Clovis Montrechet
Sobriquet: L'Homme de Peu de Foi
Appearance: He is of medium height, and wears long, braided brown hair. He has blue eyes, and his skin is very pale. His voice is deep and grave. His face is long, and slender, and his mouth seems a little too large.
He wears, most of the time, jeans clothes, as well as leather boots and a long black leather coat. He wears black shades.
Behavior: He appears friendly to Neonates, but his humor can be deadly, if needed. He never shows any pity in any debate if his opponent contradicts himself. His voice is strong, and he always speak as if he was talking with enough passion to affect history. While alone, or with close friends, he remains humble, but easily get moved by the causes that affect him.
History: The past of L'Homme de Peu de Foi is shrouded by the violence of the Anarch Wars. He himself rarely speaks of it, and others think he built himself the legends speaking of him to hide less glorious past actions. The halls of Elysium echo with his whispered name, and the only thing that is sure about this Kindred is his age: He is the nightmare of the Elders because he is one of them...
Clovis was born in the year 1420, second child of a family of knights of eastern France. He was still a teen when the destiny of Clovis directed him to the priesthood. He was attracted by knowledge, and at this time, only a few monastery held the necessary knowledge that could make a man a sage. He was interested by his studies, curious and intelligence. Few languages resisted him. He became a talented latinist and hellenist, able to talk in these languages with the same easiness he talked his own language.
Liked by his better because of his unshakable faith, he was recommended for the Sorbonne. He went, then, to Paris to study with the greatest masters of the world. But he met, then, a charismatic person called François Villon. Clovis and François soon became friends, on the unisversity's benches as well as on the tavern's floor.
François Villon was immoral, forcible, boastful. Clovis was to the contrary circonspect. But with Villon's attention, something happened to Clovis. Her changed fast: François Villon liked to attack the conviction of others, and Clovis, little, good Clovis was a victim of choice. The two had particularly hot discussions about the existence of God, as well as about the religion. While Clovis clung to his dogmatic reasonning, Villon remained a diabolic heretic.
In the same time, Clovis discovered fragments of texts of Artistotle. The fragments had been victims of censorship. Villon knew exactly what was happening, believing rightly the wise elders of the University feared the aristotelician comments. Until then, Platon and the neo-Platonicians were considered a dogmatic truth. Aristotle attacked most thoughts of his master, and so attacked most things the church asked others to believe since its creation. Furthermore, most texts translated to latin were arab translation of the originals, as the first modern philosophers who could read them have been arabs... And so non-christians and pagans.
Despite numerous demands of the students, no one had access to these works. Villon and Clovis were among the first to revolt against the censorship. They were probably the first rebelling students of France's history.
The ecclesastic authority gave them reason, in the end. Villon had written a lot of deadly pamphlets about the affair, and Clovis worked a lot in discussion and debates with other students. But while Villon had been hidden by his identity, the authorities had easily discovered Clovis' action, who was invited to quit the University.
Destiny seemed to separate the two friends. While Villon's life led him elsewhere, Clovis ended just after him quiting the University. Another kind of rebel had discovered Clovis talents. A kind of supernatural rebel, member of the Clan Brujah.
This vampire was an Anarch, and they thought about raising their thirst for contestation and liberty to a superior degree. So, they searched for potential recruits whose natural abilities could help them in their fight against the Elders. In these years, the Anarch Movement reached its full war potential, as the Inquisition was growing in power, and as wagons of Neonates were sacrified to the Elder's lack of wisdom.
When Clovis was Embraced, he had given up his hopes to become a lawyer. Still, his natural talents, be they physical, social or mental, existed. Clovis saw in the Anarch Movement more than a simple rebellion. Soon, the last convictions that had resisted Villon's silver tongue were torn to shreds. So he entered the fight with a passion that would mark the memories of the french Kindred. Respecting no belief, attacking any without any pity, he recruited anyone he could convince. When, one night, he was agreably surprised to meet once more Villon. François Villon the Toreador.
Destiny had reunited them, and as in the past, the two were the rebels...
Clovis, because of his natural talent to debate, was soon called by all by the name given to him by Villon: L'Homme de Peu de Foi, the Man of Poor/Little Faith, in remembrance of years of discussions between the two. A nickname Clovis always refused, as he believed rightly Villon had a cynical and destabilizing sense of humor... At this time.
The Coterie of Villon, also called the Cour des Miracle, soon took a great importance. It was soon quoted as example. In the years 1480, the Coterie of Villon became highly active in France. These beings seemingly obeying no law nor God, brought discord and refusal of established order. Villon then revealed himself to be more intelligent and cunning than once believed to. He was behind, with his group, intrigue within intrigue, leading the Anarchs on the first line in the uprising of Paris around 1481.
While the implication of L'Homme de Peu de Foi and Villon in the following events (that is the destruction of Alexandre and Saviarre) was never given proof enough, their ties with a Camarilla Ancilla called Beatrix was aknowledged.
In truth, neither Villon nor Clovis trusted the new Prince, but the two knew about the probable and future signature of a treaty between the Anarchs and the old ones of the Camarilla. They needed, to avoid the worst, the support of Elders and Ancillae in position of power able to affect the legendary Ventrue intolerance...
As predicted, the Elders were winning the war, despite truely shaming defeats, and the signature of the Convention of Thorn was seen as a good peace treaty by some. Villon used this treaty to put some distance between him and his companions.
L'Homme de Peu de Foi didn't notice at first the subtle changes of his friend, as the Brujah was extremely wary of the Elders. He wasn't sure the Camarilla would upheld its part of the Treaty. He didn't believe the Elders would accept the terms of a vulgar paper. In the same time, he was seeing the emergence of some kind of collective conscience among the Anarchs. These refused the Convention of Thorn, and became known as the Sabbat. When Villon started ti have a public life and was named Chambellan of Paris, the two friends slowly detached from each other. L'Homme de Peu de Foi remained active until the end of the 16th century, trying to preserve the rights acquired through the Convention of Thorn. He continued to recruit Neonates, thus rejuvenating the flow of rebels within the Anarchs.
But two factors were against him. The first was the Sabbat. The Sect had taken importance, and it started to seem as if a frenzied war dog had been let free within children playing together. The older Anarchs either had helped create it or entered fully the Camarilla, as had Villon. The Sabbat was the prototype of a dangerous system. The Inquisition was still an active, if subtlier, force, and the ridiculous day to day ways of the Sabbat could well be the cause of the destruction of the Vampire as a specy. It was, by L'Homme de Peu de Foi's viewpoint, a neverending fight to stop the destruction of naive Neonates because of the egoism (egotism?) of a number (increasing number!) of megalominiac fools.
The second problem was the treason of Villon and of some of his friends, which lead to the desintegration of an Anarchy A la Française. Soon, everyone knew the Toreador had become a man trusted by the Prince. The Chambellan Villon played soon the same game played by the Prince Beatrix.
The French Camarilla was increasing his power, and the french Toreador who had been the greatest beneficiers of the revolution of the Anarch Movement, were now allying with the unfamous Ventrue in the masquerade of mutual pseudo-tolerance of 1598.
These two problems combined, the Sabbat and the deffection of the older Anarchs to the Camarilla, decreased the Prestige of the Anarch Movement. Ironically, it became cool to have been Anarch and having quited since. L'Homme de Peu de Foi started to remove himself from the cause, and the direct action. He had fighted old friends who had become since members of the Sabbat, and his unlife had been threatened more than once. His friends were now fighting each other.
Of course, the situation didn't please him. He was practically alone now. Most had chosen one or the other side.
L'Homme de Peu de Foi quited France in the first part of the 17th Century. As he was a highly qualified scholar, he continued to learn, finding a great interest in philosophy.
He found times were changing, and that the spirit of the Dark Ages where he had evolued until now was dissipating. His political action changed of nature. He became more tolerant to the established order, thinking sometimes that perhaps it was time for him to choose one side or another. But each time, his rebellious spirit overwhelmed him. A political event appeared, and he saw in it the marks of intrigue and egoism. He himself sometimes played the same games, but always with the aim of defending justice and honor. The ways he used disgusted him, and more than once, he recognized in his own actions the traces of treason and deception...
With time, L'Homme de Peu de Foi removed himself almost totally from the Anarch cause. He looked at it from afar, with envy over the youth and its enery, but baffled by the Camarilla and Sabbat politics.
But he came back in 1790. He had been surprised by the 1789 Revolution, as he was, at that time, in what would become the United States of America. There, he had wanted to see the goodness brought by the revolution of the colons against the Britanic Empire.
As soon as he learnt about the events in Paris, he went to the first boat going to France. The american revolution had given him great ideas, and he hoped the french Anarch Movement could make profit of this to bring radical changes in the Kindred society. Indeed he thought that the Kindred society mimicked a great deal of the Kine's. After all, in France, the absolutism have always been there...
The Assemblée Constituante had been created in Paris, and he wanted to be part of it.
The first Anarchs he met in Paris gave him a copy of the Rights of the Human Being. In 1791, L'Homme de Peu de Foi believed the Clan Brujah would soon take the power. But the french Camarilla didn't let it go so easily, and the blood will run like rivers in the parisian streets.
Despite this, L'Homme de Peu de Foi's implication will remain only ideologic until september 1792, when the republic will be institued. He will see in this the sign that if an egalitarian society can be built for the Kindred, it is now and here. He will then start to intrigue against his nominal Clan, to take a maximum of control and influence over events.
His influence will be felt for the first times when he will take over some elements of the Comité de Salut Public. If Robespierre and St Just remain out of control, Danton is somewhat easier to influence. He will, then influence him to counter the plans of Robespierre and his Brujah influences. He tried to calm down the virtues of St Just (in the case the young man would replace Robespierre, to limit the damage), but he never succeeded in any real fashion.
But Danton was guillotined, and the Kindred society was assieged from every part. So he concentrated his resources to study the Kindred politics. Robin Leeland and he shared some view points over the politic to free France from the influence of the Sabbat (and if they were right, the Followers of Set too). They decided a radical solution had to be found to bring the situation under control. St Just was targeted when he was jailed, one night before his execution.
Brought into the world of the Kindred, St Just's passion for Virtue became a deadly weapon. The situation in Paris soon became clear when the Fossoyeur turned some sabbat and setite elements into ashes... And even, then, L'Homme de Peu de Foi started to believe St Just was doing too much: The control of the situation was escaping even to the Elder Anarch.
L'Homme de Peu de Foi tried to control (until the middle of the year 1795, where he found some Followers of Set took the control of a great part of the Directoire. Corruption replaced Virtue. The Brujah, as well as the Anarchs, were overwhelmed by the events. They accused each other for the bad way the things went, when a newcomer (or, more precisely, one who was thought disappeared since long...) made a proposition which could be the solution to the general corruption of the institutions.
The solution was Bonaparte Napoléon. L'Homme de Peu de Foi was greatly surprised to see, in 1798 the hand of François Villon behind the general from Corsica. The war against the Sabbat and the Independant Clans (Giovanni, and even Setites) will continue for several years. The Anarchs and the men of Villon will be wary of each others until 1803, when the republic will be considered free of non-french influence.
The Anarchs, theneasily influenced by the Brujah, then understood Villon wasn't so supportive of the Republic institution as they were. L'Homme de Peu de Foi was highly susprised to find an unsuspected ally in the person of Labienus. The two Kindred have in common their belief in the virtues of the republic, and neitheir wanted to see Villon to win so easily after working so hard.
They decided to form an alliance with aim to prevent Villon to establish Monarchy for long. The first action of this alliance will be the formation of a coalition against the eviction of Bonaparte. But in the end, this alliance proved to be very formal, as too much divided the two parties, even if Labienus was said to whisper he admired the Anarch and his talent of oration.
The following years will see the building of the Empire, and its fall. The Anarchs will be oppressed by Villon whose ascension seem unstoppable. L'Homme de Peu de Foi will work hard to keep up the republican and freedom-based ideals of the Philosophy.
The end of the war of Napoleon the 3rd against the prussians gave to the Brujah and to their Anarch allies occasions to revolt. But as the retaliation was swift, the movement was only followed in Paris. Contestation touch L'Homme de Peu de Foi, who see there a way to bring back Republic and Freedom. But as he believed to control a great deal of the Anarch Movement, he saw too late the situation was out of control, as the Individualists and Iconoclasts Brujah supported a brutal politic. L'Homme de Peu de Foi was horrified by the burning of Paris, and of the Tuileries, as he knows Villon's love for books. This was more than enough, and the retaliation was global, as the answer of the Camarilla was a massive Blood Hunt. He had, then, to keep a low profile... Which led him to remove himself from the Cause, and to stop to support the Anarchs and become one of the Idealists. It can be said L'Homme de Peu de Foi questionned his own believes and motives. He searched for decades the way to organize the Anarchs to make them as efficient as possible.
Recent Events:
Credit to the Author: https://augias.org/pbn/peudefoi.htm
