by Walter Agnew Moore II, Robert-E-Howardian Man of Destiny
27 March 2002, Amiens, Kingdom of Picardy, Formerly Part of France

I am walking up the path to the Campus, and it has been 3 days in a row that the sun has been out here in Northern France. Like rain in the desert, you appreciate it for its rarity. Unlike rain in the desert, it will not cause camel-leavings to rehydrate and come bobbing past you while you huddle miserable and wet in chemical-protective gear.

Kids are out lounging around in the warm light. And there to my right is a girl sitting cross-legged on the grass reading a book under a group of big pine trees. She is a perfect photo-opportunity for a University of Picardy recruitment brochure:

"The University of Picardy— preparing for tomorrow ... today!"

"The University of Picardy— your gateway to the future calls you!"

"The University of Picardy— used to be beet-fields, now it's kids sitting under pine trees!"

Well, OK, that's not so great, but that's just right off the top of my head. I want to give you a good impression of the place, because they have certainly been nice to me. Let's shoot around some more slogan ideas at lunch, send the results down to Jorgensen in Marketing.

And then, French high-school kids could look at the brochures for the University of Picardy and compare our merits to other schools, or if they are like I was, chuck the brochures in the corner and then pick a school at the last minute based on their favorite football team.

But wait! That's not how it happens! HAHAHA— no, that's not it.

THIS is how it happens: In France (as well as most of the rest of Europe, I suspect), at age 2 you are given a battery of tests assessing what you know about Mathematics, History, Literary Theory, and the Follies of America. This is not complicated for most of the children, since they have already been in school since conception minus 3 years.

The results of these tests are fed into the giant alien stone-creature called "Paris", which then spits up a print-out that tells you what you will study, where you will work, the names of your boyfriends/girlfriends/husbands/wives/children/dogs, and when you will meet/marry/conceive/or let them poop on my stoop, and also when you will die. All you have to do is sit back for the ride.

Those who do not conform will be given demeaning jobs until either they accept their fates or else turn to the brain-damaging yellowish liquid called "Ricard".

Seriously, the system here does seem to give fairly good results overall. And the tests are not given at age 2. Three, maybe? In theory, every kid in France has the same chance to get into a top-flight school, FOR FREE, without his or her uncle adding a wing onto the university alumni drinking hall or having to be a one-legged Pictish/Manchurian/Icelandic refugee seal-healer or butt-sucking up to the creepy high-school guidance councelor.

Of course, one of the French kids taking these standardized tests sits in a classroom where he gets slapped on the back of the head every 15 minutes by the bullies who have already terrorized the teacher into submission, while another kid gets chauffeured to a fancy private school to prep for his test. Well, perfection is not of this world.

I still think it is a good system, especially when it started. Was it under Napoleon? Things were really getting shaken up around that time. If you were a shoe-shine boy with guts, brains, and luck, suddenly you could find yourself a general and part of the nobility. France was really popping then. The brightest people had a chance to get ahead. When the countries around France attacked, the French rose up and stomped them. It wasn't just the military that got really efficient either; overall, the French were just making stuff *happen*.

Yeah, that whole Russia-thing didn't exactly work out, but Hitler didn't do much better, and he had tanks.

That was then. What about now?

It's a little more sedate now. It's still a really nice place, France. Nothing really bad can happen to you here now. In fact, the system has it set up where nothing much happens at all. Try to start a business? Make me laugh— I can't even muster up the energy it would take for a driver's licence here.

And I don't even have a problem— I can ride the well-planned trains and buses and then go back to America when I want to do something that rewards initiative. But what about some French kid? If you don't conform here, you get beat down, hard, and early on. You do not go to Junior College later after working for a while and getting that punk band out of your system. GI Bill? After you dig holes in the US Army, you usually go to some university for free. After you dig holes in the French Army, you go try to get a job in civilian life digging more holes. It is not a lack of resources. France is rich. It is because you took that test when you were a child, and you were found wanting.

Maybe it's time for a shake-up.

Well, it's more than I can sort out in one day, and I have to get some ideas for my class tomorrow. I run into Lulu the Hairdresser in the Cafe Deeplejuice, explain my lack of ideas, and she trips out a detailed, creative lesson-plan faster than I can write it down. She is the kind of person who could have held off the Austrian Army in 1792 with one cannon, a blind mule, and a little imagination, but she was born into this time, ran afoul of some teachers, and so, game over.

After lunch, I truck back on over from the cafe to campus, trying to think what I can do. Because I want to help. I like France *and* the French, they have treated me better than I deserve and they pay me plenty of beer money, even if they could give me a little more for the rent. What can I do to help?

Then, on campus, it comes to me.

I am standing in one of the halls looking at a display case of medieval seals, the kind you used to stamp down into hot wax to make things official. It is a History Department "Open Doors" day, and my bar-buddies who are in History, Tony and Guillaume are there. Tony looks like the Crazy Musketeer who is primed to swing from a rope and kick one of the Cardinal's men off his horse, Guillaume is more like the Stoner Musketeer who would watch Tony do that and then go: "Sweeheeeheeet, duuhuuhuuude..."

Their associate Maude looks like she would pull a dagger out of her bodice and throw it. My kind of people.

The three of them, bored as they must be from sitting next to this display case for most of the day, leap to explain what the different things are. All dug up from underneath the streets we walk on everyday. Clay pipes. Bronze tidbits from brooches and pins. An oil lamp. And lots and lots of seals. Usually with an image of some fine fellow riding a horse, about to bust somebody upside the head with a sword.

Suddenly the sun comes through the rain in my head:

"You know," I proclaim to them, "I am going to become the King of Picardy. Everything north of Paris, in fact. We will secede, and I will lead you."

Their eyes light up. Tony says "Walter le Premier, Roi de Picardie— c'est bien, ça!"

"You're damn right it's good. And you shall be my first Dukes. Name the towns you desire."

They fall over themselves. I have seen a way to break the deadlock of the Prefecture and liberate France, or at least, the beer-drinking northern part of it that I know and love:

I will stand in some public spot and proclaim myself King of this place. Who is going to stop me? The American military? No way— they are going to be busy bombing all of the third world all of the time until all the people in the third world say they love America. The European military? Which one are you talking about, exactly? Most European countries have so demilitarized themselves that they could be knocked over by four reasonably-motivated Los Angeles teens with the ability to perform a drive-by shooting. The Russians still have an army, but they are all drunk. The British still have an army, but they don't care what happens to the French. The French still have an army, sort of, but all the good units are off in Whakistan working for the Americans.

My only opposition, therefore, would come from the civilian French population. They are not to be underestimated; all the good philosophers are dead and the national soccer team is winning, so they'd probably get all full of piss and vinigar and put up a scrap if you rubbed them the wrong way.

But herein lies the brilliance of Plan King Walter the First: I don't fight anybody, not at first. I simply rally Pierre Six-Pack to my banner with a promise to burn the Prefecture and all the records of every French person's life-determining tests. I think I will get about 98 per cent support with that slogan alone.

After that, it's a little hazy. Guess I'll divvy up dukedoms and counties and baronies etc to Tony and Guillaume and any of my other pals who suck up to me to my satisfaction, maybe institute a Reign of Terror in neighboring Belgium to divert attention from my deficiencies at administration. Build some gun-boats and then use them, that sort of thing. I sure won't be one of those suit-wearing, nice-to-the-reporters type of king.

No, I see me in some really nasty black armor with a spike here and there, and no helmet, so I can show off my stark white shock of hair (it's not white, but I could make Lulu the duchess of something-or-other in return for bleaching it). If you liked Richard the Lion-Hearted, you're going to love Walter the White Wolf.

I'll get myself proclaimed King of England without a shot, just by standing next to Charles while holding a black-framed photo of Diana, and having the strength to cry.

So I'm American and not French? So what? I can tell *you* don't think like a king— Napoleon was a Corsican. The French like them even less.