The story of the adventures, in the twilight of the 18th century, of a singular pair formed by a small orphan of mysterious origins and his young Italian nanny, of equally uncertain birth. They take us in their wake, from Rome to Paris, from Lisbon to London, from Parma to Venice. Always followed in the shadows, for obscure reasons, by a sinister Calabrian and a disturbing cardinal, they make us witness dark intrigues in the Vatican, the anguish of a fatal passion, a fateful duel, gallantry at the court of Versailles, the convulsions of the French Revolution and the rise of General Bonaparte.