In the debacle of the battle of Vitoria in Spain in 1813, Pierre Cursey was robbed of the horses of his unit by a fugitive. He is taken prisoner and sent to a floating pontoon. He managed to survive but vowed to find the traitor who had put him through hell. He finds him two years later in a village in the Dordogne. Francois Lemercier is the town's shoemaker and above all the captain and hero of the local soule team, a ball game that dates back to the Middle Ages. Cursey will discover in Lemercier a man of chivalrous honor.