When Napoleon’s army invades Italy in 1796, a French lieutenant is billeted in the quarters of Milanese noblewomen, the Marchesa del Dongo and her husband’s sister, Gina. Despite the finery that separates the women from the soldiers, the Marchesa and her sister-in-law sympathize with the gaiety of the French in contrast to the “wary despotism” of the Austrian Empire (15). It is this absolutist spirit which the Marchese del Dongo fervently supports, so that while his sister marries a zealous supporter of Napoleon and his wife consorts with the lieutenant, he retreats to his countryside castle, Grianta. During this time, Fabrizio Valserra, Marchesino del Dongo, is born as the official son of the Marchese, although he was likely fathered by the French lieutenant.

Two years after the French invasion, recent rumors of Napoleon’s hanging are dispelled, and the Marchese retreats once more to Grianta, where Fabrizio spends the next ten years playing with peasant boys and visiting Gina’s fashionable salon in Milan. Under Gina’s influence, Fabrizio is awarded prizes at the Jesuit College where he studies. Torn between Milanese society and the staid castle of his father, Fabrizio takes to heart both his religious lessons and the ideas of the Napoleonic era.