After having challenged the German Ottone to single combat for the hand of Leonza, the bishop's niece, the valiant knight Anselmo da Montebello, leaves for Rome where he must deliver a precious relic to the Pope and obtain a sum of twenty-thousand crowns in order to participate in the third crusade in the Holy Land.
In a French seaside town, at a boarding house for civil servants recovering from surgery and maladies, the six male residents' lives change dramatically when two women arrive: Catherine, lively, sexually liberated, willing to kiss, dance, and sleep with the men, and Leonie, reserved, formal, conservative.
A frustrated Frankfurt innkeeper is recruited as an agent for the "Gehlen Organization" and after a short training period, during which he is familiarized with sophisticated espionage methods, he takes his first steps as a spy.