Before the Battle of Helm’s Deep in Lord of the Rings, King Théoden gives a memorable monologue as he dons his battle gear while the orcs approach, which he ends forebodingly by asking, “How did it come to this?” Staring out from the Élysée Palace following the results from Sunday’s parliamentary elections, Emmanuel Macron was no doubt asking himself the same question. Théoden, of course, went on to pull off a miraculous win over the forces of darkness. Macron and his Ensemble coalition (including the Renaissance party) will not enjoy the same comeback in Round 2 this coming Sunday; France’s imagined monarch and his party are staring into an unavoidable abyss of the president’s own making.