The Baron de Téroze has successfully married off his eldest daughter to a Colonel of the Dragoons, and now it is time for him to arrange his younger daughter's nuptials. The leading magistrate of the parliament at Aix seems to him the ideal candidate. Unfortunately, the young Mademoiselle de Téroze is in love with another man. A series of hilarious manipulations designed to rid the beautiful marchioness of her odious old husband ultimately result in an astonishing yet fitting denouement. French author Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) is best known for his licentious novels and pornographic writings, many of which were penned during his frequent stays in prison and, ultimately, a mental asylum. Recently he has been reinterpreted as a moralist whose unflinching investigations into the nature of sexual pathology anticipated Nietzsche and Freud.