PinkuBentoBox

From what I’ve seen so far (two episodes) this show is rather good and I’m surprised that no one’s really seemed to notice it yet. It’s being broadcast in High Definition - 1080i, even - which is what initially grabbed my attention. When I heard that it was set in 18th Century France, my interest grew. It’s an interesting period historically. I also quite enjoyed what I watched of Rose of Versailles way back, and so I basically went into this cold.

First off, it’s really nothing like Rose of Versailles. I want to get that out of the way. They do share a similar setting, Louis XV was King from 1715-1774. I’m not sure if an exact date has been given in the series yet, but given the presence of Madame de Pompadour at Versailles I’d expect we’re talking around 1750. Rose of Versailles is set about 10 years later, just before the revolution, if memory serves. In other words, pretty much the same period. That’s about where similarities stop, though.

The series opens with a coffin floating down the Seine. Painted on the coffin - possibly in blood - is the word ‘psalms’, and inside the coffin is the corpse of Lia de Beaumont, who is the older sister of our protagonist, D’Eon. D’Eon is a member of the king’s secret police in Paris, and he turns his efforts towards hunting down whoever was responsible for his sister’s murder.

However, there seems to be a lot more going on behind the scenes. French politics has always been filled with a lot of intrigue, and it makes for some quite interesting skullduggery. Add in the fact that a lot of said intrigue seems to carry a supernatural edge, and it becomes quite a bit more interesting. As in Rose of Versailles, at this point the Duke of Orleans is painted as being a bit of a villain. There’s also some form of secret society behind the scenes as well, identified with the word ‘nqm’, who may or may not be benevolent.

Eventually D’Eon and the secret police track down a corpse in a box, also painted with ‘psalms’. In this case however, the girl had been preserved in some kind of substance that blackened her skin. I’d expect it’s probably quicklime, though there was some mention of mercury as well. After application of the ‘tongue looseners’ (read: hot steel) to the right people, they eventually track things back to a warehouse which is filled with similarly preserved women, all with H∴O carved into their foreheads.

This warehouse is tracked back to Duke Orleans, whom the King authorises the Secret Police to arrest. However, before they can carry out these orders, the secret police are wiped out by a strange little assassin guy, who appears to be working for Count Saint-Germain, Madame de Pompadour’s ‘pet alchemist’. Given that the assassin’s skin is burned when it comes into contact with the rosary that D’Eon is wearing, I’d theorise we’ll find out that the fellow is a Homunculus.

The first episode ends with D’Eon, having had his sister’s rosary forged into his sword, goes to an old broken-down church to rescue his superior, Bernice, who was captured when the secret police were massacred. However whoever’s behind things here has worked their sinister magic, and Bernice is now a zombie. Actually, a Gargoyle is what he’s referred to in this case. I sort of associate the term Gargoyle with brooding half-bat, half-man demon things rather than zombies, but whatever. D’Eon suddenly starts channelling the soul of his dead sister or something, becoming rather hott. And the Queen has a talking skull.

This is probably not that fantastic a summary. I’m not very good at doing this. It’s good, though. Check it out.

Episode 1 (704×400, 2.0 audio)
Episode 1 (1280×720, 5.1 audio)
Episode 2 (704×400, 2.0 audio)
Episode 2 (1280×720, 5.1 audio)