Jean-Luc comes from a long line of vinters from some of the finest vinyards in France. His family name is associated with the rich wine that can be compared to their blood in richness. He is a well educated man, no expense spared for the education he received as a young man. Because of the pressures that came with such a bloodline, as the oldest and only son, he was pressured to marry at a young age.

He did not wish... no... could not be tied down... Not when he had things he needed to finish first... his education namely. But when his mother died, his father ailed from heartache, and the rainfall that overtook the area which resulted in the loss of crops, everything put stress on his nerves. This ended in the marriage between himself and a wealthy widow from the neighboring lands. Despite how much older she was, they were able to conceive three sons. But she was not a woman that necessarily kept his attention, for she was of a bland nature and a drunkard to boot. On top of all of that, she was cold in the marriage bed and left him bored, but she'd given him his sons and therefor had served well as a wife. With drink, however, sometimes came violent fits that could have caught the estate on fire, and she would have blamed the de Mercier name for her late husband, Raoul's death. Her wraith was not lost on her children who did not resemble Raoul, but Jean-Luc, and she never seemed to forgive herself for Raoul's death. It was not lost on her that her husband was not faithful to her, he seemed to flaunt his paramour in front of her.

Within a year after his youngest child's birth, there was a woman who impacted him greatly and gave him a daughter. With the birth of the bastard child came scandal and speculation as to what happened to the milkmaid who birthed her. The loss of this woman made him into a shell of his former self and he turned to politics to escape the hell his life had become.

His wife took her wraith out on the bastard child and de Mercier could not remember clearly the years that led up to Madame de Mercier's death, he could clearly remember her head cradled in his son's hands while the boy stood over her. They buried her in the garden and the children dispersed, his eldest and middle son serving the crown, Laurent joined the Naval forces, and Jean-Luc was finally free of the yoke of responsibility that was his estate which he sold and fled to Paris.

For a time, he lived with the greatness of change, but with the fires of revolution, Jean-Luc fled south into Italy with his daughter, settling eventually in Venice where he hoped to live his days out with peace and calm. But he was still restless, and the taste for blood was always in the back of his mind as was his desire for education. The darkness was his friend.