Nation Name
Auclairé
Nation Flag, anthem
I don't like to claim existing IRL music as anthem,
but since you askMap Location
Description
Formerly a small kingdom on the Coet fe Roshé, the size and influence of the Auclairé bloomed six-hundred years ago with the Autoi fon Millé, a series of forced reforms against King Maushon of the House Debruie. The reforms of the Autoi fon Millé sought for the expansion of the rights of the merchants and the barons, who had become increasingly wealthy in the trade of spirits and in refined sugar across the continent with the importation of sugar cane from abroad into the Rouje Delta, the primary water-way at the heart of the kingdom. The expansion of rights from the king to the lesser nobility and even the merchant caste saw the formation of not just Parliamon fe Molliers, the Molliers being the title to describe barons which had expanded over time to include the wealthier urban elite who did not own rural land of their own.
The exacting history behind all of this though, is not an immediate thing.
For thousands of years the people of the region of Auclairé had lived in various degrees of prosperity and decline. Several thousand years ago the area was ruled by powerful tyrants who presided over the many independent city states and rural upland tribes. Settled primarily along the Rouje River, the Primonminne peoples existed in fluctuating periods of conflict with one another or alliance against the outsiders. The rule of the tyrant kings were soon eroded when their powers waned in internal civil disputes between the tyrants themselves and particularly powerful generals within their command. The tyrannical arrangement that had presided over many of the Primonminne cities were eroded and replaced with a broad diversity of self rule which included the rule of landed aristocracy, merchants, republics or states under direct democracy. The ascendant among them, the city of Trumine forged an alliance-turned Empire with the most prominent city-states of the Rouje lands, giving them the power to systematically extract tribute from the sister states from from the river, this organization came to be known as the Trumine Confederacy, the Trumine League, or the Trumine Empire.
To contemporary history, this became known through popular national image as the First Empire.
During the years of the Trumine Confederacy a class of intellectual aristocrats came to existence through the likes of still remembered writers and poets as Sonbarnis, Trillo, and Marcilus; though there were many others. This trifecta of poet and philosopher laureates came to define the later period of the Trumine Confederacy and founded the Academy of Trumine, or the Acadami fe Trumone which still stands today. The influence of the Academy was the education of the ruling youths to create a skilled group of bureaucrats, managers, and rulers with a firm grasp of ethics and morality to rule not just in present interests but in scope and perspective of all that had come before it, an idea which exists today still.
The Trumine were eventually dissolved after the League's defeat by the Vandwëllerian Empire from the north, which incorporated the league into its own for two centuries. But the accomplishments of the Trumine and its philosophical aristocrats were not entirely forgotten and the Empire even began to see its youths being trained at the academy. But at the closing of the Rocian Crisis the two-hundred-fifty year domination of the Rouje river lands came to an end with the collapse of the Empire and the people of the river were free again, but ushered into an era of petty kingdoms. Thus entering their dark age.
Owing to a loss in literacy through the stringent policies of feudal lords, not much had been written about this period. While a few court scribes kept a tract of history, the flourish of activity that had persisted during even imperial domination was not longer as persistent as it had been as for the next several centuries the local lords feuded over lands, or married into one another and dynasties inherited more and more land. The closing of this period came with the ascension of the House of Debruie to that of Supreme. Originating from the coastal province of Auclairé the ascension of the house gave rise to the formal Kingdom of Auclairé.
On winning supremacy of the area, King Aûbre I of the House of Debruie carried on further military victories abroad and expanded the scope of Auclairoise influence further along the river and the neighboring lands forming the Empire of Aûbre. But on his death the Empire split as his sons both took land, but could not determine which of them would reign supreme. This formed the Kingdoms of Verde in the south and the Kingdom of Môngé in the north.
And so the conditions were, until the Autoi fon Millé. After this act, the intermarriage between King Maushon of Auclairé and Queen Mary of Môngé bore the heir to both, Maushon II. Maushon II would prove to be an ineffectual ruler when he came to power, slow to act and hesitant to decide though described as being "delightfully personable and fond of wine and society". However the Parliamon fe Molliers was there to take up the slack and through negotiations were able to assume additional power to make up for the King's known inadequacies and expand their law into the new kingdom, and effectively and legally binding the two; albeit messily leaving a case in which two kings may exist in the realm at the same time.
The growth of the realm and as a fallout of a peasant's revolt known as the first Porter's War saw to a situation in which something must be done with an agitated peasant's class. The adjustment of power in the passed two generations of kings had seen the presence of political power drawn lower towards the commoner class and a mass strike by the tradesmen of Auclairé had lead to a fully armed revolt. As an answer to the question Sebastion Foluet fe Marsche recommended a bold proposal of colonization. Seeking to gain greater control of the spice and sugar trade he proposed to the Parliamon a bold adventure to seize the extent islands to the west as colonies to not only bring greater profit to the kingdom, but to dispatch many of the irritated peasant leaders as chiefs of the business ventures to the sugar and spice islands. The plan passed in large majority under the condition the colonies were established to also move much of the penal population out of country, the royal family also interceded on the pretense that the adventures be conducted as an extension of the Royal Trades Company, established by King Maushon to acquire funds for the treasury without taxation on the nobility.
The adventure started what has become recognized as the Second Empire. The colonial adventure also granted a certain naval supremacy over the southern kingdom, which in a war over inheritance saw to the annexation of the Kingdom of Verde into the fold and extension of Parliamon control over the country, seeing to not just an expansion of the Parliamon and an influx of the oligarchs of the south as replacement of the old nobility, but also the first case in which two kings of equal power came to rule in the country entering the first royal crisis, where unable to mitigate the crisis of two princes ruling as equal kings within the realm the crisis was drawn to a close after two armed battles between the competing royals and followed by threats from the Parliamon who had raised their own substantial army and threatened the estates of either if they did not comply. The legal compromise of Lesaise saw to the formation of the Royal Assembly, the organ by which the curious existence of multiple kings and of their family(/ies) may act as one if there was ever two or more existing out of ancient laws of inheritance.
For a time, the kingdom existed as-is until a major war with the northern Kingdom of Brosmon saw not just the inclusion of an additional colony to expand the scope of its vineyards, but severe debt and economic crisis. Bankruptcy was declared shortly after, and enraged at the inflation of the price of goods full revolt erupted in the nation. A full revolution was carried out and the monarchy and aristocratic Parliamon was replaced with the Nacionali Parliamon and the Offic Executif. This marked the transition of Auclairé into its modern form. Looking to break the aristocratic hold on the Acadami fe Trumone the new National Assembly and Executive ordered the mass reprinting of the academy's books in an effort to make broader the range of its education. The policy was halted though in the Counter-Revolutionary Wars in which the seven neighboring lands formed a league against the Revolutionary government bringing a twenty year war. Although the conflict was long and bloody, against all odds the Auclairmon won and not only beat its foes in the name of citizen government but expanded the borders of the nation. What might have ended the Auclairé Empire, even under its revolutionary form instead brought about its Third Empire, its current Republican Empire.
Education ambitions however came to a hold when the ascent of military notoriety in the government saw military supremacy in the state which saw the ascension of the dictatorship of Dulac Tramone. General Dulac, whose efforts had saw the widest success in the field during the wars demanded that their advantage be pressed and initiated a second massive war with the intent of establishing absolute supremacy. The war was drawn to an end when the Executive-General was killed in battle and the ramshackle government that came to power was forced to write a hasty peace agreeing to give up the immense gains made under Dulac in order to preserve the state.
In the century and a half after the war, Auclairé has existed as it had. The unforeseen consequences of the wars two-hundred years ago was the bleeding of citizen government among its neighbors. And while the reactionary kings of old may have made attempts to quash the exception to their rule, internal revolution and challenges from their own people kept them largely distracted to the point that they had assumed a model very much the same to Auclairé and not in question to itself.
Other
Auclairé economically is traditionally invested in its own vineyards and plantations. To the Auclairmon wine, sugar, and spices are the spiritual side of life manifested in physical form and it is said there is not a single Auclairmon who is unable to cook or doesn't have an opinion of at least three wines. Likewise, the consciousness of their own past as the road they traveled to the present, and the past's role in the future has left much of the country looking as it had six-hundred years ago. There is an extreme pride in the maintenance of old estates, districts, art, and so on. Though while stepping into Auclairé is like to walk into the past, it is not like the country is any less modern and in the current world they take happiness from consuming much of the same modern amenities as anyone else, computers, cellphones, cars, and airplanes. Militarily too, they are up to date and competitive with the rest. Though many of the old spice colonies they held long ago have been lost, there is still a presence of them on distant shores and the historical breadth and influence of the country means they pride themselves as being not only past-oriented, but cosmopolitan. The Acadami fe Trumone is still premiere among its universities, and in the intervening centuries has grown with the public initiatives to turn every citizen into a philosopher king.
Since I'm getting ahead of myself, Auclairé "concept art":
Marinuis Gaarda: