The Barber of Paris

It's 1632, and Paris is a city of mud, mischief, and moral danger. Touquet the barber has done something unusual: he's taken in Blanche, a young girl of questionable parentage, and sworn to protect her innocence from the corrupting winds of the city. When a marquis comes sniffing around with marriage on his mind, Touquet must deploy every trick in his considerable arsenal - wit, deception, and perhaps a well-timed razor - to save Blanche from a fate worse than spinsterhood. Paul de Kock, the wildly popular French novelist of his day, writes with a Dickensian appetite for character and a saucy awareness that innocence, in a city like Paris, is both precious and extremely difficult to maintain. The result is a comedy of manners wrapped in genuine heart, where a humble barber stands as the city's unlikely moral compass.