The novel follows Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler who has recently returned to the United States after more than 30 years in Europe, where he married into minor Napoleonic nobility; he is accompanied by his beautiful, young, widowed daughter Emma, the Princesse d'Agrigente.

Despite his fame and affluent image, Schuyler finds work as a journalist because his wealth has been destroyed by the Panic of 1873 and his daughter's late husband has left her penniless.

Schuyler also supports the Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden, Governor of New York, because he hopes to secure himself a diplomatic position with the incoming administration, enabling him to return to Europe.

The later chapters chronicle Schuyler's sojourn in Washington, D.C., and Emma's growing friendship with the wealthy Denise Sanford and her boorish husband William.

In Florida, the Republican leaders of the State and the Electoral Commission initially reported a victory for Tilden, before deciding that in fact Hayes had won.