AllMovie

The overheated romanticism of genteel upper-class Frenchmen in the 19th century was at least as lush as that of the British in the same era. This film, based on the novel by Alfred de Musset, explores the love-life of a young writer with a highly excitable nature. Octave (Alain Noury) suffers a nervous breakdown after getting wounded in a duel with his friend because of their romantic rivalry for an older woman. Hallucinating, he drives his love away when she comes to see him, and she is lost to him, perhaps forever. Despairing, he is comforted by an older man who offers him time with his mistress, but even this solace goes awry. He despairs of his life, but recovers nicely when he meets the similarly sensitive and highly eccentric woman writer George Sand.