According to a description of the film in The Guardian, Rohmer's "customary verbal sparring and complex intellectual arguments are spiced by lavish sets, suspenseful plotting and the continuous threat of violence.

"[3] Grace Elliott, a Scottish courtesan and the former mistress to both the Prince Regent and the Duke of Orléans, finds herself living in an increasingly dystopian and Orwellian Paris following the French Revolution.

As her outspokenly Royalist beliefs place her friendship increasingly at risk with the pro-Jacobin Duke, Elliott decides during the September Massacres to aid the escape of condemned political prisoner Marquis de Champcenetz, the former governor of Tuileries Palace, at great personal risk.

She also seeks to convince her former lover to take a public moral stand in the National Assembly against Robespierre and the escalation of the Reign of Terror.

"[3] Even years after its premiere, American Traditionalist Catholic essayist John Zmirak had very high praise for the film and, in a 2007 article titled "The Real Bastille Day", used Rohmer's film to argue his case at length that, "To accept the American Revolution, you must reject the French.