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France, 1307. With the royal coffers empty, and no formalised system of taxation, King Philippe IV (Tchéky Karyo) asks Jacques de Molay (Gérard Depardieu), the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, for a loan. When he is refused, the King has every member of the Order arrested on the same night (Friday the 13th of October), and seizes the gold anyway. Under torture, the Grand Master confesses to spitting on the cross and is convicted of heresy. The King promptly has him burnt at the stake, coercing the Pope into greenlighting the whole affair. However, as Molay burns, he issues a curse upon the King and Pope Clement, and all of their descendants for 13 generations… When the Pope dies shortly afterwards, it seems as though the curse is at work. Meanwhile, Robert of Artois, a French nobleman, feels that he has been cheated out of his inheritance by his aunt, Mahaut (Jeanne Moreau). Her daughters are married to the King’s sons, and when Robert learns of their infidelity, he enlists the help of the King’s daughter, Isabella, to bring them down. His actions set in motion a series of events that are to have wide-ranging consequences for both France and England.

King Philippe is deeply affected by the deaths of the Pope and one of his most trusted advisors, which he blames on the curse of the Grand Master of the Knights Templar. Obsessed with the curse, Philippe starts wasting away and dies shortly afterwards. With Philippe’s eldest son, Louis X, on the throne, Robert d’Artois intensifies his scheming to reclaim the County of Artois from his aunt Mahaut. To gain the support and trust of the new king, he allies himself with the king’s uncle Charles of Valois and plots to undermine the once influential chamberlain, Enguerrand de Marigny. King Louis seeks a new wife to provide him with an heir and ensure the succession, but is hindered by the fact he is still married to Marguerite of Burgundy, who has been imprisoned for adultery. Furthermore, a new Pope has not been elected and his marriage cannot be annulled. He sends Robert d’Artois to Marguerite in an attempt to coerce her into writing a letter stating that their marriage was never consummated and that her daughter is illegitimate. She writes the letter, but the king does not receive it, and another solution must be found…