History

[Catie , Headmaster/All Powerfull Ruler]

Newer than either Durmstrang Institute or Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Beauxbatons Academy of Magic is nonetheless one of the finest and most progressive magic schools in the wizarding world. The foundation of the school did not come about as a result of years of planning and sketching on the part of some truly gifted magical architect, but instead was the fulfillment of a prophetic dream.

One of the school’s founders and its first Headmistress, Brie Papillonlisse, was born in Marseilles, France, in 1066 AD. She came from a line of French witches through whose bloodline the gift of Sight passed. Her grandmother, who had helped to raise the future founder during her early childhood, had been gifted with the Sight, but evidently Papillonlisse’s mother had not received the ability. Brie, on the other hand, was exceptionally talented at foreseeing the future from a young age. 

At age twelve, Papillonlisse experienced her first vision. Though the girl was still extremely young, she would experience one of the most profound visions of her lifetime in this brief glimpse of the future. After waking up from an especially deep sleep, Brie described what she had foreseen to her grandmother: the Mediterranean sun casting a long shadow on the ground before a magnificent palace, a bastion of elegance and culture for the millennia of witches and wizards to come. The older woman determined that her dream was metaphorical and not prophetic, checked her granddaughter for fever, and dismissed her to bed once more. 

For a time, her dream would remain unshared but not at all forgotten. Witches and wizards in France had received a temporary reprieve from the nearly constant persecution of magical beings that had been commonplace due to the incorrect presumption that witches and wizards were either evil, demonic, or possessed.
Parents of magically gifted children, who had long since been taught to hide their abilities from those who might try to hurt them, now sought to find someone who could pass on their knowledge of magic to the next generation. Because of the widespread persecution, those who knew the various magical arts had gone underground and took on few apprentices.

Papillonlisse herself had been an apprentice to a great Seer in Paris during her young adulthood. Though she certainly loved children, and was both affable and attractive enough to marry and start a family, she remained unmarried. Instead, her focus remained on her craft and on the dream that she had when she was twelve. Somehow she understood that the children in her life would not be her own but those of others. Thus, she began to teach children who displayed magical promise once her apprenticeship had ended.

She returned to her hometown, Marseilles, where she taught a form of divination from her home that involved becoming in tune with one’s inner muse and allowing the Sight to guide one’s hand in creative works. Her youngest students learned to channel that gift into writing, drawing, or painting. Later, they learned to transfer that ability into the manipulation of clay or wood. In her most advanced classes, the students would learn to mold stone at will. In these lessons, which had quickly become her favorites, Papillonlisse would allow her creativity to fuel her desire to create that magnificent building from her dream. Her work during these lessons would reflect that wish, taking the form of a gigantic palace made of stone and clear glass with balconies overlooking an endless stretch of gardens and the sparkling ocean.

Not long following her return to Marseilles, Brie met the owner of the town apothecary. Bellefeuille was a naturalist who secretly dreamed of one day becoming an animagus. Roughly twenty years Papillonlisse’s senior, it would not be an easy feat for him to accomplish. In addition to his love of nature, Bellefeuille was fascinated by the art of divination. Their combined interest in the art had created a friendship between the future founders of Beauxbatons Academy. After a time they became inseparable, which led to the hopeful speculation that they were becoming intimate. However, neither sought love. Papillonlisse had come to feel that Bellefeuille was somehow important to her vision of the palace, and Bellefeuille hoped to see some glimpse of his future self in their divinations or even one of Brie’s occasional visions.

In the year 1100, the dreams of both founders began to take tangible form, and a death brought new life for three very different people. With the arrival of spring, Bellefeuille completed his first successful full transformation into animagus form. His love of the mystical realm and of nature took shape in his creature form, a centaur. Two weeks subsequent to this achievement, Lothar Ombrelune, one of the wealthiest wizards in Southern France at the time, died at his estate in Marseilles. His only son, a wizarding architect who had earned great fame in Paris, returned home immediately to care for his father’s final arrangements.

Papillonlisse had met young Ombrelune in Paris years before during her apprenticeship. During her time in Paris, Brie had preached tolerance for Muggles to the wizarding community in Paris. She had gathered a few followers who agreed with her argument that an entire race of people should not be punished for their intolerance of years past. Ombrelune had attended one of her meetings and had been singularly unimpressed by what he saw as a group of idealists who wished to treat the Muggles like a child race. Though Ombrelune didn’t care much about what happened to the Muggles, this first encounter between him and Papillonlisse paved the way for the future.

Wanting to pay her respects, Brie attended Lothar’s funeral. The reunion with Ombrelune triggered the strongest vision Papillonlisse had yet experienced. Unlike when she had experienced other glimpses of the future, the future headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy completely lost consciousness. In her vision, she saw Ombrelune kneeling in dress robes, digging a hole. Bellefeuille stood beside him, ready to plant a sapling. A noise coming from the ocean caught her attention, and the woman caught sight of a crowd of children seemingly materializing from the shore. They rushed past her, causing her to shift her gaze back to her two male companions. When she turned however, the men had disappeared, and in their place was the castle from her previous vision, the doors of which flew open to admit the rush of students. It was the school of her dreams.

Three days passed before Papillonlisse had recovered enough to share her vision with her friend. She spoke with such passion and conviction about the three of them founding an academy together that Bellefeuille didn’t know what to say at first. He wanted to comfort his friend, but her dream seemed impossible. How were they to build such a magnificent structure? How would they ever get the money for land, materials, and labor? Ombrelune was anticipated to leave for Paris upon settling his father’s estate. Why would he even agree to see them? 

Fate would have it that Ombrelune did agree to it, inviting them to brunch at his father’s old home. Upon arriving at the location, Brie was nearly brought to tears. Though the edifice was not as she had envisioned it, the location was identical to that which she had seen. She clutched her friend’s arm as they walked toward the entrance to the home, whispering that this was the location from her dream and that fate had brought them all together for the purpose of educating the future generations of French witches and wizards. Though clearly caring for the woman, Bellefeuille was overwhelmed by how things were unfolding. 

Ombrelune shared the other man’s sentiments concerning this project. He had not been fond of his father, an emotion which had been returned on the part of Lothar. Having found out that his son was born with the gift of Hypnosis, an ability that was almost always associated with dark magic, the older Ombrelune nearly disinherited his child. Such hatred had developed within the younger Ombrelune that he had often dreamt of returning to make his father beg his forgiveness. Being only fourteen when he left home, he had not the skill in his gift to overpower his father, but now he was educated and more experienced. Certainly he had had the power to sway the man, but somehow he knew it would never feel like a victory.  

Thus, he had not seen the house in twenty years and had dreamed for many years of burning the structure to the ground. When these two strangers arrived with an adventure of such epic proportions, he was inclined to dismiss them immediately. While Papillonlisse and Bellefeuille found Ombrelune to be charming, attentive, and vague, he viewed them as unsophisticated by his standards. However, there was a passion and persistence about the woman that made him listen to what she had to say.

He had long since wanted to make something more of his life, to make something magnificent that would have made his father worship his abilities, and the building that was being described to him was nothing short of astonishing. Certainly he had his father’s fortune now, and he owned the land.  Papillonlisse even agreed when he half-heartedly suggested that this dream-school teach hypnosis. What did he have to lose? Something great could come of this school; perhaps his gift could be viewed with the respect that it deserved.

Thoughts of the grand creation filled his mind for months, so much so that he found himself drawing up floor plans and elevations for the palace in his free time. Soon, Papillonlisse’s contagious passion overpowered him, and he agreed to help them found their school. 

With great pleasure, Ombrelune destroyed his father’s home. Upon Brie’s persistent insistence, only the cornerstone, which is still visible near the southwest corner of kitchens, was kept in the foundation of the new establishment. It took six years to build, even with magic, the six-story tall building with four eight story tall towers on each side. Up a short flight of stairs from the ornate and massive foyer, a grand ballroom serves as the main dinning hall for the student and staff. 

Beyond the ballroom, stands the crowning glory of the academy, and one of Bellefeuille’s two great contributions to the school, a majestic, domed glass atrium where he frequently spent nights gazing at the stars with Brie. The second of these contributions were the stables, which were designed to be equine friendly with back doors to the stalls leading into grassy enclosed paddocks and a system to ensure that each stall always had fresh, flowing running water.  Both as a centaur animagus and as a nature lover, his concern was always more for the grounds and animals than for the students that they were meant to be teaching.

Beauxbatons Academy of Magic was dedicated by the three founders on the night of the spring solstice in the year 1107. The dedication ceremony was small, some thirty students and staff present to witness the events of that day, given that the school had only begun accepting a few students, mostly older students who had one time been Papillonlisse's students in Marseilles wishing to study hypnosis, architecture, care of magical creatures, herbology, the arts, and divination, before construction was complete. An elaborate picnic was held at dusk, after which the three founders stood together in the atrium to pledge their undying loyalty to all that they had created at the school. The ceremony ended with the three sending sparks up into the air together to signal the start of a detailed fireworks display that Ombrelune had arranged on the water.

[Catie , Headmaster/All Powerfull Ruler]

As time passed, the founders hired a larger number of professors, specializing in different areas of magic, as well as a larger number of students. The latter resulted in the expansion of the age groups of which the study body was composed, while the former resulted in the expansion of the syllabus to include lessons on basic magical skill. Nevertheless, the school maintained its reputation as the most advanced academy in Europe for the study of the arts, nature, and the social sciences.

And so Papillonlisse, Ombrelune, and Bellefeuille ran the school for the next sixty three years. The towers of the palace became the residences, one for each house and the fourth for the staff. For a time, the atrium, at Ombrelune’s instance and to Bellefeuille’s dismay, was opened to the general public for rent during gala events. The added exposure this gave the school allowed for an expansion in the regions from which its student body came. For suddenly, wealthy parents from parts of Europe as distant as Algerciras and Amsterdam began sending in applications for their children’s admission.

Bellefeuille, the oldest of the three, was the first to die, leaving behind him a last gift for the school:  the elaborate cloak broach he had worn daily for decades.  After his passing Papillonlisse carried it with her, finding to her surprise that it wept whenever nature was violated on the school grounds.  The enchantment, though certainly sad, always made her smile.  It was just like her friend to think more of the trees and birds that called the school home than for the students it launched into adulthood.

Ombrelune followed him only thirteen years later, leaving his own gift:  the small snuffbox he had always carried, though apparently full of dust and not snuff.  His instructions were that it was to be carried by the headmistress or headmaster of the school everyday and opened only in the event that the school was in desperate need of protection.  The snuffbox made Papillonlisse weep bitterly, for Ombrelune had always cared more for the protection of the palace that he had built than for the children it served; for Ombrelune’s instructions were clear:  If the snuffbox were opened and the dust released, a flurry of shadow demons would emerge from their captivity, destroying any and all that would harm Beauxbatons.

With Ombrelune’s death, Papillonlisse was now alone to govern the future of the school in the way that she felt was best. For years the three had anticipated their eventual passing on, and heavy debate had taken place over what should be done once the last of them had died. No decision had been made by the time Bellefeuille made his return to the earth he loved so dearly, and though the two remaining founders had tried to come up with some kind of decision, the future still remained cloudy when Ombrelune died. The answer to the question that had eluded them for so long came just as every other important decision concerning the school had; Brie experienced a vision.

She sat in her office on the fifth floor of the school she had created from her dreams, thinking fondly of her companions on such a great endeavor. With the crystal meditation orb that her grandmother had given her on her thirteenth birthday in one hand and a block of wood in the other, the headmistress found it incredible that eighty years had come to pass already. Her mind wandered through the events of the past as the sound of the ocean hitting against the shore filled the room. The breeze from the open window brushed past her face as she thought of their dedication so many years ago, and then Brie's mind was somewhere else entirely.

She saw a multitude of young witches and wizards coming from the ocean, almost in the same way that she had seen them on the day she saw Ombrelune’s property in her vision, except now there were countless more coming from the shore. They each held identical golden wands. As they approached her, they stood and declared their devotion and loyalty to the school before firing off a line of sparks into the air, much in the same way that the founders had on the opening day of the school. From each wand came a spark of different color, one for each of the houses. And thus, the students were sorted into houses with the promise of service. In turn, the acadmie returned that service by instilling in them the proud culture of beauty in all its forms, spiritual, natural, and logical, that Beauxbatons represented.

The force of her final vision nearly killed the elderly witch. Some of the members of staff, concerned when she had not arrived on time for dinner, found her lying on the floor of her office unconscious. The block of wood she was clutching had been transfigured into a statue of the three founders, wands raised and tips together; this would later be replicated into the fountain which is still housed in the central glass atrium. The orb in her other hand was now glowing so brightly that it was impossible to look directly at it until after her death. The force of her vision had been so great, that it had imprinted on the orb a sort of echo of Papillonlisse’s experience and wisdom.

This final glimpse of the future had cost the seer a great deal of strength. She lived for another seven months, though rendered mute by her enchantments. During this time, she ordered a casket be created for the three items which would be left by the founders to their successive headmasters and headmistresses: Bellefeuille’s weeping broach, Ombrelune’s snuffbox of demonic guardians, and her orb of experience and wisdom. In addition, she had her wand core combined with those of the other two founders in a golden wand like that from her dream.

Before she died, Papillonlisse saw her final vision become a reality. Students were lead up from the shore to stand before the gathered students and staff. Facing the school, they pledged their loyalty and service to Beauxbatons Academy of Magic before raising the golden wand to send a shower of sparks into the air as an orchestra continuously played the school’s anthem. Later that night, Brie followed her friends into eternal sleep.

Papillonlisse, Bellefeuille, and Ombrelune left behind them a love, beauty, grace, and service that survives to this day.