This name refers to different figures in 2 worlds; the versions are not merged.
France is a kingdom recorded in two worlds: in Antiterra, a heavily forested transit kingdom bound to England by an early dynastic union; in Terra, the realm of January 1648, exhausted by thirty years of war and rising taxes.
Antiterra
Geography
France borders Switzerland and faces the Germanic lands. East of the Swiss border lies “this half-poor zone of France”; the forest is so dense that a traveler may not know whether he is inside the kingdom. Distances are measured from Paris; Poland is “nine hundred miles, fifteen hundred kilometers” away. The Orient Express and an armored train to Russia cross it. On the coast lies Villarritos (Biarritz), a seasonal resort. The exiled king of Serbia met his consort there. The Order of the Temple says France “is where we have our bases”.
Government and crown
Government and king act separately. The government accredits foreign agents, keeps a consulate in Belgrade (its vice-consul, “bandi”, is dead) and helped sign a peace treaty. The king, heir of Anjou, marched on Naples allied with “the deposed Moor”; their army devastated part of Italy and withdrew without battle. A king aged eight is also recorded. There is an internal faction, “the collaborationist French”, of “the time of the diamonds”. Medawin states: “we have no alliance with the French nor with the Dutch.”
Foreign relations
- England holds France under “a kind of soft but tenacious yoke”; “in this world England and France have a stronger connection”.
- The Germanic lands: “very bad relations”.
- California: the French “also have an interest in this region”.
Other records
- A property near the Pantheon in Paris is disputed between the French and German governments.
- A weapon’s range is measured from Paris across “all of France”; an unidentified artifact can “set fire to all France”.
- Horatiol carries the “scepter that turns into weapons”, scepter of the king of Interior France, said to be “a scepter of the Loyalty Man”.
- A curse holds “the promise that all the kings of France would suffer a terrible death”.
- In the 19th century France lost its watchmaking standing because “Switzerland beat it horribly”.
- In 1987 a rumor runs that Disney will come to France.
Conflicting accounts
- France is under an English yoke; another record says “they brought down Lorgaul. They liberated France.” Whether these are successive moments or rival versions is unresolved.
Open questions
- What Interior France is: a region, a separate kingdom or a plane.
- Whether the eight-year-old king and the king who marched on Naples are one man.
- The scepter’s form; the curse’s origin; whether the burning of France happened or is only a capability.
- How facts from 1784, the 19th century and 1987 fit together.
- Whether a certain Francis is French (unconfirmed).
Terra
The kingdom in 1648
The record opens in early January 1648: “In France this happens from the beginning: the cold, the taxes.” It is “a terrible time after 30 years of war”. Condé’s victory over the Spanish tercios “marked the rising star of France”, but the treasury is empty. The crown has raised taxes “to pay for the war” and threatens more, displeasing Parliament and people alike. From 1648 people begin to rebel: the Fronde.
Who governs
“We have the kings on one side, who are powerful creatures, supposedly clothed in divine grace, but they are not always the ones who govern.” In 1648 power lies with the regent, the queen mother Anne of Austria, and Mazarin. Captain Comminges is their “right hand in military matters and in hidden, dark things”. Opposite stands the Parlement, where political conflicts and lawsuits are settled.
The state’s short arm
France has twenty-five or thirty intendants and some three thousand minor officers. Tax collectors are sent 500-odd to 600 kilometers from Paris, as far as Cobrá, into provinces just out of a war with Spain in the Pyrenees, where they are unwelcome.
The southwest
The chronicle covers the land toward Catalonia, Occitania, Toulouse, the Pyrenees and Carcassonne: valleys and a “half-mountainous zone”, remote, with hidden dangers — but “there are no lions in France”.
Other records
- A prince of France was baptized on 11 May; year and prince are not given.
Conflicting accounts
- Intendants: twenty-five by one account, thirty by another.
- Direction: “southeast of France”, “southwest”, and the correction “this lies in Catalonia, southwest”.
Open questions
- Which taxes, how much, and at what rate the collectors take them.
- What Comminges’s “hidden, dark things” are.