Descent into Madness, a hetalia - axis powers fanfic

Descent into Madness

Summary: The French Revolution.

Characters: France. Mentions of Louis XVI, Napoleon, other various historical figures, England, America, Canada, Austria, Prussia.

Notes: The story is fairly chronological. Fairly. Pay attention to the dates. "Place de la Concorde" was named "Place de la Révolution" during the French Revolution. Notes on headcanons below.

Paris

November 1799

He was walking the streets of Paris. Granted, it was quite tiring, but at least he could stand again. The cool air of autumn brushed a faint kiss to his skin, gently rustling the vermillion leaves at his feet. They flew along the cobbled streets of the city—his city—and into the sky, splashing color against the clouds that hung low over the earth. He padded along quietly, as quietly as he could with his boots crushing the dry leaves over the pavement, so that he could better render tangible the silence of the streets. It was morning, and the city was quiet. There were others on the streets, yes, but no one said a word, perhaps knowing that the nation wished for peace.

And oh, how he wished for peace.

France could see the Tuileries Palace from where he was walking. It held a magnetic pull, telling him that that was the place he was supposed to be going, where he would find the man who ruled him. That was good he supposed, since his legs were getting weaker and would give out at any second. But being the person he was, he stretched his time still, ambling a leisure pace. So what if he collapsed? It didn't matter. He was alive, he was finally alive after oscillating between death and life for so long and he was going to walk for as long as he wanted and enjoy the morning, damn the world.

He reached the entrance of the palace, nodded at the guards, and fainted.

Versailles

February 1787

France awoke to knocking at his door. He lugged his head up from its place on his mahogany desk, his mind still in delirious ecstasy from the light fever that had been plaguing him for the past few years. He blinked in confusion, still not quite there, and watched the snow fall outside his window.

Snow, he thought, Matthieu always liked the snow.

The knocking resumed with an air of impatience about it.

France blinked again, and this time it chased the fog away from his head and he called out, "Come in."

His king entered.

Louis XVI was unfit to rule, France had long decided. He was not a bad man, no, and perhaps he wasn't even a bad ruler; but in trying times, one had to be a perfect leader for someone to look up at you and say, "Pas mal, monsieur."

Young Louis was too weak, too inexperienced in the ways of power to be effective, especially during this time of crisis. His country was spiraling into debt and more debt, and the king could not push the parlements with their aristocratic membership hard enough to give in into much needed tax reforms.

And lo! his children were starving right on the streets of Paris.

He could hear them; they cried out in the midst of feverish dreams. He reached to them through the darkness, blindly stumbling about trying to find his own citizens who were weeping, weeping out for him, their country, they were weeping for him to help them and what could he do?

The darkness enveloped their cries and he could hear them no more.

Nothing. That was what he could do.

Why? Because here he was, languishing in Versailles, beautiful Versailles with her French gardens and gilded walkways, over a fever.

His children were starving.

The king spoke, "Calonne has summoned the Assembly of Notables to help him push his new tax code through the parlements."

France heard this and chuckled bitterly. The Assembly of Notables supporting Calonne's proposal of taxing the clergy and nobility? The Assembly of Notables were the clergy and nobility. What was Calonne thinking? He voiced out loud, "That won't work."

The king dipped his head in concordance. "Perhaps. But we should still try."

France sighed. "Of course. Is that all?"

"Yes…" the king paused and France waited. Louis continued, "How have you been feeling, my country?"

France replied tersely, "Fine." He turned back to the papers on his desk, the inked words swimming all over his vision.

He heard the door shut behind him. Louis had left.

France stared outside the window to watch the snow again. The snowflakes fluttered gently to the ground, winter's little kisses laughing jovially. Of course, the more he listened the more it seemed like they were snickering maliciously, and the more he watched them dance the more it seemed like they were whipping themselves into a frenzy, bringing not winter's kisses but winter's wrath.

There were people freezing out there. He knew.

But, oh, oh, did Matthieu ever love the snow.

He was bankrupt. All for what? To watch his cousin weep over the pain of losing a son, a pain he knew all too well, that's what. And then to lose his son all over again; he was sure that Arthur would forbid him to see Matthieu's face for a hundred years more.

Why had he joined his nephew's fight? Revenge, wasn't it? But that thirst was Francis's thirst. Why had France joined as well?

There was an unspoken theory that the connection between country and people go both ways. If the personification felt strongly enough about something, then the emotion could leak into the minds of their people. The theory was only discussed in hushed tones, as it was never good to have a personification even think that they had some semblance of free will.

Who dared suggest that they had souls?

He did. Francis did. England refused to believe that, and perhaps that had been Arthur and Alfred's downfall. But France allowed Francis to have a voice, and… and…

Francis led France to bankruptcy. Francis had been selfish in thinking of his child and not France's millions of children. Perhaps England was right, not in that there wasn't a Francis or an Arthur, but right in suppressing the voices of that Francis and that Arthur.

England had let Arthur weep one night for Alfred, and then he had silenced the man when he saw America struggling, trying to keep his head up in the ocean that was the real world. Maybe Alfred was still Arthur's son. Of course Alfred was still Arthur's son. But America was not England's, no, not anymore, and that was most important. England had his other children to look out for, other colonies and of course his own people; why put that aside just to help someone whom only Arthur considered important?

Duty over self. That was their mantra.

Francis had heard that and rejected it. And now where was he?

France's children were starving.

Francis let his gaze sweep over the frozen landscape once more.

Yes, Matthieu adored the snow.

Versailles

May 1789

The Assembly of Notables had predictably failed to endorse Calonne's plan and later got him exiled, and France was still walking about in febrile delirium. He was getting weaker, he knew, and he knew that the king and all his ministers knew. But the rest of the upper class, they were blind and deaf, weren't they? Their countrymen were wasting away on the public streets, and they couldn't see; their countrymen cried out for help, and they couldn't hear.

The king had called for the Estates-General in January in a final effort to save his country. The monarchy had been weakened, and now it was calling upon the people. The people, oh, his people, they were mad, weren't they?

France wondered how long it would take for everything to dissolve into anarchy.

The Estates had finally met up for the first time in over a hundred years in this fine month of May. He had smiled when he heard the news that the Estates were stuck on the first item on the agenda: would they vote by estate or would they vote by person?

The Estates-General were made up of three estates; the first represented the clergy, the second nobility, and the third everyone else. The third estate had 578 people representing it, and though this was only seven less than the other two combined, it was still a gross misrepresentation of the 95% of the population behind it.

And to think to give each estate only one vote. France's lips twitched; yes, Louis was young, and the upper class was blind. He broke out into a smile and soon burst out laughing maniacally, stopping his walking the streets of Versailles to latch onto a nearby lamppost lest he fall giggling onto the dirty streets. Those around him quickened their pace to get away faster; surely that man was possessed? But France didn't mind. He needed to laugh, yes, yes, he did.

Soon he had no air left to laugh and instead wept silently, still clinging to the lamppost like it was his lifeline.

Perhaps it was. He struggled to gasp in air, instead feeling the crushing weight of all the—what was that dreaded word?—taxes, yes, taxes, upon his people. Taxes, taxes; wasn't it strange that all revolutions seemed to be revolved around taxes? England was first, then his son followed in his footsteps, and now France was having his own; and he felt that this would be much more terrible than his cousin's and his nephew's. He could feel it now; yes, this would be madness.

He clung still to the lamppost till the sun brushed the horizon.

France finally headed back to the palace as the world was awashed in dying red light.

Versailles

June 1789

The National Assembly.

Those words were beautiful, horrifying, and exhilarating all at the exact same time.

Change. Change was coming for the people of France.

The National Assembly; they called themselves an assembly not of the estates, but of the people. They were grown out of the Third Estate and deemed themselves the conductors of the nation's affairs—his affairs.

They invited the other two estates to join them, but made it clear that it was them who would make the decisions, and that they would carry on with or without the others' support.

Change. Yes, it was coming.

The king did not like this assembly; no, he didn't, not at first, anyhow. He tried to prevent them from meeting in the Salle des États, but they found another way as humans are wont to do, meeting in a nearby tennis court.

They promised him a constitution.

Soon, many from the other estates joined them, and the royal family was pressured into supporting them. Paris lent her voice, as did many of the other cities of France, calling out their support for this National Assembly.

Change. He could feel it.

The military presence around Paris and Versailles was growing. France dimly noted the fact.

The people of France were singing. The melody was wonderful, but he couldn't help but think that the harmony was a bit off-key.

Just a bit.

Paris

July 14, 1789

Their kind was inexplicably drawn to history's most prominent turning points, no matter if it was forseen or unforseen. It was as if heaven itself had given them premonitions, but without fail, they were there.

And so Francis found himself caught in a crowd around the Bastille that fateful day. He had not been present for the scene at the Hôtel des Invalides earlier in the day, but knew of it, already a collective memory of his people.

The mob was getting riled up, as more and more people stood up and shouted at the injustices of the world. Louis had dismissed and banished Necker as the financial minister at the insistence of his conservative nobles. Of course, this didn't sit well with the people, not at all. An apex was reached as Desmoulins jumped atop a table, waving a pistol around, all the while yelling words that Francis could not hear, save the single word "massacre." But it must've agreed with the crowd, because the tens of thousands of people roared in concordance.

The mob became violent and stormed the Bastille.

The fighting lasted four long hours.

The Bastille held 13600 kilograms of gunpowder. The Hôtel des Invalides had already given them thousands of muskets. They were arming themselves, and France had wanted to cry out why, why?

Desmoulins garbled words suddenly became crystal clear in his mind.

A massacre was coming.

And the people would be the ones with their hands stained red, not their foes.

Madness.

"Is it a revolt?"

"No, sire, it is not a revolt; it is a revolution."

October 1789

Madness. It was getting closer.

"La Grande Peur," they called it. "The Great Fear."

It was now over, with the National Constituent Assembly having abolished feudalism on the fourth of August, but ghostly pangs of the remnants of a migraine still plagued France, signaling that nothing was over. The nobility was fleeing, paranoia was springing up everywhere, as was civil unrest. Each night, France could hear fearful whispers muttering wild rumors in his head, keeping him awake for hours on end. In the day, they receded to the back of his head, quiet, but still there.

It was only when he had been handed the Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen back in August that the voices had been silent. They started up again soon after.

His world was going topsy-turvy. The aristocracy and old societies were crumbling, and the new society that was to spring forth was coming along slowly, too slowly; if order was not restored soon, then anarchy would surely follow.

France watched with glazed eyes as Versailles was stormed and the National Assembly relocate both his royal family and himself to Paris.

Louis was getting nervous, he knew. Louis had every right to be nervous. He could feel it. Madness and anarchy were on his doorstep.

He smiled.

June 1791

The king had tried to flee the country. He was caught in Varennes and sent back to Paris.

France laughed when he heard the news. So Louis could feel it too? La folie? The madness?

It was coming, soon.

Soon.

Paris

1794

Madness. It was finally here.

Complete and utter madness.

France wanted to laugh, but he had no energy left to do so, having lived in it for the past two years, though it seemed more like the last two decades.

Law and order had finally crumbled.

No, that was wrong; law and order had finally revealed itself in its most raw form.

The guillotine. She was beautiful, a simple machine of wood and metal and ropes; and yet, she was so much more. She was the naked form of justice standing bare and simple in all her glory. She was blind to whomever felt her blade. She executed without hesitation, letting her blade fall at the exact same speed no matter who it was that was to be beheaded. France had seen her cruelly end the life of Louis and Marie, then Desmoulins, and then in a stroke of irony, the man who was the father of this reign of terror, Robespierre.

Since he could not laugh, France simply smiled through his delirium.

He was fractured. He could tell that much. The Vendée region had been waging a counter-revolution for about a year now, and it was tearing at him. He had also been at war with Austria and Prussia and England and… and… wasn't all of Europe fighting him? He couldn't tell; the voices in his head were too loud and drowned out any outside noise.

He couldn't focus on anything but the guillotine.

Yes, she was beautiful.

He was staring up at her; she was only a few feet away.

He was standing on the scaffold in the Place de la Révolution.

Why?

Oh, the revolutionaries didn't like him. He was a symbol of the Ancien Régime, the old monarchy. He supposed he agreed with them. The voices in his head screamed.

The crowd was cheering, but the voices screamed louder.

He supposed the crowd didn't know who he was, just another high-ranking official. Or perhaps they did know that he was a monster, everything the new republic despised.

He couldn't hear them anyway.

The voices in his were too loud.

The colors and lights of the world seemed to rush by him as he was pushed across the scaffold towards the machine (not just a machine, he reminded himself. A goddess, she was; Themis and Iustitia).

As he regarded the guillotine so close in awe, a whisper spoke above the rest of the voices, and France was jammed between his mind and reality. It was—it was familiar, that whisper. It was Francis, his own voice. What did he want? He didn't want to die. His voice of reason told himself that his country was too unstable, and if he died, France might not come back as Francis. Old France might be gone forever.

The whisper faded, and the voices took over once more. France blinked, the screaming crowd popping up again into his line of vision, then forced away as he bent under his mistress.

His shoulders trembled just the slightest bit, and then they shook; had he not already been down he would've doubled over from the force of his own laughter. He laughed and laughed and laughed, not knowing where the energy to do so had come from. Oh, wasn't he so tired? Why did he fear death? Was it not good to be welcomed into her peaceful embrace?

He should die, he thought. It would be good, the voices screamed.

He only barely noticed the whooshing sound the knife made before it hit his neck.

Between here and there

Between now and then

Death was dark.

Not the foreboding kind of darkness that whispered of creatures just beyond the shadows, but the calming kind, the kind that reassured you that it would protect you in a swathe of shady cloth, hidden from the eyes of all else.

Francis was familiar with it. He had died many times before, and had always slept blissfully until he was called back again. But now, he did not slumber. There was a pull, calling him somewhere else, somewhere deeper into the shadows where a sliver of light shone through, and he knew that if he followed that light he would never be called upon again. He struggled in his sleep, darkness clamping down with a stranglehold instead of the tender clasp like all the times before.

Francis, why do you struggle? only one voice murmured, the rest having disappeared once his head had been severed from his body, Francis, your job is done. Let someone else take over for this new republic. It is not the Royaume de France, not the Kingdom of France, not the old monarchy, not you. Let me take you now.

The voice was silky sweet, the darkness still serene and peaceful, but it wanted him to stay forever now, and Francis wanted to go back, back to his people (back to Matthieu, and Arthur, and Alfred), because yes, yes they were still his people (still his family), of course they were still his people (what had he done in the past few decades?)!

Let me back! he screamed noiselessly, clawing against death's unrelenting embrace.

Why? that voice, a feminine one, whispered coyly. Why should I, you old nation?

For the atonement of Francis's faults, he thought bitterly. Even in death, it was still about Francis. It was not right for him to distinguish Francis from France, he knew, because they were the same being, one soul and not two. And yet, and yet he still believed, that they were somehow separate in their oneness.

He was so selfish.

Death laughed in delight, loosening her hold by the smallest fraction of a bit. The most of the madness has passed, but the world has suffered from it. Do you really wish to go back?

Yes, he whispered, and the darkness passed.

Paris

November 1799

He awoke walking in Paris, and the world crashed down upon him. He had been gone for five years. Half a decade.

It was a fine autumn morning, he vaguely perceived, the air careening golden, scarlet, copper leaves all around the city.

Half a decade.

He had fought a war, ended it, and was fighting another one. He remembered, like a ghostly recollection, memories drained in sepia and gray mashed against each other, memories of battlefields across the continent and elsewhere, in Spain and in Italy, the Rhineland and Austria, across seas in England and Egypt. A name popped into his mind—Napoleon Bonaparte, who drove the Hapsburgs from the Italian Peninsula.

Napoleon. He had just overthrown the Directory. He was France's leader.

The voices were quiet. They were still there, yes, France could hear them whispering, but they were quiet.

Vendée's revolt had been quelled. It had been a bloody massacre, but it was over.

The Reign of Terror had ended as well.

The voices were quiet.

He was still at war with Europe.

France sighed. He should stop thinking and just keep moving his feet.

And oh, how he wished for peace.

Just keep walking, he reminded himself.

He reached the entrance of the palace, nodded at the guards, and fainted.

France awoke to the sound of knocking in a fancy armchair in an ornate room, all gilded in gold and painted from ceiling to floor. It was a palace room, so he was in the Tuileries, then. He was seated next to a window overlooking the city, the Seine visible and clear. He gazed at the waters, his lifeblood, flowing at a steady rate through his heart.

The knocking became louder and more impatient.

France snapped out of his trance from watching his river and called, "Come in."

He almost expected Louis to walk through the door.

The man was of dark hair and average height, dressed in a formal uniform. He had a stout stature, but the air of importance that he carried himself with made him a much more imposing figure. He seemed to loom in the doorway.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then the man said in a low voice, "You are a strange man who fainted in front of my palace."

France tilted his head. "Then why did you bring me in?"

The man paused, then answered plainly, "Because you are more than a man, aren't you?"

France turned his view back to the city. "I am France."

The man nodded, then crossed the room and the two of them regarded the city outside together. They stayed silent like that for a few minutes until the man spoke.

"I am Napoleon Bonaparte."

His eyes were no longer on Paris but on the nation next to him. France kept his eyes trained on the city, waiting for the next words.

"I will make you great."

A/N: If you made it through all of that, I congratulate you. I tried not to info-dump this piece, but I'm still not sure if I succeeded.

Other notes: I don't actually headcanon the "France got his head cut off during the revolution" thing, since according to other headcanons, Francis probably wouldn't make it through that, and the First Republic would be incarnated into someone else. On the whole family dynamics between the countries, I could probably write a thesis paper on all of that, so all you need to know is that it's complicated.