On a night of April 1957, Albertine, a brillant and rebel 19-year-old girl, jumps from the wall of the prison where she’s serving a sentence for a holdup. In her fall, a bone from her ankle breaks: the astragal. She is rescued by Julien, a justice fugitive, and so is born a burning passion between them. He takes her to Paris and hides her. But while he leads his gangster life here and there, the young woman struggles for her freedom and against the wounds inflicted by Julien’s absence, and writes poetry.

An old count hides just before he dies to annoy his heirs. The heirs search a manor for the count’s body and are killed off one by one. Jean-Marie, his fiancée Micheline, and Edwige investigate the deaths and search for the count’s body.