Coming from a humble background, Jean-Luc Daguerne is desperate to climb the ladder of society and out of his condition mapped out. Opportunist and seductive, intelligent and calculating, he married the daughter of a rich banker Abel Sarlat, not by love but only to serve its interests. His indifference and his obnoxious behavior vis-à-vis her (especially when it falls sick) causes ad nauseam. But his meteoric rise only lasts so long. His wife or victims of its calculations are no longer prey because it ends up being himself caught in his own trap. Its social and fall in love then dizzying ... This theme of upward mobility is not unlike the novel Bel-Ami de Maupassant.
