Robert of Artois

Robert is a giant who eats, drinks and talks loudly, and behind all that hides a cool head and a memory that forgives nothing. He lost Artois in a ruling by Philip the Fair's court, which gave the county to his aunt, Mahaut. He never accepted it. In 1314 he sees a way to hit Mahaut through her daughters, who are married to the king's sons.

Robert takes his suspicions about the sisters-in-law to Queen Isabella of England, Philip's daughter. The Tour de Nesle scandal breaks: Marguerite and Blanche of Burgundy are jailed for adultery, and Mahaut's daughter Jeanne falls from grace too.

With Louis X on the throne, Robert becomes the envoy nobody wants to see. He rides to the fortress of Château-Gaillard to pressure Marguerite into giving up her marriage, and her end in prison passes through his hands.

He also helps his uncle, Charles of Valois, bring down the minister Enguerrand de Marigny.

When English baron Roger Mortimer flees to France, Robert takes him in. He follows Mortimer's alliance with Queen Isabella up close, and it ends with Edward II's fall.

In the meantime Robert outlasts every king. Louis X, Philip V and Charles IV come and go, and he stays at court, close to his uncle Charles of Valois, waiting for the moment the crown passes to that branch of the family. He also marries into it: his wife, Jeanne of Valois, is Charles's daughter.

With his brother-in-law Philip VI of Valois on the throne, Robert thinks he will finally win Artois. To do it he submits forged documents. The fraud comes out, he loses everything and is banished.

Robert goes to England and urges young Edward III to claim the crown of France. The man who wanted a county helps start the Hundred Years' War.

In real history, Robert fought on the English side and died in 1342 of wounds taken in battle in Brittany. Druon makes him the thread that ties the Templar curse to the war that will ravage France for more than a century: one man, driven by a grudge, changing the fate of two kingdoms.

Jean Piat played Robert in the 1972 version and Philippe Torreton in 2005. The real man existed: Robert III of Artois (1287–1342).