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- "I know that that monarch is appointed by God and I believe that a corrupt monarch can be persuaded to see the error of his ways."
- ―François de la Serre on Louis XVI and monarchy, 1775.[src]
François de la Serre (1733 – 1789) was the Grand Master of the Parisian Rite of the Templar Order during the mid-to-late 18th century. He was the father of Élise de la Serre and the adoptive father of Arno Dorian.
A supporter of the absolutist monarchy of the Ancien Régime, he expelled his lieutenant François-Thomas Germain from the Order for his radical ideas of unseating the aristocracy from power and instead giving it to the rising middle class. Germain came to see de la Serre as a complacent Grand Master who had forgotten the Templars' true goals, and had him killed in 1789 as part of a coup within the Order.
Biography[]
Early life[]
François was born in 1733 to the de la Serres, a family of minor nobles who had held the position of Grand Master of the Parisian Rite for several generations.[3] By 1756, his actions as a high-ranking Templar had caught the attention of the Colonial Assassins' Mentor Achilles Davenport, who added the Frenchman on a notice board in the Davenport Homestead's manor.[4]
At some point before 1768, François married his fellow Templar Julie and acquired an estate in Versailles overseen by his majordomo Olivier as well as a smaller residence in Paris[5][3] within the historic Le Marais district.[6] Rising to the position of Grand Master, François had a daughter, Élise, with Julie in 1768. At some point, he became a close confidant of King Louis XVI and Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, the Mentor of the Parisian Brotherhood of Assassins.[3]
François taking Arno under his wing
In December 1776, the Colonial Templar Shay Cormac[7] murdered the French Assassin Charles Dorian and François adopted Charles' young son Arno into his household.[8] Out of respect for Arno's father and at the request of his wife and daughter, François did not attempt to bring the boy into the Templar Order, although he asked Élise to influence him in joining their cause. As Julie's health deteriorated due to her illness, François started spending time with Arno and arranged his time table for him to take lessons from the governor and hunting.[5]
Growing up, Arno proved to be a notorious troublemaker in Versailles, bringing many problems to the de la Serres' doorstep due to his gambling and other hobbies. François always managed to prevent Arno from facing any serious consequences for his actions and did not punish him.[8] By 1788, Arno had moved out of the de la Serre household, but remained in close contact with François and Élise.[5]
Expulsion of Germain and death[]
François expelling Germain from the Templar Order
At some point, de la Serre expelled his lieutenant François-Thomas Germain from the Templar Order[9] for spreading radical ideas supporting the idea of a violent revolution.[10] The Grand Master attempted to persuade his lieutenant to abandon his radical ideas, but to no avail, forcing de la Serre to expel Germain.[9][6]
Later on, the Roi des Thunes appealed to François for a position in the Order. However, his appeal was rebuffed by de la Serre, who proceeded to state that he had no use for the "intrigues of rats".[11][12] This unfortunately sealed his fate, as it was this remark that caused the slighted Roi des Thunes to pledge his allegiance to Germain's radical faction and vow to kill de la Serre.[11]
During the Estates-General of 1789, François was a delegate for the nobility of Second Estate, where he met with Mirabeau. He attempted to secure a permanent truce with the Assassins,[13] but this was not accepted by other Templars,[5] especially his advisor Chrétien Lafrenière, who believed that Mirabeau could not be trusted.[14]
François succumbing to his wounds
On the night of his daughter's induction into the Templar Order, François was unaware of the plot by his erstwhile advisors to assassinate him. After Élise was officially inducted, François was called to the palace gardens by one of his advisors, Charles Gabriel Sivert. Upon arrival, he asked what could be so important as to draw him away from the ceremony; Sivert's response was to punch him in the stomach.[12]
Despite the ambush, François quickly rallied by headbutting Sivert and slashing his left eye with his sword. However, the Roi des Thunes snuck behind the Grand Master[12] and struck him with a poison-laced Templar pin.[2][12] While the two assailants made their escape, François succumbed to the effects of the poison and died in front of Arno's eyes. Taking advantage of the chaos, Sivert pinned the blame of François' murder on Arno,[2][12] leading to the latter's imprisonment in the Bastille.[15]
Legacy[]
After François' death, the Order split between the small remains of a conservative faction led by Élise[5] and the followers of the usurping Grand Master Germain who wanted to encourage the rise of the middle class at the expense of the aristocracy. Élise would receive aid in fighting Germain's faction from Arno, who had joined the Assassins, and the two systematically hunted down every Templar responsible for François' death[6] until finally killing Germain himself in 1794.[1]
However, Élise was mortally wounded during the battle against Germain and was buried next to her parents in the Cimetière des Saints-Innocents. Arno would subsequently make habit out of visiting the de la Serre family's graves[1] while trying to uphold François and Élise's dream of reducing the gap between the Assassins and Templars.[5]
Personality and traits[]
- "What we Templars know, is that despite exhortations otherwise, the people don't want real freedom and true responsibility, because these things are too great a burden to bear, and only the very strongest minds can do so."
- ―François explaining the Templar ideology to Élise, 1775.[src]
François speaking with Mirabeau at the Estates-General
François held relatively moderate views in regards to the Templar ideology. Rather than eradicating free will entirely, he appeared content with preserving the ordered society under the absolutist monarchy in France. As he believed that strong and powerful leaders were necessary in order to advance society, he was opposed to the notions of a constitutional monarchy.[5]
François held the opinion that a king was chosen by God to lead, and thus believed that Louis XVI should be influenced to rule France more competently, rather than be deposed. He also felt that the traditional ways of thinking had been beneficial in guiding humanity for millennia, and therefore found the Assassins' support of freedom, independent thinking, and radical ideas to be anarchic.[5]
In another departure from established Templar practice to rely on criminal connections just as strongly as the Assassins, such as the Levantine Rite's black arms merchant Tamir or the Colonial Rite's counterfeiter Thomas Hickey, François apparently did not see the use of the potential information the lower classes could provide, demeaning the position and the Roi des Thunes' entreaty to join as supplying nothing more than useless noise.[11]
Despite these strong philosophical differences, he was reluctant in starting open conflict with the Assassins, in stark contrast to his advisors. Even though he was convinced that an earlier ambush on Julie and Élise was the work of Assassins, he claimed to his advisors that he held no such suspicions, wishing to silence calls for reprisal against the Brotherhood.[5]
François arguing with Lafrenière about Mirabeau
While Chrétien Lafrenière considered the Assassin Mentor Mirabeau immoral and self-serving, François trusted the latter and believed him a good and honest man.[14] Together, the two leaders attempted to broker a truce between their opposing orders while meeting at the Estates-General of 1789.[13] François believed that they held common ground on the nation's future, even if both knew that the truce would not last beyond the French Revolution.[5]
In regards to attire, François usually wore a powdered wig and a black coat adorned with a Templar pin.[6] His favorite hat was a feathered black beaver hat.[5] Francois was also a skilled swordsman, managing to slash out Sivert's eye when he was ambushed and would most surely have prevailed over his opponent had he not been stabbed from behind by the Roi des Thunes.[12]
Behind the scenes[]
François de la Serre is a historical character from Versailles whose name Ubisoft's Production Coordinator Maxime Durand found in digitized copies of the city's obituaries records from before the Revolution.[16] He was first introduced in the 2014 video games Assassin's Creed: Rogue and Assassin's Creed: Unity, with the former featuring his name on a notice board in the Davenport Homestead while Canadian actor Julian Casey portrayed him in the latter.
The etymology of his name has a variety of different backgrounds. François is a French variant of the name Franciscus, Latin for "Frenchman". The family name comes from the French "Serre", meaning "talon" or "greenhouse", while de la, "from the", indicates nobility.
Gallery[]
Appearances[]
- Assassin's Creed: Rogue (first mentioned)
- Assassin's Creed: Unity (first appearance)
- Assassin's Creed: Unity novel
- Assassin's Creed: Rebellion (mentioned in Database entry only)
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Assassin's Creed: Unity – The Temple
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Assassin's Creed: Unity – High Society
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Assassin's Creed: Unity – Database: François De La Serre
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Rogue – Freewill
- ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 Assassin's Creed: Unity novel
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Assassin's Creed: Unity
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Rogue – QXNzYXNzaW5hdGlvbg0K
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Assassin's Creed: Unity – Memories of Versailles
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Assassin's Creed: Unity – Hoarders
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Unity – A Cautious Alliance
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Assassin's Creed: Unity – Le Roi Est Mort
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 Assassin's Creed: Unity – Confession
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Assassin's Creed: Unity – The Estates General
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Assassin's Creed: Unity – The Prophet
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Unity – Imprisoned
- ↑ Durand, Maxime (23 October 2015). From Dreams to Realities: Performing History in the Assassin's Creed® video game series. Carleton University. Archived from the original on 28 January 2022. Retrieved on 30 September 2023.
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From Dreams to Realities: Performing History in the Assassin's Creed Video Game Series on the Vanderbilt University YouTube channel "[W]hen you make a game about assassinating people, obviously you need people who die. Real people as much as possible, otherwise we make them up. The example up top is François de la Serre, so if you played Assassin's Creed: Unity, it's one of the first characters that you get to meet. Uh, so, he's Élise's father. He was—I found him in the, uh, death record for Versailles, so for two, three days, or maybe it was a week, I can't remember. So I looked into these, into the digital archives there online. So I, I looked at these until I found "Oh! This guy's perfect: He's a nobleman, he dies in Versailles at the perfect time just before the beginning of the French Revolution. Uh, OK, let's find more about this guy." And then we realized there wasn't much more to learn about him unless going to, like, uh, paper archives, and, and so it was perfect. It was a character with not much background but with a good name and the right place; let's create a character out of him. So you see where we play with history? So maybe he wasn't a Templar in real life." from 0:56:55–0:58:00
