During the French Restoration, Docteur Crosnier, a Paris physician, settles down in the small town of Valognes. For his leisure time, he enrolls in the fencing course given by fencing master Benoît Stassin and his daughter Claire. While crossing swords with the beautiful but domineering young woman, Crosnier is called to the local manor where Countess de Savigny is in the process of a difficult delivery. Crosnier saves the mother but the baby is already dead when he arrives. Following this painful experience, Count Charles de Savigny, Delphine's loving husband, makes friends with him and follows him to the fencing-room. He does not know yet that Claire and him will become diabolical lovers...
—Guy Bellinger