Young Blades

The young blades are French royal 'musketeer' guards (despite the name sword-fighters, not sharpshooters) of the generation after the legendary, now knighted Gascon hero D'Artagnan and his three mentors. They include his son, now known as D'Artagnan, and his companions in arms, stationed in the Bastille, under captain Duvall's command: Siroc the erudite inventor and Ramon, a romantic, poetically gifted Spaniard who deserted the Habsburg camp, France's arch-rival. They are joined by a late musketeer's daughter Jaqueline, who masquerades (only D'Artagnan junior knows) as her imaginary brother Jacques (the real one being no good at fighting and fled to America), looking for revenge and glory. Louis XIII's son Louis XIV, the future Sun king, is now on the French throne although a mere boy, ruled in name by his vain and useless mother, Queen-regent Ann, and in fact by cardinal Richelieu's hand-picked, Italian-born successor, cardinal Mazarin. In this series, the power-hungry prime minister is also a diabolical obelisk-sorcerer at the head of the murderous order of the Knights of the Tabernacle. —KGF Vissers