A provincial, Julie Moret, is hired as a servant in a Parisian bourgeois residence. She is courted by one of the Bouquinquant brothers, Léon, who does not take long to ask her to marry him. Alas, Léon turns out to be violent, alcoholic and lazy. Faced with her misfortune, Julie gets closer to her brother-in-law Pierre, the opposite of Léon, serious and hardworking, and they become lovers. The drama will rush when Julie becomes pregnant with Pierre.