 When Praslin's wife was murdered, Henriette was implicated.It was a real-life scandal that contributed to the political turmoil before the French Revolution of 1848 which deposed France's Louis Philippe I.

Mademoiselle Henriette Deluzy-Desportes, a French woman, starts teaching at an American girls school.She is confronted by the tales and gossip about her that circulate among her pupils and, thus provoked, she decides to tell them her life story.