno's Assassin heritage with Élise and disagreed with another on indoctrinating him into the Templar ways. Despite insistence by François, Julie managed to exercise her influence as both his lieutenant and his wife to have the decision delayed. She fell ill soon after this debate, becoming confined to her room, and passed away in 1778.

On the night of the Estates-General of 1789 that preluded the French Revolution, Germain executed a coup d'état against Grand Master François de la Serre, by having him assassinated outside the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs. In the ensuing schism of the Parisian Rite, Jean Burnel was inducted into the Templars by the Advisor Weatherall and became the lieutenant of Élise in her fight to succeed her father as grand master.

Notable lieutenants

• 
  François-Thomas Germain
  Parisian Rite
  c.1768 - c.1774
• 
  Julie de la Serre
  Parisian Rite
  c.1774 – 1778
• 
  Jean Burnel
  Parisian Rite
  1789

Behind the Scenes

The rank lieutenant signifying the deputy to a Templar Grand Master is only clearly elucidated in the novelization of Assassin's Creed: Unity, where it is used interchangeably with the term "second-in-command". As a result, the only evidence for this rank thus far is in the Parisian Rite, and it is not known for certainty if it is particular to this Rite's administrative structure, a position shared by other Rites, or just a descriptive role and not a rank at all.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Unity (first appearance) (flashback only)
• Assassin's Creed: Unity (novel)