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Bertie’s romantic relations are entirely sexless, 20th-century echoes of courtly love, though throughout the oeuvre he gets engaged to at least six women by my count.

The life-size portrait he produced is a whiz-bang spectacle of courtly pomp and dynastic circumstance.

And he is seen as "the courtly gentleman of the Marble Palace," as Time Magazine described him.

Best of all is the lively triple-time finale, which evokes the long history of courtly hunting music, with an alluring short section in minor key.

It’s not immediately apparent how courtly intrigue figures in “A Prince,” Pierre Creton’s spellbinding French pastoral drama, though sex, death and domination hang palpably in the film’s crisp, Normandy air.