[1] The plot follows the struggle of Ottawa lawyer Jules de Lanatagnac, an anglicized French-Canadian who becomes a nationalist and joins the fight against Ontario's Regulation 17 to save French language schools in the province.

The story begins when Jules de Lantagnac, an Ottawa lawyer of French Quebec origin, visits his Gatineau priest after a pilgrimage to his native childhood village of Saint-Michel.

The activist priest, Father Fabien, pleased, persuades the lawyer to join the struggle of the Franco-Ontarians against Regulation 17, the Ontario law aimed at eliminating the teaching of French in schools.

He takes his family on visits to Quebec and begins teaching them French, struggling with their adherence to the Parisian dialect, as well as the distaste of his wife Maud, his elder daughter Nellie, and youngest son William.

Inspired by the resignation of a Senator Landry in protest of Regulation 17, and persuaded by Father Fabien, Lantagnac decides to run as an independent candidate in the by-election in the Franco-Ontarian federal elector district of Russell in Eastern Ontario.

He reveals this decision to his family during the visit of brother-in-law William Duffin, an Irish-Canadian lawyer who, like Lantagnac, was born in Quebec and fluent in French.

Duffin, portrayed by Groulx as thoroughly anglicized and assimilated, passionately defends Resolution 17 in a debate with Virginia, condemning the actions of protest by the Franco-Ontarian community.

Lantagnac, leaving Father Fabien, overhears his elder son's name mentioned by Montreal Francophone university students admiring the Parliament Hill statue of Baldwin and LaFontaine, the "architects of Canada's freedom".

Lantagnac finds William's room empty as well, with only an unread copy of "L'avenir du peuple canadien-français" (The Future of the French-Canadian People)defaced on the first page with "Rule Britannia for ever."