“Most noble houses are built with escape routes in mind,” Andre mused thoughtfully, “Positions of power have, historically, been also positions of great danger. My family is very close to the crown – two of my ancestors have in fact been on the throne. There are perhaps twenty or so ahead of me now – before Bonaparte it was nearer to sixty. For this reason my family has escapes available in all of their houses, in the case of siege or attack. We have a ship in our harbor, hidden, that my family could have taken if they wished – but my mother would not leave her friends to the revolutionaries, and my father would not abandon his people. Even enraged as they were, he believed in them to his very last.” His tone was soft, and it was clear he did not hate those who had killed his father, perhaps only because he knew the man would not want him to.

The Cotard family’s servants knew ahead of time that the revolutionists were coming. They forewarned Lorens and his wife, and helped them escape with their daughter Eveline. It was a mob well beyond Roussillon (In Angoumois, in fact, enroute to where Andre was stationed in Brittany ) that took them down.

Though Andre knows all this, he also knows that his father would not want him to hate any of the revolutionists – his father fought and argued frequently to build what was essentially a precursor to a public education system. Educating the lower class was his father’s greatest ambition in life, so Andre sees them more as misguided than anything worthy of hatred.

He wishes to re-establish order in France, which the revolution greatly lacked because they had no true leadership or real understanding of how to govern or monitor expenditures. They were not educated in these matters enough to manage things, but they absolutely could be – Andre firmly believes it possible for the people to have a republic if they take time to establish it correctly. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know precisely how that would work.

What he knows for certain is that Napoleon is not the answer for his people – by his estimation, the actions of Napoleon are destroying much more than aristocracy. That, Andre can happily live without. It is culture and France as a whole, that is being laid to waste by a man who would call for revolution and simultaneously name himself emperor.

So right now his goal is: Get rid of Napoleon. But after that he is one big fucking shrug emoji because he doesn’t know how to fix France.  ¯_(ツ)_/¯