Editing Gaspard Lumey (section)

====Plain Truth====
[[File:The hunter by silberius-d8lzd0o.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The streets of royal St. Vercy]]
''The principal lesson that Ciban IV taught me was my relative unimportance.  My arrival on this humble world had coincided with the awakening of its inhabitants to the great task of their '''self-emancipation'''.  Although I was welcome to join in that struggle and enjoy the new age opened up, the Cibanese never considered me their saviour, or even their greatest hero.  If any future historian should consider writing that it was my hand that saved the Imperium from collapse, let them mark my words and the billions of hands behind my own.''

(Gaspard Lumey, ''Reflections'')

Dutiful to parental advice, Gaspard Lumey travelled to the townships and cities of the colonies.  If his first jobs are lost to history, his first and defining career was as a journalist in the dissenting press of the day.  He issued a steady stream of broadsides and pamphlets condemning first the excesses of the colonial government, then the degeneracy of the aristocracy.  The effectiveness of Lumey's works is still evident in the full title of his most popular pamphlet, ''Plain Truth: An Honest and therefore Illegal account of Fennechia's Misgovernance''.

Growing unrest resulted in the formation of quasi-legal '''Committees of the Common Good''', a kind of shadow government that gained the trust of the public as colonial governors became increasingly unpopular.  Lumey, as a wanted man, did not participate in the Committees at first.  However, his pamphlets were often read aloud in Committee hearings.  Surviving minutes attribute Lumey's remarks to "the Voice of the People".  As the situation moved from unrest to open war, Lumey became increasingly close to the Committees and his writing gave direction to the colonial struggle.  Few were surprised when Lumey volunteered his services to the rebel army.

Fennechian patriots initially suffered severe defeats at the hands of their oppressors.  Gaspard Lumey achieved some renown as a guerilla leader, but he quickly realised that the colonists lacked the strength to triumph in a purely national struggle.  Undeterred, Lumey smuggled himself into Gallia and circulated pamphlets denouncing not just the oppression of Fennechia but the whole regime of privilege.  His message struck a chord.  Even before Lumey arrived, Gallians were reading copies of ''Plain Truth'' and similar pamphlets written by figures such as '''Margarette Poisarden''' and '''Didier Bonchance'''.  Political criminals, including Bonchance, flooded the Donjon, the great prison at Gallia's capital of Saint Vercy, but a jail cannot hold a whole people.  When the imperial government attempted to raise a new tax for the war effort, ordinary Gallians began to revolt in their homeland, declaring that they were just as oppressed as the Fennechians.

Events in Saint Vercy developed at lightning pace.  The Donjon was stormed by dockworkers and its inhabitants liberated.  Regiments deployed to stifled the revolt arrested their officers and joined the rebels.  Gallia's monarchy and national government fled the capital.  The Committee of the Common Good, headed by Poisarden became the ''de facto'' government.  A tremendous debate broke out in the Committee.  Bonchance advocated a policy of temperance and forgiveness towards the old regime.  Initially, his fraction held the majority, until Gaspard Lumey entered the hall.  His prestige as a fighter in the colonies and rebel journalist won him the right to speak, but the Primarch's towering stature and personal charisma commanded the Committee's attention.  Lumey hammered away at his rivals in the debate, explaining in sharp terms what the consequences of their mercy would be - a bloodbath organised by the aristocracy.  In order to head off disaster, Lumey proposed a policy of "Righteous Terror", beginning with the imprisonment of supporters of the old regime and going so far as summary execution of aristocrats.  While Lumey carried the majority, the fierce debate provoked splits.  Didier Bonchance and his closest followers stormed out.  These dissidents would escape Saint Vercy to sign on with the Royalist faction of a brewing civil war.

Mixed news from the rest of Gallia flowed into the capital.  Committees were leading uprisings in the other big cities, but there was also news of armies being raised in the provinces - and worse, armies of intervention being prepared by Gallia's rivals.  The Saint Vercy Committee of the Common Good acted decisively.  The '''Republic of Ciban''' was declared and the other Committees across Gallia, Fennechia, and, rather optimistically, the whole of the planet were invited to freely join as equal participants.  Margrette Poisarden was elected Speaker of the Republic's Assembly, at the head of the Governmental Committee.  Gaspard Lumey was initially elected to the head of the Subcommittee for Foreign Affairs and served with distinction.  His diplomacy, sharp and forthright, centred more on exposing the perfidy of the Republic's enemies than making accords, but in this regard he did much to destabilise the reactionary coalitions.  Ultimately, however, the conflict between the new order and the old could not be settled with the pen.  As the borders of old Gallia succumbed to invading armies, the Republic turned to Gaspard Lumey to organise its defence.