Player’s name:
E-mail:
Favorite Quote:
Birthday:
December 26, 1760
Character's Full name:
Baron Jean de Batz
Occupation:
Royalist spy
Physical Description:
A stoutish, florid-looking individual, with small, keen eyes, and skin pitted with small-pox.
Friendships/Relationships:
Personal History:
Born to the aristocracy in Gascony, Batz began his career in the French Army at the age of 14, rising to the rank of colonel by 1787. He was a serious student of history and economics who later wrote several pamphlets which were critical of the royal financial system. He saw in the extravagance of the French court great waste that could otherwise be put to use in bolstering the French economy.
Batz was perceived to be a turncoat royalist by the revolutionaries opposing the monarchy, particularly in his criticism of those handling the royal coffers when he became a deputy for the nobility in the states-general, France's legislature under the autocratic rule of King Louis XVI. It was in this assembly that the French Revolution of 1789 really began.
Elected to financial posts in the national assembly, the new legislative body created by the revolutionaries, Batz was disturbed to see that economic reform was to be overshadowed by the overthrow of the monarchy. He was, nevertheless, utterly committed to preserving Louis XVI's rule. He met secretly with the King, urging Louis to side with the nobles against the commoners. To that end, Batz became Louis' secret agent, traveling abroad to clandestine meetings with French nobles who had seen the signs of revolution and had already fled France.
Realizing that the nobility was not going to raise an army to oust the bloodthirsty revolutionaries, Batz left France and remained in exile for about a year. He decided to return to Paris where he became the leading counterrevolutionary, secretly mustering forces with which to restore the monarchy. In 1792, when the monarchy was overthrown and thousands of nobles were thrown into dungeons to await the guillotine, Batz schemed to save dozens of these forlorn prisoners.
Batz engineered many daring escapes, smuggling or bribing prisoners to freedom and escorting them in disguise to the coast where they took ship for England. In several instances, Batz and his confederates had to flight their way through barriers of revolutionaries to save these people.
When King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were deposed and thrown into prison, Batz formed a secret cabal in Paris dedicated to freeing the monarchs. When he learned that the King was to be beheaded on January 21, 1793, Batz and his men decided that they would free the King in open combat while the monarch was being taken to the guillotine.
The plan was for Batz and his men to rush the King's carriage en route to the place of execution. By the time Batz arrived at the rendezvous, he discovered that most of his followers had lost their nerve and had fled. Desperate, Batz and a few loyal followers begged passersby to join them in saving the King but, after getting no response, abandoned the rescue attempt altogether. Batz, weeping, watched as the monarch's carriage rattled past him, escorted by a strong force of revolutionaries. Louis was executed on schedule.
Batz then turned his attentions to saving Queen Marie Antoinette and joined a plot, headed by Alexander de Rougeville, which also failed. Marie Antoinette went to the guillotine on October 16, 1793. Batz watched in horror as the monarch bravely ascended to the platform and apologized to the executioner for accidentally stepping on his foot before nervously placing her head beneath the waiting blade.
For two years Batz continued to intrigue against the revolutionaries. He and a cosmopolitan clique of financiers were doing their best, by dubious operations, to discredit the Republic and to raise funds for the royalists. Most of his machinations involved the ruination of France's monetary system of paper money. A number of deputies in the Convention were implicated with them in a scheme to make money on the shares of the French India Company. Batz enticed several leading revolutionaries into his fraudulent financial schemes before causing the financial deals to collapse and ruin those involved.
After Batz's schemes were discovered late in 1793, the Convention offered a reward for him dead or alive and executed 55 of his associates (June 1794). In 1795, Batz was one of the leaders of the violent insurrection in Paris, which was crushed by France's new, rising strongman, General Napoleon Bonaparte who was to become emperor
within a decade.
Suspected as being one of the insurrection's leaders, Batz was arrested and imprisoned. He underwent exhausting interrogations but he confessed to nothing and was eventually released. Batz continued to work for the restoration of the monarchy and his efforts were rewarded in 1814 when King Louis XVIII assumed the French throne after Bonaparte's exile to Elba. When the indefatigable dictator escaped from Elba and Louis fled Paris, Batz was imprisoned.
Batz was one of those who secretly worked to undermine Bonaparte. Following Bonaparte's final devastating defeat at Waterloo in 1815 and his permanent exile to the barren island of St. Helena, Louis XVIII resumed the throne and Batz was released from prison and honored by the King. The great intriguer retired to his country estate in Gascony where he wrote his vivid memoirs of high adventure and dramatic history. He died at Chadieu on January 10, 1822.
Character's connection to the Revolution:
Trying to undermine it.
The League:
If they suit his plans...
The Pivotal Questions:
What is your favorite word?
What is your least favorite word?
What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
What turns you off?
What is your favorite curse word?
What sound or noise do you love?
What sound or noise do you hate?
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
What profession would you not like to do?
If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?