Silver Wolf Plot Summary
Note:
On geographical situation: It is never explicitly given in canon where Silver, Mireille and Jean Louis origin from. The only clear location stated is Paris, France, and the country from which the foreigners have come is always referred to as “that country”/”our country”/”the country”. However, several pointers are given that makes the location of Luxembourg relatively likely. First off, in Pierre’s speech France is titled “our good neighbour”, something that limits the number of possibilities to Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Luxembourg. Silver’s original name was Michel Lavreau, Mireille’s father was named Barrault and his lookalike is called Pierre, all typical French sounding names. Not to mention, of course, Jean Louis and Mireille themselves. Thus, it is safe to assume that they are from a country where French or a French-resembling language is spoken and/or recognised. This limits us to primarily Belgium and Luxembourg. During Potos’ negotiations with Crauchet, it is mentioned that the president and the negotiated goods are to return by ship. Logically this would leave us to assume that they would be from Belgium, since Luxembourg is landlocked. However, in concerns to the political situation leading up to the plotline of the musical, the historical development of Luxembourg in the wake of the Luxembourg Crisis fits the setting better (see notes on timeline situation below). It is also worth mentioning that the Moselle River, which runs through both France and Belgium, has been used for cargo shipment for decades and it would not have been unusual for the goods to have been loaded on a ship in Paris that would go upriver until the Rhine runs into the Moselle, leading back to Luxembourg. Paris is located in the middle between Belgium and Luxembourg, so judging from the distance that Silver and Mireille have to walk, this is no given indication of Luxembourg, but in concerns to how surprised Silver is that the police finds them so quickly, the corrupt law enforcements of a small country like Luxembourg would be more likely to quickly react to a direct order from Jean Louis than in a big country like Belgium where the orders would have to go through several instances to reach their destination.
On timeline situation: Again, any explicit year is never given, but judging by the clothes they wear in the musical it would be safe to assume the late 19th century, featuring bow ties for the men and dresses that have tight-fitting bodices with high collars, but a curvy silhouette from the waist and down. Mireille even wears a very exact replica of a 1880s travelling coat. We are also presented with historically accurate hairstyles with the frizzled hair over the forehead of the women and slick-back style for the men. Jeanne is also a prominent reporter, landing us in the late Victorian period (outside the UK) where it became more likely for a woman to work in such positions if she were from the right family and had the right connections to draw upon. Most notably, it is clearly stated that a big exhibition is taking place in Paris, something that has caused many important visitors from other countries to arrive and makes all of Paris celebrate. Jean Louis tells Mireille that it is a possibility for technological transactions and in Pierre’s speech it is mentioned that they wish to engage in “a cultural partnership”. All pointers to the World Fair in Paris in 1889. This would also fit with the political situation in Luxembourg. Pierre has been the stand-in for the assassinated Barrault for four years and Mireille tells Silver that her father was the presidential candidate who’d taken over the lead of “a new party” - a party that could easily have been formed in the wake of the Second Treaty of London and the Luxembourg Crisis that gave Luxembourg its political independence in 1867. Both carriages and cars are mentioned as possible means of transportation, signifying a period where the car was still in its development stage. The first car to go into production with an internal combustion engine is from 1885 - and fittingly France (Renault) was featured prominently in the development of more functional cars in the years that followed. Therefore I think a safe guess as to timeline for the entire plot would be in the 1880s, more specifically from 1884/85-1889.
In-depth Summary of Silver Wolf
The assassin called Silver has no recollection of his past, but lives from day to day working for Ray and killing off politicians who have become corrupt or in other ways deal with shady matters. During the World Fair, he is assigned to kill Crauchet, a politician and weapons-dealer, who is apparently engaging in big-scale negotiations with a foreign politician. Meanwhile, the Luxembourgian minister of state, Jean Louis Duroc, and his wife, Mireille Duroc, are having an argument concerning their plans about having Pierre, an impostor impersonating Mireille’s murdered father, partake in the events around the World Fair and, in the same breath, Mireille’s participation in the parties afterwards. Jean Louis insists that she should play a bigger role in the set-up, seeing how they are doing it to uphold her father’s dreams, but Mireille will not listen. Angrily, he inquires her whether she intends to betray him, but it merely angers her and she leaves, yelling over her shoulder that between the two of them, he is the betrayer.
At the party where Silver meets with Ray in order to pick out Crauchet, he sees for the first time Jean Louis and Mireille, the state minister and his wife from his own country of origin and it stirs something in his memory. Ray, afraid that Silver will come to recall more than would be good for the both of them, drags away with him and tells him to stay away from Jean Louis and Mireille. However, after having failed to kill Crauchet’s wife and daughter due to the trauma of his own past, Silver is left with no choice but to continue on in his search for his own past, seeing how he cannot continue his career as an assassin now that he can be recognised. When one of Ray’s other co-workers, Batista, returns wounded, Silver is suddenly thrown into action, realising that he used to be a doctor. This memory triggers another memory; of a younger Mireille mourning the death of her father, Jean Louis taking her by the shoulders and leading her away, only turning at the last minute to tell Silver to forget everything he has seen. That, in fact, nothing has happened here at all. In the wake of this, Silver tells Ray that he will go on a trip, in search of what he has forgotten. Albeit Ray is reluctant to let him go, he wishes him the best and they drink to his health.
A couple of days later, Silver turns up at a party where the Luxembourgian president, Barrault, is speaking, both Jean Louis and Mireille present. Using one of the prostitutes from the brothel where he lives as a distraction, he manages to kidnap Mireille at gunpoint and get away without Jean Louis noticing. Alone with Mireille, she tells him that he used to be a surgeon and that he, four years ago, operated her father who had been fatally wounded nearby. Silver then continues to recall how his wife and daughter had later been murdered and himself shot and chased down, but managed to escape. Obsessed with finding out who did it to him and his family, he asks Mireille who it was that had shot her father and if he managed to save him. Before she has the time to answer, Ray shows up with Simone, telling Silver that this is his last chance to escape. He, himself, has just seen the president (from Luxembourg) in person and every person that they might have turned to for help is now shunning them, wanting Silver dead. And now Ray and Batista too, because they refuse to kill him. Apologising for the trouble, Silver tells Ray to escape with Batista and drags off with Mireille to flee back to Luxembourg before the police can locate Mireille.
Back in Paris, Jean Louis orders the local police to hunt down and kill Silver and Mireille when they are located at the border. On the run, Silver remembers that Barrault died during surgery, but in the light of what Ray told him, he also realises that an impostor has been put in his place. Confronting Mireille with this knowledge, he quickly jumps to the conclusion that Jean Louis must have been behind the assassination of his family in order to shut him up and lead the impostor to victory. Mireille cannot deny it, knowing full well what the ambitions and power hunger of her husband has caused him to make of Luxembourg, but at the same time insists that she didn’t know and that she could never have agreed to something like that. She had been informed that his family had been killed in the fire at the villa, and that Jean Louis had made a deal with Silver (Michel Lavreau at the time) to keep him silent. Then, in the aftermath of her father’s death, Jean Louis had taken charge of the situation, taking good care of her and bringing Pierre to the Barrault house, talking Mireille into his plan of letting him stand in for her father and thus be able to continue the elections as previously. Assuring her that they would win and that they’d make her father’s ideals become reality, he had proposed to her and in her grief, she had said yes. Over time, though, she had seen how poorly Jean Louis’ methods fit with her father’s ideals and in her disillusion begins drawing away from him and his plans, refusing to take part in the parties that require her presence and other official functions. When Silver heads for the border, Mireille asks him to bring her with him so that she can unveil Jean Louis’ deeds to the people who should know and thus make the lie come to an end. When he asks her why she has not done until now, she admits that she has been afraid. Afraid of Jean Louis’ power, of what it did to him, but most of all to look her mother in the eye and admit to have been wrong. Silver sympathises with her and lets her come with him. On their way across the border, they are attacked by a group of policemen, Mireille getting shot in the arm. Thus, Silver brings her to a nearby house, treating her wound and seeking refuge in the basement of a local resident’s house. There, the two of them discuss their prospects of the future, Mireille begging of Silver to forget his revenge on Jean Louis. When he refuses, she tells him that if they can contact Potos, the member of the opposition who was accused of having attempted murder on Barrault and who is now working under her husband after having been cleared of all charges, he would be glad to use the information to take the power away from Jean Louis and take control himself. Before Silver has the time to properly consider it, the police has found them, arresting Silver on sight and asking Mireille for clarifications. Using her last name to force through her opinions, she tells them that she was shot at the border the night before, the kidnapper leaving her to bleed out, but that Silver found her and took care of her. It works, and Silver is released. Upon asking the leading policeman for a favour, Mireille insists that he contacts Potos for her without letting anyone know and bring her to his house. He agrees and Silver and Mireille’s paths part for now.
At Potos’ house, Potos has brought Pierre in for questioning and he reveals the scheme of Jean Louis’ plan to Mireille’s great devastation. Jean Louis was behind the murder of her father and put Pierre in his place to rule the country alone. All this time he has been lying to her, even when she had kept the slightest of hopes… Realising her own solitude, she asks Potos to leave her alone, mourning the loss of first her father and then her husband. Some time later, Potos invites Jean Louis over to his house, revealing that he knows everything and now intends to reveal it to the public, forcing Jean Louis to resign and leaving the power to Potos. Having nothing to say, Jean Louis coldly poses a toast to the new president of the state and they shake hands on this new “trust”, Jean Louis pressing a poisonous thorn into Potos’ hand and having his own men kill Potos’ bodyguards. When Mireille and Pierre are brought into the room, Potos is lying on the floor, dying, Jean Louis telling him that he will now finally be useful. The public will find out that he was the one who hired Silver to kidnap his wife in an attempt to pressure Jean Louis and Barrault - in the struggle that came of this face-off, he murdered both the president and his daughter before Jean Louis had the chance to stop and kill him. Leaving only Jean Louis to finally claim full power. With this, Jean Louis turns to Mireille, admitting to her that he has always hesitated with killing her, because he didn’t want to see her dead, since he loved her. When she tries to escape, he grabs her and kisses her until she breaks loose, screaming for someone to kill him. Angered, Jean Louis finds his gun, telling her that this is the end…
Right before Jean Louis has the chance of shooting Mireille, Silver arrives, shooting both his men and managing to aim at Jean Louis’ arm. Pierre grabs the gun from Jean Louis’ wounded hand. Facing Silver with no means of protection, Jean Louis is finally killed and Mireille set free. Together, Mireille and Silver return to Michel Lavreau’s burnt-down house, laying flowers there for his wife and child. There they meet Ray, who lays down a gun next to the flowers, revealing to Silver that he knew he’d find him here, once he’d recovered all his memories. Understanding the implications, Silver fights Ray, but is overpowered. Standing over him and ready to strike, Ray is shot by Mireille. Before dying, he tells the last part of the story that has brought Mireille and Silver together… that Jean Louis had hired Batista to kill Barrault, but that he failed and Jean Louis was so angry that he was about to kill him. To save his life, Ray had promised to cover up his failure by making the surgeon’s family disappear, but when he had found Michel, alive despite his severe wound, he’d not been able to kill him, but instead taken him in and given him the identity of Silver. Telling Michel/Silver that his final wish is to take Silver’s identity with him to the grave, Ray dies in Silver’s arms.
The only two left behind from Jean Louis’ plot, Mireille and Silver continue onwards together, deciding to try and create a new life where they might have to carry the burden of their actions, but now at least with the purpose of not repeating them once more.