Scaramouche

In Brittany on the eve of the French Revolution, André-Louis Moreau is a sceptical young lawyer who has little interest in political principle. That changes when his idealistic friend Philippe de Vilmorin is killed in a deliberately unequal duel by the powerful Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr. Denied justice by the institutions protecting the aristocracy, André-Louis adopts his friend’s arguments, addresses an angry crowd and becomes a fugitive from the authorities.

He hides with a travelling theatre company, playing the masked schemer Scaramouche, before remaking himself in Paris as a highly skilled fencing master. His command of rhetoric and the sword draws him into the conflict between the Third Estate and the privileged orders, bringing him into contact with Georges Danton and placing him within the accelerating violence of 1789. While trying to protect Aline de Kercadiou and settle his account with La Tour d’Azyr, André-Louis must also confront concealed truths about his own family and motives.