The Greatest Thing

In France's Ancient Regime, kings marry for power but take mistresses for love. So revered was the coveted role of mistress to the king, the woman chosen was referred to as the king's Favorite. In 1771, King Louis XVth gifted his Favorite, the Madame Jeanne du Barry, with a black child to serve as her personal servant and page. Years later, that child, Louis-Benoit Zamor, would send the last official French Favorite to her death.

His mother told him he was God's greatest thing. Then he was stolen, sold, shipped to France, and re-named Louis-Benoit Zamor. Stripped of his esteem as efficiently as a fox's coat in a royal hunt, Zamor is reared by Du Barry-with a love as false as her smile-and a king with unsavory proclivities. He soon realizes his mother lied. Because, in this place, King Louis XV is the world's greatest thing, second only to God.

But Zamor was loved, once. This fact, alone, makes the bitter pill of a lifetime of small nothingness impossible to swallow. Even if false, a mother's words don't die easily.

First, he must survive childhood. Then, if the world thinks the debauched, degenerate king is its greatest thing, the answer is simple: Zamor will have to change the world.

Vive le roi. Long live the King ... and all that.