This historical fresco depicting memories from popular literature revives the idea of a performance within a performance. The characters, borrowed from history, live fictional adventures and eternal passions following in Garance’s footsteps.

Garance is the ballet’s foundation. The fresco takes shape around her and emanates from her. 

A free woman, Garance appears, bearing the burden of an uncertain past, taking into her orbit Frédéric Lemaître, Baptiste, Lacenaire, and the count de Montray. While she brings the dandy unhappiness, she makes the other three characters famous. Then she leaves Paris and, returning after a six-year absence, does what must be done.  Frédéric learns about jealousy and finally has a chance to play Othello. Lacenaire assassinates the count and then waits for his executioner. And Baptiste loses himself in his dreams, experiencing one night of the love that he had before refused.

Garance, the “femme fatale,” disappears in the sea of carnival masks that invades the boulevard du Crime, meeting her destiny.