In a quiet country village near Reims, the lives of four young friends, Julien, Charles, Philippe, and Louis are about to change profoundly. The world they had known since their childhood is about to be overwhelmed. Their stories will be intertwined with the course of History between the 1920s and World War II, and with the bursting development of science and technology through the discoveries of physics and mathematics. Hand in hand, the Lagardère sisters will mark their existences, imprinting a decisive turning point on each of them. Love and affection, unexpected mourning and sudden joys alternate in an eternal blending of events. The unchanging rural landscape of Champagne serves as a backdrop to the struggle between freedom and dictatorship, pitting the ideals of democracy against the fanaticisms of totalitarianism.