The beautiful wife of a mediocre and good-natured butcher falls in love with a cerebral philosophy professor who little by little reveals to her a horizon that conflicts with her innocence.
Paris, 1857. While on trial for moral outrage, French writer G. Flaubert tells the court and the audience the true story of the heroine of his novel Madame Bovary, a sensitive but capricious woman whose desperate efforts to overcome the bourgeois conventions of a dull, provincial life led her family first to ruin and disrepute and finally to the abyss of tragedy.
A hated country gentleman is murdered, and the inspector on the case takes the veiwer through his thoughts about the possible murderer and motives as he questions everyone concerned.
The story of the Countess d'Orsini, French noblewoman and courtesan at the court of the Spanish king, who acted as an agent for the King of France and was one of the most powerful people at the Spanish court.