Hugo-Paul de Weydroos, forger who manages to mystify the most renowned experts, is an attractive man, not without talent but paranoid and megalomaniac. He lived a childhood in the Paris of the 1920s, upset by his love of drawing and painting thwarted by an abusive mother. Delivered to his own fantasies, the hero indulges in the most disordered introspection and will end up consuming himself to become the reincarnation of the one he is trying to copy: Hans Pauli Weyergans, painter of the 18th century.
Ex-convict Georges Manda returns to the free world determined to go straight and takes a steady job as a carpenter. Unable to completely shake his connections with the underground, he meets with a former prison mate, older gangster Félix Leca, who introduces him to his mistress, the sweet but guarded Marie "Casque d'Or". Marie and Georges fall into a passionate relationship, driving Félix to do everything in his power to ruin the couple.
