Human Interest Stories
Human Interist Stories
















This Human Interest story involves the twin brothers Francois and
Jacques De Balliel, born into French Aristocracy in 1787 near the City of
Paris in the Kingdom of France.  Some of the information of the twins is
unclear because of a mix up in interpretations from the time leading up
to the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, to the time of the
birth of the grandfather of Johannes Rammund De Balliel-Lawrora,
Anton De Balliel approximated about 1881 in the village of Schoensee,
Kingdom of Prussia.

During the time of the births of the twins, the nation of France was going
through a horrific time with King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette,
because of financial problems, and in order to correctly tell this story, we
must also incorporate the stories of the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic Wars, because the brothers were born before the Revolution
and were conscripted into the vanguard of the French Army, under
Napoleon Bonaparte.  It is not clear as to the ranking of the twins, but
their father was probably a Marquis, and though the Revolution got rid
of Louis XVI, the aftermath of the Revolution developed into the
crowning of Napoleon as Emperor of France.  This was also the period
when the entire world was in distress, when you include the
Revolutionary War in the New World and the Napoleonic Wars which
involved all of Europe.   

Also, not much is known of the childhood of the twins, but what is
certain is that about the age of 16 they were conscripted into Napoleon's
Army.

Historians agree unanimously that the French Revolution was a
watershed event that changed Europe irrevocably, following in the
footsteps of the American Revolution, which had occurred just a decade
earlier. The causes of the French Revolution, though, are difficult to pin
down: based on the historical evidence that exists, a fairly compelling
argument could be made regarding any number of factors.
Internationally speaking, a number of major wars had taken place in the
forty years leading up to the Revolution, and France had participated, to
some degree, in most of them. The Seven
Years’ War in Europe and the American
Revolution across the ocean had a profound
effect on the French psyche and made the
Western world a volatile one. In addition to
charging up the French public, this wartime
environment took quite a toll on the French
treasury. The costs of waging war, supporting allies, and maintaining the
French army quickly depleted the French bank that was already
weakened from royal extravagance. Finally, in a time of highly
secularized Enlightenment, the idea that King Louis XVI had absolute
power due to divine right—the idea that he had been handpicked by
God—did not hold nearly as much water as it had in the past few
decades.

The king in despair was compelled to convene the Estates General in
order to levy a new land tax.  The last time the estates were convened
was 175 years ago and this consisted of the first estate consisting of the
clergy; the second estate consisting of the
nobility; and the third estate consisting of
the middle and lower classes.  Thus the
estates convened on  May 5, 1789 at
Versailles, and quickly entered into a
power struggle of horrific significance.  
The Third Estate in frustration declared
itself a "National Assembly" just prior to
the Revolution which commenced on July 14th. 1789 with the storming
of the Ba stile which initially resulted in four members of the lower
classes being killed.  In the Frensy that followed, the King and his family
were captured in there attempt to flee the country.  The King and some
of his closest loyalists
were tried and
convicted of
treason and
quickly
beheaded.  His
wife, Marie
Antoinette, was
at the time
imprisoned, and
shortly
thereafter
would also face
the Guillotine,
which a short
time ago had
been invented
by a person
with the same name.

Upon the death of King Louis XVI, the lower classes went into a killing
frenzy, executing thousands of people which decimated the nobility and
many people from the First Estate which of course was the Clergy.  This
Frenzy, and executions of men and women consumed most of France,
and when the higher classes were spent by the mobs, they then turned
towards the middle classes to satisfy their lust in the use of their new toy,
La Guillotine.  The quickly set up tribunals and trials condemned many
more people, and finally moved even to the lower classes in their lust for
their kind of justice.  Shortly after the King had been executed, his wife
also faced the tribunal and was  quickly beheaded by the mob.

The Marquis, somehow, had taken his family, including the twins to a
private villa, high in the mountains of southern France, and thus their
lives were spared.

The country was thrown into a revolution that ate up the fabric of their
very government with the temporary abolishment of the General
Assembly.

Ultimately, these various problems within late-1700s France weren’t so
much the immediate causes of the Revolution as they were the final
catalyst. The strict French class system
had long placed the clergy and nobility
far above the rest of the French citizens,
despite the fact that many of those
citizens far exceeded nobles in wealth
and reputation. Moreover, these
exclusive titles—most of which had been
purchased and passed down through
families—essentially placed their bearers above the law and exempted
them from taxes. In 1789, when France’s ancient legislative body, the
Estates-General, reconvened and it became apparent that the higher-
ranking classes refused to forfeit their privileges in the interest of saving
the country, the frustration of the French bourgeoisie reached its boiling
point. The French Revolution was thus a battle to achieve equality and
remove oppression—concerns far more deep-seated and universal than
the immediate economic turbulence France was experiencing at the
time.   The Revolution, in essence, lasted until
1799. shortly after the untimely death of
General and Former President George
Washington from Pneumonia brought on by
a throat infection.

It may seem on the surface that the immediate
results of the French Revolution were negligible,
for the next leader after the Revolution was
Napoleon, who imposed a dictatorship of sorts,
voiding the sovereign democracy of the
Revolution. Nonetheless, the Revolution won the public a number of
other victories, both tangible and intangible. No French ruler after the
Revolution dared to reverse the property and rights acquisitions gained
during the Revolution, so citizens who had purchased church land were
allowed to keep it. The new tax system remained devoid of the influence
of privilege, so that every man paid his share according to personal
wealth. Moreover, the breakdown of church and feudal contracts freed
people from tithes and other incurred fees. That’s not to say that all was
well: French industry struggled for years after the Revolution to regain a
foothold in such a drastically different environment. On the whole,
however, the French people had seen the impact they could have over
their government, and that liberating, inspiring spirit was unlikely ever
again to be suppressed.

Other European governments and rulers, however, were not too happy
with the French after the Revolution. They knew that their own citizens
had seen the power that the French public wielded, and as a result, those
governments were never again able to feel secure in their rule after 1799.
Though there had been other internal revolutions in European countries,
few were as massive and convoluted as the French Revolution, which
empowered citizens everywhere and resulted in a considerable leap
toward the end of oppression throughout Europe.

The twins, barely sixteen years old, coming out of their mountain retreat,
because the Guilottine frenzy had long died down, was chosen by
Napoleon Bonaparte, who had been chosen by the masses to be the new
ruler of France, to be, along others with noble birth, to lead the new
French Army into the battles to come in France's desire to conquer the
European World.  The De Balliel twins, like others of their kind, were
chosen to be the vanguard of Napoleon's army, whilst Napoleon would
be at the forefront on his horse, leading his newly formed armies into
battle.   And the aftermath of this was the mass conscription of many
European armies, including much of the French populous, in Napoleon's
quest to move forward to attempt to gobble up Britain, Spain, and the
Germanic states that loomed in the east.  

The conscription of the masses in France commenced shortly after the
cessation of hostilities in the French Revolution in 1799, when young
Napoleon was also chosen to be the Emperor of France.  The deployment
of his new army began to move in early 1803, charging thenceforth, ever
eastward, to gobble up the countries in his path.   He also managed to
acquire allies for the newly formed French Empire, which included
Holland, Italy, Etruria, Naples, Duchy of Warsaw, Confederation of the
Rhine, Bavaria, Saxony, Westphalia, Wuettemberg, Denmark, Norway,
and the Ottoman Empire.

The enemies of the French Empire entitled the Coalition Forces,
consisted of the United Kingdom, Austrian Empire, Russian Empire,
Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Sardinia, Sweden, Hanover, United
Kingdom of the Netherlands, Nassau, French Royalists in 1815, and
Brunswick.   

The war ended in 1815 with the victory of the coalition forces which
assembled with the defeated French at the Congress of Vienna.

Not much is known during that time of the De Balliel twins, except that
one had fallen wounded somewhere in Prussia, in 1812, and was
recovered by a young woman some where in or near the village of
Schoensee.  At this time, this twin was about twenty-five years of age.  
His benefactor nursed the wounded twin back to health and later on the
legend suggests that they married and bore several children.

The other twin had fallen around 1811 (age 24) near Warsaw, Poland,
and he likewise was treated by a young Polish woman who located him
in a wooded Area.

To this day, there are two separate divisions of the De Balliel family, one
completely of Polish lineage; and one of Prussian ancestry, whose family
spoke both German and Polish.  

The generation that had been French became lost somehow, and my
Grandfather spoke German, Polish and Latin.  My grandfather, Anton
De Balliel, a direct desendent of the original French family, acquired the
Teutonic language and the Slavic tongue; whilst the Polish segment only
spoke Polish.   Anton dropped the De when he settled in Jersey City in
1897.  When he was still a young man, he met and married his sweetheart
(my Grandmother) Helene Blawat in Jersey City.  They had three
daughters Klara (my godmother), Hedwig (my mother), and Margarite,
my youngest aunt, who was 12 years of age when I was born in 1926.

My father passed on in 1928 when I was two years old.   My mother
remarried  Larrence Kiely, who bore forth two children, Gerard (the
eldest), who has three daughters, and Joyce Young who has four
daughters and one son and several grandchildren who now reside in
South Carolina.  My half brother, Gerard, resides in New Jersey.

Much of the story relating to my ancestral past was given to me by my
maternal grandfather, whose wife and he, raised me.  The title of this
story was Theoretical, because many of the dates were in doubt, but what
happened to the two brothers were true, and it is to my credit that I am a
direct descendant of French Aristocracy; and it is also to their credit
regarding my half-brother and half-sister, that they are also direct
descendants of the same aristocracy.

The quest of Johannes Rammund De Balliel-Lawrora in the twilight of
his life is to locate cousins still residing in Germany.  To his knowledge,
there are no De Balliel's residing in France; but there are many still
residing in Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) and also in the
Republic of Poland.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The

Theoretical      

History

of the

Two (twin) De Balliel   
     
Brothers

By
Johannes Rammund
De Balliel-Lawrora