Baron Valmont-Hesse

The son of a Lorraine ironmaster, Valmont-Hesse bought his barony with his father's furnaces and his ministry with his own charm. He is a superb host and a dangerous optimist, who holds that a Crown must never look poor, least of all to the people it borrows from.

For a few years it worked. He borrowed from the tax farmers, the Dutch banks and the farmers again, each loan paying the interest on the last, and the court loved him for it. The city's walls were being rebuilt in those years so the farmers could tax every cart that came in, and Parisians called the new barriers the price of the baron's dinners.