lafayettcs

[lafayettcs]

The moment he had been given the mission to investigate larceny in the pleasure quartiers of Paris, Lafayette expected plenty ilicit benefits and at least a counterbalancing measure of small inconveniences. Fate’s way of making sure you do not sleep too soundly, one could say. At first it had sounded so enticing, so suitable to his tastes — almost like a boy’s drinking game fantasy — that it took months before realizing he should’ve refused it. Missions were not bestowed upon you by the Muskeeter order like a Holy Crusade. They were carefully preened and selected, guided by internal hierarchies and feuds among its partisans. And he, with his stellar military record, with his avant l'age accomplishments, was not favored by the elder superiors. Come to think upon it, he should’ve known.

His mouth became parched as soon as he saw her. Christine - though it’d taken fortnights before he learnt that name, all those years ago - waited at the end of a marble-cased stairway. She was unmistakeable; not only in posture, but in the irony fate had of throwing her about. Or perhaps the irony was hers, and she’d made fate her plaything?

« Mademoiselle D'Oliva. It would be beneath me to act like we’ve never been acquainted. Back at the quarters they did inform me I was to have knowledgeable assistance… but to the extent of it, I remained unaware. »

@christinedoliva

[lafayettcs]

esfchania‌:

does she seem in a rush? she hadn’t noticed. she scoffs at him, at his blocking of her path, pulling herself to a stop, she frowned. the strand of jewels around her neck looks out of place against the bright, exotic, but well worn, silks of her clothes. it’s clearly a new edition. paid for by a handsome, but dreadfully idiotic man who actually believed her to be anyone of worth. those dumb enough to believe such lies from little more than a bastard deserved what they got. 

and he seems perfect. a little arrogant, a little off guard. “i don’t speak english, sir. only turkish.” a lie, sliding from her lips in foreign tongue. she spoke english well, having picked it up from an early age along with bits of italian and french. but, she adverts her eyes, “i’m amira.” another lie. eser had invented amira as wish fulfillment when she was a young girl. she was affluent, ditzy, with no concept of working class. the daughter of the sultan who was actually wanted.

Taken aback - though there was nothing like an incipient blow to dull the edges of conceit - the marquis widened his eyes for a second. Cat-like, they engulfed every bit of color, heightening the youthful lines set in his face. « Amira. » The word rolled off his tongue pleasantly, like a beckoning or a quote’s senseless rhyme. Though he had a vague sentiment of luck; it would’ve been just as likely that he couldn’t have pronounced it. Men often blundered as far as these strange beauties were concerned — but he hadn’t, not yet, wasn’t even given the chance. All the more reason to delve into the moment. The day, he thought, would be quite bland now, if he missed a conquest such as this. « It is all too well I know nothing of eastern countries, then. Surely, you will not wander off alone now, will you? After having confessed you speak not our tongue? » He realized the futility of the sentences even as he spoke them. Tumbling, his lips with more of an inkling than his phrases, they reached her in shatters. « Dangereux, mademoiselle. Une femme... seule — a woman, alone. With no English, no French? »

[lafayettcs]

armandstcyr‌:

Armand looked at the other man, military it seemed. A man who would die, purely because the King had told him to go somewhere, and probably would do it happily. Maybe he was wasting his breath right now. Though how anyone couldn’t see the problems, even just the ones in Paris, he didn’t understand. “What is inevitable about it?” it was a world they had somehow made, and he could not understand how anyone could try and defend it. He snorted at that, “if injustice prevails all around, why not end it?” he asked, half repeating the man’s words back at him. He refused to believe the world would continue like this, change was needed, and urgently. 

He seemed to have been misunderstood, but that made for little novelty. Lafayette would’ve prompted himself to explain, clarified than he saw it not as inevitable, but the constables and architects of Paris did, as much as the very pillars on which France now jostled and careened. Yet he had a hunch - a brief intermission of reason - that it would do scarce good. « Spoken truly, Monsieur. And from the heart as well, it seems. How would you go about it? » He tried to assume his characteristic, sweeping smile, a thing of brilliance and almost verbal fluency, but then thought against it. This man, as rightly incensed as he was, would think it mockery. « I don’t ask it as a challenge, sir, believe me. I mean no offense; I share so many of your sentiments, it would be folly to inflict any. »

[lafayettcs]

Though he considered himself a new arrival nowadays, having absented from all those spectacular events which seemed inherent to Versailles, this girl was still an inexcusable novelty. So much so, that Yves almost chastised himself for failing to notice her — as if it were, one might say, a personal foible. He’d been back home for what, weeks now? It stretched behind him with the usual haze of post-soldier days, good meals and heated chambers woven into them like rare benedictions. After months of campaigning abroad, everything was warm golden light, everything up for the taking. He felt besotted once more with all the simple nonsense he’d loved as a boy: crisp linen, orange flowers not amiss in a water bowl, full noons where he could lounge about. But lounging alone is no enticing business, so how could he walk past something like this? 

« If I may, lady; you seem in an awful rush for a sight such as this. » He motioned without seeing them to the surroundings, the pathway of flower patches, the glamour of store fronts reflecting their colour. They found themselves in one of the city’s many elevated spaces, a garden and a lair of culture as well, if that culture was measured by the purse. All around, trimmed hedges bordered the more reputed stores which kept Paris fed. Without these milliners and comptoniers, he thought, without these jewel fads strung along the promenade, we wouldn’t even be on the damned map. « It’s been some time since I saw one step so hastily around here. Do you run from or towards? They are not nearly closing yet, you know that, I hope? »

@esfchani

[lafayettcs]

* — ( OOC

/ I’m momentarily bereft of ideas for a general open (the only general ambience he can be found atm is probably a pub lmao) so like this for a personalized one?

[lafayettcs]

armandstcyr‌:

Armand ran a hand through his hair, watching the events around him unfold. A normal enough day in Paris it seemed, although all that seemed to be going on was tat people were suffering. A girl begging for money on the corner, another who had clearly sold her teeth the way she spoke, a man who looked like he’d once been in the military, now with nothing. He paused for a moment to give some money to a beggar on the street before he carried on walking, stopping only when he arrived outside the Bastille. Not that he had any real reason to be here, more to observe. “How long do you have to live in its shadow before you forget what it is?” he asked, unsure if the person nearby was listening or not. 

With his head burrowed in the collar, sheltered by the remnants of a military uniform as well a musketeer bearing, he all but missed the citizen’s words. They came to him as from a netherworld, as all sounds of lowly Paris were carried.  « I think not they forget; but rather they see it as part of the same inevitable whole. » Yves looked fleetingly at the other man, at his worker’s clothes, then aside; his youthful vision blurred as he took in the streets and dregs. He was not given in to this, philosophizing in the open. But even after all these years the Bastille did not fail to make something lurch within him whenever he chanced by, quicken his motions or, on the contrary, stall them into incapacity. « If injustice prevails all around, they must say, why at least not have a monument to it? »

[lafayettcs]

— · ╰☆╮ · INTRO.

* / a sword or a pen is drawn by YVES DE LAFAYETTE, the MARQUIS of young nobility. they are twenty years old and resemble PETER GADIOT. their name draws whispers of being quite prodigious & fearless, though too often promiscuous & vainglorious. they would rather die than see monarchy unreformed.

this will be quite canon-divergent and before you @ me as to why, know that this was his full name: Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette 

do you see what I am up against? French history is a plague unless you dedicate all living hours to understand it. so, cast biographical elements aside, this is what you need to know about this good for nothing pup, actually acclaimed irl as ‘the hero of two worlds’ (the JOCK!)

he is very young and fully shows it; has none of the maturity that comes from fighting in a real war, mostly because victory followed him like a trained foxhound. his father had also died on the battlefield, and due to his family’s esteemed status he joined the Musketeers as a sous-lieutenant when he was no older than 14. few years after, he was given a battalion command head on, and he suffered no great losses to warn against the heedlessness of his boisterous strategies. he is conceited not because his irredeemable structure makes him so, but because life never bothered to dim the icarus-speed in his plans.

he is the golden son of landed gentry, through and through, but was born too close to the storm’s eye to ignore historical tides. he knows a great change will come about in his lifetime, and it was never a question as to which side he will find himself on. despite his boyhood fancies, he truly is a lover of people, and of all grand ideals.

after winning military victories abroad (colonies, United States, you have it) and on French soil, he was called back to Paris and given a chance at a political career. though he is not weary of fighting, he knows he needs to deliver liberty to the people; not in the guise of pamphlets and radicals, but in the light of a genuine reform. 

as political tidbit: In speeches, Lafayette decried those with connections at court who had profited from advance knowledge of government land purchases; he advocated reform.[91] He called for a "truly national assembly", which represented the whole of France.[92] Instead, the king chose to summon an Estates General, to convene in 1789. Lafayette was elected as a representative of the nobility (the Second Estate) from Riom.[93] The Estates General, traditionally, cast one vote for each of the three Estates: clergy, nobility, and commons, meaning the much larger commons was generally outvoted.[94]