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Plot: In 1563 in France, Marie de Mézières was promised in marriage to the Duc du Maine, younger brother of the Duc de Guise. The wedding was put off because of her youth. The Duc de Guise, who saw his future sister-in-law often, was smitten with her. When Marie noticed this, she “saw danger in marrying the brother of a man she might have wanted for her husband.” She gave up the Duc du Maine, and her parents decided she should marry the Prince de Monpensier, for whom she had no feeling at all. Away from the man who was still the love of her life, she made friends with the Comte de Chabannes. He would be at first her faithful friend, and then fall madly in love with her.
At this time, the war with the Huguenots broke out, and Montpensier, obliged to go to war, sent his wife to his chateau, Champigny, entrusting her to his “old friend” the Comte de Chabannes; the two were of an age. As soon as the Comte saw the Princesse, he was madly smitten with her, and suffered horribly when he found she loved the Duc de Guise.
Meanwhile, the Duc de Guise was fighting alongside the Duc d’Anjou, the brother of King Charles IX of France. When they encountered the Princess de Monpensier on the way to Champigny, her feelings for the Duc de Guise returned, and the Duc d’Anjou fell in love with her. The Comte de Chabannes’s sense of chivalry in love forced him to serve as a go-between for the lovers, and he was gracious enough to arrange an interview for them.
When the Princesse de Montpensier and the Duc de Guise rediscovered each other, their sleeping passion reawakened, and it would result in driving all these personages into a whirlwind of emotion, ruled by jealousy, rivalry, fidelity for the Prince, and betrayal for the Princess, which would torture their souls.
When the husband reappeared unlooked for, the Comte de Chabannes was impelled by his loving devotion to Marie de Mézières to let the duke escape, and to open himself to to the blows of Montpensier, who could not bring himself to fight with an old companion in love and war like Chabannes. The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was just breaking out as the Comte de Chabannes returned in haste to Paris, where he was killed. After this, the Duc de Guise gave up the Princesse de Montpensier to turn to Mme de Noirmoutiers. Understanding her mistake, the Princesse de Montpensier despaired at having sacrificed a spouse like her husband, and a devoted friend like the Comte de Chabannes, for the Duc de Guise, who was only a seducer, and she died of sorrow.