Armand’s First Letter. Amelia’s First Letter.
10 April 1019
Former’s Guild House, Mont-Havre
Dear Amelia,
Treason is afoot here in Mont-Havre, in the person of M. Sabot; Lord Winthrop, His Cumbrian Majesty’s governor-general, has been no help whatsoever; and Le Grand Parlement has no interest in policing its own members with regard its agreements with His Cumbrian Majesty.
The only word I have gotten from Lord Winthrop is, “I don’t talk to provincials.” I am unsure just what he is doing, hidden away in the Governor-General’s Residence, but it is surely nothing to the point.
I have written to Lord Doncaster in Yorke, with the hope that he may bring these matters to the attention of His Majesty. With luck and the speed of the Amelie I have hopes that His Majesty will have received word by now.
In the meantime I have consulted with M. Suprenant, and with M. Cormier, the head of the Merchant’s Guild, and we have begun to take steps to revive the Guild Council.
Three years ago I took part in an amusing little political dance here in Mont-Havre. According to the Articles of Foundation, which were signed at the time of the First Landing, Mont-Havre was instituted as a city corporation headed by a council of all the guild masters: the Mont-Havre Guild Council. All but three of the guilds failed in the chaos and ill-management that followed, and the Guild Council was a dead letter by the time Jacques Durand arrived at the Second Landing and saved the colony. It was replaced by the institutions Durand created to ensure the colony’s survival, and had been entirely forgotten by the time I arrived here.
But if the council was a dead letter, still it was a letter, for the Articles of Foundation were never abrogated; and this came to light when it came time to formally recognize His Cumbrian Majesty as sovereign of Armorica. And so, three years ago, the heads of the three surviving guilds, plus myself as the head of the reborn Former’s Guild, met in a not particularly solemn conclave to dissolve the city corporation of Mont-Havre in favor of the current municipal government and Le Grand Parlement.
This has proven to have been a mistake; for the municipality of Mont-Havre is subject to Le Grand Parlement as it was subject to its informal predecessor; and this has left Mont-Havre without its own voice.
And so today M. Cormier and I met with the two other guild masters: M. Joyal of the Weaver’s Guild and M. Ouellet of the Carpenters and Cabinet-Maker’s Guild. It was a rather more solemn conclave than our past meeting, once M. Cormier and I had made the scope of M. Sabot’s actions clear to the other two. We all agreed on a number of points:
Point the first, that Armorica neither wants nor needs its own nobility. M. Ouellet was particularly articulate on this subject, most colorfully and pungently so, he having come to Mont-Havre from Provençe with Madame Truc; but I fear I must decline to record his words.
Point the second, that civic unrest is bad for business, and should be avoided.
Point the third, that the willingness on the part of some deputés to hear M. Sabot’s treasonous words, and the unwillingness of Le Grand Parlement as a whole to rein them in, are an imminent source of such unrest.
Point the fourth, that we should revive the Guild Council and make it a voice in the politics of Mont-Havre and of the colony, so as to hold the deputés of Le Grand Parlement accountable for their foolishness.
Point the fifth, that we should encourage the re-establishment of the failed guilds, and the creation of additional guilds as appropriate; a Printer’s Guild was particularly mentioned. (By me, I confess.)
Point the sixth, that Lord Winthrop, the man who should be our liaison with His Cumbrian Majesty and who should be the most concerned at treachery against the Cumbrian crown, is neither; and that the Guild Council should therefore lodge a protest with him and with His Cumbrian Majesty.
Then, of course we had to discuss how to convey our protest to His Majesty. I said that the Amelie should be returning to Armorica in perhaps three weeks, possibly bearing pertinent news from Yorke; and so we agreed on several further points:
Point the seventh, that we would wait for the Amelie’s return before taking any overt actions toward Cumbria, Lord Winthrop, or Le Grand Parlement.
Point the eighth, that we should in the meantime establish our existence as the Armorican Council of Guilds, with Grandmaster Cormier as our president, and begin to work towards re-establishing the other guilds.
And, alas, point the ninth: that should it seem advisable on Amelie‘s return, I myself will take our protest to Yorke.
I feel exceedingly odd taking steps like these; I have never had any to become a person of importance. In a way, I fled here from Yorke in order to avoid becoming a person of importance. And yet here we are.
Your grandiose and possibly hubristic cousin,
Armand
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Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash
Zymurgia House 