Part 1, Le Déris (The Flood) In November 1817, in the Breton town of
Redon, three strange characters – two men and a woman – stop at the inn of the
Mouton Couronné (The Crowned Sheep) for the night. They are Robert and his accomplice Blaise, aka
l’Américain (The American) and
l’Endormeur (Sleepy-Maker), and beautiful but soulless Lola. The two men are hard up and Robert, who has just discovered the existence of the Vicomte René de Penhoël, decides to get hold of his estate and fortune. He manages to wrest the Penhoëls’ story from the inn-keeper Géraud and pretends to be a friend of Louis’s, René’s elder brother, who left Brittany fifteen years before, following an unhappy love affair: both he and René had fallen in love with Marthe, an orphan. Everyone thought Marthe was in love with Louis but the latter went away and Marthe eventually married René. Yet the Viscomtesse is still very melancholy and Robert suspects that she never stopped loving Louis. Robert and Blaise go to the manor – although the boatman Benoît Haligan, who guessed the truth, warned René – and introduce themselves as Louis’s friends.
Part 2, Le Manoir (The Manor) Almost three years later, the first
steamboat leaves London for
Bordeaux. On board is Major Berry Montalt, a mysterious English adventurer who hates Brittany and the Bretons. Nevertheless, he rescues a young Breton sailor who tried to drown himself. The young man is none other than Vincent, René's young cousin, who left the manor five months before: one day he was suffering from fever and
drunkenness, he raped his cousin Blanche, with whom he is desperately in love. As Vincent tells Montalt this story, the adventurer goes into a towering rage and accuses Vincent of recalling his own crime to him. Meanwhile, in Penhoël, René, who has become Lola’s lover, gambles his fortune and estate away. Robert, Blaise and their accomplices, the Marquis de Pontalès, his son Alain and the Maître le Hivain, a dubious lawyer, are almost the masters of the estate. During a party, Marthe discovers that her daughter Blanche is pregnant and thinks that Robert is the father of the unborn child. Her pain is all the greater as she thinks Blanche underwent the same fate as she did years ago. Diane and Cyprienne de Penhoël, René's cousins and Vincent’s younger sisters, have found out Robert’s schemes. They decide to rob some documents that René signed in Louis’s name and that can help Robert to become the master of the estate. The girls are unmasked and drowned by Bibandier, one of Robert’s accomplice. Robert kidnaps Blanche and has Étienne Moreau, a painter, and Roger de Launoy, René’s adoptive son, thrown out of Penhoël. Soon after the young men depart, the others members of the family are also forced to leave the manor. The Marquis de Pontalès, now master of Penhoël, throws out Robert and Blaise as well.
Part 3, Le Voyage (The Journey) In
Rennes, a stagecoach is about to leave, bringing Montalt to Paris. Étienne Moreau, who has just left Redon, meets the mogul and tells him his story, without telling him Penhoël’s name. In spite of the respect he instinctively feels towards Montalt, the young man is appalled his
immorality. As for Montalt, he is very interested by two girls who travel in another mail coach going to Paris. Strangely enough, they pull down the blinds when Étienne turns towards them. When they reach
Laval, Étienne and Montalt stop at an inn and the young man meets Roger, whose departure he did not know of. When the stagecoach reaches Paris, Montalt suggests Étienne and Roger to settle as painter and secretary in his household. Presently one of the mysterious passengers of the second stagecoach throws out two notes signed "BEAUTY OF THE NIGHT" and addressed to Étienne and Roger, arranging to meet them at
Notre-Dame de Paris. The young men, faithful to Diane and Cyprienne, whom they love, refuse to go.
Part 4, Paris Robert, Blaise, Lola and Bibandier are now living in Paris under false names, with Blanche. Robert decides to acquaint himself with Montalt, hoping to make him his accomplice to buy Penhoël’s manor. Marthe, René, Uncle Jean and old Géraud live in a slum, and Diane and Cyprienne, who came through drowning, struggle to survive, singing in the streets. In desperation, they decide to go and ask Montalt, who is interested in them, to help them buy back Penhoël. During a party at Montalt’s residential hotel, Robert meets the adventurer and tells him how he swindled Penhoël’s out of his estate without telling any names. Meanwhile, two mysterious girls enter the ball, tell Étienne and Roger of the murder of Diane and Cyprienne, and charge Robert with the crime in Montalt’ presence. Coming back to his hotel, Montalt hears that the girls of the stagecoach – Diane and Cyprienne – want to meet him. They tell him their story but call themselves Louise and Berthe. Montalt takes pity on them and decides to let them live in the hotel as his own daughters. Presently, Bibandier shows Étienne and Roger the girls, saying that Montalt seduced them. In the meantime, Vincent, who has heard of Blanche’s being kidnapped and his family’s having left Penhoël, manages to reach Paris but is arrested and imprisoned opposite the house that Lola is renting and where Blanche is imprisoned. The girl is pregnant and mourns her family. Diane and Cyprienne, disguised in men, come and set their cousin free, then take her to Montalt’s hotel. Robert, who now wants to get rid of Montalt, asks Lola to persuade Alain de Pontalès to challenge the Englishman to a
duel. Then he tells Vincent, who escaped and witnessed Blanche’s kidnapping, that Montalt ordered it. As a result, the young man challenges Montalt to a second duel. Then Étienne and Roger come, seeking compensation for Montalt’s attitude towards them and the twin sisters. After that, Jean de Penhoël, also deceived by Robert, decide to challenge Montalt to a fifth duel. Meanwhile, René de Penhoël, who has become nearly mad since he lost his estate, takes advantage of Jean’s having left their slum and Géraud’s being in hospital to try and kill Marthe and commit suicide. They are saved by Diane and Cyprienne. The girls come back to the hotel and Montalt encourages them to tell their real name. Then he tells them his story: he left his family several years before because both he and his best friend were in love with the same girl. Montalt would rather give up his love but he never forgot the girl. Then he gives Diane and Cyprienne a
sandalwood box set with
diamonds that contains a lock of the girl’s hair. He asks Diane and Cyprienne to burn the lock if he dies and to keep the diamonds. After he leaves, the twins go and aid Blanche, who gives birth to her child. Montalt goes to the
Bois de Boulogne. He kills Alain de Pontalès but not the other four. Jean de Penhoël suddenly recognises him and pronounces him to be his nephew Louis. As they come back to the hotel, they find Robert and his two accomplices, who were trying to rob the sandalwood box. Robert is then accused by Jean, Vincent and the girls. Yet, Montalt agrees to save him if he gives him a letter that Marthe had written to him but never sent. Presently Jean explains that Diane and Cyprienne are Louis and Marthe’s illegitimate children, whom he and his late wife adopted. They decide to go back in Brittany and buy back the estate. But they have got only three days left before Penhoël legally becomes Pontalès’s
property.
Part 5, Penhoël Robert, Blaise and Bibandier go back to the
Mouton Couronné, in Redon, bringing Marthe and René with them. They arrange to meet René on the riverbank, luring him into thinking that he may buy the estate back. They then go to the boatman’s lodge. Benoît Haligan is now dying. They force Maître Le Hivain to bring Pontalès to Haligan’s house. After the Marquis arrives, they order him to help them if he wants to retain the estate, for Penhoël is coming back. Pontalès grudgingly agrees to share Penhoël’s estate with Robert, Blaise and Bibandier and to kill René and Louis if necessary. When the five of them reach the place of their appointment with René, the latter goes in the boat, scared by a mysterious stranger who has been following him since he left Redon. The stranger, Louis de Penhoël, manages to stop the boat before Bibandier can distance the bank. Pontalès stabs René but is battered to death by Louis, who then kills Robert, Blaise and Le Hivain, while Bibandier runs away. After the killing, Louis tries to bring back his brother, whom he thinks is still alive, but René makes a last dying movement and lets himself slip into water. Then the boat sails away on the river and sinks with the four dead bodies in the ''Femme Blanche's'' (White Woman) chasm, in which Robert had ordered Diane and Cyprienne to be drowned. Meanwhile, Jean de Penhoël has taken Marthe back to the manor. The latter is almost dying after enduring so much sorrow and she wakes up hearing the
Beauties of the Night song. Seeing her daughters and Louis, who came back to the manor, she prays: "My God! (…) if it is a dream again, let me never wake up!" («
Mon Dieu! (…) si c’est encore un rêve, faites que je ne m’éveille jamais ! »). ==Characters==