 Richard Courtois (Firth) and his clerk Mathieu (Carter) have left the decadence of Paris in order to practise law in what they believe to be a quiet rural village, Abbeville, in the province of Ponthieu, then part of Burgundy rather than France.Courtois quickly becomes involved in a number of back-logged cases.For his first case, he defends a farmer who is accused of killing his wife's lover.