At Bertrand Morane's burial there are many of the women that the 40-year-old engineer loved. In flashback Bertrand's life and love affairs are told by himself while writing an autobiographical novel.

A historical and tragic backdrop: the dragonnades, the persecution of Protestants after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. And a comic situation: an insubordinate singer who taunts Louis XIV's soldiers from the top of his rock, driving Marshal Boutre half mad.