Robert LePage and Patrick Dupuy are agents with French Intelligence.
The world has just witnessed the start of the 20th Century. Tensions throughout Europe are at a tautness that seemingly anything could snap the peace and bring about another war, especially between France and Germany, both of which still harbored immense animosities after the Franco-Prussian War ended three decades before. It is in this environment we follow two agents which are determined to not let Germany fool the Republic into letting its guard down.
LePage is 35 years old and when we first meet him he is firmly undercover with a group of nihilists. He is a bit taller than most and his black hair is kept cropped very short. Most noticeable about LePage were his eyes, described as being like "a rapt, front row theatergoer's, seeking the hidden meaning of a text through an actor's every movement." LePage is a very experience Intelligence operative and enjoys his work. He is married to Madeline but that relationship is worthy, it would seem, of a book on its own - a marriage of convenience to provide cover for his infiltration into the anarchist movement but one which has lasted for going on three years.
Patrick Dupuy is at least a decade younger. He is the son of a popular member of the French Chamber of Deputies who recently passed away and whose seat he would be taking. He is not, when we first encounter him, involved in the Intelligence operation at all but he will certainly get pushed into it rather forcefully. He will find that the excitement and the danger are appealing to him and since he knows in his heart that politics is not where he wants to stay, when offered a permanent position, he will not hesitate.