Georges Goubert

Cardinal Mazarin dies, leaving a power vacuum in which the young Louis asserts his intention to govern as well as rule. Mazarin's fiscal advisor, Colbert, warns against Fouquet, the Superintendant who has been systematically looting the treasury and wants to be prime minister. Fouquet believes Louis will soon tire of exercizing power and overplays his hand by offering a bribe to Louis' mistress to be his ally. She reports this to the king who arrests Fouquet. Louis and Colbert design a brilliant strategy to keep merchants making money, nobles in debt, the urban poor working and fed, and peasants untaxed.

The story of a small village in Touraine between 1788 and 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, with its lord, its wealthy peasants, and its poor. The wealthy peasants, expelled from the communal pastures by the count, take him to court. Guillaume Coquard joins the other villagers in drafting the cahiers de doléances (lists of grievances). On the eve of the convocation of the Estates General, the village loses its lawsuit. On the night of August 4, 1789, the deputies vote to abolish privileges. The peasants will be able to buy them back. But the poorest wonder: with what?