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I promised myself no more new characters. I was going to be firm about it but couldn’t *hangs head in shame*, I blame reading. Reading gives you ideas!
So, this is Claude Ménard who used to be the valet/secretary/general dogsbody of a reclusive French Count, Etienne Lacroix. Claude had hopes that one day, since his master had never married nor reproduced, he would be left a sizable part of the estate when the old man kicked the bucket.
To his great delight one day he was called into the old man’s study and gifted with the man’s signet ring on which was drawn the family crest and documents that named Claude the Count. That night he went to bed happy, dreaming of his fortune and awoke to discover his employer had scarpered and there were solders looking for the Count to arrest him.
It was obvious to Claude that he’d been set up to take his master’s place on the guillotine but his devotion to the household hardly went that far. Packing away anything of value as well as the ring and papers he left the house before his identity could be questioned and headed for the channel where he paid for passage to England.
He is passing himself off as Etienne Lacroix, the Count de Bayou, relying on the man’s reclusive nature to insure the deception works. He heard that the real Etienne was captured on the way to Germany and executed (Or was he?) and so hopes the revolutionaries will no longer be searching for him and he can get on with living the life of luxury he’d always dreamed of.
Some possible plotlines I’d love to play out:
• Someone in the French Embassy realising that there appear to be two Etienne Lacroix’s – one dead and one still very much alive.
• Someone discovering his deception or who knew the real Count.
• The real Etienne having escaped (or had someone else killed in his place) arriving and demanding Claude provide for him or else he’ll reveal the lie and send Claude to the gallows. Identity theft in the 1790’s was handled much more brutally than it is today.
So, this is Claude Ménard who used to be the valet/secretary/general dogsbody of a reclusive French Count, Etienne Lacroix. Claude had hopes that one day, since his master had never married nor reproduced, he would be left a sizable part of the estate when the old man kicked the bucket.
To his great delight one day he was called into the old man’s study and gifted with the man’s signet ring on which was drawn the family crest and documents that named Claude the Count. That night he went to bed happy, dreaming of his fortune and awoke to discover his employer had scarpered and there were solders looking for the Count to arrest him.
It was obvious to Claude that he’d been set up to take his master’s place on the guillotine but his devotion to the household hardly went that far. Packing away anything of value as well as the ring and papers he left the house before his identity could be questioned and headed for the channel where he paid for passage to England.
He is passing himself off as Etienne Lacroix, the Count de Bayou, relying on the man’s reclusive nature to insure the deception works. He heard that the real Etienne was captured on the way to Germany and executed (Or was he?) and so hopes the revolutionaries will no longer be searching for him and he can get on with living the life of luxury he’d always dreamed of.
Some possible plotlines I’d love to play out:
• Someone in the French Embassy realising that there appear to be two Etienne Lacroix’s – one dead and one still very much alive.
• Someone discovering his deception or who knew the real Count.
• The real Etienne having escaped (or had someone else killed in his place) arriving and demanding Claude provide for him or else he’ll reveal the lie and send Claude to the gallows. Identity theft in the 1790’s was handled much more brutally than it is today.