At a Valmont family meal, elders scold six-year-old Dorian and another child for leaving without formal manners, calling him a bumpkin. The insults escalate until Old Mrs. Valmont intervenes, praises Dorian's proper greeting and invites him to sit. While tidying his room someone finds his calligraphy; relatives mock it as pretension. Isabelle tears the pages and is struck by her mother. Old Mrs. Valmont declares the writing might be valuable and orders Diane to fetch the family's ancestral Crown Prince's authentic script from the study. The house braces for an immediate comparison that will expose the truth.