During the Occupation, a boarding school in Moulins was placed under the rule of a headmistress committed to collaboration. It is within these walls that Michel, Arthur and Franck, escaped prisoners seeking to cross the demarcation line, find themselves stranded. Three boarders, Manouche, Jo and La Tigresse, discreetly devote themselves to them. Until the day when, aware of the danger, they alert the Resistance through the intermediary of a warden. The three men cross into the free zone, and Michel promises to find Manouche.

Witty narration follows the history of Versailles Palace; founded by Louis XIII, enlarged by autocratic Louis XIV, whose personal affairs and amours, and those of his two successors, are followed in more detail to the start of the Revolution, after which the story is brought rapidly up to date. A huge cast plays mainly historical persons who appear briefly.