France, 1893. Joseph Bouvier makes an effort to take his own life by shooting his beloved, who has rejected his proposal of marriage. After he was released from the filthy asylum where he was put, he began to wander the country roads and raped and murdered a large number of adolescents over the course of several years. The bullets were still in his skull. Rousseau, the judge, manages to catch Bouvier, but in order to further his own ambitions, he works to avoid simply declaring Bouvier mad.