Hello, everybody! Well, this is my first Hetalia story, so please don't kill me! It's interesting; my first Hetalia fanfic centers around France, who isn't even my favorite character... "Pour les Gens" means "for the people" in French. I got inspired to write it a few weeks ago when learning about the French Revolution in AP World History, so here it is! I'm such a nerd. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: In no way do I own Hetalia. That makes me very sad, but it's true.
Versailles, France. 14 July, 1789.
France was awoken rather abruptly by a frenzied messenger. Instantaneously, the aches and pains that only ameliorated when he slept flooded back to his body, especially his heart. He groaned, both in annoyance and in pain.
"Monsieur Bonnefoy! There is a problem! A riot in Paris! The Hôtel des Invalides... The peasants raided it for guns and ammunition!"
Well, that would explain the heart pain. France slowly slipped out of bed, sighing.
"Very well. Thank you for telling me."
He was being somewhat sarcastic, although he cursed himself for taking a page out of Britain's book. It couldn't have waited until he woke up? It was still dark out!
The messenger nodded.
"The King wishes to see you, Monsieur."
With that, the messenger left. France dressed a little more quickly than usual. As soon as he had finished with his daily toilette, he hurried down to the throne room, where the King and Queen were waiting for him. No one else was in the room. How unusual. The throne room was usually swarming with nobles and clergy.
"Monsieur Bonnefoy! It's horrible!" the Queen cried once she noticed France's presence. "The people are rioting! Or... something like that, I think."
"They stormed the Hôtel des Invalides and almost wiped it clean of all the ammunition and weapons there," the King added.
"Yes, your messenger told me," France said tiredly. He could be sleeping right now; he didn't need his bosses telling him the exact same thing he had already heard.
"Well, what are they rioting about? There have been a lot of these lately. What should we do?"
"A couple of the last riots were over bread," France explained, being cut off by the Queen mere seconds later.
"Over bread? Let them eat cake, then! They must not like bread!"
France made a mental note to send Austria a strongly-worded letter telling him to educate his princesses better, or at least to send a smarter one next time. This was just pathetic.
"Well, what is this one about?" pressed the King. "You embody France and therefore everyone in it! Don't you know what the problem is?"
Truth be told, France didn't. He hadn't left the palace in almost a hundred years for purposes other than going to war. Now that the Seven Years' War was long over, it had been a while since he had left the safe and opulent confines of the palace. News reached him the same time it reached the others at the palace. Even still, he made another mental note to educate his own dauphins better. He shook his head.
"No. I don't just know these kind of things without hearing about them first. All I know is that there were a few riots about bread not too long ago."
The King pursed his lips.
"I need you to find out, then. If we're going to solve this, we need to figure out what the problem is."
Well, at least the King got that part wrong. Maybe he wasn't entirely incompetent... France still doubted it, though. He nodded.
"Very well, Votre Majesté. But... I don't believe the people in the city will take to me very well. I am dressed as a noble. You know that they hate us. We do not pay taxes; they do. They think that is unfair. I will never be able to find out what this particular problem is if I am treated with contempt."
Unfortunately the common people don't appreciate someone as beautiful as me these days, he thought, sighing inwardly.
The King frowned.
"Don't you have any peasant clothes?"
The Queen, however, looked disgusted.
"Why would Monsieur Bonnefoy have peasant clothes? They are hideous! Not to mention they haven't been in style, since, well never!" she cried.
"I… I do have one peasant outfit," France admitted.
The Queen almost fainted.
"But I haven't worn it since before your great-grandfather's reign, Votre Majesté," he added. That made the Queen feel a little better.
The King nodded.
"Put it on. It will have to do."
France bowed respectfully to his bosses and immediately changed. His peasants' clothes were dusty and now smelled very musty. There were a couple of holes from where moths had eaten at them. He supposed he would fit in just fine. Carefully making cure no one saw him—he wanted to save himself from such high embarrassment—he slipped out of the palace gates and began his walk to Paris. It was miles away, but taking a carriage would blow his cover in a second, and anyway, the hike would make him more peasant-like. And by peasant-like, he meant smelly and dirty. France hated every second of it. It was about an hour after noon when he finally arrived, after a long, miserable, four-hour trek. It probably should have taken a little longer, but he had "borrowed" a horse from some gypsies for a couple of miles. He was still tired and hungry, having not eaten since the night before, when he arrived in Paris, either way. He didn't complain, though. Every other real peasant here was also tired and probably hungrier than him. He had to play the part, no matter how awful the part was. France followed the sounds of shouting. Otherwise the streets were rather deserted and quiet. It was unusual. With a shock, he realized that the shouts were coming from the Bastille. The Bastille. The symbol of France's absolutism. As he approached the crowd, he began to decipher their shouts. They wanted more rights to the Third Estate. They wanted the First and Second Estates to be taxed, too. They wanted the famine and the poverty and the unemployment to stop. A few men were passing out muskets and ammunition, no doubt the very ones stolen from the Hôtel des Invalides earlier that morning. One of them looked France's way and smiled at him, waving.
"Bonjour, Monsieur! Are you here to join the protest?"
France blinked, stopping in his tracks. The last thing he should be doing right now was joining a rebellion. He could hear Britain laughing at him already, although the other man was still in a bit of a depression ever since his American colonies had rebelled an won independence. No doubt something like this would help him come out of it, though…
"Hahaha! Serves you right for helping to fund America's rebellion, Frog! A man reaps what he sows!" Britain would say. Jerk.
"Well, I…" France stuttered. He couldn't very well say no, either.
The man smiled and walked towards him, bringing a musket and a canister of gunpowder with it.
"Come on, Monsieur. You looked tired and weary from working so many hours to little fruition. Don't you want it to stop? Those fancy rulers and their stupid fancy pants have ruined us! Don't you agree?"
France was a little offended. He quite liked his fancy pants. In fact, he missed them right now. But the man's words struck him. His people were suffering. They were sick, poor, out of work. Fancy court life wasn't going to help the people, and, by extension, France himself. The pains could stop! If his people were no longer hurting, he would no longer be in pain! He would no longer have to fake a smile no matter how much his heart was threatening to put an end to him! Frowning, France silently took the musket and the gunpowder from the man, who grinned.
"Oui…" France murmured.
The man clapped France on the back.
"You're a good man, Monsieur-"
He paused, silently requesting France's name.
"Bonnefoy. My name is Francis Bonnefoy."
"Monsieur Bonnefoy. This is the beginning of a new age for France! I'm glad you chose to be a part of it."
The crowd in front of the prison began to get louder. Then they started charging, waving their muskets frantically. France began to run along with them. Someone passed by him, waving a blue, white, and red tricolor flag on a post. France smiled. He liked that flag.
"Pour les gens!" he shouted.
Everyone around him cheered in agreement and repeated his words over and over, chanting it as they stormed the towering, menacing Bastille.
A new age for France indeed.
A little short, I know. And yes, I know Marie Antoinette didn't really say "let them eat cake;" the line about not liking bread was taken from a joke with my friend. I did try to make this as historically accurate as possible, but I guarantee that there are probably a bunch of errors still in there anyway. The bit about "fancy pants" is accurate, though; the peasants were known as the "sans-culotte" which literally means "without pants," (I think- I take Spanish, not French) although it refers to the fact that the lower classes had longer, less fancy pants, because they were more suitable to peasant work rather sitting around as the nobles did. I also decided to use "Britain" instead of "England" since this by time, that country was known as the British Empire and consisted of more than just England.
Anyways, I hope you liked this! Please review!