Blois, France

Early 1506

With peace settling in across France, the eyes of the Roi had turned at last back to home. Another project begun by his predecessor, Louis XI, that interested the present Roi was the tightening of the ties linking the Kingdom of France together-- literally.

Under Louis XI, the road network in France had been improved greatly, but with recent additions to the lands of the Kingdom of France and the continually bleak international situation, it seemed likely that those roads may once again be needed to transport soldiers hither and thither across the frontiers to defend against aggression in Milan or, as was distressingly possible, along the border with Spain or the Holy Roman Empire.

As such, Louis XII conferred with several engineers and architects as well as military planners in Blois during the winter of 1505-1506 to discuss plans for the renewed development of roads throughout France. They would be widened to allow for easier movement of columns of infantry and, in the core of France, paved with stone as the old Roman roads upon which Louis’s armies had so reliably traveled were in Italy and throughout France. Louis and his military planners anticipated that the harder surfaces would allow for faster and more reliable transportation of heavy artillery pieces and armored cavalry even in less-than-desirable weather conditions.

The largest cities in France would, likewise, be connected by these routes de pierre as well, allowing for rapid communication from Paris to all the corners of the Kingdom. Where they encountered rivers, bridges were to be built if they did not already exist. A new connection, stretching from Grenoble to Milan by way of Turin, was to be constructed upon the approval of the Savoyard regency council in Annecy if that was deemed necessary.

In general, the program of road construction would ideally lead to swifter communication, better organization, quicker movement, and more efficient administration of the Kingdom of France than over the aging roads built sixty years prior.