Set in the 18th century, this tragicomedy depicts the debauchery of aristocratic officers condemned to celibacy, in the fate of a bourgeois girl reduced to a street slum. Marie, the beautiful young daughter of the decorative arts merchant Wesener, already has a fiancé, the poster merchant Stolzius, but Desportes, an officer in the French army, has his eye on her. At first, Wesener does everything he can to keep the... see more