Community world · London, England · 1793
1793 england specifically london, 1793
War, suspicion, and the struggle to eat.
Alexandre Margaux Villeneuve is, by the time he is preparing to leave France for England in 1791, one of the most formidable young men in Europe. Born around 1765 into a comparatively modest Loire noble house, he begins life as the sort of provincial aristocrat greater families scarcely notice, with land, villages, an old name, and enough money to survive but nothing approaching the fortunes of the great dukes. An early humiliation at the hands of a richer marquis gives him a nearly ferocious determination never again to be powerless. Under Turgot’s patronage he receives an exceptional education, finishing first at the French Royal Military Academy and later studying at Woolwich and Cambridge before entering active military service and earning repeated promotion and distinction. Alongside his military career he builds an enormous commercial and banking empire, expanding through France and into Amsterdam, Vienna, St Petersburg, Edinburgh, New York and other European centres.
By the Revolution he has become far more than a soldier or financier. Alexandre throws his wealth, administrative ability and military strength behind Louis XVI, arguing that the monarchy must reform without allowing France to collapse into anarchy. He helps feed Paris, reorganises finances and government, fights revolutionary violence, survives extraordinary wounds defending Versailles, and becomes one of the principal architects of the surviving constitutional monarchy. Louis remains King and Marie Antoinette remains Queen, but Alexandre becomes their indispensable cousin, friend, adviser and protector, particularly close to Marie, whom he has known since youth.
By late 1791 he holds the five great French dukedoms of Villeneuve, Margaux, Chambord, Amboise and Chenonceau, together with the extraordinary dignities of Grand Prince of France, Prince-Peer, Lord Protector, First Minister, President of the Royal Council and Captain-General. He commands immense personal wealth and powerful private forces, possesses an international commercial network, and has already acquired the reputation of a brilliant soldier, financier, reformer and statesman. Yet he remains unusually young, intensely ambitious, proud, disciplined, charming when he chooses to be, fiercely loyal to the people he loves, and deeply conscious that he once began as a provincial noble whom almost nobody considered important.
Created by Jake Kwon