Musette Lefvre, a peasant girl from a French provincial village abandoned by her father after the death of her mother, is put into the care of the local priest. Childhood traumas force her to flee to the capital, where the anonymity of eighteenth-century Paris encourages her capricious and impetuous nature. She delights in the follies and allegiances of a city dancing toward the madness of revolution.
The Executioner's Daughter tells the story of this young woman who initially enjoys a privileged life in the great city, supported by a wealthy guardian. The famous seamstress Mademoiselle Bertin employs her, and through that engagement, Musette meets Queen Marie Antoinette. The young woman enjoys the friendship and protection of several influential figures of the day. Her life is good, but then fate entangles her in a brutal world, and she must fight for her survival. Taken hostage and held in the horrifying beggar's slum called the Cour des Miracles, Musette is robbed, degraded, and threatened with rape. She manages to kill her oafish guard and escape on foot, merging inconspicuously with the turbulent crowds of people inflamed by revolutionary rhetoric and intent on capturing the dreaded Bastille. The revolution had started, and France teeters on the edge of an abyss.
Unwittingly, she becomes involved in upheavals that threaten her life and liberty. She spends time in prison for protecting the daughter of an migr, and as daily life crumbles, she seems set on a path of self-destruction, unable to extricate herself from the dangerous entanglements of revolutionary Paris. During the storming of the Tuileries Palace, Musette and her friends are captured and confined in the dreaded La Salptrire prison.
Later, during the taking of that prison and the accompanying massacre, she escapes the turmoil of the city and flees to the countryside, where she eventually finds refuge with a caring elderly couple. She is safe at last, but of her friends in Paris, she has no news. The past had scarred her heart, and she wondered if she could ever build a future for herself.