• Recipient: Aurèlie LaBrise
• Sender: Principal Alfredo Orsini
• Source: [DELETED], Tau-23
• Subject: LaBrise family and the Unione Corse
Saluti, Aurèlie LaBrise.
I am interested in the reasons surrounding your reappearance. Fret not, I am not leading an investigation about you. Although we may be a part of the governement of Gallia proper, indeed, I am still curious about your whereabouts and how everything led to you come back to the Unione Corse. You, being a predecessor of mine, must yield much information, especially regarding the future of our organization. If you have questions about our current policy, such as the one towards the Sirians, please ask me directly through this channel.
*Incomming transmission*
From: Aurèlie LaBrise, Bourbon Base, Burgundy System
To: Principal Alfredo Orsini
Subject: Re: LaBrise family and the Unione Corse
Principal,
To answer your question, I must go back into my own family's past, for I am the last of my line and with no children in sight, it is a story that I must retell, lest it is lost to time. The foundation of the LaBrise family harkens back to the First civil war, over 4 centuries ago. Timothée LaBrise, a Royal Police Officer with no links to organized crime that we know, was a weapon manufacturer in his spare time. Yet, he made no money from this endeavor despite being quite proficient, and so began smuggling goods to the Revolution. The accounts from that time are poorly kept, I'm sure you understand, but by the time the First Civil War came to an end, LaBrise, a family of outsiders, had managed to wrestle control away from a most inefficient Corse family in Burgundy, which has been our home since then, long before Marseille was even a spark in Gallia's eye.
We consolidated our power in Burgundy, as family struggles were fierce back then, as I am sure they still are today. Bourbon became the LaBrise's headquarters after the massacre, and rumors say that it may have even been our family that commanded the hit. No one truly knows, of course. While the rest of the Corse scrambled to what was once thought to be the dead, useless system of Provence, LaBrise held the fort in Bourbon and Burgundy, putting out energies into the development of Hypnotainment technologies. By now, LaBrise was synonymous of debaucheries, and we may have gotten complacent with the competition. No longer as sharp, our deals sloppier.
This caught up with us when the Second Gallic War erupted. Brigands, Vagrants, Maquis and other Corse families were at each others throats. LaBrise in particular were making moves in Normandie to try to put a halt to the introduction of the Sirian drug 'Cardamine', as we knew it was nothing but trouble, though other Corse families of the era allied with the now infamous Outcasts. As for ourselves, we had cautiously forged an alliance of circumstance with the Elders of the Corsairs, and reached out to Kusari's Hogosha. We even went as far as to visit the New York system to try to make a deal with the Liberty Rogues, but we were double crossed and burned that bridge.
As we were losing territory, I pulled the last ropes I had, and called in favors from the Royal Family. That is when my tryst with the then Dauphin Joseph DeFrance began, and a ceremony followed where I was named Baroness of the Provence system. On one hand, this gave the Corse even more control over Provence, securing the system in the tumultuous events of the war, and safeguarding us from the worst of a potential coup. On the other, I believe the Prince's intent with this move was to have control of the Nox supply, in perhaps a nefarious attempt of subduing the population with the substance.
That is when I disappeared. It turns out I was no longer useful to the Crown, and was put aside where I would be forgotten, the Crown usurping me. If it weren't of the Council's victory, I may very well have kept rotting in my quarters. It took time to recover, emotionally, physically, mentally, from this abuse, but even if I am not Corsican by blood and language like many other families, I am by deeds, and I will not let anyone tell me otherwise.