The French have enjoyed an extraordinarily turbulent history since their unification, for the French prove a typically difficult people to rule. The many dukes and barons of the French provinces held vast tracts of land and owned the land over which large numbers of people worked. This most raw form of feudalism meant that the common people typically owed allegiance more directly to their knightly betters than to their king, whom they perceived as a distant figurehead who concered himself more with foreign affairs than domestic. And in many ways, this was true; the King's decrees were very far-reaching and affected the common man very little.
The French Rois do, however, ostensibly enjoy an absolute power that the British monarchs do not, though this is held mostly by consent of the nobles who manage the King's commoners for him. A series of vicious civil wars following France's ousting of the English from its territories cemented a cluster of alliances and power blocs that threatened to topple the Valois Dynasty under Henry II, and they saw his three sons killed. The royal family had largely stayed out of the conflict, fearful of picking a wrong side to back. With his line ended, Henry appointed his chief adviser, Jean de Bretagne, as his heir, becoming Jean III of the royal House of Brittany. Jean's reign was short, but bloody, earning him the epithet of Boucher Jean. Having served Henry and his father Francois, he had had time to see the power blocs that had developed and emasculated his position. He knew who walked France's corridors of power, and he held secret talks with one power bloc, and quickly had all the nobles of two of the power blocs rounded up and executed for crimes against France, confiscated all their lands and installed family members from the remaining noble power bloc into the remaining noble spot. To protect himself, he also passed a law granting commoners the right to usurp titles should they refuse a call to arms from their lord against the King and instead take up arms in the King's favour, and took great pains to seal every loophole such that just about any action against the French king was a crime against France. This brought the end to the squabbling and cemented the King's relationship with his noble class. Jean's descendants reign to this day, incumbent being Charles IX, and they have no representative government of any kind - all power is concentrated in the French royal family, and now the nobles exist on sufferance of the King, not the other way around.
France also took control of an unstable Spain, following an unsuccessful union of the Kingdoms of Leon and Castile that led to the ascent of total madness to the Spanish throne, and its remaining there for multiple generations. The 'Spanish Golden Age', as it was half-mockingly called, was more the doing of the Spanish upper classes and their commitment to trade income and the Spanish economy. France and Spain's long alliance became a union after the forward-thinking Spaniards, seeing their entire royal family as the raving lunatics they were, effectively signed Spain and her holdings over to a France which they foresaw (through simple logic and Gifted visions alike) as being the only barrier between them and certain destruction at the hands of the British, having already seen off Holland and Belgium. Charles IX thus rules effectively two kingdoms which have successfully melded into one thanks almost solely to their enmity towards Britain. The utter annihilation of a Franco-Spanish at the hands of a British fleet in the Battle of Mosquito which led to Britain claiming all territory north of Mexico that proved a rallying cry. A common joke outside of the French dominion is that while every pair of neighbours throughout the French dominion may dislike one another, they will put aside their differences should an Englishman appear. Mosquito merely cemented this into the national and naval consciousness.
Slavery is perfectly legal in the French territories, with the trade alive and well between France's African and Caribbean holdings, and this is yet another diplomatic sticking point between the French and the emancipated British, who sometimes issue Letters of Marque to independent vessels and mercenary crews to liberate them.
'Indentured servitude' is common practice throughout the kingdom where it can be used as a means of paying off debts as part of a legally-binding contract between debtor and creditor.. Slavery in its more recognisable (i.e., less voluntary) form also occurs in most of French holdings in the Americas and Africa, although continental France permits the fetching of slaves from overseas, and permits (though does not necessarily condone) the enslaving of persons on French soil. Indentured servants and slaves alike are afforded some rights; those who keep slaves or trade in them must provide for their dietary, sanitary and accommodation needs fully in law (though enforcement may be lax in overseas colonies, or when the slaves themselves are of slave descent, or are not of French descent). Physical punishment or torture for motivational purposes is prohibited, though attempted escapes, mutinies or total down-tools strikes may be suitably dealt with. Slavekeepers and traders must have licences to do so, and they must maintain a full inventory of their slaves. Indentured servants must receive a small stipend for their services, which is payable to the servant upon completion of a pre-determined length of service. The alternative to this stipend is the offer of a permanent contract of fully paid employment; This is to prevent the servant, upon completion of service, being left stuck in the same rut that led to their indenturement. Former indentured servitude is surprisingly not a social stigma or barrier; upon completion of the contract, indentured servants return to the free population without loss of face. Indeed, particularly thrifty individuals with coin may choose to indenture themselves so as to maintain their wealth.
The entire French dominion is deeply Catholic, with the faith having spread throughout South America, some of Eastern Asia and much of Africa. Tensions with the Holy Roman Empire have flared in the past, resulting in two excommunications throughout the centuries, though these have been reconciled, the most recent of which nearly beggared France. The French Kings do not appreciate the Empire's meddling into its affairs, as it perceives the clergy's role to be one of faith, not one of government. As such Papal Bulls are resented and have been the subject of many a worsening of relations between the two states throughout history.
Military
The Grande Armee
The Grande Armee is well renowned, and is astonishingly well-paid compared to its contemporaries. Many a pauper has enlisted find his fortune, and nowhere is it more possible to do so than in French service. The French forces are actually surprisingly open to foreign nationals; many migrate from other nations to join. Slaves are not permitted to serve, nor can those currently indentured into servitude. French troops typically serve in light blue. Officers throughout the French military are universally ennobled gentry, many of whom are steeped in their own arrogance and so enamoured with the concepts of honour and chivalry of old that they pay little regard for their own men’s lives. Given the likelihood of being led to defeat in the name of honour and glory, that the army is well paid is probably the main thing that enables it to replace its losses.
The French infantry is nevertheless exceedingly ‘modern’ in terms of its equipment. They almost completely eschew sword-and-spear combat in favour of bayonet-armed firearms and magic. French chevaliers, on the other hand, are very much in keeping with the nobility's love of the chivalric. Typical landships are eschewed in favour of knight-charges and high-pointed mobile mortar artillery pieces. The efficacy of the artillery is being investigated by other armies, but there is no large scale battle data to base it on.
The Marine Française
The French Navy is made up mostly of light vessels better suited to protection of merchant convoys than of waging warfare. It does, however, maintain three main fleets – one stationed in American waters, and two stationed closer to home; The Mediterranean Fleet and the Atlantic Fleet. Again, political appointment of officers, with little regard for ability, is commonplace. This shows too in its battleship designs; a number of them are simply too large, expensive and grandiose to have any manoeuvrability or battle practicality. Battleships in the French Navy are built-to-order, and are generally unique to the admiral on whose behalf they were commissioned. The Royal Navy see French battleships as merely compensating for something, and this has become a hoary RN chestnut. Examples include the FNS Avignon, a three-hundred-gun lumbering behemoth commanded by Admiral Pierre Maginon, and captained by his third-cousin Luc d’Anjou, which is so hampered by its own weight it could not be repaired in a drydock, as being out of water would put enough stress on the hull structure to literally buckle it. In spite of this, the Marine does have a proud history of service and the smaller, less opulent members of its fleet are highly capable and hardy vessels which, on the occasions when they are captained well, can give their Royal Navy counterparts a hard fight. Indeed, the smaller vessels of the Marine are often battle-hardened through skirmishes with other navies who attempt to liberate French slave-conveyance ships.
The Service Aeronautique
The Service Aeronautique (SA, literally, Aeronautical Service), although large, is hampered largely by its obsolescence. Its skyships are slow and cumbersome, most of them having been in service since the service first began. Its doctrine and weaponry are similarly outdated, largely thanks to being underutilised by French military strategy, which favours a greater emphasis on land warfare. This paradigm is not without merit, as the greatest direct threats to France’s territories would tend to come from overland, and France adopts a very defensive stance.
The French high command has thoroughly failed to grasp a number of applications of skyships on the offensive, and instead sees the SA as an extension of existing naval doctrine. In light of this, the SA is generally attached to wet-navy formations to provide a third dimension to the fleet’s defence, or takes on the role of escorting merchant skyships. The Marine and Service Aeronautique therefore have a much closer and friendlier inter-service relationship than that of many other forces.
