Alexandre Phillipon

Comte Alexandre Phillipon is the eponymous protagonist of the short story Her Majesty's Lover. He is a Reven commoner, although his father inherited a courtesy title which allows his family a slight privlege over most commoners. Alexandre is later granted a peerage of his own by Queen Josephine De Coeur, officially making him the Comte of La Tour. It is mostly an honorary title, having no actual responsibilities or powers therein.

Personality
Alexandre is a pessimistic and depressed man, often prone to speaking in sarcasm and with exaggeration. He is quite misanthropic, due mostly to his disdain for the false sense of happiness so widely practiced by his countrymen. He tends to always assume the worst and typically expresses his everyday misery, much to the annoyance of others.

Alexandre is often misunderstood by the Reven gentry, who prefer to ignore all of the problems of their lives and society. Alexandre, meanwhile, has made a career out of satirizing the superficial, hypocritical nature of Reven society; they are both pious and debauched. His art is best known for highlighting the more troubling aspects of the indivual.

Background
Alexandre was born in Proserpina, Revès to Antoine Phillipon and Juliette Popelin. He proved a skilled artist from a young age and his father, sensing he was born for greatness, used all of the family's funding to further his son's studying at the Collège d'Art.

He then began doing portraits for locals, gradually gaining renown among the gentry for his whimsy, comical art style. Soon he was painting for nobility all across the country. It wasn't long before he was suggested to do work for the royal family. He initially painted for King Rever IV, Queen Josephine, and young Princess Charlotte. However, this changed Queen Josephine took an interest in the handsome artist, and he henceforth exclusively painted for the Queen.

By the time he reached the end of his life, he had not painted for many years and often remarked that the craft had been sullied for him, although he would not say how. The comical and whimsical aspects his personality, while previously always present under the surface, were completely absent. One of the nurses who attended to him prior to his death remarked that he had probably been dead long before he ever came to a hospice.