A talented photographer who lands a lucrative job in Paris with a scandal-mongering tabloid and becomes romantically involved with an eccentric children's book publisher while resisting the sexual advances of another photographer.
Set in the high courts of 16th Century France, where the wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants are raging. Marie de Mézières, a beautiful young aristocrat, is in love with Henri de Guise, but her hand in marriage is promised to the Prince of Montpensier.
A well-bred, lovely, spiritual, sad young woman marries an attentive physician who loves her. She feels affection but no love. Soon after, without design, she falls in love with Pedro Abrunhosa, a poet and performance artist. He also loves her. She keeps her distance from him, confessing her love to a friend who is a nun and, later, to her husband. Hunger for her love and jealousy consume him; she attends him as he wastes away. With his death, she can marry and express her passion, but what she does and how she explains herself, particularly to her cloistered friend, is at the heart of the film. Glimpses of convent life and of Abrunhosa on stage give contrast and mute comment.
When a young teen marries the Prince of Cleves, more than twice her age, she automatically becomes an official Princess and takes her new position to heart. Although distracted by the elite entertainments found at court, the princess cannot help but mourn her impossible love for the dashing Duc de Nemours.
