Maurice Bourbon

Cardinal Mazarin dies, leaving a power vacuum in which the young Louis asserts his intention to govern as well as rule. Mazarin's fiscal advisor, Colbert, warns against Fouquet, the Superintendant who has been systematically looting the treasury and wants to be prime minister. Fouquet believes Louis will soon tire of exercizing power and overplays his hand by offering a bribe to Louis' mistress to be his ally. She reports this to the king who arrests Fouquet. Louis and Colbert design a brilliant strategy to keep merchants making money, nobles in debt, the urban poor working and fed, and peasants untaxed.

In a small Italian village live a group of men, each as miscreant as the next. Among them is the baker, violent and miserly. One day, to benefit from an inheritance, he has to distribute fifty kilos of bread a day to the poor for five years. At the moment of distribution, a dog comes along and takes a loaf of bread in its mouth, to take to an old hermit whom the villagers are convinced "has seen God".

It is the start of the 14th century and Philip IV the Fair reigns supreme over France. His three sons would rule after him. Isabelle, his only daughter, is married to King Edward II of England. Under Philip's reign, France is great but its people are unhappy. Only one power dares to stand up to him: the order of the Knights Templar. When the last Grand Master of the Temple, Jacques de Molay, is burned at the stake, he curses Philip and so begins a dark period, full of blood and violence, death and tears ...