Évolution

[gwenchan]

 Fandom: Hetalia

Characters: HWS France

Rating: Teen

Additional Tag: Nationverse, Historical References, French Revolution

Prompt: Transizione

It's confusing. Above all, beyond the excitement, the rush and the thrill - and also a little bit of pain - it's messy and confusing. These kinds of changes always are. One spends centuries getting used to a model and when they finally do, the model changes. Usually suddenly and without much of a warning. There, it always takes a moment to accept the new.

On his part, France is still trying to wrap his head around what happened in the past months. Going from calling the Estates-Generales because helping America had been a blast, but frankly let them all financially broke,n to deciding the government needed a radical change, wasn't exactly in his plans.

For those of his kin accepting changes is even harder. To think that sometimes he still misname this King with the previous one, when he doesn't wake up absolutely convinced the Sun King is receiving guests in his rooms.

***

One thing Francis would like to know - kindly if someone bothered to tell him - is to whom his allegiance and obedience should go, because surely that isn't clear

Theoretically, King Louis is still there, on the throne, technically, only that the sceptre he's holding is little more than a symbol, a consolation prize for kids. Just as the throne isn't anymore the habitual one in Versailles, not when the Palace had been closed like when the court left for holidays.

Francis kinda misses Versailles. He lived there for about a century; and while he still kept some apartments around Paris, most of the time he stood at the palace. Most of his things are still there, frozen when the King was forced to leave.

In any case, there's the King and then a National Assembly, which is an emanation of the people and by extension of the nation, so of him.

Thinking about it is enough to have a headache. Having only a King surely was easier. Yet, he would be lying saying he hates the idea of people governing themselves and the nation.

***

Revolution loves change. Everything must change Out with the old, in with the new. The more, the better.

So, France watches people discuss for hours about how to the map, more curious than worried. New departments? Sure, why not?

The old representative should be able to adapt and if new appear or some vanish as it happens sometimes, he'll deal with it.

***

King Louis and the whole royal family trying to escape is a harder blow than France would like to admit. This King is often spineless and useless, more interested in smithing than in governing a country, but he was still the king and for France a set point in this storm. Having a King was a reassurance.

Now, France isn't sure of that anymore. He doesn't know if he wants a king, even more, a king that flies from his country for his own sake.

"I had to do it," King Louis babbles, surprised and outraged, for being accused by his own nation, the very representative who should be completely loyal and obedient to him. "I did it to bring things like they were. Like they are meant to be."

"Like you decided they need to be," France replies, unable to help the venom in his voice. Something has changed in him in the past year. The more the people raise their head, the more he does.

***

It's been two years already. They pass quickly when in the middle of something big and for their kind are nothing but the blink of an eye. In preparing for the second anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille, France checks the calendar and checks it again and still, it feels like yesterday.

In his mouth, the bitter taste of King Louis's attempted escape, only about a month ago. Normal now some people are back demanding the monarchy being abolished.

Of that France is still dubious. Louis is no fit to be a king, that's a certainty, but a king can be substituted if needed or at least manoeuvred from the shadows. It happened before, after all.

There's a voice, though, a worm somewhere in his brain, whispering how useless, idiot kings will always be a possibility as long as the power will be dynastic and how normally one does not kick out a king without resorting to violence.

A single person shouldn't hold power for all their lives.

***

A new constitution. France barely had the time to learn the old one that a new one has been drafted, ratified and approved. King Louis is still there, a king of the French and not of France anymore.

France jokes on the semantics. Then, more serious, asks if he should refer only to the Assembly.

Red in the face, Louis splutters, babbling against such an absurdity.

Oh, yes, there's a new Assembly too, a Legislative Assembly.

***

And a war. Just what he needed. No, he's not being sarcastic. For how absurd it may sounds, war is exactly what he, the person known as France, needed. At least wars are something he spent centuries practising and learning.

Of course, he prefers when he's the one attacking, not the other way round. Now, Austria and England - because obviously, England had to get involved - claimed they weren't declaring war yet. That they would only if others did - and they call him a coward. But, indeed, it's a technicality and France might have pushed a little the Assembly for his own sake.

***

Posters have appeared all over the walls of Paris. France wouldn't know if he was still on the battlefield, where he'd honestly rather be; instead, he has been called back to Paris. Here the King had the brilliant idea to win the people's protection not with charm but by ordering and threatening. 

Well, that King Louis wasn't exactly a strategist is something that has been already established, but France can't help being surprised at the idiocy of the King's idea. He can only gives him the benefit of doubt, that it wasn't King Louis' idea, but maybe of the Queen. But this doesn't save the King - being the King - from having to be an accomplice.

It's just another spark onto a bunch of twigs already extremely dry.

France could try to convince the King to use his head. He could give suggestions on to how calm the people and conquer their loyalty and love back. Charming people are easy for him, kind of his speciality.

But he doesn't want to. He'd rather see where it goes. Finding himself marching with the crowd, a man among men is a sudden but also a natural step. After a year of chaos, this is surprisingly clear. One, if the people are here and he's the soul of the people, this is where he's meant to be.

Two, King Louis needs to answer for his action.

Three, France doesn't want a king anymore.

***

King Louis is now in prison. It's not the first time a king is deprived of his crown and thrown to prison, but this time there isn't a new king claiming the throne.

France would think more about it if he hadn't divide himself between what's happening in Paris and the disaster that the war is being. For how absurd Austria and Prussia alliance is, it surely is effective - and they aren't being only a nuisance, maybe giving him sort of a hard time. No, they're already backing him into a wall. 

Sometimes it takes little to ignite a fire and if the fire's already burning, it takes nothing to spice it up.

Once, some centuries ago, when he was still little more than a kid, France read an essay from Italy's lands about power and how to keep it. By the time he was done with his reading, he had clear one thing: change, especially when power is involved, is bathed in blood.

The election for the first National Convention is drenched in blood, as the people launch onto the prisons, thirsty for a culprit for their suffering.

***

21 September 1792. France sits almost in a corner of the Convention reunited. He had to be present for its first meeting and its first decision. 

It doesn't make him feel any different and yet, looking back at the past three years, he isn't that same man (or nation) anymore. For example, his wardrobe and fashion style changed a lot, from the excessive luxury of the Ancien Regime, the golds, the velvets, the laces, to dressing like common folks. A simpler style.

He's not completely happy with it. He's always liked pretty thing and he loves to parade. The velvets, the perfumes, the jewels and the whole shebang made him feel powerful.

But he guesses it's all fitting for the new him, for today there is a new him. The Kingdom of France is officially deceased. Long Live the Republic.