In France in the late 1920s, Célestine, a stylish and attractive young
chambermaid from Paris, arrives at a provincial estate and joins a household staff that includes a cook, a timid maid named Marianne, and Joseph, the
groom, who spends his evenings writing
nationalistic,
anti-Semitic leaflets with a friend. Célestine was primarily hired to work for the elderly Monsieur Rabour, who insists on calling her Marie, which is the name he has used for all of his chambermaids, and likes to touch her leg while she reads to him and watch as she walks around wearing certain shoes. She seems happy enough to oblige him, however, and he defends Célestine from his daughter, Madame Monteil, when she breaks a lamp. Madame Monteil runs the household and is very particular about how things are done. She and her husband are not physically intimate due to her
dyspareunia, a problem with which the local priest has not been helpful, and Monsieur Monteil copes by expending his energy hunting small game in the surrounding woods and pursuing any woman who is nearby, including the former chambermaid, though Célestine playfully manages to keep him at arm's length. Monsieur Monteil is also feuding with a neighbor, the retired Captain Mauger, who throws his garbage onto Rabour's property to get back at Monteil for hypocritically spreading rumors about his relationship with his own housekeeper, Rose. One day, Rabour is found dead in his bed, clutching the pair of boots he had most recently had Célestine wear for him. At around the same time, Joseph comes across Claire, a prepubescent peasant girl who often hangs around the kitchen at the estate, alone in the woods and rapes and kills her. The body is found six days later, shortly before Célestine is to board a train back to Paris, having quit her job. She immediately suspects Joseph is the murderer and, as she had grown close to Claire, decides to get her job back and try to collect evidence to implicate him. Joseph, a fastidious man, notices when Célestine searches his room. He confronts her and, although their interactions have always been confrontational and she openly accuses him of killing Claire, proceeds to declare his love for Célestine, as he has come to feel they are the same inside. Célestine tries to seduce Joseph, but he says they need to wait, since he wants more than a fling. After leaving the office of a judge without seeing him, Célestine runs into Mauger. He tells her that he fired Rose, saying she had stopped doing housework and become controlling after 12 years in his employ and also would get jealous whenever he talked to Célestine. Mauger then proposes, and Célestine tells him that she will think it over. To tempt Joseph, Célestine waits for him in his bed, but he again resists. He says he plans to marry her and buy a café in
Cherbourg for them to run together, indicating he suspects an upcoming revolution will be good for business. She swears on a
crucifix that she will marry him so he will sleep with her, and, as he climbs into bed, she tells him to admit he killed Claire, but he just tells her to shut up. Joseph and Célestine announce their engagement, and Monsieur Monteil shifts his attentions from Célestine to Marianne. Célestine removes the metal toe plate from one of Joseph's shoes. While Joseph and his friend are making plans to attend a right-wing political rally, two police officers arrive and arrest the pair, having found the toe plate at the scene of Claire's murder. As he is being led away, Joseph tells Célestine he was not wearing those shoes the day Claire was killed. Thinking she has avenged Claire, Célestine decides to marry Mauger. He waits on her and alters his will to leave her everything, but she treats him coolly. When she asks about Joseph, Mauger says he is to be released without a trial, given the lack of evidence against him. In Cherbourg, Joseph cheers on a parade of nationalistic men as they march past his café, which his attractive younger wife has helped to fill with soldiers. ==Cast==