The French Minister

Alexandre Taillard de Worms is tall, magnificent, a dashing man attractive to women and, incidentally, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the land of the Enlightenment: France. His silver mane and his robust athlete's body are everywhere, from the United Nations tribunal in New York to the powder keg of Oubanga. He admonishes powerful men and invokes the finest minds in order to bring peace and calm the trigger-happy - and to justify his aura of a future Nobel prize for cosmic peace.
Alexandre Taillard de Worms is a powerful thinker, fighting with the back up of the holy trinity of diplomatic concepts: legitimacy, lucidity and efficiency. He fights against American neo-conservatists, corrupt Russians, and greedy Chinese. Although the world doesn't deserve France's generosity of spirit, Taillard de Worms' art feels cramped within the nation's borders. Arthur Vlaminck, a young academic preparing his PhD, is hired by the minister. To put it plainly, he must write the great man's speeches. But first he must learn how to deal with the prince's moods and his entourage, forging a place between his cabinet director and advisers who haunt the Quai d'Orsay, where stress, ambition and underhand tactics are all part of operations. Just when he glimpses the world's fate, he is threatened by the technocrats' inertia.