Lévesque family

"The Lévesques have been Templars since the Third Crusade. Marie was the only one who argued against Germain's exile; I'm not surprised she's thrown in with him."

―Élise de la Serre, 1792.

The Lévesque family was a French noble family, renowned in the Templar Order for its allegiance dating back to the 13th century. As a senior house, the Lévesque family were particularly staunch traditionalists among their peers. Accordingly, under Marie Lévesque's leadership during the French Revolution, they sided with François-Thomas Germain in his schism with the Grand Master François de la Serre, disavowing de la Serre's peace accord with their archenemies, the Assassins.

History

Early Templar affiliations

The Lévesque family were originally brought into the Templar fold sometime during the 13th century, and they subsequently passed on their allegiance from heir to heir. Their seniority granted them prestige among the Templars as they were regarded as a family devoted to the cause almost as early as its reconstitution under Hugues de Payens.

Age of Colonialism

In 1747, the Lévesque family, under Magdelaine Lévesque's leadership, recruited Madeleine de L'Isle—later to be the head of the Louisiana Rite—into the Order, applauding her for her shrewd handling of her father's business, her independent discovery of the secret organization, and her successful drive to entrench herself in the ranks of the New Orleans upper society. As her first command to Madeleine, Magdelaine assigned her the task of excavating Mayan ruins in the Yucatán Peninsula in the hopes of finding a Precursor site. The Lévesques would subsequently use their shipping company to supply Madeleine's excavation site in Chichen Itza with slave workers.

At this time, the family resided in Le Havre and, as leading members of the Parisian Rite of the Templar Order, maintained close communications with the British and Spanish Rites, regularly exchanging information, intelligence, and gifts. Magdelaine approved of the British Grand Master Reginald Birch's request for the Parisian Rite to exploit colonialism as a means of searching for Pieces of Eden.

In 1749, Le Havre hosted Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, the chief mistress of King Louis XV of France, in her journey to see the sea for the first time. Though Magdelaine had predicted that the lavish visit would prove ruinous to the city's economy, she brushed this aside as a concern only of the lesser classes, one that her family need not be troubled by. Despite this, by the time of the French Revolution, the wealth of the family had greatly diminished.

French Revolution

A young Marie with her mother

To improve the financial prospects of her house, Marie Lévesque was compelled to marry Thomas Lobit of a lesser yet more prosperous house in 1771. Her father was able to convince Lobit to take on Marie's surname instead as the Lobits, having only recently been ennobled, were eager to bolster their legitimacy. When the French Revolution erupted, representation of the house had by then passed to Marie, who served as an advisor to Grand Master François de la Serre.

True to the strict conservatism of her house, Marie scorned de la Serre for his truce and alliance with Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, the Mentor of the French Assassins. Allying herself with the dissident Templar François-Thomas Germain, she partook in his schemes when Germain orchestrated a coup d'état against de la Serre, assassinating him. Germain then plotted to radicalize the French Revolution as a means of purging the country of what he deemed to be corruption, so that he could eventually rebuild its institutions anew.

Because of the Lévesque family's wealth and noble connections, they were tasked by Germain to purchase enormous stockpiles of grain and hoard it beneath the Luxembourg Palace. In this way, they would implicate the entire French nobility in having been complicit in this scheme and inflame the starved masses, driving the Revolution towards extremism.

Marie at her party in the Luxembourg Palace

While Marie accomplished her mission dutifully, even imprisoning her husband upon his discovery of her affiliation, she was unable to avert her own assassination. In October 1792, during a party at the Luxembourg Palace ostensibly hosted to celebrate the Palais-Royal's conversion into a prison, she was killed by the Assassin Arno Dorian while the food she had hoarded was recovered by Élise de la Serre. Arno subsequently used information gained from Marie's memories to track down one of her fellow Templar conspirators, Louis-Michel le Peletier.

Centuries later in 2014, Abstergo Industries, as the public front of the Templar Order, would whitewash the role Marie Lévesque had played in the famine of the French Revolution. In their database published with the Helix, a cloud-based software marketed to consumers in the medium of video games, Abstergo falsely attributed Marie with having hoarded grain only so as to ensure their proper redistribution to the poor and famished. As a result, they used propaganda to paint an honorable image of the House of Lévesque.

Members

• Charlotte Lévesque ^{[citation needed]}
• Magdelaine Lévesque
• Marie Lévesque's father
• Marie Lévesque (died 1792)
• Thomas Lévesque (né Lobit)

Behind the scenes

The exact familial connection between the two most prominent members of the Lévesque family, Magdelaine and Marie, is unknown. Marie appears as a supporting antagonist in Assassin's Creed: Unity while Magdelaine is exclusively mentioned in the war letters that can be collected in Assassin's Creed: Rogue; since she is never seen in person, it can not be inferred whether Magdelaine was Marie's mother, grandmother, or a more distant relative.

Appearances

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