Claude Élisabeth of Savoy

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Claude Élisabeth The Viscountess Provins & her treasured second steed: Valentin. Viscountess consort of Provins Tenure: 1839-present Predecessor: Anne of Crestfall Born: 13th of Horen’s Calling, 1818, Arx Rubra, Luciensburg Spouse: Philip Michael, 3rd Viscount Provins House: Ashford de Savoie Father: Olivier Renault Ashford de Savoie Mother: Adeline Lorena Helvets

Claude Élisabeth Hermine (13th of Horen’s Calling, 1818 - Present) was the second of the trio of Orenian Socialites that made up the ‘Madames de Savoie’, Princesses of Savoy as daughters of Olivier Renault Ashford de Savoie, restorer of Savoy in Almaris. They were raised in Orenian society within the Augustine Palace, boarded there in their youth under the reign of John VIII whilst their father realized himself in Global Politics, later becoming completely estranged from him due to a multitude of familial issues. She’d additionally become Viscountess of Provins in the year 1839 by proxy of marriage to Lord Philip Pruvia, later becoming regent to her 8 year old daughter Amadie after Philip's ordainment as a priest.

Early life & adolescence

Claude was born on the the 13th of Horen’s Calling, 1818, as the second child of Olivier Renault de Savoie- then Consul of Luciensburg -and Adeline Lorena Helvets. She was delivered in the Arx Rubra of Luciensburg near 2 years before it became infested with an army of hostile rat men that forced her father to process her, age 4, and her elder sister Laurène to the court of Oren, where they were placed under the care of the Countess Renzfeld. Their procession was attended by the Future Governess of the Augustine, Lady Mary Casimira, whom Claude grasped onto, calling her 'Madame Marie'. Mary would become of the two prominent women who'd be a mother figure to the de Savoie girls for the rest of their lives, the other being Maisie Adelheid d'Arkent.

As a foreigner, Claude initially possessed a thick auvergnat accent which fearsome courtiers ridiculed. Claude, being intensely timid in her youth, was therefore frightened by the court and buried herself within the comforts of her apartment, reading the books that littered their bookshelves to entertain herself and priming her for a love of literature. However, Laurène would notice this behaviour and forcibly wrench the girl into parties and events to socialize her, where she befriended Matyas Jahan Basrid (later Count of Susa), Princess Amelia Margaret, and her greatest friend, Anastasia of Kositz (later Duchess of Furnestock). She'd also exchange her shyness for energy and charisma. This newfound confidence allowed her and her sisters to openly adorn the fashions of their homeland, inspiring the transition of the Augustine court into the Nouveau-Savoie fashions [1](1820-present) for which the 'Madames de Savoie' are now known.

A few years after their immigration, the City of Luciensburg crumbled to finality, allowing the rest of her family to join Claude and Laurène in Oren, Eugénie completing the trio of madames. Through their return, she was made to double down on canonical values as per her Savoyard paternity, her mother's illness reinforcing them. Lady Mary wrote of the young girl as holding 'frightening zealotry and strong vindictions about the state of humanity, but a strange reverence for her own gender'. Others reasoned that she was in loving concordance with her returned family, seeing them as the light of her life and GOD the progenitor of it.

Petite Potins & The Rosemoor Convention

A Rosemoor-era portrait of the mid-adolescent Claude Élisabeth atop her first mount, Pepin. Note the adornment of a blue coat and dress in support of the convention.

As the Social Season of 1827 rolled nearer, Claude befriended another girl, Alina Basrid, contemporarily known as the Baroness of Carrington as wife to Baron Wilhelm. The two girls were equally avid readers, who in their joint efforts encountered the writings of Princess Elizabeth Anne Novellen, and were enamored by the fervor of her recount of events. Taking it upon themselves to emulate Elizabeth in becoming the writers of a new gossip column manifest entirely by the children of Oren, they created the instantly famous Petite Potins Column [2], it becoming a controversial yet eagerly awaited part of the social season for years to come. Later, Claude abandoned her love for the Potins after growing out of love with the fanaticism of the season, calling it a 'display of pomp frivolously exuded by those who have lost the humility of the Canon'.

The first Potins paper had an additional effect on Oren within its second article: Princess Elizabeth Anne approached the youths inviting them to publish a section about her 'Rosemoor Bill', a historical bill proposing the enfranchisement of women across the empire, allowing female nobles to inherit on the same grounds as males. Claude boldly stated to the princess that "I'll do you one better," thus beginning the Rosemoor Convention as a movement towards equal succession in the Empire, Claude's blue flower bracelet becoming the symbol of the movement as a whole. The movement was met with severe scrutiny across all fronts, but the women protested with equal severity and intense devotion, Claude writing her own piece in support as one of her first writings independent of the Potins: [3]. However, things took a turn when the Princess brought the bill to the House of Lords and was censured by the other grandees on the grounds of unapproved publicizing of a Diet bill, one such grandee being her brother, Philip, the heir to the Empire. So stricken with grief was Elizabeth Anne that she died the year of, leaving the ladies enraged and frustrated. They answered to the censure with an accusatory letter against Philip [4], which would prompt him to pass the Elizabethan Rosemoor Bill in 1836, a few years following his ascension [5].

Blood sports & equestrianism

Olivier and a majority of the de Savoie family left Oren for Sutica around the same time as the Rosemoor Bill was gaining leeway, but the Madames de Savoie stayed in the courts, protesting that it was the only home they'd ever known. However, the dramatics of an active court become too much for the irritable adolescent Claude, who began to fiercely judge everyone around her as lacking the morality and piety that she herself exhibited. On the advice of her best friend Anastasia, an equally pious girl, she decided to leave the capital for 2 years to search for religious clarity in the forests of Dobrov. Living a life of reclusivity within a pine shack, she was taught by a religious hermit to hunt for sustenance and furs, becoming especially fond of fur collection and organic craftsmanship. Her writings of the time detailed her belief that her experience tied her to the natural way of life, the one that GOD always intended for society, and the one that she'd promote in her tenure as regent of Provins, promoting naturism as one of the tenets of Provinois culture. Thus, she became fond of all activities tied to hunting and nature, developing an obsession with weapons collecting and tracking that persisted for the remainder of her life, augmenting her distate for the Augustine Palace despite an admiration for the women that ran it.

Marriage

Betrothal

UNFINISHED: To keep up with Orenian activities, she reads the Providence post regularly, which fosters her interest for journalism. She also begins to exchange letters with Philip Pruvia, and they create an untenable bond in her absence. When her godfather, Simon, notices this, she becomes betrothed to Philip. This implores her to move back to Providence, where her sisters and herself purchase their own home by each acquiring jobs, which the nobility judges fiercely, creating distance between them and the palace courtiers. Claude decides to leave the court for good.

Debut; the Social Season of 1835

UNFINISHED: Sometime around the start of the Social Season, they hear news of their father being elevated as the ‘Duke of Corazon’. Because of their estrangement, the girls do not attempt to be diplomatic with him.

Claude’s moral prerogatives had by this point developed a hatred in her towards the Social season and its associated social activities, including gossip like her writings in the petite potins. She hates her younger self and the drama she caused and is now fact-driven and seeking GOD’s truth. Thus she lamented having to participate in the season beside her sisters. This was manifested when she entered the season’s first debut lesson adorned in leaves and blood residual of a hunt she’d just partaken of. causes dissent towards claude. Then, for the debut herself, she appeared in a white debut dress layered with black over it, in what she described was an allegory for the social season: the death of godly womanhood, darkened by the stain of ‘romantic affection’ as opposed to seeking amicable life partnerships via betrothal.

The Wedding of Roses

UNFINISHED: Fitting of this same standard, she chose her wedding date to be the first event of the season, so that she would not have to be privy to flirtation and dances with men who were not her future husband.

She invites her father to Oren for her wedding, the first time she’d seen him in various years. Here, it is revealed that he and Adeline had birthed 2 other children in Sutica, Leufroy and Athenais. Claude is hurt by her father’s neglect to reveal that she had other siblings to lay her love on. She takes Athenais by the hand and goes to have a private conversation together, sister-to-sister. After the wedding, the garden party hosted by Lady Mary happens and she takes Athenais there as well. However, during the party she receives a letter from Eugenie suddenly, that tells Claude that she had been followed by their father’s men and they were trying to kill her. Claude rushed home with Lady Maisie and found the ISA protecting her sister and a soldier of Corazon rushing away from the scene. Eugenie explained that she had accused their father of having had bastard children because Adeline was too old to bear children, and he got angry. Then she left and suddenly two of his men appeared and tried to break in the house with threats and said they’d kill her. Eugenie reported it to ISA and Claude lost any and all affection held for her father or for any of her siblings that would remain at his side after the ordeal, ceasing all communication.

When their eldest brother came to attend Eugenie’s wedding following their father’s coronation as Prince of Savoy, Claude berated him for flashing his Savoyard armor in her face, threatening to draw her crossbow upon him if he did not remove it. All communications she’d held with the rest of her family would come to a grinding halt in light of this event.

As Viscountess

The Viscountess and Viscount Provins with their daughter and heiress, Amadie, c.1840.

UNFINISHED: Explain how they came to inherit: Anne exposes Simon as Azdrazi, Simon is denounced, Philip inherits, Claude and Philip burn down the estate to cleanse it of the heretical Azdrazi air.

Issue

Name	Birth	Death	Marriage
Amadie Marléne Élisabeth	14th of Godfrey’s Triumph, 1836	Alive	Unmarried	Firstborn child of Philip and Claude. Heiress to Provins.
Anastasie Thérèse Caroline	11th of Horen's Calling 1838	Alive	Unmarried	Secondborn child of Philip and Claude.
Sophie Cléméntine Isidore	5th of Horen's Calling, 1840	Alive	Unmarried	Thirdborn child of Philip and Claude.
Jeanne Hélène Michele	7th of Owyn's Flame, 1841	Alive	Unmarried	Fourthborn child of Philip and Claude.
Valentin Eudes Théodore	2nd of Sun's Smile, 1844	Alive	Unmarried	Fifthborn child of Philip and Claude.