In the fictional village of Baie-d'Esprit, located in Bas-St-Laurent near Kamouraska, lives Bella Cormoran, a pretentious, proud and haughty woman. The eldest daughter of a bourgeois family, she lives in the manor and the Cormoran estate with her doctor brother, Pacifique, a tormented but appreciated being, and her sweet and naive sister Angelique, married to Germain Lafond who is rather boorish.