Soon I was a young man and all over the country cries of discontent had sprung up and soon the flames of revolution were burning bright. We had helped the Americans win their freedom from oppression a few years before, perhaps their example gave us the will. I any case, .the French revolution carried on through most of my youth, I was there when the king was guillotined with his wife, Marie. The deaths cemented the end of the monarchy in my generation but none could tolerate the bloodshed of Robespierre�s reign of terror in Paris and he was soon overthrown as well. Not long after that while the words of Voltaire and Rousseau burned in our minds, The Revolution came to an end in 1799 when Napoleon Bonaparte was named first council in Paris. We would help Napoleon build yet another empire, and as Emperor, he began to sweep across Europe.
It was in the service of my country that I received the bullet that left me as you see me now, lame of leg. I was a lieutenant in the army then and on a battlefield I took a wound to my hip. The injury ended my military career and nearly my life. I was found, left for dead on that battlefield and healed by a wine merchant�s daughter, Tina, whom I married. She was far younger than I and beautiful beyond words.
WE moved to a small home in Meaux, just outside of Paris and raised a family. I was asked by another merchant, an Italian one to work with them in bringing some wines to Paris. In the city I met many people, Including Antonio DeMedici. At that time he used a name other than his family one, but it was him�I see you recognize that name, as well you should. He was a Toreador�of a family to be reckoned with. He talked to me and soon I found myself ghoul in his sway. Antonio was a good Domitor and taught me so much about the art I had so loved in my youth. I moved my wife to Paris where we lived till her death. That came all to quickly as did my own�The Sabbat�the rabid vampires took up infiltrating a troupe of kindred with whom Antonio dealt with. A group of performers. There was a series of betrayals�leading up to me being held helpless as they drank my beloved Tina to death before me in the sewers of the city. She had been kidnapped from our home as I was out on a meeting of negotiation with the Clan Nosferatu. The pack fell upon my wife and eldest son, killing him and taking her, just to get me and in turn, Antonio. They turned on me�a mere ghoul next against 7 vampires. They intended to tear me apart slowly, pull Antonio�s secrets from me. God granted me the strength for what came next.. I attacked them and took two of them into what I thought would be hell with me as the rest tore at me. I never saw my sire come up from behind them�I only heard their screams as he fed the rats on vampire flesh.
Marian DeValis, of clan Nosferatu, was the man�s name, if it is right to call my sire a man. A great creature with burning eyes. He watched the life�s blood draining out of me into the sewers and bent down, lifting Tina�s lifeless body from the waters, then bent down to me and whispered for me to live for her�I became his child that night. He waited for my ghoul body to heal itself as best it could and then it was done. He later told me that I would have died from the blood it took to repair me. I don�t remember the first night of my change with any clarity, only pain. When it was done I found myself in the hall below us. The hall we guard the most and above me was Tina, painted in her genteel beauty, a gift from my sire and from Antonio who had returned to learn of what happened. He spoke to me as he always had and took his leave, no hint of malice with Marian. My mortal life was over, my kindred one beginning.
With Tina gone and our children nearly men, I stayed hidden, taking the years to learn the Paris underground, helping create or maintain the areas that would save many in years to come, both mortal and Kindred. I also learned the blood heritage that I had been reborn into and learned of the wondrous tale, which was based in all too much reality that we share with the Toreador of this place. However in the world above, time marched on. Regimes rose and fell, then in the 1870�s war came to us and the German�s took Paris.