Isabelle

Gérard Lacase, a literature student, arrives at the Château de la Quartfourche, a grand Norman manor house inhabited by the Floch and Saint-Auréol families, to consult its library as part of his doctoral thesis in history on Bossuet. The atmosphere there is distinctly provincial and rather stifling. He has barely crossed the threshold before the strange mood of the house draws him into the most romantic of adventures. He falls in love with the family's mysterious daughter, Isabelle, whom he knows only from a painted portrait. Isabelle de Saint-Auréol is the mother of Casimir de Saint-Auréol, a small, disabled boy whose clumsy play and quick friendship alone have brought Gérard any warmth in this gloomy château. Yet Gérard cannot account for Isabelle's absence from the house. Little by little he sets about investigating, determined to uncover the mystery. His hosts strive in vain to keep hidden a existence that dishonours them.