The Bourgeois Rebel. Louis is the son of a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Finance. An only child, he grew up pampered by his mother and burdened by his father’s expectations. During the tail end of his teenage years, Louis developed an infatuation with Caravaggio’s work. This fixation, added to his first trips into the artistic outskirts of Paris, made him decide to become a painter. Louis tried to make it in the École des Beaux-Arts, but his stay at the renowned institution was short-lived. He says he was targeted by some of the professors. The professors say he was simply not talented enough. Louis sought inspiration from the works of Courbet and Manet and the writings of Baudelaire. He’s also a secret admirer of Marquis de Sade. At one of the Parisian slums he frequented, he met Enzo. Their connection was immediate. Louis was drawn to the young boy’s androgynous beauty and made him his first-ever muse. Their relationship was intense; Louis demanded total devotion, and Enzo would meet all his whims. But once the boy caught hold of the news that Louis was betrothed to a fellow bourgeois girl, he lost it, and things took a destructive turn. Louis decided to end their partnership. Secluded in the French countryside, Louis didn’t follow through with the wedding promise, earning the shunning of his father. He kept in touch with Enzo through letters and gifts. While he found new muses and kept on painting, he knew — deep down — that none of them compared to the beauty he had captured in Enzo. Now, 3 years after so much heartache and drama, Louis decides to go to London.