RuneScape Forum Archive | ¥ Lord Robert Callobridge ¥

Yrolg

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Ten minutes and fifty-eight stairs later, I reached the garden, and saw its innumerable shrubs -- each cut scrupulously into shapes and animals. As a sagacious et aged man of almost seventy-five years, I was unaccustomed to the arduous and draining work in which I was then partaking. I had made the great trek from Le Havre de Grâce to this southern resort only out of respect for the Madame Champeaux's husband, Louis-Pierre. Monsieur Champeaux had been a lifelong friend and colleague, and his passing allowed me to fulfill his dying request: that I should oversee his ceremonies. His nobilities and achievements were far too great and numerous to even begin contemplation: he had led the people of Cannes and Nice as a whole through the French revolution, protecting them from the chaos that succeeded in throwing my own family back into England; he had allowed for the peaceful annexation in 1860; he had, to that region, suffice to say, been the man who orchestrated politics for three quarters of a century. Indeed, in the fierce battles of politics, if there was to be a face consistently associated with it, there was Louis-Pierre; if there was to be a name as victor, it was Monsieur Champeaux. This magnanimous man from L'Morfique was respected on every account of his existence. But I held more than respect for the venerable man: I also held a deep and indescribable affection for this man who, throughout the course of his life, was able to make himself my brother. Everything in politics and media from Champeaux in the south was from Callobridge in the north; for fifty years we controlled France in this way, and we were both successful in doing it.

22-Aug-2010 21:36:12 - Last edited on 22-Aug-2010 22:24:45 by Yrolg

Yrolg

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During out partnership there was no Tribune, no Herald. The People of Paris, the leaders of the aristocracy and those wishing to be of the new government -- they did not yet control the press, for there was nothing to control. There was no Journal, no Times. There was nothing but cold, harsh fact: Les Faits. And twice a week, Louis-Pierre and I would publish it in the most infamously unknown paper in French history. He had watched for twenty years as the political machines of Paris ate the papers; their writers, granted a worse fate, were spared nothing in the Reign of Terror; and he could only imagine the fates of the owners, for the were never seen again. It was not until our chance encounter at Marseilles that someone was able to create a paper immune to the otherwise invincible People of Paris. We created a paper that would expect: a paper for the average person. The sagacious and cunning Monsieur Champeaux was able to deal with those unsavory few who did manage to find out of its existence through one of the most diabolical and ingenious corruptions in Europe. We were able to, with help from Jean Marlante in Paris, establish a protection for our paper and ourselves whilst still operating utterly autonomously.

22-Aug-2010 21:36:13 - Last edited on 22-Aug-2010 22:24:56 by Yrolg

Yrolg

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It should therefore be perfectly understandable and justified that my respect and affection for Monsieur Champeaux was such that I not only found it appropriate to ride in my brougham for the length of the country but to also put myself through such torture as attempting to console Madame Gusteau and forcing myself to climb such an unbearable set of steps. So after taking but a short rest in the fast-darkening garden, I approached the paved courtyard which led to the massive and regal doors. The rise to the platform at which three glass-paned sets of doors rested was only three steps higher than the courtyard, and I climbed these in a state of mind that claimed any recent notion of my exhaustion a lie. I was indeed terribly excited to at last enter the house and complete my duties, and, reaching the immediate entrance at last, I was relieved. But as is habit in my life, misfortune struck: right as I reached what could only be my desired destination, Fate, in her ultimate and inexorable pertinacity, ordained my admittance to the house utterly unreasonable. As I rested at the covered vestibule, no person came to remedy the atrocity which was Madame Gusteau; no body left the sanctuary of the house to usher me into its overdue and greatly welcomed keep. Instead, I was left awkwardly standing in the entrance of the largest estate in Southern France, cast in dark and dreary shadows as the final feeble rays of sunlight dissipated in the muggy air, and yet more enviably, I was left in the perplexing dilemma of greatly requiring admittance to the building but being afforded no means to acquire it.

22-Aug-2010 21:36:14 - Last edited on 22-Aug-2010 22:25:07 by Yrolg

Yrolg

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I pondered this issue quite thoroughly, arranging every possible mode of action before me and determined to, for what could appear to some as the first time of the day, pick the appropriate option. Such deep contemplation caused my feet to pace, commuting my body from one area of the vestibule to another, until, upon thrice observing the miniature conifer which sat in the entryway's middles, my feet, in response to the unprecedented travel of the day, determined it appropriate to resume the great irritant that had forced my pause in the garden, redoubling the effort and quadrupling the discomfort when I did not provide for them a period of immediate relief. They doubled again when this growth was unheeded, and developed yet more successively. Once these multiplications had rendered my irritant into an unbearable pain, I at last capitulated to the inconvenient situation of age: I relocated again to the garden, and continued my analysis from the nearest of its marble benches. There seated, between a rosebush and a marigold banquet, I whittling away at my unimpressive stock of options. I acted, in fact, many parts as a convict: I sat with no idea in my mind but how to emerge on the other side of the walls before me. But whereas the convict would be prepared to trade his eldest son to leave the building, I was fast becoming similarly desperate to gain entrance. And like these convicts whom I so envy, I, with time, came to the realization that my only true option would be to wait.

22-Aug-2010 21:36:24 - Last edited on 22-Aug-2010 22:25:17 by Yrolg

Yrolg

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Despite the apparent discomfort that is associated with this result, I could not help but be relieved, even if only by a minute fraction for a moment. When I had at last created a state of mind suitable for the observation of more than my near predicament, I was able to focus this ability so that I could take greater care in my observations of the surroundings. I found, however, that I could never travel past the contemplation of my body's decrepit state: though they complained most vociferously, my feet were far from the most suffering part, as my knees, arthritic and uncompromisingly temperamental, were so stiff that I had great trouble in even merely maintaining my upright position on the settee. To describe it in a manner consistent with my mood at that particular point of degraded exhaustion: I was tired. With this affliction came certain effects which I found both inescapable and comfortable: my posture slacked and my shoulders reclined until I rested upon the marble backing of the bench, my limbs relaxed and were soon strewn about with as much care as I placed for my appearance, which, in the now absent sun's darkness, was unremarkable, for the only light with which a witness -- and O! how I pity such a being -- to the drooling ordeal might have judged my status was thirty yards away, masked as lanterns under the malevolent vestibule which waged its existence on preventing my entrance.

22-Aug-2010 21:57:25 - Last edited on 22-Aug-2010 22:25:27 by Yrolg

Yrolg

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As the cool night wind proceeded to blow, rustling the boundless leaves and flora around me, I capitulated yet again to my situation, placing my satchel on the bench's end and arranging my overcoat so that I could, without hindrance, receive the vast relief which would indubitably accompany my short retirement. As the crescent moon's reflection bellowed out from the clouds, and the cold wind hastened into gusts, I deposited my head upon my satchel, brought my still aching feet up to the bench -- by a process of using my arm to coax each leg's worn-through muscles to operate -- and prepared my mind for the process that my body had already initiated: rest. Thus sequestered in the reception garden without any proper equipment and with a waning patience for the seemingly endless indecencies I was expected to endure, I fell to sleep, hoping that when I awoke, the nightmare which had been November 1st would be but a dream.

22-Aug-2010 21:57:26 - Last edited on 22-Aug-2010 22:25:45 by Yrolg

Yrolg

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When I shifted from this voyage of hopeful pessimism into the most unwanted return, I was in a state of such incapacitation that I wondered at the logic which had convinced me that a short rest would in any way alleviate my problems. What had been aching joints and whining tendons when I had drifted to phantasmagoria had transformed, when I awoke, into a series of body part which were so stiff that I could not move them and so terribly exhausted that I could not feel them. The natural depreciation of my body was so exacerbated by my rest that one might have said that a two hour doze had cost me a decade of aging. The worst thing, however, which afflicted my body was the arthritis in my knees: the dampness from the night-time dew and the day's bouts of rain had combined with the cold wind which seemed to vanquish all heat from my body to make y knees such a useless bodily component that I could hardly use them. Wondering how such a short retirement could cause such acute distress, I directed my gaze towards the sky: I was interested in calculating just how short this affective rest period had been. And, in one final and seemingly obnoxious display of impetuous adolescentry, as I directed my sight to the black, cloud-filled sky above me and strained to gauge the moon's movement, Fate commanded Nature, against all semblances of decency and reason, to resume the precipatory downfall she had ceased the day before.

22-Aug-2010 21:57:28 - Last edited on 22-Aug-2010 22:25:55 by Yrolg

Yrolg

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I have tried to make it obvious, in these past pages, that my actions in the garden, the decisions which dictated them, and the series of misfortunate events which led up to them were all quite outside my realm of control. I have attempted to illustrate that the propriety of my involvement and affairs in L'Morfique does not correspond to my personal propriety, but, rather, to that of the Champeaux estate as a whole. I have sought ot explicate that my actions were not made with any consent from my social intimacy but rather were formed through my fierce dedication to upholding the integrity of my promise to Monsieur Champeaux and the incomprehensible events which accompanied this. I hope that to you, the reader, it is apparent, for to God it was not, and this is why at slightly after midnight on November 2, 1862, I was stranded on a marble settee in the garden of the prime estate of a deceased friend in the rain. And this is why at slightly after midnight on November 2, 1862, I resolved to complete the most heinous crime I had ever contemplated and was, by every angle of socialitia's most critical gaze, completely justified in doing it.

22-Aug-2010 21:57:30 - Last edited on 22-Aug-2010 22:26:03 by Yrolg

Yrolg

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Retrieving my satchel from the bench-seat, and placing my feet on the ground with a resolution that five minutes previous could have only transpired in my dreams, I proceeded to the vestibule. I climbed the stairs with an unknown determination, and marched to the doorway which a conviction that succeeded in convincing the wind to slow. With a deep breath, I deposited all my dignity at the threshold and opened the door. Dizzied by the surprising amount of light which cascaded through the now open doorway, I stepped inside and closed the ornate French panel behind me. I removed my overcoat and despoiled it on a nearby table whilst waiting for my eyes to acclimate to the new light-ridden environment.

22-Aug-2010 21:57:31 - Last edited on 22-Aug-2010 22:26:14 by Yrolg

Yrolg

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Retrieving my satchel from the bench-seat, and placing my feet on the ground with a resolution that five minutes previous could have only transpired in my dreams, I proceeded to the vestibule. I climbed the stairs with an unknown determination, and marched to the doorway which a conviction that succeeded in convincing the wind to slow. With a deep breath, I deposited all my dignity at the threshold and opened the door. Dizzied by the surprising amount of light that cascaded through the now open doorway, I stepped inside and closed the ornate French panel behind me. I removed my overcoat and deposited it on a nearby table whilst waiting for my eyes to be inured to the new light-ridden environment. As my eyes focused on the scene before me, I began to absorb the magnitude that could possibly lay before me: I was standing in the grand entrance to the most expensive establishment in southern France so that I could plan, orchestrate, and detail the funeral of the most powerful politician and businessman in the country, intending to publish it in his obituary for the one article that, above all others, would be his final legacy. Indeed, I have described his respectable acumen for politics; I have not yet explained that Monsieur Champeaux's proficiency at political maneuvering was when compared to his abilities as a businessman. Perhaps the item which can place his genius in the clearest perspective is the mantra that he repeated every morning, the statement that he signed all his correspondences with, the sentiment he had especially designed as his epitaph -- the only part of his burial that he designed: "I am a businessman. I deal in the business of success. This is business."

22-Aug-2010 21:57:33 - Last edited on 24-May-2011 21:04:32 by Yrolg

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